Week #17 - The Lord Rains Down Blessings Even on Minions

What up Fam!

This week went by way fast. They're going faster and faster, it's crazy.

The zone leaders came to do district leader training for Elder Davidsen on Wednesday and then we went on splits for a few hours. Elder Rammell and I cruised around Yallahs in the truck which was pretty great. Trucks are kind of hard to maneuver around Yallahs because we usually take dirt trails on bikes, so I really have to think about how to get to certain places with a vehicle.

We spent Thursday morning at a members yard replacing rotted fence posts. Her yard has some sketchy cement structures that were there before she got there.
She says she has no idea what they are/were, but it basically looks like a bunch of sacrificial altars haha super creepy. The rest of Thursday was rough. We had one appointment after another text us and cancel on us throughout the whole day. So we spent most of the day trying to find new people to teach. Nada. Kind of tough but I definitely appreciated even the mediocre Friday that we had right after haha.

Saturday night, we couldn't sleep because there was a huge party going on at the cement factory nearby. Our beds were vibrating because of the bass of the speakers over there. It was like 1:30am and Elder Kuehn and I couldn't take it anymore so we called the cops on them. I don't think the police did anything about it but it was comforting at least. And then a few minutes later, it started to rain hard, then the music stopped hahaha it was great. We were just sitting in our hose laughing like evil little minions as if we had anything to do with them stopping the music. But it was pretty late and we were all way tired. We were just happy it was done so we could sleep.

School is out here so we are going to start taking the youth teaching with us a lot more often now. I'm super stoked for that because the youth here all have incredible testimonies and they are not afraid to share them with strangers. It makes me feel bad whenever the missionaries took me teaching back home, I didn't understand what my role was but I see now that having members at lessons makes it SO much better!

Anyway, I'm doing great still. I'm having a blast and a half and it's only getting better. As always, love and miss you guys!

Love,

Elder Graham

Cut up bananas and coconut - they are way good frozen!

Week #11 - Blessings of Faith and Stiff Necked Turkeys

What up Fam,

This week was awesome!! A lot of things happened.

Last Monday, I was starting personal study and asked in a prayer how I can help investigators gain faith. I was reading in the Book of Mormon and got to Alma 32 which talks about planting a seed and nourishing it and partaking of its fruit (a huge analogy which explains EXACTLY how to gain faith). That was a blatant answer to prayer - it was great!

Tuesday we went to Tamara's to have a lesson. At the end, she told us she was going through a bit of a hard time and wanted a blessing from us. When we asked who she wanted to give it, she pointed at me. I usually don't get nervous for giving blessings but for some reason my heart was pounding out of my chest. I had no clue what she was going through, just that she was going through a hard time. So I just started talking. I basically centered it on avoiding temptation because that was the only thing coming to mind. Afterward, she told us that that was exactly what she needed. I was starstruck. I've never felt so much direction from the Spirit before then so that was an awesome experience. Tamara has great faith and an awesome testimony. 

On Wednesday, the zone leaders came to Yallahs and did a little trade off with us. Elder Rammell and I took the truck all the way out to Pondside so he could interview Ashanie for baptism. It was kind of nice having a truck but I don't know if I would like to have one permanently because it would be hard to meet people on the street.

Anyway, our teaching pool is getting a bit small, so we took some time on Thursday to walk around and just talk to people. We met a guy named Peter who was great. When we asked when a good time for us to come back to talk with us some more, he told us that he wasn't interested because he was already in a church from birth, but he wants to just talk religion with us. Got our hopes up and then crushed our dreams but no big deal. Thursday night was pretty weird. First, there was like a 20-minute power outage at like 2 am. Then later in the night, we kept hearing stuff falling down in the house. So we checked, and a cat had weaseled its way in the house and was getting into our trash. Super odd haha.

Our Friday Night Activity was great. We bought some supplies to play some of the games from Minute to Win It! That was WAY fun!

Ashanie's baptism with his mom, Sister Nicely

Ashanie got baptized on Saturday. He bore his testimony after and it was great. You may not expect much from a 10 year old boy, but his testimony of the church is absolutely awesome. Later that day, his 13 year old sister, Zadie, told us she wanted to be baptized now (this family is so great)! So we told her to pray about a date and get back to us. We're still waiting on her answer, but it's really cool to see such a desire from such young kids!

Quick side note: Some white (European?) rasta man came over to us before the baptism and was like "You can't tell me anything about Jesus, you're way too young." Wrong thing to say to a missionary!! I went off talking about the life of Christ and how it influences our lives and how we can know for a surety if God was real and stuff. He just said that he had nothing else to say that wouldn't offend me and then left. Bless his soul haha.

Stewed turkey neck

Ashanie asked me to confirm him on Sunday, so that was great as well! Later at Tamara's, her mom fed us stewed turkey neck which was DANG good! Kinda tasted like beef with the texture of chicken back. So good! 

That's about it for now. As always, love and miss you guys!

Love,

Elder Graham

Alton (the guy who gave us lobster)
let us see some of the fish he caught on his latest venture out to sea.

The beach in Yallahs is way cool even with no sunset

Week #9 - Canned Fish and Handcuffs

Hey Fam!

This week has been great! We've been pretty busy all week long which is always a good thing.

Jamaican June Plum

On Tuesday one of our investigators gave us some plums from his tree and they are way good! They kind of taste like green apples but are smaller and have a huge seed in the middle. 

On Wednesday we did a trade off. Elder Fowkes and Elder Kuehn went together and Elder Stewart came with me. He is a really good teacher and has a ton of confidence. He knows how to be bold but loving simultaneously, and I learned a lot from him.

Everywhere we go, people ask us how old we are. We usually just ask them to guess because it's really funny how many different guesses people come up with. For me, people have thought I was anywhere from 19 to 24 years old. For Elder Fowkes, it's usually between 25 and 30 haha.

We ended with about 19 total lessons which is a way good week. We are working hard out here. We have one investigator who is 16 and lives right next to Tamara, one of our recent converts. Her name is Kavia and she seems way interested.  Tamara has been a huge help as we teach Kavia - they're pretty close in age, and Tamara's testimony is the best influence for Kavia.  She has trouble getting fare for taxis to get to church, though. Not sure what we're gonna do about that but anyway. Also a 13 year old daughter of a long-time-less-active woman told us she wanted to be baptized so we're working with her as much as we can. Still trying to figure out her motives and her true desire/commitment to be baptized and stuff but it seems good.  Tamara gave her first talk on Sunday on baptism and she did great!

For Friday night activity, we played capture the flag and it was awesome. We did us four missionaries vs the 8 or 9 other people there and you can probably guess that we lost. However, we lasted a long time. Later that night, we were cleaning up the church from the activity and we heard, "Come out with your hands on your head!" Obviously we were a little confused because we weren't doing anything illegal (as far as I know). We walked out toward the street and saw three cops who had a guy in handcuffs and were searching his truck. After a few minutes they put the guy in their car and took off, leaving the guy's truck just parked on the side of the road. That was a little strange. 

Tin Mackerel

We went to Sister Nicely's (recent convert, also Tamara's aunt) on Saturday and she fed us tin mackerel which tasted kind of like a mix of salt fish and tuna. We had it with some rice and this pepper sauce that she made. Super spicy but pretty good!

Yesterday at church, some random guy showed up for all three hours. After talking with him a little bit, we found out that he lives in the same housing scheme as us. He is a highway patrol officer for the road that connects Kingston and Yallahs. His name is Horace and he is really cool and super nice. Hopefully we can start teaching him. For the evening, Sister Meadow fed us (she feeds us every Sunday) stew chicken and rice and peas. Her stew chicken is the best! By the way, I pretty much eat chicken like a savage now which is kind of necessary for living in Jamaica.

Elder Stewart and Kuehn bought a fishing pole last week and went out this morning super early and caught two fish right out by at the beach. The Yallahs house is the best. The four of us get along great, except for when we play card games like rook haha. 

Cody's grandparents in Pocatello, Idaho asked if he knew an Elder Rammell from their stake.  YES! Elder Rammell is my zone leader and got his Patriarchal Blessing from Grandpa Briggs!  He's way cool, super chill and going to BYU-I in the fall.

That's pretty much it for this week. Not too many pictures this week, but I got one decent one. Anyway, love and miss you all! Have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Graham

The view from above Sister Nicely's house