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Week 11

so first off, i have a Patois (pat-wa) Bible! its so funny. whoever can guess what verse this is will get a shoutout next week! (its all i got ok.... haha)

"Den Pitta memba we Jiizas did se: "Bifou di russta kruo, yu a-go se yu no nuo mi, chrii taim. pitta go outsaid an im baal, an im baal, an im baal so til."

Just remember, i have to listen to that almost everyday from people speaking it. its super hard! this is not an English speaking mission!!

Day 83 Monday
it rained like crazy during our lesson today!  we were having a Family Home Evening with the Campbell family. the lightning was right over us. there was one flash that had no delay to the sound! it was super loud! and its not a crack of thunder, its a big BOOM!!! super sick! the power was out too so it was weird. thats really only like the 3rd time ive been inside a house when the power is out. it was also weird cause we were trying to teach someone in the family who is not baptized by not teaching her directly. its really confusing. we are just trying to get her with as many experiences with the spirit before we teach her directly.

Day 84 Tuesday
we had like 2 lessons today. thats super sad cause the first one didnt happen till like 3pm. it was brother banter. he is doing pretty good. he is still a little crazy but there is no doubt that he is converted. we taught him about the sabbath and he was acceptive to it. that surprised us cause he is a former 7th day. somehow he didnt bring up the whole saturday is the sabbath thing. we are starting to think that he was never too converted to the 7th day church. the other lesson we had was with loreen. we taught her the law of chastity and rightfully so. the note she gave us on friday was super sketchy. she said that it was just a misunderstanding. we dont think she knew what we were talking about. she said that it was an assignment that she did for a class tho. that just means too things. 1) she is super naive. 2) that is one creepy teacher. we set up another appointment with her tomorrow. she gave us another note so that lesson is gonna depend on what is in the other note.

Day 85 Wednesday
today we had district meeting. as usual, it was really good. i also got the Patios Bible :) super funny as i said before. driving to ochi always sucks tho. we never get back to Port Antonio until like 3 or 4pm. the only lesson we had once we got back was with loreen agian. we dropped her. we found that the second note was even worse than the first one. we talked to her about it and she said that she had given it out to other people too. it was a quote from a book. we decided to drop her until after transfers just to be safe tho. she said that she would continue to read tho. she is in like alma right now. i did confirm with Kashane tho that she does have a crush on Elder Dalley so now we have to wait until he leaves Porty to teach her. kinda a downer but its better safe than sorry

Day 86 Thursday
so Chantel, a referral we got from Asha-gaye in the branch, is awesome! she is the one that we almost had to give to the other missionaries cause we didnt know where she lived. she got a very weird answer to know that what we teach is true but we'll take it haha. she wanted to see a bird with a yellow belly. idk if she saw it in a dream or not but she saw it so she believes us haha. dont worry tho. we taught her how the Holy Ghost works so she can get a real answer. she keeps a all of the commitments tho. she is very prepared. we just have to have her parents give written permission to be baptized on November 30th cause she is 16.

Day 87 Friday
it hit me today that transfer calls are in a week and then transfer day is in just under 2 weeks. its weird to think that i may have a new companion. i almost dont want that but it will be good to expand my teaching. everyone says that im gonna train the Jamaican elder from Linstead that comes but i think that its gonna be my MTC comp elder henderson that does that. our numbers for key indicators this week have been super low. me and elder dalley decided that we got a bit lazy and we are going to repent and be sure to not do that again. brother banter was the only lesson that we had today. he finally got the Godhead. we just need him to realize that he prays to God the Father, not Jesus. hes a work in progress...

Day 88 Saturday
our main lesson today was with Roshane. he came in and told us that he doesnt need to read cause he already knows that the 7th day church is true. we tried for like 20 minutes to tell him he needs to read to really know. we finally changed our approach and committed him to read to know if we are a true church or a false church. we felt bad about that commitment but whatever gets him reading at this point is fine by us. if there is one thing that ive learned out here its that i dont like the 7th day church a lot. they are very stubborn where i am.

Day 89 Sunday
church here in porty is always a party. a lot of the members dont have all of their screws in the right place but they are very converted. its hard to know what they say a lot tho cause of all the Patios. maybe the bible will help haha. jk. there is a reason that will never be part of the standard works haha. we taught the Campbell family about missonary work. not sure if they got the point to the lesson so we may have to reteach it haha. oh well. ive also been super bad at my journal. i never thought that writing would be a big stress and work to me. oh well. it does help me with my emails home ;)

not really much else to say. see you all next week!
Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Week 10

Whagwan?!

so mini news, my Book of Mormon that ive had for the last 11 years has fallen apart. i had to get some new scriptures. i was pretty ok with that cause i got the new 2013 Quad! first time in my life that i have had a quad! plus they are the new ones! they look really weird on the inside but its by far the best version!

Day 76 Monday

Most productive pday ever! we didnt teach a lot (of course. never cut into a missionaries pday haha) but we still had an awesome day! really we only had one lesson but it was a sick one! we taught Roshane. he is a 7th day who is 19 years old and super committed to Christ! the only problem is that he is stubborn and thinks that the 7th day church is true. which from what ive heard is an apostate group from the LDS Chruch. i guess that Ellen G. White, their "prophet" used to be a Mormon. but anyways during the lesson we decided to reteach the book of mormon. the last lesson we had didnt go to well so we thought that it would be the best thing to do. Usually when we teach Roshane, he tries to teach us. this time he didnt tho! we sat there and just listened to us! we also shared the mormon message about Elder Hollands testimony of the book of mormon. it brought in the spirit so strongly! hopefully this will help with his conversion and he starts reading the book!

Day 77 Tuesday

Traveling i think is our best investigator now. we always have appointments with it haha. we are starting to go out to Brother Banter in San San a lot cause he is supposed to be baptized on November 16th. problem with him: he believes almost everything that he sees on TV. were gonna watch a video with him here soon and see what that does haha. our other main lesson was with a former part member family. i say former cause the one person in the family who wasnt LDS was baptized just a few weeks ago. i really love to teach them! Brother Campbell (the new member) is super funny! he is always cracking jokes when we teach him! its never at bad times either so that helps majorly!

Day 78 Wednesday

i realized today that we only have 3 full days of teaching. the only days we have are tuesday, thrusday, and saturday. all of the other days we have church, meetings, and super planning, and pday i guess haha. going to district meeting is worth it tho. Elder Dalley does a good job with them. everyone thinks that ill be the next district leader and train the 1 missionary that will be coming in next transfer. its how it has worked with all of the missionaries that he has trained. they are the leader and a trainer for the next transfer haha. we ran into loreen at the church too. she is Janets kid. we decided to teach her cause if we keep waiting to teach the whole family then she will never be baptized. we had a pretty good lesson with her about the word of wisdom. she lives it already haha.

Day 79 Thursday

i hate not knowing where people live. with the 4 missionaries here we split the parish at the church. we got a super prepared investigator but she goes to church over by our house. which is the other missionaries area. we are hoping that she lives on our side of the parish. she is super prepared! she is a referral from a member. they are best friends so it helps a ton with member present lessons! she even gave us a referral on the first lesson! the person is out in Buff Bay so its the other missionaries person haha. Buff Bay is a 30min drive from here if you are going toward Ochi. we then had a lesson with Kenroy later in the day. he is Kadeens friend. the lesson was on the book of mormon. just like monday with roshane, IT WAS AWEOMSE! we played elder hollands testimony again and he said that he was definitely going to read it! we are so going to play that if we can for every lesson on the book of mormon!

Day 80 Friday

almost everything that we had scheduled didnt happen. we only had one appointment follow through and it was with Brother Colthirst. the blind LA member. he is still super awesome tho! we met up with loreen again tho. its weird for us cause we told her the next time we could see her was tuesday. we moved some stuff around and decided to go and see her. she is progressing really well. she just needs to come to church! we then spent over an hour after the lesson helping her find taxi fare to get home. apparently she thought that Kashane would give it to her but really he had no money to give. we remembered a member that lives near the church and sheepishly begged him for money for her. he willingly gave it tho so thank heavens for that. she did put something in elder dalleys backpack tho. ill ask him about it tomorrow.

Day 81 Saturday

today we had a day of service. we just cleaned up the beach for a few hours today. the news even came and did a small story on it. they interviewed me. ill bet $10 jamaican that they will put me on the news cause im a white boy haha. after that i found out what loreen put in elder dalleys bag. she gave him a song that she had wrote for him. at first i thought it was nothing but when i started reading it i freaked out. she has a crush on us. its really scary. i thought that we might have to have an emergency transfer. its super creepy too. we called the zone leaders about it and they laughed. they also said we need to teach her the law of chastity if you catch my drift. on a scale of 1-10 on how bad it is with 10 being horrible, its at like a 13!

Day 82 sunday

remind me to never go less active or go apostate. we went to a members house to coordinate for a lesson and her mom came our. her mom stopped going to church a few weeks before i came here cause she got offended. she has now almost completely denied the church. its so bad that i almost kicked her in the face when she told us that it was the biggest mistake of her life to let her kids come into the church and that she wanted to take all their names off of the church list. she can make her choice but her kids still have their choices!

So thats my week in Jamaica. not a bad week if you ask me haha

Love,

Elder Kurt Meacham