Family,
Thanks again for all the emails. I like the pictures dad, it looks like a nifty device. You could potentially make a night vision system out of it. Create a attachment for your glasses that would have the same effect as looking through the camera and then just bring your flashlight with you. Think of how cool it would be to go camping and be the one with the flashlight that looks like it is off but really works quite well if you have IR visibility. I don't know why I looked sunburned, I doubt I was. Haha part of being in the office is that I miss the sun. we get to the office in the morning and stay till the evening. Normally sunlight is fading by 5 pm when we leave. The only thing I can think of is if we were out moving stuff all day, then I would look sunburned if I had failed to use sunscreen.
This week has been good. Doesn't seem that long since I emailed, only 4 days. So not much has happened! Yesterday night President and sister graff invited the office elders and the assistants over for dinner. It was really good! Sister graff made a Nacho type thing that was tasted amazing and we had some pink salad thing that was great and then a chocolaty dessert that was really good and I wish I hadn't been so full so that I could have had more dessert! After dinner we went and picked up a ton of chairs from our chapel and brought them to another chapel to be set up. Tomorrow is our big district conference and it should be huge! It was really weird to go to the church last night and see it functioning more like it does in the states. Their was choir practice going on, and some youth like class and other youth were playing sports outside, chairs were being set up, etc. The only annoying thing is that the building is 2 stories, bottom floor is classrooms upper floor is sacrament meeting hall. We had to carry all our metal folding chairs up the stairs over and over and over.
We have some great investigators, Shaka and Elane (I think I mentioned them previously) are still doing well. They are both scheduled to be baptized next week, it looks like we might have to push Shaka back a week because he might not be able to make it to church on Sunday. But we are still trying! He is really good and still asking amazing questions. We also met another lady named Mavis. She is a bit older (50ish) but is really nice. We were originally teaching her son but she always sat in. Her son is still moderately interested but not like she is! She is scheduled to be baptized in between sessions of general conference (it is odd that GC has already come again, 6 months went by way fast). We also have a few other progressing investigators that will hopefully have a baptism date by Sunday.President Graff set a goal for our mission to have 1000 baptisms next year-that is a very large goal, on average this mission has like 300-350 a year or something like that. And now we are losing missionaries, we will be down to 30 companionships by next year. So you can do the math, but in order for us to get a 1000 baptisms each companionship needs to have a lot of baptisms! I think it is reachable but it will be a struggle. He has been preparing us for next year and having us use different techniques of finding new investigators. It will be interesting to see what really happens.
Earlier this week I went and investigated a mysterious internet bill we were getting from the old mission office (3 years back). I drove their wondering how I was going to find our old office in a giant office complex, I didn't really have an address, but thankfully they were less effective and still hadn't removed our name from the list of offices after 3 years. I walked up to the door, it was locked. But I noticed a gap in the doors and pushed by finger in and pushed the lock out of the way so that the door opened. Walked in, it was completely empty. Not a thing in the building. But I was hearing strange music coming from a room in the back. I walk back their and there is just this 40 year old lady sitting in their, has a whole office setup and is just typing away. I was astonished greatly insomuch that I fell to the earth, not really but I had no clue what to say. Eventually we figured out the whole bill thing and all is well again. Definitely the oddest experience of the week. My guess is that she is using the office illegally just as she was using our internet.
Well unfortunately I am short on time and I don't have any pictures on me, but I will get a good one this week and send it on Saturday. This week is transfers, so if by some unlikely chance I do get transferred then my p-day will be Monday. So if next Saturday you get nothing from me you know I have been transferred. I am jealous that I am missing out on all the peaches and pears. You can't really find them in Jamaica.
Life goes well. Time is flying by (already been out for 7.5 months and rapidly approaching 8 months). I love you all and hope the coming week is great!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Stay on Target
Family,
Sounds like Things are going well back home. I have no clue how well dried fruit will handle the weather. Other missionaries have gotten some so I assume it works but I really don't know. You can experiment and I would be happy. I am jealous of your fancy flashlight and camera dad, I will be interested to see them when I get home, assuming that you haven't taken them apart and changed them haha. First before I forget, My next p-day will be this Saturday, so you will have to email either Friday or early Saturday. Then it will be back to just Saturdays unless something crazy comes up again.
Interesting story: There is a man in the branch, Bro. Downer, about 28. He is a really nice guy and likes the missionaries a lot, he is exceedingly wealthy, the wealthiest man I have ever met, CEO of York, a real estate company. He is from England and likes to argue with the missionaries about why England is better than the States, We have had some good debates. But that is just a side note to the story. Bro. Downer has health problems and this week had to go to the hospital. His health has been steadily declining. He has to have open heart surgery tomorrow and then is on a waiting list for a Heart Transplant. It is weird and sort of Deja vuy (is that even a word?). Who would have thought that I would have to witness this whole heart transplant thing again haha.
This week has been good. We have been teaching a man Named Shaka, He was a referral from a less-active that we visited. Shaka is a really cool guy. He is very smart and asks a lot of questions. The thing I like about his questions is that they aren't hostile in anyway. He isn't trying to twist us in a knot or anything but is genuinely curious and just wants to know the truth. On Sunday he was going to get a ride to church with the less active and another investigator but their phone was off and so when he called they missed it. They showed up to church without him and he had no money or any way to get to church. We told him to try his best. After 2 hours, at the start of priesthood he walked in! He had gotten a free taxi to a big crossroads area and then walked. He had no knowledge of how to get to the church, he had no address or anything so he just walked like a mile and found the church after an hour of wandering. It was great to see him at church and hopefully by Saturday he will have a baptism date.
On Saturday we had our big Sale where the mission sold all its extra furniture. It was really slow and dull. After like 3 hours we dropped the prices to ridiculously cheap and sold everything. A member, Troy Williams, he came with us and did our advertising. He was a great sales man and made everyone laugh and consider purchasing our extra furniture. He made all the faults look like they were intentional advantages.
Laura, in answer to your question on my favorite thing to do in the office, Probably would have to be making spreadsheets. This week I have been making a sweet spreadsheet that is connected to all the other spreadsheets I have made so that it is all connected into one main place. That way if anyone wants to know about anything they don't have to search through files, just have to go to the main sheet. It is pretty snazzy and does some nifty things. I keep learning more and more about excel. It is a great program!
Random thing, In Kingston they have a bus system similar to the states. The only difference is that the bus drivers drive like maniacs. It is a pain to drive around them. The biggest vehicles on the road are the ones that are driving the worst. They fly down the roads honking their horns weaving In and out of traffic. Pretty much if they want to change lanes you just have to get out of the way because they are coming over and expect you to move.
Well I am going to find a picture to attach and then I will be out of time. Sorry if this is a bit short, I will think of something to put in next week.
Hopefully all is well at home and school is going well. I have passed my 7 month mark and 8 month mark seems to be coming faster and faster, it is crazy how fast time is passing.
Happy Birthday mom. I love you all!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
ps. Picture is Bro. Dawson and I standing next to the giant lion of Judah painted on the wall. My eyes are way red, but oh well haha, picture was taken at lik 8:30 pm
Sounds like Things are going well back home. I have no clue how well dried fruit will handle the weather. Other missionaries have gotten some so I assume it works but I really don't know. You can experiment and I would be happy. I am jealous of your fancy flashlight and camera dad, I will be interested to see them when I get home, assuming that you haven't taken them apart and changed them haha. First before I forget, My next p-day will be this Saturday, so you will have to email either Friday or early Saturday. Then it will be back to just Saturdays unless something crazy comes up again.
Interesting story: There is a man in the branch, Bro. Downer, about 28. He is a really nice guy and likes the missionaries a lot, he is exceedingly wealthy, the wealthiest man I have ever met, CEO of York, a real estate company. He is from England and likes to argue with the missionaries about why England is better than the States, We have had some good debates. But that is just a side note to the story. Bro. Downer has health problems and this week had to go to the hospital. His health has been steadily declining. He has to have open heart surgery tomorrow and then is on a waiting list for a Heart Transplant. It is weird and sort of Deja vuy (is that even a word?). Who would have thought that I would have to witness this whole heart transplant thing again haha.
This week has been good. We have been teaching a man Named Shaka, He was a referral from a less-active that we visited. Shaka is a really cool guy. He is very smart and asks a lot of questions. The thing I like about his questions is that they aren't hostile in anyway. He isn't trying to twist us in a knot or anything but is genuinely curious and just wants to know the truth. On Sunday he was going to get a ride to church with the less active and another investigator but their phone was off and so when he called they missed it. They showed up to church without him and he had no money or any way to get to church. We told him to try his best. After 2 hours, at the start of priesthood he walked in! He had gotten a free taxi to a big crossroads area and then walked. He had no knowledge of how to get to the church, he had no address or anything so he just walked like a mile and found the church after an hour of wandering. It was great to see him at church and hopefully by Saturday he will have a baptism date.
On Saturday we had our big Sale where the mission sold all its extra furniture. It was really slow and dull. After like 3 hours we dropped the prices to ridiculously cheap and sold everything. A member, Troy Williams, he came with us and did our advertising. He was a great sales man and made everyone laugh and consider purchasing our extra furniture. He made all the faults look like they were intentional advantages.
Laura, in answer to your question on my favorite thing to do in the office, Probably would have to be making spreadsheets. This week I have been making a sweet spreadsheet that is connected to all the other spreadsheets I have made so that it is all connected into one main place. That way if anyone wants to know about anything they don't have to search through files, just have to go to the main sheet. It is pretty snazzy and does some nifty things. I keep learning more and more about excel. It is a great program!
Random thing, In Kingston they have a bus system similar to the states. The only difference is that the bus drivers drive like maniacs. It is a pain to drive around them. The biggest vehicles on the road are the ones that are driving the worst. They fly down the roads honking their horns weaving In and out of traffic. Pretty much if they want to change lanes you just have to get out of the way because they are coming over and expect you to move.
Well I am going to find a picture to attach and then I will be out of time. Sorry if this is a bit short, I will think of something to put in next week.
Hopefully all is well at home and school is going well. I have passed my 7 month mark and 8 month mark seems to be coming faster and faster, it is crazy how fast time is passing.
Happy Birthday mom. I love you all!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
ps. Picture is Bro. Dawson and I standing next to the giant lion of Judah painted on the wall. My eyes are way red, but oh well haha, picture was taken at lik 8:30 pm
Monday, September 7, 2009
That Thing's Operational!
Family,
Ugh, Sorry this is late, Hopefully I can get something written here, this computer I am using is possible the worst I have used on my mission, slower that a bucket of snails eating a stop sign. I am writing this on Monday because We had a lot of work to do on Saturday and so we moved it to Monday this week, but then even more work has come because president is going out of Kingston tomorrow and for the rest of the week and he wants a bunch of stuff done, so really my preparation day consists of this hour long email session and then it is back to work. Next week I will probably have the same situation and so Monday will be preparation day again.
I got the card reader this week so that is great! This computer is not really equipped to utilize such a fancy piece of technology, I think this computer barely handles the mouse and keyboard. But next week I will get some pictures sent to you. Glad that BYU won! That was a needed victory to make this season any good.
Overall this week has been hectic. The office has had way to much to do. We had 5 houses that needed to be moved out of by the end of the week and so that was worked on all week long. The most interesting part was when we moved out of a house in Portmore. We found a most unique piece of furniture! A Coffin! Somehow the missionaries had gotten a coffin and had been using it as a bench press. We didn't know what to do with it and president graff had told us anything we don't need to just leave it on the side of the road till it is stolen. So that is what we did. Left the coffin outside by the road. The next day we get a call telling us that a crowd had gathered and that people were proclaiming that the mormons were issuing death threats. Which was ridiculous. Thankfully a man had known where the missionaries had gotten the coffin and why it was there, so a group of people took it to a nearby field a burned it.
Tuesday was our zone meeting. Our zone is the biggest in the mission with 26 missionaries and so with interviews by president it had potential to last a very very long time. We got interviewed first and then left to go move some furniture. We got stuck in traffic and missed the entire zone meeting. But interviews with president were good as always.
Saturday night we needed to get into the Spanish town chapel, and it has a nice security system. So we have no clue what we need to do to disarm the alarm so we call the branch president, he tells us to make sure we have the right keys then call him back immediately after we get the doors open. We get the doors open and then he doesn't answer his phone and there is a nice beeping noise coming from the building. We call him back frantically and then the alarm goes off. It was extremely loud and could be heard for quite some distance. He finally answers his phone and immediately knows what has happened since he can clearly hear it over the phone. He tells us what to do to turn it off and all is good. It was about just as much fun trying to turn it back on when we were leaving.
Oh yea, I just remembered about your question mom. Everyone's emails arrive just fine, quotations, apostraphies, etc. I don't know why mine go all crazy.
The office has been hectic this week but I enjoy it most of the time. I love working with Elder and Sister Cheesman, they are a lot of fun. Teaching has been fairly low this week, but this upcoming week we should have a lot of time after today. I will be happy to get out and help our area improve once again. We met a less-active who lives really far away, a good 30 minute drive at least. But he made it to church this week! That was great! At first we didn't even recognize him but when we did we were amazed that he had made it all the way to church.
It is to bad that the 3rd ward has shrunk so much. It is still bigger than our branch by 50 people but I can imagine that it is still a struggle to operate. I am glad that CJ and Shea are doing well. This computer is slow and is terrible to work with, I am nearly out of time. Sorry this is so short haha just isn't working so well on this machine. I will email again on Monday most likely.
Thanks for the email Grandma and Grandpa. Sounds like quite the summer you had, and it sounds like it was a lot of fun. That is one nice part of being in the office is that We have to travel a lot to get missionaries things and so we get to see a lot of the country and it is amazing! The kids here don't play football at all. Only soccer, cricket and running. If you mention American football they all look at you funny and think it is a dumb game haha but it is a favorite among the missionaries.
Well that is all for the week, I love you all and look forward to your next emails!
Elder B. Kent Talbert
Ugh, Sorry this is late, Hopefully I can get something written here, this computer I am using is possible the worst I have used on my mission, slower that a bucket of snails eating a stop sign. I am writing this on Monday because We had a lot of work to do on Saturday and so we moved it to Monday this week, but then even more work has come because president is going out of Kingston tomorrow and for the rest of the week and he wants a bunch of stuff done, so really my preparation day consists of this hour long email session and then it is back to work. Next week I will probably have the same situation and so Monday will be preparation day again.
I got the card reader this week so that is great! This computer is not really equipped to utilize such a fancy piece of technology, I think this computer barely handles the mouse and keyboard. But next week I will get some pictures sent to you. Glad that BYU won! That was a needed victory to make this season any good.
Overall this week has been hectic. The office has had way to much to do. We had 5 houses that needed to be moved out of by the end of the week and so that was worked on all week long. The most interesting part was when we moved out of a house in Portmore. We found a most unique piece of furniture! A Coffin! Somehow the missionaries had gotten a coffin and had been using it as a bench press. We didn't know what to do with it and president graff had told us anything we don't need to just leave it on the side of the road till it is stolen. So that is what we did. Left the coffin outside by the road. The next day we get a call telling us that a crowd had gathered and that people were proclaiming that the mormons were issuing death threats. Which was ridiculous. Thankfully a man had known where the missionaries had gotten the coffin and why it was there, so a group of people took it to a nearby field a burned it.
Tuesday was our zone meeting. Our zone is the biggest in the mission with 26 missionaries and so with interviews by president it had potential to last a very very long time. We got interviewed first and then left to go move some furniture. We got stuck in traffic and missed the entire zone meeting. But interviews with president were good as always.
Saturday night we needed to get into the Spanish town chapel, and it has a nice security system. So we have no clue what we need to do to disarm the alarm so we call the branch president, he tells us to make sure we have the right keys then call him back immediately after we get the doors open. We get the doors open and then he doesn't answer his phone and there is a nice beeping noise coming from the building. We call him back frantically and then the alarm goes off. It was extremely loud and could be heard for quite some distance. He finally answers his phone and immediately knows what has happened since he can clearly hear it over the phone. He tells us what to do to turn it off and all is good. It was about just as much fun trying to turn it back on when we were leaving.
Oh yea, I just remembered about your question mom. Everyone's emails arrive just fine, quotations, apostraphies, etc. I don't know why mine go all crazy.
The office has been hectic this week but I enjoy it most of the time. I love working with Elder and Sister Cheesman, they are a lot of fun. Teaching has been fairly low this week, but this upcoming week we should have a lot of time after today. I will be happy to get out and help our area improve once again. We met a less-active who lives really far away, a good 30 minute drive at least. But he made it to church this week! That was great! At first we didn't even recognize him but when we did we were amazed that he had made it all the way to church.
It is to bad that the 3rd ward has shrunk so much. It is still bigger than our branch by 50 people but I can imagine that it is still a struggle to operate. I am glad that CJ and Shea are doing well. This computer is slow and is terrible to work with, I am nearly out of time. Sorry this is so short haha just isn't working so well on this machine. I will email again on Monday most likely.
Thanks for the email Grandma and Grandpa. Sounds like quite the summer you had, and it sounds like it was a lot of fun. That is one nice part of being in the office is that We have to travel a lot to get missionaries things and so we get to see a lot of the country and it is amazing! The kids here don't play football at all. Only soccer, cricket and running. If you mention American football they all look at you funny and think it is a dumb game haha but it is a favorite among the missionaries.
Well that is all for the week, I love you all and look forward to your next emails!
Elder B. Kent Talbert
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Your problem is in the Hydrocoil
Family,
Great to hear from you again! Well this letter might have spacing issues, the keyboard I am using is moderately broken and when I type fast the space bar doesn't register and so there are no spaces in my words. Actually amendment to that, the person sitting next to me just left and so I took the keyboard from that computer. I am glad that school is going well for everyone! Sounds like it is fun. You did guess right mom, I have a good guess when your birthday is and when Nathaniel's is-but I am not sure so I just made sure that the cards got there in September :P I am glad they got there. Gma and Gpa can email me, not a problem there.
First off this week we had a Baptism! We have been teaching a girl named Lassarnla Morgan for a while now and we finally got her baptized! It went well! Haha, probably the craziest week yet. On Sunday we had planned for the baptism on Saturday, then we learned that she was going to YW camp thingy and wasn't going to be here on Saturday. So we changed the day to Wednesday. Wednesday came. We had an hour till the baptism so we were going to go to the ministry of labor to work on some papers for new missionaries. We get there, hop in the elevator and it breaks! We get stuck in an elevator! Luckily it got fixed quickly and we left to the chapel. At the chapel the water pressure was low so we only had about a knees depth of water. Since we had changed the day to Wednesday not many members knew and everyone was at work. We frantically tried to find a priesthood holder to be there as a witness. Eventually we got a few and everyone showed up. We started an hour late but we had a lot of members there. Lassarnla goes to put on the baptism suit, and the zipper breaks. Luckily one of the members knew where some next baptism suits were hidden and we pulled out those. Unfortunately they are all big suits so the one we gave her was quite large on her, but oh well, it worked. Eventually the baptism happened and all was good. The larger suit made it even harder to do the baptism in shallow water because it just wanted to float. Crazy day but we were happy that it all worked out and now she is with the YW of the branch. It was good for her mother to. Her mother has been a member for a while but has been fairly less active and this has been a good opportunity for her to begin to come back to church.
That was the most eventful thing of the week. This email is coming a bit late, the assistants had a baptism this morning that we went to and then our car battery died because we had been using the cd player without the car being on. It was weird that it died so quickly, but oh well, it is working again and all is well.
On Sunday our dinner appointment fell through because the sister who normally feeds us went out of town. Thankfully I had gone to pizza hut and hadn't eaten all my pizza so I just reheated what I had saved and at that. Made for a decent meal, but I would have preferred fresh cooked food.
Twice a week we go to the post office to get all the mail for the missionaries. The post office is possibly the most untech place in Jamaica. They have a few light bulbs on the ceiling that light the building poorly and other than that not a piece of technology is in that building. When we have packages to pick up it takes forever, they have to write down all this random information from the box and fill out all this paper work. It would be a lot easier if they had a computer and utilized bar codes. Jamaica doesn't have much of a mail delivery system, you pretty much have to have a P.O. box. It is possible to get it delivered to your house, but you have to pay extra. I saw one of the mail delivery men earlier this week - He rode a bicycle. I don't know if that is how they all do it, but it made me chuckle.
Things in the office have been going well. This week we have been closing a lot of houses and moving missionaries around. It has been a big pain and a lot of driving. I will be happy when we are done with all these houses that are closing. There has been a lot of extra furniture that we don't know what to do with, our original idea was to just had it out for free (we gave a table to a guy who was walking down the street and asked us for it) but now we are trying to sell some of it and it is just making it more trouble than it is worth. Oh well
I got the cards from the reunions, that was nice! I enjoyed reading them, good idea. Sounds like donette and cal are doing good in elko. Hopefully they get into their house soon, haha.
Yet again I have run out of things to say. We have some good investigators. A Mother, her daughter, and the next door neighbor. All three of them are doing well. They enjoy the lessons and don't have any major concerns that we know of. We met them last week when they randomly showed up to church and we hope to see them again tomorrow. It is always weird to see how we get our best investigators. It seems that all the investigators that we have from just calling out at random houses normally don't go anywhere but it is always the ones that the Lord puts into our path that turn out to be the best investigators.
Driving has been going well. The switch from left hand drive right side of the road to Right hand drive left side of the road was actually really easy to make. The hardest part, initially, it the turn signals. They are also on the opposite side so for the first day of driving, a month and a half ago, I kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signals.
On Sunday we were going to a members home to teach them and randomly a marching band walked in front of us at a stop sign. It took forever to pass, it was weird, I have never seen a parade or band or anything like unto it in Jamaica. Turned out it was for a funeral and a casket eventually passed. The casket was glass so you could see inside. Sort of creepy.
That is about it for the week. I hope that all is going great back home! Enjoy the week at school. I liked your insights into the war chapters dad. I am almost their, by next Saturday I will probably have finished them, depends on how much of my study I devot to just reading. Congrats Nathaniel on your Arrow of light! I love you all!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Great to hear from you again! Well this letter might have spacing issues, the keyboard I am using is moderately broken and when I type fast the space bar doesn't register and so there are no spaces in my words. Actually amendment to that, the person sitting next to me just left and so I took the keyboard from that computer. I am glad that school is going well for everyone! Sounds like it is fun. You did guess right mom, I have a good guess when your birthday is and when Nathaniel's is-but I am not sure so I just made sure that the cards got there in September :P I am glad they got there. Gma and Gpa can email me, not a problem there.
First off this week we had a Baptism! We have been teaching a girl named Lassarnla Morgan for a while now and we finally got her baptized! It went well! Haha, probably the craziest week yet. On Sunday we had planned for the baptism on Saturday, then we learned that she was going to YW camp thingy and wasn't going to be here on Saturday. So we changed the day to Wednesday. Wednesday came. We had an hour till the baptism so we were going to go to the ministry of labor to work on some papers for new missionaries. We get there, hop in the elevator and it breaks! We get stuck in an elevator! Luckily it got fixed quickly and we left to the chapel. At the chapel the water pressure was low so we only had about a knees depth of water. Since we had changed the day to Wednesday not many members knew and everyone was at work. We frantically tried to find a priesthood holder to be there as a witness. Eventually we got a few and everyone showed up. We started an hour late but we had a lot of members there. Lassarnla goes to put on the baptism suit, and the zipper breaks. Luckily one of the members knew where some next baptism suits were hidden and we pulled out those. Unfortunately they are all big suits so the one we gave her was quite large on her, but oh well, it worked. Eventually the baptism happened and all was good. The larger suit made it even harder to do the baptism in shallow water because it just wanted to float. Crazy day but we were happy that it all worked out and now she is with the YW of the branch. It was good for her mother to. Her mother has been a member for a while but has been fairly less active and this has been a good opportunity for her to begin to come back to church.
That was the most eventful thing of the week. This email is coming a bit late, the assistants had a baptism this morning that we went to and then our car battery died because we had been using the cd player without the car being on. It was weird that it died so quickly, but oh well, it is working again and all is well.
On Sunday our dinner appointment fell through because the sister who normally feeds us went out of town. Thankfully I had gone to pizza hut and hadn't eaten all my pizza so I just reheated what I had saved and at that. Made for a decent meal, but I would have preferred fresh cooked food.
Twice a week we go to the post office to get all the mail for the missionaries. The post office is possibly the most untech place in Jamaica. They have a few light bulbs on the ceiling that light the building poorly and other than that not a piece of technology is in that building. When we have packages to pick up it takes forever, they have to write down all this random information from the box and fill out all this paper work. It would be a lot easier if they had a computer and utilized bar codes. Jamaica doesn't have much of a mail delivery system, you pretty much have to have a P.O. box. It is possible to get it delivered to your house, but you have to pay extra. I saw one of the mail delivery men earlier this week - He rode a bicycle. I don't know if that is how they all do it, but it made me chuckle.
Things in the office have been going well. This week we have been closing a lot of houses and moving missionaries around. It has been a big pain and a lot of driving. I will be happy when we are done with all these houses that are closing. There has been a lot of extra furniture that we don't know what to do with, our original idea was to just had it out for free (we gave a table to a guy who was walking down the street and asked us for it) but now we are trying to sell some of it and it is just making it more trouble than it is worth. Oh well
I got the cards from the reunions, that was nice! I enjoyed reading them, good idea. Sounds like donette and cal are doing good in elko. Hopefully they get into their house soon, haha.
Yet again I have run out of things to say. We have some good investigators. A Mother, her daughter, and the next door neighbor. All three of them are doing well. They enjoy the lessons and don't have any major concerns that we know of. We met them last week when they randomly showed up to church and we hope to see them again tomorrow. It is always weird to see how we get our best investigators. It seems that all the investigators that we have from just calling out at random houses normally don't go anywhere but it is always the ones that the Lord puts into our path that turn out to be the best investigators.
Driving has been going well. The switch from left hand drive right side of the road to Right hand drive left side of the road was actually really easy to make. The hardest part, initially, it the turn signals. They are also on the opposite side so for the first day of driving, a month and a half ago, I kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signals.
On Sunday we were going to a members home to teach them and randomly a marching band walked in front of us at a stop sign. It took forever to pass, it was weird, I have never seen a parade or band or anything like unto it in Jamaica. Turned out it was for a funeral and a casket eventually passed. The casket was glass so you could see inside. Sort of creepy.
That is about it for the week. I hope that all is going great back home! Enjoy the week at school. I liked your insights into the war chapters dad. I am almost their, by next Saturday I will probably have finished them, depends on how much of my study I devot to just reading. Congrats Nathaniel on your Arrow of light! I love you all!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Space..The Final Frontier
Family,
Well Last weeks email was a bit early, this weeks is a bit late. This morning Elder and Sister Cheesman fed us waffles and bacon and other food! It was really good! And we had a lot of fun! Thanks for Alex's address, I need to respond to a letter but I can't really send it effectively until now. Don't worry dad that I didn't get your email, I had already thought something like that would happen when we had our email time a bit earlier, I still got to read it this week. The weather here has been nice. Early in the week we got some good storms and a lot of rain, but the hurricane missed us and so all is well.
On Monday Elder Rebeiro and I drove to Spanish town to help the zone leaders move from one house to the next. I learned that Elder Christensen, one of the zone leaders, went to provo high school when I was their, we had a good time and got a lot of furniture moved. We also watched part of "Mountain of the Lord" that church movie about the salt lake temple. That is a really good movie, the guy who plays brigham young makes me chuckle.
This week has been quite dull and lacking in excitement so This will be fairly dull but some other random things from the week: I spent half the week driving cars around and have now driven about half the cars in the mission, so now every car is adjusted to my seating preferences. I have also learned all the ridiculous security features on the cars. They are all a bit different. One of them took me a while to figure out. To turn on the car you have to have the seat belt on, the passenger light on and the door closed, then it will turn on, but the then you have to mess with the scroll wheel that controls the amount of air coming from the AC to turn off the last of the alarm. Each vehicle is different, some complex, others simple.
Yesterday we did bike transfers, that was good. Drove around the Triangle all day delivering bikes, took almost all day, didn't get home till nearly 9:30. On Thursday Elder Rebeiro and I went to Zone Leader council to inspect all the vehicles. That was interesting, I don't know what the thought process behind that one was?! Lets see, we need the vehicles inspected, how about we have those two elders who know how to run the office and operate computers, I think they would know enough about cars! We eventually figured it out, but the first vehicle took a while.
Wow, I have written but 3 paragraphs and I am out of things to say. This week has been the world championship for track and field. It has been pretty intense haha. On Sunday we were visiting a less active member, we were talking to them in the middle of the 100m with Usain Bolt and then he won, set the world record and the entire street erupted in cheering. It was interesting. I think I would have freaked out had I not known what was on the TV. If I was just walking down the road and everyone started cheering I would assume a revolution had begun and it would be a good time to leave the area. It has been pretty big here, it is everywhere on every TV, radio, etc. While we are teaching lessons we see groups of kids lining up and having races down the streets, people mention it everywhere.
We have been teaching a good amount of Less Actives. It has been amazing to see why people stop coming to church, normally some really dumb reason. On a complete tangent, but my mind just thought of this, our land lord has been talking to us and showed us his car that he keeps. It was cool, some old 1960 BMW. Our land lord is a really old white guy who use to be a race car driver, a very successful race car driver.
For Zone leader conference the elders in negril came out. It was cool to hear about Negril again. Sister Hylton is still doing amazing and gave a talk in sacrament meeting on Elder Hillam's last Sunday. She gave it on Temple Marriage, I guess she did a great job! I was very happy to hear about that! And Natalie is also doing very good, both of them are still coming to church every Sunday and doing well. I am glad that Negril was left better than when I got there.
So The new assistant, Elder Darling, has been a lot of fun to be around a bunch. He was in Sav when I was in Negril and he trained Elder sizemore so He has been around for a good amount of my mission. He is also a very clean person and cleaned our entire house, it has been nice to be in a cleaner place.
Ugh! I am just rambling on and on with anything that comes to my mind. A majority of the week was spent just driving around, not the most eventful thing to explain. On Sunday our branch president asked us 15 minutes before sacrament meeting started to give a talk. That was interesting, but worked out nicely. I am getting better at the piano again. I find the most difficult part is playing to others singing, especially since the members of our branch change tempo very rapidly. About every other line is either faster or slower then the last. They don't really sing to the piano tune, or tempo they will just keep singing how they think it is supposed to go and I just try to keep up with all the changes. I tried a few times to just play it how it was written but that didn't work so well, normally the singing and the playing were quite a bit off. The branch seems to struggle with singing haha.
I am running short on time. Sorry for the horribly dull email, nothing happened this week. I will try and think of something good for next week. I hope school is going great! I am moderately jealous. I am glad that Shea and CJ and doing great! I hope that they find joy in the work that they do. It is sad to hear about Erin Galbraith, my prayers go out to her and her family.
I love you all and look forward to hearing from you all next week! Do good in school, don't get lazy like I did!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Well Last weeks email was a bit early, this weeks is a bit late. This morning Elder and Sister Cheesman fed us waffles and bacon and other food! It was really good! And we had a lot of fun! Thanks for Alex's address, I need to respond to a letter but I can't really send it effectively until now. Don't worry dad that I didn't get your email, I had already thought something like that would happen when we had our email time a bit earlier, I still got to read it this week. The weather here has been nice. Early in the week we got some good storms and a lot of rain, but the hurricane missed us and so all is well.
On Monday Elder Rebeiro and I drove to Spanish town to help the zone leaders move from one house to the next. I learned that Elder Christensen, one of the zone leaders, went to provo high school when I was their, we had a good time and got a lot of furniture moved. We also watched part of "Mountain of the Lord" that church movie about the salt lake temple. That is a really good movie, the guy who plays brigham young makes me chuckle.
This week has been quite dull and lacking in excitement so This will be fairly dull but some other random things from the week: I spent half the week driving cars around and have now driven about half the cars in the mission, so now every car is adjusted to my seating preferences. I have also learned all the ridiculous security features on the cars. They are all a bit different. One of them took me a while to figure out. To turn on the car you have to have the seat belt on, the passenger light on and the door closed, then it will turn on, but the then you have to mess with the scroll wheel that controls the amount of air coming from the AC to turn off the last of the alarm. Each vehicle is different, some complex, others simple.
Yesterday we did bike transfers, that was good. Drove around the Triangle all day delivering bikes, took almost all day, didn't get home till nearly 9:30. On Thursday Elder Rebeiro and I went to Zone Leader council to inspect all the vehicles. That was interesting, I don't know what the thought process behind that one was?! Lets see, we need the vehicles inspected, how about we have those two elders who know how to run the office and operate computers, I think they would know enough about cars! We eventually figured it out, but the first vehicle took a while.
Wow, I have written but 3 paragraphs and I am out of things to say. This week has been the world championship for track and field. It has been pretty intense haha. On Sunday we were visiting a less active member, we were talking to them in the middle of the 100m with Usain Bolt and then he won, set the world record and the entire street erupted in cheering. It was interesting. I think I would have freaked out had I not known what was on the TV. If I was just walking down the road and everyone started cheering I would assume a revolution had begun and it would be a good time to leave the area. It has been pretty big here, it is everywhere on every TV, radio, etc. While we are teaching lessons we see groups of kids lining up and having races down the streets, people mention it everywhere.
We have been teaching a good amount of Less Actives. It has been amazing to see why people stop coming to church, normally some really dumb reason. On a complete tangent, but my mind just thought of this, our land lord has been talking to us and showed us his car that he keeps. It was cool, some old 1960 BMW. Our land lord is a really old white guy who use to be a race car driver, a very successful race car driver.
For Zone leader conference the elders in negril came out. It was cool to hear about Negril again. Sister Hylton is still doing amazing and gave a talk in sacrament meeting on Elder Hillam's last Sunday. She gave it on Temple Marriage, I guess she did a great job! I was very happy to hear about that! And Natalie is also doing very good, both of them are still coming to church every Sunday and doing well. I am glad that Negril was left better than when I got there.
So The new assistant, Elder Darling, has been a lot of fun to be around a bunch. He was in Sav when I was in Negril and he trained Elder sizemore so He has been around for a good amount of my mission. He is also a very clean person and cleaned our entire house, it has been nice to be in a cleaner place.
Ugh! I am just rambling on and on with anything that comes to my mind. A majority of the week was spent just driving around, not the most eventful thing to explain. On Sunday our branch president asked us 15 minutes before sacrament meeting started to give a talk. That was interesting, but worked out nicely. I am getting better at the piano again. I find the most difficult part is playing to others singing, especially since the members of our branch change tempo very rapidly. About every other line is either faster or slower then the last. They don't really sing to the piano tune, or tempo they will just keep singing how they think it is supposed to go and I just try to keep up with all the changes. I tried a few times to just play it how it was written but that didn't work so well, normally the singing and the playing were quite a bit off. The branch seems to struggle with singing haha.
I am running short on time. Sorry for the horribly dull email, nothing happened this week. I will try and think of something good for next week. I hope school is going great! I am moderately jealous. I am glad that Shea and CJ and doing great! I hope that they find joy in the work that they do. It is sad to hear about Erin Galbraith, my prayers go out to her and her family.
I love you all and look forward to hearing from you all next week! Do good in school, don't get lazy like I did!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Red 4, Standing By
Family,
Well email time is really early today, just sort of how it worked out. So I haven't gotten an email from dad yet, but maybe that will show up as I type this. The week has been really crazy a lot of random things have happened. First off for the card reader/pictures mom, I can't really think of anything else I need right now. I have just about everything necessary. A new tie would be nice. I would say go for something colorful, not silk, moderately shiny, and looks good, but really any tie will do. Also, don't forget this one, will you get Alex's mtc address. I have his mission address, but he is in the mtc till October and I had something to send him, only I don't know what mailbox # he has, that would be marvelous! I am excited that CJ has left on his mission! He will love it! How long is he at the MTC? I assume a long time.
First event of the week, Sunday after church. Elder Tanner and I went to the mission home to get a bike for a missionary. The bikes are all in a giant pile underneath the back up water supply (a 900 gallon tank) so we are digging out the bike we need when all of a sudden the pile of bikes falls on the pvc pipe that connects to the water. The pipe breaks and all the back up water starts spewing all over the ground, so elder tanner and I are freaking out, so elder tanner holds the pipe together to slow the water and I go to find a way to stop it. The back up water pipe is built poorly, has no stop valves. In the end I took a bag and shoved it up the pipe, put a rock up the pipe to put pressure on the bag, put a large flat rock under that one to prevent it from falling out and then put the lower part of the pipe under the rock. In the end it all held itself together and the water had stopped. I wrapped it up with a lot of garbage bags to ensure it held itself together and left it. We went to dinner, soaked and then called someone to fix it. They fixed it on Monday and all was good. My contraption had held till Monday and the plumber man was able to put it all back together with minimal water loss.
Second interesting event of the week, Monday. On Monday we drove 2 hours to Mandeville to move furniture. We got to Mandeville and realized that we hadn't brought any of the keys to the house. The nearest place with keys was 2 hours away. So we climbed up the back wall to the balcony, the door was also locked, so we forced the windows opened, slid our hands inside and unlocked the door, opened it, and unfortunately their was a big iron grill acting as a secondary door, and it had giant padlocks. We looked in the house for extra keys through the windows, nothing. Elder Garcia, one of the assistants was with us and he went home on Friday, he some extra money so we went to the hardware store and bought a giant bolt cutter and new locks. Went back to the house, climbed the wall, opened the door, and destroyed the locks. We got inside and had a successful move, everything worked out and we locked everything back up and left. That was a lot of fun, we proved that the missionaries home was not safe if a burglar was carrying around bolt cutters and could climb walls and figure out how to open windows.
On Thursday we had transfers. So it was a crazy day for everyone except me. The assistants took all my companions to use as driving companions and I was left at the office to work, which I didn't mind, driving for 5 hours would have been really dull. While I was at the office we learned that a new area opening up needed a car and the only extra car we had the battery didn't work at all, even if you jumped it. So I went to work and took out the battery in the cheesman's car and put it into the other car. So the cheesmans couldn't go anywhere but now the missionaries had a working car! The next task was to get a battery, which was moderately easy except for that the old battery had holes in it that spewed liquids that probably weren't safe to touch, I don't know, I never touched them, it just made it a hassle to move the old battery. In the end it all worked out and everyone had batteries in their cars.
Tuesday Elder Vinas came and that was fun! Our water was out so we went to president graffs to shower and sister graff fed us breakfast, while we were eating breakfast he joined us, it was weird no one knew what to say. He was a really nice man and a good teacher. We had a huge conference with him and 50 missionaries (who afterwards all went to a little restaurant like panda express and overloaded the place) After the conference we had a meeting with him in the office. It was really enlightening and good. He has a cool accent and enjoys making jokes. Overall a really good experience.
Well I don't have to much time, some of my email time was lost talking to elder cheesman, but oh well, I got the biggest highlights in from the week. Elder Tanner left to Yallahs and now it is just elder rebeiro and I so that is fun. We are having a good time and our area is doing decent, we spent all day working in the office for the last week preparing for transfers and we have gotten a total of 2.5 hours of teaching time! It has been really unfortunate but we are hoping for some good teaching time today and tomorrow. I still haven't gotten an email from dad or Nathaniel, but I guess that will just mean double email next week from them! I got another thing of photos from you, thanks for that!
Enjoy school starting this week! I must admit that I am moderately jealous, I would love to be in school taking a math class haha, but I am still enjoying myself and loving my mission. Things are going well, I am in good health and I am now in the 5th transfer! Wow, time is flying buy, I am so busy with office work/teaching that I barely notice the passing of time, the weeks are just disappearing.
Well That is it for this week, enjoy life back home and I hope everything goes well. I will keep you all in my prayers.
-Love you all,
Elder B. Kent Talbert
Well email time is really early today, just sort of how it worked out. So I haven't gotten an email from dad yet, but maybe that will show up as I type this. The week has been really crazy a lot of random things have happened. First off for the card reader/pictures mom, I can't really think of anything else I need right now. I have just about everything necessary. A new tie would be nice. I would say go for something colorful, not silk, moderately shiny, and looks good, but really any tie will do. Also, don't forget this one, will you get Alex's mtc address. I have his mission address, but he is in the mtc till October and I had something to send him, only I don't know what mailbox # he has, that would be marvelous! I am excited that CJ has left on his mission! He will love it! How long is he at the MTC? I assume a long time.
First event of the week, Sunday after church. Elder Tanner and I went to the mission home to get a bike for a missionary. The bikes are all in a giant pile underneath the back up water supply (a 900 gallon tank) so we are digging out the bike we need when all of a sudden the pile of bikes falls on the pvc pipe that connects to the water. The pipe breaks and all the back up water starts spewing all over the ground, so elder tanner and I are freaking out, so elder tanner holds the pipe together to slow the water and I go to find a way to stop it. The back up water pipe is built poorly, has no stop valves. In the end I took a bag and shoved it up the pipe, put a rock up the pipe to put pressure on the bag, put a large flat rock under that one to prevent it from falling out and then put the lower part of the pipe under the rock. In the end it all held itself together and the water had stopped. I wrapped it up with a lot of garbage bags to ensure it held itself together and left it. We went to dinner, soaked and then called someone to fix it. They fixed it on Monday and all was good. My contraption had held till Monday and the plumber man was able to put it all back together with minimal water loss.
Second interesting event of the week, Monday. On Monday we drove 2 hours to Mandeville to move furniture. We got to Mandeville and realized that we hadn't brought any of the keys to the house. The nearest place with keys was 2 hours away. So we climbed up the back wall to the balcony, the door was also locked, so we forced the windows opened, slid our hands inside and unlocked the door, opened it, and unfortunately their was a big iron grill acting as a secondary door, and it had giant padlocks. We looked in the house for extra keys through the windows, nothing. Elder Garcia, one of the assistants was with us and he went home on Friday, he some extra money so we went to the hardware store and bought a giant bolt cutter and new locks. Went back to the house, climbed the wall, opened the door, and destroyed the locks. We got inside and had a successful move, everything worked out and we locked everything back up and left. That was a lot of fun, we proved that the missionaries home was not safe if a burglar was carrying around bolt cutters and could climb walls and figure out how to open windows.
On Thursday we had transfers. So it was a crazy day for everyone except me. The assistants took all my companions to use as driving companions and I was left at the office to work, which I didn't mind, driving for 5 hours would have been really dull. While I was at the office we learned that a new area opening up needed a car and the only extra car we had the battery didn't work at all, even if you jumped it. So I went to work and took out the battery in the cheesman's car and put it into the other car. So the cheesmans couldn't go anywhere but now the missionaries had a working car! The next task was to get a battery, which was moderately easy except for that the old battery had holes in it that spewed liquids that probably weren't safe to touch, I don't know, I never touched them, it just made it a hassle to move the old battery. In the end it all worked out and everyone had batteries in their cars.
Tuesday Elder Vinas came and that was fun! Our water was out so we went to president graffs to shower and sister graff fed us breakfast, while we were eating breakfast he joined us, it was weird no one knew what to say. He was a really nice man and a good teacher. We had a huge conference with him and 50 missionaries (who afterwards all went to a little restaurant like panda express and overloaded the place) After the conference we had a meeting with him in the office. It was really enlightening and good. He has a cool accent and enjoys making jokes. Overall a really good experience.
Well I don't have to much time, some of my email time was lost talking to elder cheesman, but oh well, I got the biggest highlights in from the week. Elder Tanner left to Yallahs and now it is just elder rebeiro and I so that is fun. We are having a good time and our area is doing decent, we spent all day working in the office for the last week preparing for transfers and we have gotten a total of 2.5 hours of teaching time! It has been really unfortunate but we are hoping for some good teaching time today and tomorrow. I still haven't gotten an email from dad or Nathaniel, but I guess that will just mean double email next week from them! I got another thing of photos from you, thanks for that!
Enjoy school starting this week! I must admit that I am moderately jealous, I would love to be in school taking a math class haha, but I am still enjoying myself and loving my mission. Things are going well, I am in good health and I am now in the 5th transfer! Wow, time is flying buy, I am so busy with office work/teaching that I barely notice the passing of time, the weeks are just disappearing.
Well That is it for this week, enjoy life back home and I hope everything goes well. I will keep you all in my prayers.
-Love you all,
Elder B. Kent Talbert
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Firing Proton Torpedoes
Family,
Sounds like the last week has been fairly entertaining. To bad about your phone mother, haha. In the office we have a handful of extra phones for missionaries who get theirs stolen, run over, shredded, wet, etc. A card reader mother would be amazing! More or less no computer has any form of card reading equipment, only usb, so I just borrow other missionaries card readers and it all works out. But it would be nice to have my own, just make sure to open it, test it, and then just send me the card reader/cord. Don't keep it packaged or anything, just put it in a zip lock baggie so that it looks used. I don't need any fancy instruction booklet or any other random things that it would come with. On a side note I also learned that if on packages/envelopes you tape religious pictures (even if they are just small and printed off a computer) it is less likely that things will go missing in the mail.
I got the pictures you sent in the mail! They are great! Haha I enjoyed them. Well this week has been fairly repetitive. Not huge amounts have happened. Yesterday night we went and helped the Cheesmans move. They got a new place that is really close to our house! It is a nice place and we had a good time helping out. So I officially hit my 6 month mark this week and so We went out to eat at Pizza hut, it cost way more then I wanted to spend but it was worth it! It was also just fortunate that we had to go on a little road trip to deliver some things to different missionaries. One of the places we stopped was Spanish Town and we planned it with the elders there so that we got to eat lunch at pizza hut with Elder brown and Elder Sizemore. It was a lot of fun! Today we are having another big spending day (Ugh!) one of the Assistants who we live with has hit his 2 year mark (he extended his mission so he isn't leaving anytime soon) and so after email we plan on going to a nice restaurant and having a big lunch! It will be a lot of fun, even if it is a bit pricy (at least for a missionary)
I went on a trade off on Wednesday with the Zone Leaders. It was nice to have a lot of teaching time again. The house where the zone leaders live has 2 other missionaries, one of them goes home next week, but he is a lot like me so we had a good time talking in our free time. Next week is transfers. I don't think I will be leaving the office, I could, but I doubt it. But I will have to lose one of my 2 companions. Our mission is going even so everyone will have just one companion. It is going to be fun to see all the new missionaries come in on Tuesday. Being in the office I get to see the new group as they come to fill out a bunch of random paper work and what not.
Our area is still doing well. Their was a national holiday this week (independence day) and so a lot of people were out of town and we spent a lot of time just trying to find the investigators that we do have. But we did have some good lessons. Met a less active family who were baptized in Germany, lived their for a long time, moved to Nigeria, lived their for a long time, moved to Jamaica, lived here for a long time. They were fully active in Germany and Nigeria, but then they randomly went less active after being in Jamaica for a while. They just said they didn't like the church as much in Jamaica, so they decided to stop coming. I see where they are coming at, occasionally the church does seem a bit dysfunctional here, especially in the small branches, but none the less I just laugh at the oddities, it was a fairly dumb reason for not coming to church. They told us that tomorrow they will be at church!
I learned that our branch president is a return missionary! I never knew that! It was a long time ago. I thought our branch had 0 RM. Turns out it has 2, both the branch president and his wife served missions in Jamaica like 10 years ago.
This email seems fairly garbled, I don't think my words are flowing to easy, oh well. I am running out of things to say, the week has just been office work, preparing for President Vinas who arrives later today. Yesterday we went shopping for the first time at Mega Mart! It was a nice place. Sort of a mix between costco and walmart. Walmart in that everything is sold individually and they have everything, costco in that the building on the inside looks like costco and it is set up in the same way as costco. All I bought was a garbage can for our house, and Chocolate muffins! Haha they the big chocolate muffins like the ones at costco. The only difference is that they have a lot less chocolate chips in them.
I still have a decent amount of time left, (20 minutes) but I really don't know what else to type. It amazes me how fast the summer went by. Summer vacation back home is nearly over. It doesn't feel like it should be that close to being over! We didn't have water this morning so we went to the mission home and took showers/studied/washed laundry. The nice thing about doing laundry at the mission home is that they have a dryer and so your clothes come out soft! When you dry everything on a clothes line it just isn't the same.
The biggest problem I have with being in the office is that everything just gets all garbled in my head, I have no clue what happened when and so I don't remember what I mentioned last week and what happened this week. We are kept so busy in the office that we have no time to really think and time goes by even faster! I have a feeling that however long I am in the office will feel like the shortest time on my mission.
During my studies I have been reading the book of mormon again. It is going well. I am doing it a much slower way this time. I had an extra book of mormon that I had bought (just one of the blue paper back ones) and I just started at the start and have been marking in different colors things like references/names of Christ, attributes of Christ, words of Christ, The doctrine, references to the Holy Ghost, etc. It has been going really well, takes a lot longer but it is interesting to see how much the book of mormon really contains. Many pages are quite marked up.
Well now I really am running out of time. I hope that their has been something entertaining in this email. If there is ever anything you would rather have me email about then the random things that I remember from my week just ask and I will see what I can come up with.
That really is about it for the week. Enjoy this coming week. I will try to take a good photo or 2 and send them at some point. I love you all and hope things continue to go well!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
Sounds like the last week has been fairly entertaining. To bad about your phone mother, haha. In the office we have a handful of extra phones for missionaries who get theirs stolen, run over, shredded, wet, etc. A card reader mother would be amazing! More or less no computer has any form of card reading equipment, only usb, so I just borrow other missionaries card readers and it all works out. But it would be nice to have my own, just make sure to open it, test it, and then just send me the card reader/cord. Don't keep it packaged or anything, just put it in a zip lock baggie so that it looks used. I don't need any fancy instruction booklet or any other random things that it would come with. On a side note I also learned that if on packages/envelopes you tape religious pictures (even if they are just small and printed off a computer) it is less likely that things will go missing in the mail.
I got the pictures you sent in the mail! They are great! Haha I enjoyed them. Well this week has been fairly repetitive. Not huge amounts have happened. Yesterday night we went and helped the Cheesmans move. They got a new place that is really close to our house! It is a nice place and we had a good time helping out. So I officially hit my 6 month mark this week and so We went out to eat at Pizza hut, it cost way more then I wanted to spend but it was worth it! It was also just fortunate that we had to go on a little road trip to deliver some things to different missionaries. One of the places we stopped was Spanish Town and we planned it with the elders there so that we got to eat lunch at pizza hut with Elder brown and Elder Sizemore. It was a lot of fun! Today we are having another big spending day (Ugh!) one of the Assistants who we live with has hit his 2 year mark (he extended his mission so he isn't leaving anytime soon) and so after email we plan on going to a nice restaurant and having a big lunch! It will be a lot of fun, even if it is a bit pricy (at least for a missionary)
I went on a trade off on Wednesday with the Zone Leaders. It was nice to have a lot of teaching time again. The house where the zone leaders live has 2 other missionaries, one of them goes home next week, but he is a lot like me so we had a good time talking in our free time. Next week is transfers. I don't think I will be leaving the office, I could, but I doubt it. But I will have to lose one of my 2 companions. Our mission is going even so everyone will have just one companion. It is going to be fun to see all the new missionaries come in on Tuesday. Being in the office I get to see the new group as they come to fill out a bunch of random paper work and what not.
Our area is still doing well. Their was a national holiday this week (independence day) and so a lot of people were out of town and we spent a lot of time just trying to find the investigators that we do have. But we did have some good lessons. Met a less active family who were baptized in Germany, lived their for a long time, moved to Nigeria, lived their for a long time, moved to Jamaica, lived here for a long time. They were fully active in Germany and Nigeria, but then they randomly went less active after being in Jamaica for a while. They just said they didn't like the church as much in Jamaica, so they decided to stop coming. I see where they are coming at, occasionally the church does seem a bit dysfunctional here, especially in the small branches, but none the less I just laugh at the oddities, it was a fairly dumb reason for not coming to church. They told us that tomorrow they will be at church!
I learned that our branch president is a return missionary! I never knew that! It was a long time ago. I thought our branch had 0 RM. Turns out it has 2, both the branch president and his wife served missions in Jamaica like 10 years ago.
This email seems fairly garbled, I don't think my words are flowing to easy, oh well. I am running out of things to say, the week has just been office work, preparing for President Vinas who arrives later today. Yesterday we went shopping for the first time at Mega Mart! It was a nice place. Sort of a mix between costco and walmart. Walmart in that everything is sold individually and they have everything, costco in that the building on the inside looks like costco and it is set up in the same way as costco. All I bought was a garbage can for our house, and Chocolate muffins! Haha they the big chocolate muffins like the ones at costco. The only difference is that they have a lot less chocolate chips in them.
I still have a decent amount of time left, (20 minutes) but I really don't know what else to type. It amazes me how fast the summer went by. Summer vacation back home is nearly over. It doesn't feel like it should be that close to being over! We didn't have water this morning so we went to the mission home and took showers/studied/washed laundry. The nice thing about doing laundry at the mission home is that they have a dryer and so your clothes come out soft! When you dry everything on a clothes line it just isn't the same.
The biggest problem I have with being in the office is that everything just gets all garbled in my head, I have no clue what happened when and so I don't remember what I mentioned last week and what happened this week. We are kept so busy in the office that we have no time to really think and time goes by even faster! I have a feeling that however long I am in the office will feel like the shortest time on my mission.
During my studies I have been reading the book of mormon again. It is going well. I am doing it a much slower way this time. I had an extra book of mormon that I had bought (just one of the blue paper back ones) and I just started at the start and have been marking in different colors things like references/names of Christ, attributes of Christ, words of Christ, The doctrine, references to the Holy Ghost, etc. It has been going really well, takes a lot longer but it is interesting to see how much the book of mormon really contains. Many pages are quite marked up.
Well now I really am running out of time. I hope that their has been something entertaining in this email. If there is ever anything you would rather have me email about then the random things that I remember from my week just ask and I will see what I can come up with.
That really is about it for the week. Enjoy this coming week. I will try to take a good photo or 2 and send them at some point. I love you all and hope things continue to go well!
-Elder B. Kent Talbert
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