Key Indicators

Family,
Good to hear from you all again! I am happy to hear that CJ and Shea are getting ready to go! That is great! This week has been good. I got your package, it was good! Haha I am unsure what I am going to do with my chunk of the deck, but it was a nice piece of the deck, it gave me a good laugh. The Ties are nice, I like the combo of one terrible looking tie and a nice tie. Thanks. Transformers 2 was good? I will be excited to watch that one!
Transfers came and I am still in Negril! Haha I will be here for another 7 weeks at least. My companion goes home after this transfer so either they will white wash Negril (move both missionaries out of the area) or I will stay here for another 3 months. I think they will white wash it, it is rare that a missionary stays in the their first area for longer than 4 transfers. I am yet to meet a single one in Jamaica who stayed longer than 6 months in their first area. In our district Elder Sizemore went to Kingston and was replaced by a brand new missionary, from Provo, Ut. He went to Provo High and graduated 2008, but I don't think I know him, maybe I will recognize him on Wednesday.
Yesterday was a good day. A lot happened. I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting again. It was decent. I had no time to prepare but still managed to take a good 15 minutes. Our branch president asked Elder Hillam and I to teach Temple Prep to 3 of our members. It will be really good. I am excited to help some of our members prepare to enter into the temple! And best of all we got to Baptize sister Hylton! It went over very smoothly.
I have been working on transferring some pictures between cameras here so This email might be a bit short. I will try my hardest to get some good stuff in it. I have finished the transfer but now I just need to write an email! haha
Well I guess I could briefly go through Sis. Hylton’s conversion story. We met her on our second night together. Elder Hillam and I had just been blown out by our investigator and we were 5 miles from town. It was 8 pm, which is a dumb time, every one in Jamaica is either at a party or in bed by that time. So we didn’t know what to do. We just started walking down the road and talked to anyone we could find. We saw a lady walking towards us carrying groceries and decided to help her carry them. Started to talk to her and walked about ½ mile to her house. She told us about some hard times she was having in her life and so we shared a quick spiritual thought with her and asked if we could come back the next day. She agreed and then we started to teach her. Sister Hylton progressed farily well but had a second baptism concern that we had to work through. She received great support from some of the members and eventually worked everything out and agreed to be baptized. Teaching her was fairly easy, she is intelligent and reads everything we left her so she was always prepared for our return the next day. She came to church 4 times in a row and everything looked great for her baptism! Well Thursday night of this past week we went and told all the members when and where, then we called president gingery and asked for permission to get up early to get to her baptism. He denied our request..which was a big problem! Haha every baptism in Negril had been done as we had planned it, but for some reason we were denied. So we reorganized our plans, and Friday we rode to all the members again and told them when we would be having the baptism. It was a lot of bike riding and we wasted a lot of time! But in the end we got it done and all went well! The water in the Caribbean ocean is super warm! I was way surprised. She had asked me to perform the baptism so that was great! Well that is the really brief quick story haha
Well things in Jamaica go well. It has been really hot and dry this past week but oh well. I don't really have much to else to say. We have 0 investigators and so this next week is going to seem really long with a lot of finding time. I am short on time! Thanks again for the package. I hope you all enjoy vacation in Nevada. And thanks for that good analogy Dad! (and the chunk of the deck!)
I love you all and hope the week is good! Next week I will get a better email sent haha!
-Love Elder Kent Talbert