Week #15 - New Companion Oat and Aboat, Eh

Hey Family!

A lot has happened in the last week!

First off, I'm no longer being trained so that's pretty cool. Elder Fowkes left on Wednesday and I picked up Elder Davidsen. He is from Canada and he is way cool! He is super good at playing the ukulele. He's teaching me how to play too which is way sweet! 

But yeah we are actually killing it together so far! We have jump started our teaching pool from like three people to six or seven now in just a week! 

On Thursday, we had an interesting lesson where a girl was starting to get a little flirty which is always super awkward and uncomfortable, so we may not see her anymore.

Tamara has started working at some shop and always asks us for pamphlets so she can give them to people who come to the store. She is the coolest!!

View from the hills above Yallahs

Yesterday was really fun. Since it was Labor Day here, we spent the morning cleaning up around the church. In the afternoon we headed out to a road to see if we could meet some new people. The road is a huge hill. For some reason we just kept walking up the hill. We walked our bikes uphill for probably 40-45 minutes through some deep bush until we found a house and an incredible view of the whole area.

We called inside and this old rasta guy came out and was super friendly. He invited us into his house and gave us a whole bunch of different home-made juice. We tried plum juice, cherry juice, soursop juice and even cucumber juice and it was all super good! 

Soursop Juice

Things are looking great here in Yallahs. We are working hard and staying busy which is all we can ask for. Until next week!

Love,

Elder Graham

Week #14 - The Mothman Prophecies and Buh Bye Elder Fowkes

What up Family!

This week has been pretty great as usual! Most of the week was pretty average missionary work.

On Thursday I found a huge duppy moth (duppy means "ghost" in Patois) in our study room, so we thought the best course of action would be to play with it. They are harmless and are way cool!  Mom-like ew ew ew ew ew inserted here...

Messing with a Duppy Moth

On Saturday we got transfer calls. Elder Fowkes is being transferred to Savanna-la-Mar to be with Elder Stever! We got to meet Elder Stever and his family before they left for the MTC through some great friends in Battleground, WA.  I'll be getting Elder Davidsen who just finished training Elder Ostrowski (one of Cody's MTC companions). Elder Evans (Cody's other MTC companion) is going to Port Antonio which is crazy! Lots of changes are happening here. It should be great! 

Elder Fowkes' last Sunday in Yallahs

Today we went into Kingston to play ball one last time before Elder Fowkes left. It was way fun! We had probably ten missionaries there.

Oh one last thing... We were riding through Yallahs Bay on Tuesday or Wednesday and some guy yells from the sidewalk, "The Chiney dem de take ova!" People always say I look Chinese because they are not used to seeing white people ever and there are a surprising number of oriental people who live here. But it is usually just little kids that say, "China men!" or "Bicycle men!" and stuff like that. It is way funny though.

Love and miss you!

Love,

Elder Graham

Basically the entire Yallahs branch - finding the elders is like Where's Waldo!

What I do when I have free time

Week #13 - Happy Mother's Day Skype Session!

Hey Fam!

I don't have much to say this week at all. Not too much has been happening lately, and I'm kind of in a rush but I'll try my best.

Mother's Day was great. I loved getting to see everyone! Also, today marks three months for me! Elder Fowkes is leaving next Wednesday and that will be crazy. I'm not too excited that he's leaving so soon, but it will be cool to meet other missionaries.

Well that's all for this week. I'll have more (plus more pictures) next week. Talk to you in a week! 

Love,

Elder Graham

Mom Note:  To make up for Cody's lack of entertainment this week, here are a few videos of our chat yesterday - forgive the other electronics also in the picture, the rest of the family was there on FaceTime!

The bulla man

Company slogan - A Suh Wi Dweet

Love for the people of Jamaica

Week #12 - Let Them Eat Cake!

What up Fam!

This week has been a little less interesting compared to previous weeks. Still great though!

Starfruit

On Tuesday, we saw a less-active who is super cool. She is probably the most "Americanized" Jamaican I have ever met. She actually understands our humor and stuff like that. She also has a starfruit tree in her yard so I tried some and they are SO good.

                                                 

Wednesday was zone meeting in Kingston. It was taught by our zone leaders and was great. Not much else happened.

We had interviews with President Brown on Thursday and he told me he has been impressed with my growth in the last 3 months, so that was super great to hear from him! Also on Thursday, we decided we need to clear our teaching pool because no one is progressing at all. So that's what we did. The remainder of the week was spent finding new people to teach. We're now in the process of increasing our new and improved teaching pool. This is pretty much the main reason why the week was so interesting.

For Friday night activity, we played more Minute to Win it games and it was way fun! We actually had quite a few people show up so that made it even better!

Sister Nicely fed us turkey neck on Sunday which was just as great as the first time I had turkey neck.  Mom Note:  Late last night as I was emailing Cody I received a Facebook message from Sister Nicely, a great lady in their branch.  She just wanted to tell me how much she loved the elders and to have a good week.  As we talked for a few minutes, she also told me that Elder Graham wanted us to have her steamed cake recipe – you’ll see from his response how he feels about it, so I’m sharing the recipe love with you:  Sister Nicely is the coolest haha. She makes us steamed cake all the time and it is FANTASTIC.

Sister Nicely’s Steamed Cake

One pound or a pack of cake mix

3 eggs

1/4 cup of cooking oil

1 tsp lime juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp rose extract

1 tsp almond extract

1/ 2 c water

OK so when you are finished mixing, put it in a baking container that can fit in a pot with water - not much water, just a small amount.  Put in baking tin in a covered pot with water put on stove on low flame for 30 minutes and cake is ready.

Sorry this is pretty short but not too much happened haha. We’re in town (Kingston) so we’re emailing earlier because we’re going to Price Mart which is like Jamaica's Costco. There's no big grocery stores in Yallahs so we are excited!  Transfers are on May 20 and Elder Fowkes will for sure be leaving because he has been here for 7 months. But we will see I guess.

Our question this week:  Are you holding back the negative or are you really are just having a great time?  I guess you will find out if there was any negative when I get home won’t you?  ;)  jk jk jk there has hardly been anything bad haha. It is GREAT here - I love every second of it.  Our stake president said Cody was the perfect person to serve in Jamaica because he was so laid back... glad he really is having a blast!

Can't wait to be able to talk to you guys on Mother's Day!

Love,

Elder Graham

Big banana spider we found way back in the hills