December 19
Family,
Alright, another week has come and gone, amazing! First off, while it is on my mind, Christmas calls/pday. Preparation day is the day after Christmas, but it will be cut short since we will have had the previous 2 days off still get to email though. Calling on Christmas is a messy situation-we recently decided to change every single phone in the mission to a new provider who was offering us a better price, we have been spending way to much on phones lately. So that has been all worked out but we are making the great phone swap on Christmas eve-so every missionary will get a new phone number Christmas eve! Less effective! But oh well. So I have no clue what to tell you. On Monday you will receive another email from me, a short one. On Monday we are all getting told what our new number will be so that we can email our families and let them know. Monday look for an email telling you when to call and what number to call. Most likely it will be in the morning and since there is a 2 hour difference it might be as early as like 8 am Utah time. But I will let you know on Monday. I still haven't gotten the package yet, but don't worry, mail is just slow in Jamaica at Christmas time. There are a lot of missionaries who we know have packages in the mail who just haven't received them yet. Parents have called the office and asked if we have seen their sons package yet. So don't fret, it will get here. We are checking the mail everyday this week. Haha
Transfers came. Elder Brown went home, his 2 years were up. By default I had to get a new companion. Elder Emery is his name. He is from Utah, so now our entire house is from Utah. He doesn't know this, but he is only my companion for a week. Next Saturday, the 26th, he flies out to the Bahamas. I booked him flights last week. At the moment he thinks he will be in Kingston for a long time haha. I have good guesses as to who my next companion will be by next Saturday, but I am not 100% sure so I will just let you know next week. It is weird to be sort of training elder emery how to do things in the office but at the same time I am not bothering to really teach him a lot of the stuff we do because he isn't going to be here long enough to really matter. We are having a good time, it will be a fun week that I get to serve with him.
Our area is doing good. We got some excellent referrals this week. Nigel and the rest of the members that live down in downtown have been near impossible to see. The war has gotten intense. Last time we were down their the neighbors were evacuating because their house had been destroyed from a bomb. So that is fun, we are safe and nobody even thinks of bothering us. Everyone down there still says hi and is happy to talk to us and then when we walk away continue fighting with each other. But for the most part we just avoid downtown unless sister buchanon tells us it is safe to come over. We met this man named Wade this week. He is great. 21, married (YEA!, nobody ever gets married), and really open to our lessons. His wife joined us the second time we came by and they are both interested and we are hoping to see them at church this Sunday.
This week for Christmas eve we are having a big mission party in Kingston and that will be a lot of fun. There is going to be a basketball tournament. Our team (the office elders, the assistants and the Kingston zone leaders) stands a good chance despite the hindrance elder tanner and I will bring to the team haha. Elder Emery played basketball in college and is really good, so he is our only hope. Haha but it will be a lot of fun. Then on Christmas nobody in Jamaica wants to be taught and so we get to call family, and then go out and see if we can find anywhere that we can do service or go Christmas caroling.
Ugh! hmmm- I don't have much to say. I hope that your new job is great dad, it is odd that you are now done teaching but it will be a nice adventure to start something new. I am sorry to hear about Helen. But it is great to know that she had the fullness of the gospel in her life and that we can all see her again. It sounds like elko has been a snowy mess, it sounds like a lot of fun and I sort of miss snow, but at the same time I know that if I was there I would remember how much I dislike it. And it sounds like the whole giving tree thing in the ward is doing well. They don't really do anything like that here in Jamaica.
I am glad that the first letter arrived. The second one will hopefully come this week. I got a 5000 on hand and just need to send it now. I will probably just do what you suggested mom and just put it in a card and assume no one in Jamaica will check it. Today we are cleaning our house. It has gotten slightly dirty so we are going to have a super cleaning of it. That will be nice. We are all tired of how dirty the house is.
Last preparation day we went and flew kites. Elder brown wanted to do it and so we agreed. Turned out to be a ton of fun! For 2 hours we ran around trying to get our kites in the air. We chose a day when their was absolutely no wind (bad choice) and so the only way it would go up is if we ran really fast. After 10 minutes we were all exhausted and had collapsed in the field. It was a good day. The other people in the park had fun laughing at us. 4 white guys who couldn't get their kites to go up running in circles. Right after we started some little 5 year old boy standing at a near by gazebo said "That's not how you do it" while he was watching us run around. Haha
Well I guess I will finish up here for the week. Life is going well in Jamaica. Look for my email on Monday. I am excited for Christmas and for this upcoming week, we have some good people that we are working with that I am excited to keep teaching. Enjoy Christmas vacation. Merry Christmas and I will talk to you then!
LoveElder Talbert
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