Week 42

alright first off everyone look up this link https://www.lds.org/church/news/elder-holland-organizes-first-stake-in-jamaica?lang=eng

my converts and most of Port Antoino is on the photo of the jamaica stake thing!!! thats so awesome for me!!!!!!!!!

the ones i know are the far left for the first 4 girls. then its the 2 girls above them, then its kashane, then the girl next to him and the 2 boys below her are in the branch (the young one being my convert as well as the girl to the right of him) and then the far right one is sister blake. it makes me so happy to know that Jamaica is growing in the church so much! soon come these people will have the same blessings that Kingston and Spanish Town have! I love the Gospel!

so the world cup is on now and everyone down here is going crazy. i myself am going for spain. too bad they got their butt handed to them haha. oh well. i also made a lot of predictions. i have only missed one game so far. and the best part. the email place we are at right now is playing the Germany vs Portugal game haha! i love football so much more haha!

Monday 6-9-14

today was a pretty relaxing day. not really too much to do. the only lesson we had today was with Shelly. it really was not all that good. there were a ton of distractions and she was not focused at all. we wanted to teach her the Plan of Salvation but because of the non focus, we didnt. we just read the Book of Mormon with her. a guy was also outside kneading some Ganja so that didnt help too much. Jamaica sure is an interesting place haha.

Tuesday 6-10-14

today i was on a tradeoff with elder tuala. so we were in his area. a lesson we had early in the morning was interrupted pretty bad haha. we were about to get right past the prayer, and then some jamaicains got in a huge fight so we had to stop the lesson. there were a lot of jamaican cuss words going around haha. sometimes they are just funny. this was one of those times where it was a split. it was funny, but you could feel the spirit just leave right off the bat. thats really it for the day. we didnt get to do a lot of interesting things haha.

Wednesday 6-11-14

so we had a really good district meeting today. it was just a discussion about how we can best use the stake. it was probably one of the most productive meetings ive had on my mission. we also went and saw Matthew. he is really starting to cheep up.we are starting to get him back into missionary work. he even pulled out a role play for us right on his veranda. i was in awe. he had to be a really good missionary when he was serving a few years ago. the other thing that we went to do was see Christinea. she told us that she wanted to serve a mission! i was really happy with that one! she has come a really long ways since i first saw her clear back when i first got to spanish town. she is gonna make an excellent missionary! i so hope that she will be able to serve while i am still out here! that would be the sickest thing ever! and thats all for the day. a lot of things are blowing out this week. its kinda sad but i am still loving the week!

Thursday 6-12-14

so we did another tradeoff with elder tuala. but this time he came to our area. the first thing we did was see Israel, a less active member. we mostly just read with him. he usually flakes out for church but we still invited him. did he show up, no. but we'll work on that. we also saw chayanne today as well. we took britteny with us for that. she loves going out with us to her haha. we reviewed the plan of salvation with chayanne cause i guess on tuesday she said something that meant we had to review it. it was really good and she now gets the whole thing. she is also on date for July 5th. that day will be super awesome if we can get Shelly on board as well. and once again, thats it. so many appointments are blowing out this week. its really crazy.

Friday 6-13-14

so the world cup is super awesome! ive really been keeping track of it this year. members are a huge help haha ;) people down here get into it a lot as well. we get a lot of people just asking us what team we bringin. its way cool to be honest :D first thing we did was have a lesson with christine. she had to go but we taught her the last part of the plan of salvation. she understood it real well. we also found a girl by the name of Kadesha there. she sat in on the lesson for a bit and then we set up a time to see her later in the day. she is super prepared! when we went and had the lesson with her about the restoration, we didnt even get to the great apostasy before we extended her a baptismal date. the spirit was just really strong and she was understanding a lot of stuff. she was basically teaching us! it was one of the best lessons of all time! we gave her June 28th as her day. she was a little sketchy about it but she'll be baptized soon regardless haha. we also had a lesson with the campbells. it wasnt as good. i think we just need to do topics with them. they seem to enjoy that a lot more.

Saturday 6-14-14

so i got my transfer call today and it was the worst news of all time. im going to be leaving the area! i really dont want to leave here. i love Spanish Town so much! the members here are like the best people ever! here and Port Antonio are always going to be my 2 favorite places on earth. i thought that Porty was the place to be but Spanish Town is such a great place too! i definitely have got to get back to Jamaica as soon as i can haha! so i will be going to Santa Cruz. its a really bush spot on the west side of the island kinda by Black River. i wont be going there too much tho. i think its for a different branch. i will be in another Tripanionship tho. it will be with Elder Deans, from Nassau Bahamas, and Elder Phippin, from Idaho Falls. he is one of the guys that i roomed with in the MTC. so this should be a really fun transfer haha. the main lesson that we had today was with the campbells. ya its way late in the night. it was all we did tho haha. more stuff just blew out. the lesons are back on track tho. we went over hope with them and everything was back to normal. its sad that i have to leave the campbells. they are by far my favorite family ever! besides my own of course haha. we also did not play basketball today. with the world cup on, everyone was inside watching that. we didnt really think of that before so we ended up going to the court still haha. Christinea decided to come with us so that she could spend more time with us before i go haha. it was pretty fun. we had a small game happen when jay showed up later. my elder baller status from the MTC is definitely back. i can always just end the game on a 3 now. why couldnt i do that back home? haha

Sunday 6-15-14

i am saying a lot of goodbyes now. i took a few photos at church with some members and ill be doing that for the next few days haha. transfers are always the worst. you get to love an area, and then POOF! your gone. i really am sad to be leaving tho. Spanish Town i think is the best area that i served in so far. and it always will be. this really is Zion. i think Joseph Smith meant spanish town jamaica not independence Missouri haha. we had another great lesson with the campbells today. we went over something that president brown said in stake conference of how to build/keep a stake. they are really interesting points. they loved it. i also had them sign my journal. it took a little longer than i thought but i was fine with it. it means that i got to spend more time with the campbells haha! we also took britteny with us. we were giong to see chayanne but as the theme of the week says, it blew out. she still wanted to do something so we took her with us. she seemed to have fun with it. i love that members are wanting to come out with us to teach. it means that us as missionaries are doing the job we should be doing.

so ya im super sad to be leaving. its a bittersweet thing that is more bitter than sweet. but i know its where i need to be at this point. having a few trips down here is so gonna go into a yearly budget back home haha. i just need to get a super good job.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
something to change it up a bit haha. here it is https://www.lds.org/church/news/elder-holland-organizes-first-stake-in-jamaica?lang=eng

Week 41

hey everyone whats up?!

this week was just so amazing! as i have been going off about in the last 3 or 4 letters, ELDER HOLLAND CAME TO JAMAICA!!! AND THE FIRST STAKE EVER IN JAMAICA IS HERE!!!!!!!! this is something that everyone has been waiting for for so long! and its here! the church is growing and its gonna continue to grow! wo getting ahead of myself here...... back to the week...

Monday 6-2-14

So pday today was pretty stressing. we took a bike ride down a mountain today. we had the zone leaders drive us up to the top, which took us like 30-40 minutes, and then rode down the whole thing, which took like 15 minutes. its was fun but also a bit anti-climatic as well. it was pretty steep tho. we had to of been going close to 45-50 mph. we really had to get our brakes checked before it haha. it was a ton of fun tho. it did cause a bit of stress tho cause we got to emails way late, and then we had to bike over to the place that we shop for food. its like 2 different ends of down. that wasnt the funnest thing ever. but we got home in time to take a short rest. that felt pretty good haha. later in the day we taught Chayanne and Shelly. we had to different lessons for the same household haha. first we taught Chayanne the Plan of Salvation. or at least the last half of it. we had Britteny come with us for it since they are about the same age. she did a very good job. its so much easier to have a 14 year old explain something to a 13 year old haha. i still need to improve on that a lot but im getting better. then we took Britteny home and went and got JD to teach Shelly. that was a very good lesson. i didnt get any words in cause JD taught the whole thing! it was the sickest thing ever! that kid is still a fantastic missionary! he so needs to go back out on his mission. i dont care where he goes but anywhere is where that kid needs to be. he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. so cool!

Tuesday 6-3-14

to start off the day we saw Kayann, finally. one thing that we are doing during the week now is showing a lot of people a talk by Elder Holland to get them pumped up for stake conference. kayanns lesson was ok. she just didnt seem to pay a lot of attention to it really. thats a really hard thing to see. you prepare so hard for something and someone just doesnt care about it. i hate agency haha. now i know how God feels with us when we are like that to him. we did that with basically all of the lessons today. we saw a few more members, a couple were less active, and then went to see our investigator Christine. we did not show her any Elder Holland today tho. we needed to get done with the restoration and introduce the Book of Mormon to her. it was a really good lesson. she is very willing to come to church and listen to what we have to say. we tried to extend a day for her to be baptized but she wouldnt accept it yet. we will try again later tho haha.

Wednesday 6-4-14

this is where our week started to get interesting. the devil was playing a big hand today. it sucked but its what comes in with life and with a mission i guess. it did start off really good tho. we had a super good district meeting. the spirit was felt heavily and we were all very involved in it. then we had jennys. you cant go wrong with that haha. but after that is where it did start to go wrong. the first thing that we did was drop gary and nicole. they werent doing a lot of stuff so we told them that lessons with us wouldnt continue. nicole i guess has been saying a lot of stuff about us behind our backs to Christinea, her next door neighbor. christinea was pretty stressed out about it. we tried to take sherefah with us as well. the lesson with chayanne we had was kinda boring so she didnt have a lot of fun today. then we heard all this stuff with nicole and we just kinda thought, "man things just cant get any better than this". it was a hard day to say the least. but we went and saw christinea before the night was over to cheer her up and it ended up cheering us all up. we ended up sharing a talk from elder holland so that helped out so much with everything. things were just shoved in our face by satan today. it sucked but its what comes with the "job" haha.

Thursday 6-5-14

i have realized that being sick on the mission is like the worst thing ever. you cant go out and teach cause you dont feel like you have the spirit, but you cant stay inside cause you just feel so worthless. ive been sick since wednesday with something but ive been trying to tough it out. its not really too bad i just feel weak sometimes and a headache haha. nothing i cant get through. we started off the day doing service tho. we thought that it was gonna take us like 10 minutes, all we were doing was moving boxes at the church with the Salvation Army, but it ended up taking us like 3 hours! man that was long and my arm started hurting from it haha. the good thing is that we got free pizza from Pizza Hut at the end of it all haha. we didnt have to eat any of our food today cause sister blake also cooked for us. we also took around sherefah today again. we decided taht we needed to make it up to her for yesterday so we took her to sister blakes house as well. she defiantly had more fun today than the last time haha. we also had a lesson with Shelly. we showed her an Elder Holland talk, of course haha. she said taht she wouldnt be at church tho cause of a funeral that she was making a big deal out of. we respected that tho and sid alright. i so wish that she coulda showed up tho....

Friday 6-6-14

today, i am still sick...... i hate being sick. its not fun at all. we did have an alright day tho. we saw christine and showed her a talk from elder holland. she loved it and said that she really wanted to be at church this weekend. she said that she wouldnt make it to saturday but sunday for sure. that made us sad but it was what we were going to get haha. she is really coming a long ways tho. i just wish that we could teach her more stuff in a less amount of time. oh well. its worth it for a full conversion one day haha. then we went and saw sister blake and did the same thing. for some reason tho our lessons have been down this week. we really havent taught a lot of people like i feel like we have been in the past. hopefully that will change next week cause with stake conference, we still have time blown out haha.

Saturday 6-7-14

so stake conference was like the biggest thing today! it was such a great time. elder holland gave a very good talk about hastening the work when he got up. he shared a story of 3 men who went to the door of someone. the guy came out and saw them. it was his bishop, elders quorum president, and sunday school president. well the man had a cig in his hand. but it was in st. george clear back so everyone knew that he smoked. they all went in the house and just stood there. then the bishop just blurted out, "frank we are here to call you as a sunday school teacher!" after dabbing his cig out on the coffee table, used for coffee and not decor as elder holland put it, he said, "BUT I SMOKE?!"  the bishop then blurted out "FRANK I DONT CARE IF YOU SMOKE! THATS YOUR PROBLEM NOT OURS!" (we had a good kick from that. southern utah humor haha). frank then turned around and saw elder holland in a different room. this is clear back when elder holland was 10 so the man, frank, is his father. he then said that his dad got a revelation to him right then taht they were talking about elder hollands class. elder holland got very serious right here and said something like, "DONT YOU EVER! THINK THAT GOD IS NOT WORKING ON THOSE TYPES OF PEOPLE! "(cig smoker, coffee drinker, beer drinker)" HE IS WORKING ON THEM EVERYDAY!!!!" (that was super scary cause he went from joking around a bit to his rebuking face and tone. i thought that i was about to die haha but back to the story). his dad then asked when he wanted it done. then elder holland said this. "THERE WAS A SUDDEN CRASH IN OUR KITCHEN. MY MOTHER SAID THAT SHE DROPPED A POT. OH PLEASE! GIVE ME A BREAK! SHE PULLED THE WHOLE CUPBOARD DOWN!" (elder holland is a very funny guy haha) but then he let us think about how that is hastening the work. hastening the work doesnt always mean missionary work. it can go from family history work, to reactivation, to retention, to whatever. the lords work is everything. and it needs to be hastened. he also said a very cool quote that got me thinking. he was referring to those 3 people who came to his dad but he said "PEOPLE LIKE YOU, HAVE SAVED PEOPLE LIKE ME!" now just imagine that. this is a man who has seen Christ himself, and he is saying that an ordinary person like us has saved people who are like him. such a crazy quote but such a great one at the same time. its very true. you never know what is going to happen when you help just one person out. that generation or the ones that follow could be effected for the rest of time.

Sunday 6-8-14

well the stake is officially here! elder holland and elder cornish set up the first stake ever in Jamaica! this next generation of missionary work is here now. i cant wait to be doing all of this with a stake president as well. now i feel like all of those state side missionaries a bit haha. but the stake is only in Spanish Town, Kingston, Old Harbour, Linstead, and Portmore so i might get transferred out here soon haha. hopefully not tho. i wanna stay the rest of my mission in Spanish Town! another nice thing is that during the night i was able to get up to the church for a minute and see some of the youth. elder holland wanted to talk to them as well so we went up right at the end of that meeting to see some youth. i was able to see all the youth from Port Antonio that i was super tight with! man did that feel good! i miss home so much haha! Porty and Spanish Town are always gonna be my 2 favorite places of all time. there are no better places than them. i dont care what anyone else says about that haha. but it really does feel good to be here. its the best thing of all time.

so thats the week. it was pretty eventful if you ask me haha. but being out here is by far the best choice that i have ever made. there are people down here that i need to talk to and those people in turn need to talk to me so that they can teach me something. i will never regret the choice to come on a mission. this is the Lords work and nothing can stop it. the church is true. i may not have come out on a mission with a lot of knowledge, but i will come back with the best knowledge of all. and thats that i know this church is true without a shadow of a doubt. nothing could ever shake my faith in that. to put it as the Prophet Joseph Smith said Love You All, "the Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear; till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

Love You All,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
"The standard of Truth" from Joseph Smith Jr.

Week 40

Hey Everyone wappen?

so this week was pretty good. im not really sure what to say about it so ya..... here it is i guess:

Monday 5-26-14

today was just a relaxing Pday. we had a lot of time to kill on our hands so we stayed at the house and just rested up. missionary work gets tiring haha. we then went and picked up Sherefah to go to Chayannes. the lesson with Chayanne was pretty good. we just read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon with her. her attention span is a bit small so we kept the lesson pretty short. but we did get a new investigator from the lesson too. its Chayannes aunt Shelly. she joined us for the lesson and we set a return appointment to specifically see her. she has some really good desires. it should be pretty interesting to teach her as well too.

Tuesday 5-27-14

today we did some service in the morning for someone we want to teach. her name is Christine. she was doing some stuff to her lawn when we passed by one day so we came back today to help her out with other things. service has been a big part of us getting to teach people so we continue to use up the 4 hours of service per week we have. by the end of the week we have no time left for it. but we set up a return appointment for later in the week so im really excited about that. the only other lesson that we had today was with Chris and his mom. we went over and talked about chris serving a mission. his mom said that she woundnt hold him back from coming to church, even tho she has been the past little bit. she is going to support him but its gonna be a little bit of time before we can really get them all coming on a consistent basis. it was kinda a short day with all of this stuff but it was still a pretty good day. oh ya just so that everyone knows (and to freak the mom out a bit ;) ) one spot in our area was closed down today. some guy got shot with an M16 or something when we were right down the street. i never heard any of the shots haha. but i did hear that the cops found like 27 bullets at the scene. Jamaica crazy man haha :D

Wednesday 5-28-14

so today was a pretty good day i guess. we had zone meeting to start off with. the power was out in the church so it got pretty hot inside. we had to move rooms to where the power was actually working. but other than that it was good haha. the next lesson we had was a lesson with Ricky. we were gonna prep Christinea on it but Ricky came walking up wanting to have a lesson so we had one with him there on Chrstineas veranda. it was an ok lesson. it seems that we didnt really move on when we were supposed to. we will be better then next time tho. then the next lesson we had was with Chayanne. we were going to go over the plan of salvation but i forgot some cards we wanted to bring so that it was a little bit more fun for her. so instead we went over the book of mormon just a bit. mostly just read with her. but sister russell came in and gave some pretty good input with it. we did catch a couple of points in some doctrine that we need to go over again but thats not a big concern. we then stopped by the McCalla house for our last appointment. we were gonna share a thought with them but Sherefah suddenly had us clean up a wedding dress that she was using the next day for school. she had messed it up so she had us "dry clean" it. meaning it was dry, but it was getting cleaned. idk..... but we did that for an hour and then had to go home to keep the rules haha.

Thursday 5-29-14

to start the day off we went back over to Christine, the lady we did service for. the lesson with her went really well. she explained that the things that she likes in a church is basically everything that we do in this church, even tho she doesnt know that we do that haha. i really think that she will be baptized soon. we are planning on extending the 28th of June as her baptism day. once we see her next week we will do that. we feel like we need just a bit of doctrine taught first before a day is set. but she is very prepared for the gospel and i look forward to teaching her for the next little bit! later in the day we went over to Shelly, chayannes aunt, and had a really good lesson with her. its kinda weird. her whole countenance changes when she sits in lessons with us. she is strict with the kids there, but is super calm when she sees us. the good thing also is that we can get through the lessons that we have planned. we seem to be moving onto each point easier. thats super good. then later in the day while playing some indoor football, i floured one of the elders. it was super funny. its a custom in jamaica to flour someone on their birthday so thats what i did. i will send you some pics if i can.

Friday 5-30-14

so today we didnt do service to start off haha. we had to super plan first. kinda sucks but we were able to get some snacks before so it wasnt so bad haha. one lesson we had today was with matthew cardoza. he opened up to us about some things taht he has a hard time believing in. i want to help him but at the same time it might need to go to a professional. we'll have to see what happens tho. the last lesson of the day was with Ricky. this time we took him over to the Campbells tho. it was a really good lesson. he understood what was being said, we were able to get through all the points, and the campbells did a really good job at teaching the lesson. they are still a bit new to it but that will change in no time at all. they bore their testimonys and i think that it really helped Ricky out a lot. im super excited to have the campbells teach tho. they are just so solid! :D

Saturday 5-31-14

so we now have one week until Elder Holland comes down to the island! im am so super stoked for that! the first thing that we did today was go and chop through the "forest" in Christineas back yard. the grass back there was just super tall. it took us like 90 minutes to get the thing done, which really is a pretty good time. she wants to help us out with missionary work as well so we are really trying to get her to fellowship a lot of people. afterwards we went and saw Chayanne. this time we taught her just the first part of the Plan of Salvation. we are gonna put it in like 2-3 lessons for her so that its easy to understand. she understood it pretty well but i forgot my cards again. we will get it in the next time tho haha. we also went to Christinea and prepped her for the next lesson that we have with Ricky. we talked about the Book of Mormon so that we can share that with him. after that we went and played ball haha. its still a super fun thing to do and we can really find people from it. then we went over to the campbells home with Christine and talked about the restoration. as normal, another great lesson. the campbells are just solid haha.

Sunday 6-1-14

wo when did June come in so fast?! im almost a year out! what the heck? today was super cool tho. the church was packed! there were about 150 people at church! thats the most that there has been since i have been here! we normally get like 120 or so but we had to open the over flow today! so cool! thats really about it tho. we had a lesson with the campbells that was ok. kinda flip flopped. after that we just went in and gave our numbers and had dinner. so kinda a short day haha.

so the members are really getting into missionary work. its super cool. i so wish i had done that back home. but i never saw the missionaries around haha. utah i guess. oh well.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
Mosiah 3:19

Week 39

hey everyone whats up?

this week...

Monday 5-19-14

so the only lesson that we had today was with Chayanne. it was a really interesting lesson. she has a short attention span and we didnt really teach all that simple. i thought it was a lot of information that was put out. we brought britteny along as well and we are hoping to get some other people to come along as well so that she can have some major fellowship. its super weird teaching teens haha. i can interact with them on a normal basis. but teaching them is a struggle for me since i have a certain way of doing missionary work. its a process to change it into several ways but its coming along haha. next time our lesson with chayanne is gonna be a lot more fun for her. pday was pretty relaxing tho. mostly just sat around until it was time to teach haha. best days ever if you know what i mean.

Tuesday 5-20-14

today we had ian come with us. ian is a member of the branch who is planning on going on his mission in november. he is a really great guy. he knows what he is doing cause he has been going out with the missionaries for over a year now. it was interesting getting the bike tho. we had to go clear up to the church and borrow it from another missionary. after a bit of the day went by, we tried to see soshana. she ended up dropping us cause she got confused. she started to ask other churches about us and it just confused her. nice job asking chevy about ford there. we respected her opinion tho to do some research so we gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read it to find out if we were true. after that we went back up to the church. we had a discussion with a member, Kim, about JD and what we can do to help him. she gave us a few things that we can do. its something that we defiantly are going to do. after that, the day was basically done.

Wednesday 5-21-14

we had the weirdest lesson with christinea today. it was all about going to the branch president to talk with him. she had some concerns about going so we kinda just got those concerns resolved. it was by far the strangest lesson that i have ever done on my mission i think. the next lesson that we had was with Chayanne. this time we brought Britteny and Sherefah with us. it was a really good lesson. we just let Sherefah and Britteny take care of the teaching. it was just a small follow up on the restoration. they did a really good job. but the rest of our day was taken up with bring them home as well.

Thursday 5-22-14

well we went and saw sister dacosta today. i think she is crazy now. she somehow compared a mango to the bible. i really dont know what else to say to that. she may just be a crazy lady now tho haha. we also went and saw chris today. i didnt really know what to teach him. we ended up talking about mission stuff tho. he has looked up to missionaries in the past so he wants to serve himself. we mostly just answered a bunch of questions that he had. we also saw a new guy named orrett smalls. lets just say that he is not a very small guy at all. he is pretty jacked. we mostly just explained what we do as missionaries. they are 7th day as well so they kinda got into the whole Sabbath deal. its gonna be fun to teach them haha.

Friday 5-23-14

today we did almost no teaching. it was labor day and people down here take that pretty serious. so we did labor in the morning instead of weekly planning. dont worry tho. we had permission. we cleaned out a gully a bit. ill send some photos about it. then we did our super planning. then we went out and picked the McCallas up and Britteny for a lesson with Chayanne. the lesson was really good today. it was very simple about the Book of Mormon. britteny and the mccallas did another great job with teaching the whole thing. its gonna be a common thing that we do. we also had a very short lesson with the campbells cause we had to get the mccallas home again. never thought that taking people home would be such a chunk of time haha.

Saturday 5-24-14

today we saw a guy named ricky. he is super cool. we met him while playing basketball. he is pretty confused on the godhead, meaning that he doesnt really know if God is there or not. he is way interested in what we have to say tho. i think that we got him at the perfect time. i am really looking forward to teaching him. we also went out and played basketball again this week. its so much fun! my elder baller status from the MTC is defiantly back haha! the guys here are starting to give me no space whatsoever. its kinda annoying but funny at the same time haha. i look forward to that every week. its such a nice thing to do on "endurance day" we also went back to the campbells and had a very good lesson on gratitude as well. they are really starting to get into the spirit of missionary work as well. they want to start to invite their friends over. its so awesome! :D

Sunday 5-25-14

the church is starting to have a power outage a lot now. the power went out for like the 5th time since i have been here. its kinda annoying haha. hopefully it doesnt happen during stake conference when elder holland comes haha. but today the main thing we did was spend time at the campbell home again. they wanted to bring a friend over today so while brother campbell was getting them, we kinda prepped sister campbell on what was going to happen. well brother campbell was very late so we made a quick check up on nakeitha. she was in a lot better mood today to say the least. then we went back over to the campbells house to teach their friend. it was a pretty good lesson. mostly just us talking about what we do. another first lesson haha.

so thats the week. we did find a lot of new people which is really good. hopefully we can keep that up so that we dont run out of people to teach. i never want that to happen again haha.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
John 3:16

Week 38

Wappen?

this week was pretty eventful to say the least.

Monday 5-12-14

So today we fixed our bikes for most of the day. bike safety has been a big thing in the mission since elder martin was hit a while back so i finally decided to get my bike..... ok half my bike...... fixed. i just got some new brakes on my bike. my old ones basically did not work. my tire is still retarded but im gonna leave that until it just rips completely haha. its lasted me the last 9 months so im gonna see how long that it really can last me haha. this should be fun. but i also had a dentist appointment today. i had a cavity in my tooth (i bet you guys can figure out why....... lots of bubla haha) so i had to get that fixed before it got way worse. it was pretty good tho. i was in and out of the dentist within 30 minutes. the lady was on the job for like 40 years so i didnt feel too scared. the big stick in the office had me worried tho haha ;) JK. there was no stick. but i kinda wish she did have one in there haha :D after that we went over to the McCalla house. we kinda overstayed our visit tho. oh well. they ended up feeding us and they want to feed us next week too. kinda surprises me but im good with it :) being fed by members helps me to save some money during the week haha. after that we started a tradeoff. elder layton is the district leader so he came into our area with me since i am the only person who knows it right now.

Tuesday 5-13-14

today we were super productive. maybe a little too productive tho. i think we ended up seeing all but like 2 of our investigators today. the morning was a little rough tho. we had a full morning but we went and saw a lot of old people. thats not a bad thing. but its harder for them to come to church as well. it was sister edwards, dacosta, and brother passley. they are all a ton of fun to be around but its kinda hard when they are basically our morning appointments. after lunch tho we saw a lot of investigators. first we saw Theana. she still isnt doing anything but we are really trying to build her faith so that she will do something. elder layton and i just bore our testimonys about the church and the Book of Mormon. im not really sure what more we can do than that. i think the next time we see her we will be teaching her the restoration. we didnt have too much time today. we kinda stalled her so that she would just sit with us haha. next we went and saw Gary and Nicole. we read a little bit in the book of mormon with them, just some chapters that we assigned them that they had not read yet. we then committed them to pray about the restoration. gary said that he believed it. but he still needs to pray to be honest. hopefully he will start to act on the things that we are teaching him. i really dont want to drop this family. after that we went and saw Soshana. she is super prepared! she really wants to turn her life "back" to God. we kinda just went over the Joseph Smith story and how church works. she is really interested in it. we just need her to come to church.... we'll get there tho.

Wednesday 5-14-14

Believe it or not, we didnt have district meeting today. we are actually having zone conference on thrusday instead. today was just our 2nd full day of proselyting in a row. thats never fun really. but it was ok. the first thing we did was stop and talk with JD for a bit. not really any doctrine was taught. we just wanted to stop by and see how he was. it looked like he had been down the past little bit so i just wanted to stop by and let him know that we are there for him. we did a lot of back and forth stuff for our cleaning lady as well so our morning was pretty packed with all of that stuff. after lunch we saw a new investigator. her name is Tiffany. she used to study with the Jehovah Witness but didnt really agree with their doctrine. she is looking for the truth and is really interested in what we have to teach. we just went over our purpose as missionaries and told her our expectation and got her expectations of us. it was a pretty good lesson. im looking forward to teaching her haha. then we went over and had a really good lesson with Chrsitinea. i think it was one of the best lessons that we have had with her yet. it will be very fun to continue helping her progress toward going to the temple.

Thursday 5-15-14

today was Zone conference over in Kingston. it was crazy to get over there. our bus was pulled over, like all buses, and was stopped for like 45 minutes. we didnt walk into the chapel in Kingston until like right before the meeting started. it was kinda a weird meeting for me too. Elder Dalley, my trainer, goes home this transfer so it was one of the last times that i will get to see him. but zone conference was super good. there was so much stuff said. one topic that stood out to me is the topic of patience. it something that i am going to be working on through the rest of my mission. the main topic of the whole thing tho was making a good first impression and then keeping that impression when we teach people. it was a very interesting concept. i thought back to something that an english teacher told me, "first impressions take 30 seconds to make, and 3 weeks/months to change". really goes to show you how important it is to make a good first impression. we are really going to be focused on that now. afterwards we went to a place that i have not been in like 10 months. WENDYS!!!!!! it was so good to be having that food again. i wish that i was in Kingston more so that i could go to places like that! the only thing we have here is KFC, Tastees, Juicis, and Pizza Hut/Dominos. but anyways. we didnt even get to teach for the whole day at all. we got back at like 7pm and had to go over to the Branch Mission Leader for a meeting. only then did we find out that the meeting was cancelled and the other missionaries didnt tell us. we ended up having to walk home. that kinda ticked me off to say the least. but really, that was our entire day.

Friday 5-16-14

today was kinda just a normal friday for us. we had the cottage meeting, had a great meeting with the campbells and all that stuff. the main thing that was different today was we had a lesson with Tiffany again. we wanted to go over the restoration but all of her questions led us to going into the Book of Mormon. she is super interested in it. we gave her the introduction page and the testimonys to read. then she is gonna start flipping through it and see what it is all about haha. i think you all know what that means here soon :)

Saturday 5-17-14

today we started out with service. christinea wanted to hang out with us so we took her around too. well, we couldnt find any service to do so we just chopped her yard. it was starting to get pretty long and with the 3 of us, it didnt take too long. only like 2 hours to get most of it done. one day we will go back and get the rest of it haha. after that we went and saw the McCalla family again. well actually it was just Sherefah but still. she opened up to us a lot. she told us some things that she felt pretty guilty for. its nothing bad. it just sounded a lot like me of when i was at home. its interesting how people out here realize what they are doing a lot sooner than me. i didnt realize till i was out here and they get to see it when they are 13 or so. lucky them i guess. but it rained for the rest of the day so we ended up spending the rest of the day in the house. no campbells tonight. darn it!

Sunday 5-18-14

i better tell you guys who is coming down to dedicate the stake here soon. so on June 7th and 8th we will have.......drumroll please............ ELDER HOLLAND FROM THE QUORUM OF THE 12 APOSTLES!!!!!!! he will be down her to dedicate the stake then and everyone is super stoked out of their minds!!! im dont think that he will have any meeting for the missionaries but we will get to see him live. the sad part, only missionaries in the stake boundaries get to see it and only the missionaries in spanish town, old harbour, linstead, and portmore get to be there live for it. everyone in Kingston has got to go to the kingston chapel to watch it from a live feed. hopefully i am not emergency transferred before then! i might just call and say no if i am tho haha. i want to be here so bad! but today was pretty good. we finally got to see Kayann. all it took was us going over there to see Britteny before Kayanns visiting teachers came over haha. hopefully she will be active with people like that coming to see her. we kinda just sat and listened to what they had to say. we also had a really good lesson with the campbells, as always haha. we watched the John Tanner story with them and talked about consecration. we also had a really good lesson with brother cardoza. he hasnt been to church a whole lot and president britton, the branch president here, wants us to really get him active. him and brother passley will be more of a focus for us now.

so thats my week. it was pretty eventful when i go back and look haha. i didnt think there was so much stuff but i guess that there was. im just super excited for the stake to come here! all the missionaries are super excited for it. its gonna be quite change for us. now we will have to start to listen to 2 people, the mission president, and the stake president haha

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
2 Nephi 31:19-21

Week 37

Hey Everyone!

this week was very heck-tic. with transfers going on and us having to move into a new house, there wasnt too much work done. i will do my best to keep the week entertaining for you tho haha.

Monday 5-5-14

So today was a relaxing Pday again. we had to start to get some stuff ready to move, cause for some dumb reason we are moving on tuesday instead of today. oh well i guess. but other than that it was just very relaxing. once we went out and starting teaching, we first went over to the Campbells home. we were prepping Brother Campbell to come teaching with us to Paul and Soshana the very next hour. it was pretty good. brother campbell knew his stuff really well. the bad part, when we went over to paul and soshana, paul had just gotten home from work and was dead asleep when he came to the door. we rescheduled for tomorrow. brother campbell is cool with it as well haha. then elder martin and i went up to the mccalla family so that he could say goodbye to them since he is going to be in sav on wednesday. as always, the mccalla family is awesome. we talked with them for a bit and had a short thought with them.

Tuesday 5-6-14

today we didnt do much cause we were moving to a new house. the one we had was very small and didnt fit us the best. not sure why we didnt move yesterday tho. might have been more effective. we didnt really end up seeing anyone. we did go over and see Chayanae tho. we just stopped by real fast cause we had to get somewhere. we asked her about church and she said that she really loves it and feels good when she comes. she said that she was going to come on sunday too (she didnt). next week we should be having a lesson with her tho.

Wednesday 5-7-14

transfers were today. i didnt go to the meeting so i was with elder layton and elder tuala for a bit. we tried to see people, but it didnt work out too well haha. even everal kicked us out of his house. thats how i knew that it was not going to be the best day haha. but elder martin did leave for sav today so now i am with Elder Carter and Elder Farb. most of what we did once i got them was go around and introduce them to the members. the members we went and saw were Nakeitha, Christinea, and the McCallas. so far each one of them really like those guys so this transfer is going to be quite good i think haha.

Thursday 5-8-14

we finally had our interviews with president brown today. they seemed a bit short tho. he normally goes pretty long from what i have heard but he only went like 30 minutes today. before tho we had to ride in the rain. that was the craziest storm that i have seen down here. no joke, there was one stretch that i couldnt even look at the road because the rain was in my eyes and i couldnt see anything. im not really sure how we got to the church safely haha. we got there and pres brown just kinda laughed at us. we ended up being there for a few hours. the other good news, i was productive on the piano a bit haha. i learned the first line to "if you could hie to kolob" in like 15 minutes. the rest of the song, no sir. first line is all my brain can handle haha. the other thing we did today tho is we went home teaching with brother blake again. i think the branch needs to get him a new companion cause it looks like the branch is going with us so that they dont have to prepare a lesson. im not really too sure tho.

Friday 5-9-14

all of the lessons today were still introducing elders carter and farb to the members. we did have a really good lesson with britteny tho. last time we went to see her we committed her to reading everyday. she hadnt done that too much haha. so we retaught the lesson, with some other points of course, and gave her a sticky note so that she could keep the commitment better. i think she is going to do it now haha. we also went over to the Campbell family, as usual haha. today we talked about grace. it was actually really good. there was so much that everyone wanted to say that we are going to go over it again the next time we go there. we didnt get to stay for long but next time it will be really good haha.

Saturday 5-10-14

the very first thing we did today was go and have a lesson with Nakeitha and give her a blessing. there are some things that she is going through right now and she had been wanting a blessing for a long time. we finally gave her one through all of our forgetting.... oops :-l ..... ill have to do better at remembering that haha. but the lesson was really good as well. we talked about the holy ghost and what/how we feel when he is with us. it was a lesson that i myself learned from. then we went and saw chris and had a super good lesson with him. it looks like he is gonna start to take church a lot more serious now. he needs to as well. i gave him a really good tie haha. later in the night we had a lesson with paul, despite the power being out haha. the campbells were going to join us but having the power out didnt really help our cause haha. we could only teach the first half of the restoration tho. next time we are just going to go back over it. but paul is getting hard to meet with to. he always goes out when we show up. we may have to get soshana more involved in everything. she seems a lot more interested than him, but he is still willing to listen.

Sunday 5-11-14

happy mothers day everyone! haha. so church was pretty good today. we had brother cardoza come to church! it was the first time he had been there since ive been here so that was super cool! the best lesson of the day was when we went over to the campbells home and talked more about grace. we ended up going into the atonement and how it is merciful unto justice (something like that haha. bad grammar i think). sister campbell said something that got my mind (or the spirit to tell me) on Alma 34:15-16. so i had sister campbell read it. she only got through the first verse of it cause she and her husband liked it so much that they went on about it for the next 20-30 minutes haha. i really felt the spirit in that lesson. and it wasnt just a little feeling. it really was the "burning of the bosom" that it talks about in D&C 9:8. i love going over to that house so much. i always learn so much when i go there and i always feel the spirit, no matter how big or small the feeling is.

so thats really the week. it was also raining all week and it flooded one part of our area. we still rode through it haha. there should be some photos at the bottom to show you just how deep that it got haha. i wish i could send the video home but its way to long.

but as always i really do love being out here in jamaica. it truly is the best thing that i have ever done. i cant wait to really put the things i have learned out here into my life after the mission. i know the gospel is true. i know that without a shadow of a doubt.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
Alma 34:15-16

Week 36

hey. everyone...... wappn?

this week has been kinda weird haha. it was a long week but we got a lot done. elder martin and i got 6 new investigators for us to teach. but the sad part is..... elder martin will be going to Savannah La-Mar with Elder Nelson, the current AP, for the next transfer. so i will be getting a new comp.

Monday 4-28-14

today was pretty interesting. our first lesson was with Chris. we taught him about the Plan of Salvation because it fit in well with what we had been teaching him the last week. we have been having some really good lessons with him. he said that he is gonna start to save up his lunch money so that he can come to church. he also told us that right now he is leaning towards serving a mission! he is only 16 so he has a few years to prepare but he is also inactive. before anything can happen we need to get him to come to church on a consistent basis. he is well on his way tho. we will have to work with his mom so that she can get him to church and also so that she will come to church too. then we went over to the McCalla house and talked with Sherefah. we didnt really end up sharing too much doctrine... oops... we just really built more trust with her. then her boyfriend decided to call. we told her to invite him to church but she wouldnt do it. so i took the phone and did 2 things. 1. invited him to church. and 2. did sherefahs PR work with him haha. sometimes you can use these things to your advantage haha. but pday was super relaxing again. its so nice to just have a day to relax haha.

Tuesday 4-29-14

our morning today was super awesome! we had a full morning and we saw everyone that we planned to see! i cant even remember the last time that that happened for us. i think it happened when elder norman was here but i dont remember haha. one of those lessons was a new investigator named chynn. right now she isnt doing anything and we havent been able to see her other than today. we also saw another new investigator. her name is Theana. she is sister baldeos niece. she is way cool! within the first 20 minutes of doing a "how to begin teaching" lesson, we built a really good relationship with her. the lesson ended up going a little long because of how good we were doing in gaining trust haha. then later in the day we played basketball for finding again. we try to do this like once or twice a week cause there is a lot of priesthood that comes to it haha. tonight we played when it was a bit dark but it was still fun. elder martin and i were just raining threes from everywhere in the dark haha. the guys there are really starting to trust us. we are going to be sure to get some appointments to teach some of them real soon.

Wednesday 4-30-14

Today we had zone meeting. it was a super good zone meeting in my eyes. the main topic of it was to teach people and not lessons and to ask inspired questions. the funny part of the day was through all of our appointments. everyone is still checking up on how elder norman is doing! it kinda makes me laugh a bit just cause he has been gone for 2 weeks. but he was very well liked in the branch so i cant blame the people too much. its members and investigators that are asking. they all just loved him haha. we met some more new investigators today. this time it was a family in Innswood, the scheme we live in. their names are Paul and Soshana. they are super cool! when we met them they said that they wanted to start going back to church so we asked them if we could share about what our church believes. they said yes and so we went over tonight and just talked about some expectation and also had a mini part of the restoration. next time we will teach them the whole thing haha. we are going to get brother campbell in on that one. they are way close and about the same age as well so it works out perfectly. we also had a lesson with Christinea. it was a fun time really. it was a bit hard for her cause she had a different missionary there other than elder norman so she was a little uncomfortable. but she will get used to my new comps when they come (look on saturday for who they are).

Thursday 5-1-14

wow its already may?! time sure does fly by. its way hard to believe that i am almost at my 9 month mark. today there were only really 2 big things that happened. first off we went over to Theana and got a dagger in the heart. she told us that she wont ever be coming to church because if she does then her parents are going to kick her out of the house. they dont really like the church, at all! we are going to continue to work on her and to build her faith so that one day she can either move out, or not be scared to go and her parents will let her stay there. its gonna be a little while before it happens but only time will tell and we will be consistent with it. then i got a call from elder norman later in the day. he sounds really good. he said that he is hoping to come back out here soon. it just will depend on the results of some tests. i have high hopes tho. maybe well get to finish out the companionship haha.

Friday 5-2-14

We had to give one of the parts in our area up today. the ZLs dont have a lot of members to teach right now so they took our spot called Whitewater. we dont have a lot of members there but i think that they will do a better job down there. the main thing that happened today was something that really vexed me up. we had an appointment with Raheem to teach him at a cottage meeting we go to each week. well he showed up to it, said hi, and then had to leave for a minute to do something. well we waited for like 30 minutes. then we called him. he suddenly became very busy. that really got me vexed up! we arent really going to set anymore appointments with him. if he comes again then we will tell him that we are willing to teach him but he has to make the time. one more blown appointment like that and im done with it to be honest. then we went over to the campbells and talked to them about humility. man do i love going to the campbells. every time i go there i learn so much myself. they are a great family. and on sunday there is some news for that family ;)

Saturday 5-3-14

so first things first. TRANSFER CALLS! with elder martin leaving to go to sav, i will be getting Elder Farb, from California, AND Elder Carter, from Pleasant Grove! that makes my last 2 transfer call comps from my high school! i guess the Lord just wants me to serve with everyone from my high school haha. well thats two down and only one to go! but as for lessons today, we had one with a teenager named Chayanae (pronounced like the capital of Wyoming). she came to church last week without us expecting it so we went over and had a how to begin teaching lesson with her and set some expectations.  she is way cool. the main concern we have is we just need to get permission from their guardian to baptize them. once we have that i think that we will be in the clear for them to get baptized. then we had another lesson with the campbells today. it was super revelatory for us. not really going to go into detail about it cause it was about a member but they gave us some really good advice about what we can do to help this member. again, such an awesome family!

Sunday 5-4-14

today elder martin and i stayed in cause he had a headache and we have to be cautious with them because of the accident he had before. but the biggest news of the day BROTHER CAMPBELL IS THE NEW 1ST COUNCILOR IN THE BRANCH PRESIDENCY!!!!! i was not expecting that announcement at all! he is only a recent convert of 4 months and he is already in the branch presidency! im so excited for him! he is going to be a future bishop when the stake comes and him and his wife get sealed! its moment like that on the mission when you really see what its all about. there are people out there who need to be in the church with certain callings. its just up to the members and missionaries to find them together.

so thats the week. it was a pretty long week for elder martin and i but it was a good week at the same time. i really do love the mission. seeing brother campbell get called to that position just made my heart swell with joy! this gospel is so true and i cant wait to get home and to share it with even more people!

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
1 Nephi 8:30