Week #86 - Weddings, Funerals and Hurricanes

Chelsea and cardboard Elder Graham :)

Friday, September 30  We were all running around, guns blazing, getting ready for Cody's sister, Chelsea's wedding - it was such a great surprise to hear from Cody on that day too!

Yo yo miss me? I know you are prepping for marriage and stuff but we got permission to get on and email today BECAUSE well there is a brute named DY Matthew that is headed our way Sunday and Monday, so yeah, haha we are prepping for that today. Hope all went well yesterday (Chelsea received her Endowment in the Portland Oregon Temple). Don't worry tho, we will be good.

Have an awesome day!

Love,

Elder Graham


Wednesday, October 5

Well the storm decided to change directions and head for Haiti and Miami so that was a huge tender mercy for us (but hearts go out to those who were affected by the hurricane). We still stayed inside in Santa Cruz with the Zone Leaders from Saturday until yesterday just in case, but no real storm hit Jamaica so that was wonderful.

Sorry to hear about Grandma. I was wondering how she was doing. It seemed like she had a ton of problems and then just radio silence for a month or so. I know where she is headed though and that is a very comforting thought that replaces any sort of sorrow with joy. Grandma Graham passed away last night, October 9, peacefully with loved ones around her.

In other news, I don't know if you heard, but transfer calls were on Saturday and Elder Trinnaman is going to Linstead.. I am staying in Junction, still Branch President and now am going to train again AND District Leader as well. So just when things can't get any crazier for me, they do haha. I am actually excited though.

So we saw Saturday Conference but we were not allowed to leave the house Sunday, Monday, or part of Tuesday. You can see General Conference talks here: https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

Thank you for filling me in. I hope you are doing great still. I will get my trainee on Friday. Until then, I am in May Pen with... you guessed it... Elder Palmer hahaha! Things could not have worked out better. He is training too so yeah, we are having a great time and enjoying it.

Love you!

Elder Graham

The famous Lilie James

Pre-Storm view of Junction

Week #83 - Challenge Accepted

Hey Family!

This week was cool. We have been challenged to invite pretty much everyone we meet to be baptized if God tells them the Book of Mormon is true and it has been a way cool experience!

Tuesday morning we chopped some grass for the Hudsons in the hot sun and they fed us chicken liver and fried dumpling and it was fantastic. And if you're wondering if we used machetes to chop? Yes we did.

Thursday we had a couple cool experiences with this BoM challenge:

First, we did a little finding trip up this big hill to a place called Tod Town and as we walked past this bar, a girl was asking for a bible verse and we kinda just brushed it off (usually it is the sole intent of those girls to just flirt with missionaries so we usually avoid those situations) but on our way back past the bar, she was still sitting there and she called out to us again and asked us what we believe about God. Her exact words (English translation of course) were: "Hey I have heard some people say that Mormons don't believe in God and I thought that was crazy so I thought I might go straight to the source. So what do you believe about God?" We gave her a Book of Mormon and gave her a challenge and she said that of course if God told her this was true she would have to do what He says. So that was awesome

Later in the day, we met this other lady who just seemed way cool. We challenged her and the same thing happened! Elder Trinnaman took Omar to go see her on Saturday and had a great lesson with her. She even fed them!! Good things are happening in Junction!

I went with the Chandlers on Saturday to go visit some of the seminary/institute aged people in the Junction area (they are S&I (seminary & institute, I presume?) missionaries) and had some really good talks with people who have not been to church in a while. I hope we can increase the amount of people going to Seminary and Institute this year. That would be amazing!

That's all I got for ya this week. Talk to ya soon!

Love,

Elder Graham

More Lovers Leap

Hola from the office where we email

Week #82 - Don't Leap, Elder!

Hey Family!

This week was great. We are teaching a couple new people who have some great potential.

Lover's Leap was awesome. It was SUPER rainy when we first got there, but it cleared up after about 10 minutes and was beautiful!

I got to see Elder Christensen for the first time in forever this week.

Not too much to report, but I guess I will share one quick story:

So Sister Hudson has been recovering from her surgery where they cut a burst cyst out of her head (so naturally she couldn't really make it to church the last couple weeks). Church ended and we did tithing and were about ready to head out, but as we called people, the whole evening pretty much fell through. So we prayed to know what to do because obviously the plans we made were not the right ones haha. During the prayer I felt like we should go take the Sacrament to Sister Hudson. So we called her and offered, and she said that she would really appreciate that and that she had been pretty upset that she had to miss it two weeks in a row. So that was super cool. More tender mercies. I have been noticing a lot more tender mercies lately. It's so cool to see the will of God play out through you. I think it is one of the most rewarding experiences.

Anyway that's all for this week. Let me get these pictures up, there are a lot this week.

Love,

Elder Graham

Great reunion with Elder Christensen

The rainy part of Lovers Leap with Elder Stevens and myself
Elder Graham's selfie skills not so on-point...

More Leaping

Week #81 - Yo Wagwan Mi Boss!

Yo Family!

This week was awesome.

So we have been dropping people like it's hot just because it has been far too long and they ain’t doing nothing (excuse the grammar but there is no better way to put it). SO Tuesday morning we set out with a prayer that we might be able to go find someone in Junction who will receive us. So we are walking and talking and not much when we hear a bicycle rolling up behind us along with a "Yo wagwan mi boss!" It was our man "Pepper's" who always delivers cook shop to us. He is the nicest dude and we have been trying to track him down all the time (we hadn't seen him in a while). We got his info and gave him a pamphlet and that was that. The man literally rode his bicycle right past us. If that is not an answer to prayer, I don't know what is.

But wait there's more... Don’t you love when there’s more???

Thursday night, we are getting into a taxi to head home for the night. There is a lady sitting in the front seat who seems nice, so we start talking to them and "where are you headed" and blah blah blah. She then asks us if we know a Chris Collins (Pres Collins) and so that opens up a big can of worms. She goes on about how he is such a pure soul and stuff and how she has wondered what makes him tick and stuff. Then she says that she has actually been doing a little research on the Mormons  and is wanting to find a church to go to again and she has a few questions and wants to look into it more. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Ah man so awesome. 

Saturday morning Elder Ridler picked us up with Pres Collins and we went and met with Latoya (the lady from the taxi) and had an awesome talk with her about the Restoration of the Gospel. We also visited our man Everett, who has been sick with pneumonia for the past week. He is doing good tho. We had a way good conversation with him.

In church on Sunday, a lady who was supposed to give a talk didn't show, so I got up and gave an impromptu 30-minute sermon about blessings. Fun stuff.

Things are looking good this week. The work is moving here in Junction and I'm excited to keep it going.

Lover's Leap

The  zone leaders are going snag us and take us to some lighthouse over by Lover's Leap today. Romantic, I know. Lovers' leap is named after two slave lovers from the 18th century, Mizzy and Tunkey. Legend has it that their master "Chardley" took a liking to the girl and, in a bid to have her for himself, he arranged for her lover to be sold to another estate. The pair fled to avoid being separated but were eventually chased to the edge of a large steep cliff. Rather than face being caught and separated, the pair chose to end their lives by jumping together. Lovers' Leap lighthouse is famous for two reasons. One is that this is the most recently constructed lighthouse in Jamaica, the other reason is that it is actually powered by three power sources (electricity, generator and battery).

Love,

Elder Graham

Overlooking Ballard's Valley. On the other side of the

dark green patch running down the hill is called Exton

The man, the myth, the legend, Elder Trinna-money

Or Elder Trinnaman…

Week #80 - Your Prayers Are Working

Hey Family!

We had a good week.

Red Pea Soup

We went to Santa Cruz on Wednesday and had a trade off with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Rowley. We saw one of his investigators and his girlfriend just happened to be there, so we taught them about the Restoration and she totally got it! It was one of the best Restoration lessons we have had. And here is the cool part. It just so happens that she lives in a place called New Forrest. Guess where that is. That's right - MY AREA. So hopefully we can get in contact with her again, her phone has been off for a few days but she seems way cool. Later in the evening, a member in Santa Cruz cooked us red pea soup for dinner and it was AWESOME. Also, this old crazy lady named Ms. Vi (Violet) that lives at the house where we had dinner was singing to us. It was a good time.

We got our transfer calls on Saturday and Elder Trinnaman and I will be staying in Junction, and Elder Simpson will be going to May Pen. Crazy right? You can never predict transfers.

Elder Ridler came again and we did splits with him and Pres Collins. Elder Simpson and I visited a few people. We started teaching this rasta dude and his girlfriend. His name is Raymond and he is pretty cool, but we will see how it goes. When the other guys were teaching the Samudas on Saturday, KerryAnn was asking Romario again if he really wanted to get baptized and he was like "I told you already but you never listened!!" So he went and found a napkin and wrote "yes" on it and gave it to his mom. Ohhhh boy that was priceless. So hopefully we can get the kids in the pool by this coming Saturday!!!

Also there is another girl who always comes to church and wants to be baptized in a few weeks when she turns 12. Her mother has been the reason why she hasn't in the past, but they visited her and Shayquan bore testimony and everyone was crying and so I think that will be the softener for her mom. 

There are a lot of good things happening here. Your prayers are working, just so you all know!!

Oh also, yesterday was President Collins' birthday. He turned 52.They invited us over tonight for dinner so I'm stoked!

But that is about it for this week. Talk to ya later!

Love,

Elder Graham

The doll house

(Cody’s very masculine apt building)