Family,
Thanks for the emails yet again. This week has been fast and not much has happened since I last wrote 5 days ago, but I will see what I can get in here. Jamaica goes well, the temperature is still hot and the rain has been scarce.
Wow, I have written only 3 sentences and already I am drawing a mind blank as to what I should type. On Tuesday we had a Multi Zone Conference with half the mission, it was huge! The original plan was to take the Mission bus to the conference and transport all the missionaries in Kingston, Yallahs, Port Antonio, and Portmore to Spanish Town. But the bus wouldn't start and we all hoped into different vehicles instead. The Bus was later fixed by a helpful member. The conference was good. Pres. Graff spoke to us about being bold in our teaching and just reviewed a lot of things he has previously shared at zone conferences. We had pizza for a lunch and then returned to the office to get back to work.
The trunk of our car broke, I don't know how, but it just wouldn't shut. So we had a bike rack on it holding it shut and kept it like that for 2 days. Then Troy, a member who comes to the office everyday to help out, went to work on fixing our trunk. Turns out that somehow part of the latch had lowered itself or something had happened that had lowered the bumper, not really sure. But to fix it we took a ratchet strap, hooked it to the latch, tied it to a tree and then began to tighten the strap until it lifted the latch back into place and straightened everything out on the car. I really like using ratchet straps, they come in handy in many situations.
On Thursday we had an Elder flying out and so we got put in charge of taking him to the airport. His flight left at 6:40 am, we got up at 4:00 am to get everything and drive to the airport. It was a long day, but in the evening Sister Graff fed us dinner and we were happy. Then Elder Griffiths, who had been with sister graff, came with us for the rest of the night. Then Friday his companion was back in town and so we had to go and get him from the Graffs and got fed dinner again! It was good, we had Mexicanish food for both meals, it was nice to have something other than rice and chicken for a day.
We don't really have much in our investigator pool, we have only taught like 3 lessons this week, the office work has been keeping us busy. In our teaching we have been focusing a lot of just reading the book of mormon. Those who actually take the time to sit down and Read a chapter a day make enormous amounts of progress and feel the spirit a lot more than those who just make up excuses as to why they didn't read, or read half a verse a day.
Elder cheesman has a spreadsheet that I made that has all the landlords, the account numbers, info on when to pay the bills, addresses, to do lists, etc. It was quite simple and nothing fancy. But then Elder cheesman had some ideas he wanted to try and implement into the sheet. He always fills in the Cell of the Landlords name with a pink color, after he has paid the bill and types in the amount paid. At the bottom he has different sheets for different months so he can track how much is paid per month and so he can see differences. But he wanted a way where he could just click on the land lords name, have it fill in with color and then take him to the cell where the amount gets paid. I created a button that did that and put it at each of the bill payments, one for water and one for power. So now it worked nicely, he just had to click a button and it would color the cell, and take him to the correct cell for amount paid. (due to how the spreadsheet is organized it is not a straight line, the landlords info on water and power bills is farther down the spreadsheet from where the amount paid cells are located). Now at the end of every month he just makes a new sheet and copys the last months sheet in there. The only problem is that all the amounts paid are filled in, things are colored according to when paid, or if paid at all, and since it is a new month all that needs to be cleared. I created a macro and put a button on the sheet so now when it is a new month he just pushes the new month button. It takes everything from the last month, puts it into a new sheet, and then edits it to be for a new month with out all the last months info. It does it all with one mouse click and about 2 seconds. I was quite pleased with how it all worked out, I am interested to see what he asks for next in the spreadsheet. It always amazes elder cheesman (and myself) that I am just able to figure out these things on excel with no training, though there has been a lot of trial and error.
Now that I bored you all with that information I will try and think of what else has transpired in the last few days. President Graff wanted a new phone, he didn't like his last one and it was giving him trouble, so we went to go get him a new one. Unfortunately phone selections are a lot more limited in Jamaica and president graff has already tried numerous phones and he was down to 4 choices, 2 cheap ones, one that we were unsure about its structural capacity, and a very expensive phone. We went with the one we were unsure on. Turns out he loves it, he had a similar version back home and so already knew how to use it. Now we just have to hope that it doesn't break since we are running out of choices.
Email time is rapidly coming to a close, I am surprised how much I got written. To bad it was just about all that office work I do. Thursday night we were so tired that everyone in our house fell asleep by 9:30 and all the lights had been left on. I got up at midnight and turned off all the lights and went back to bed. Wednesday night our house was nearly empty, the assistants were out of town, so I took all their fans and had 5 fans blowing on me as I slept, it was nice.
We got a new senior couple this week and we are in line to get another 2-4 couples in the next 6 months. That will be great! Our numbers have dropped significantly and we have been running out of senior couples. Aside from all the other work they do they inspect missionary homes for cleanliness. Which is something that hasn't really been happening. We have been moving missionaries and their houses have been just disgusting and a pain to move out of. It will be good to have inspections start again.
Well now time is really starting to run short. I don't know what else to say anyways. I did learn that out of everyone I live with I send the longest emails. They normally send 1-2 short paragraphs to their families weekly, where I send 1-2 pages from Microsoft word. Speaking of Microsoft word, I have learned to use Microsoft office 2007 really well, I like the setup of it all. Initially it took me forever to find everything and I didn't like it, but now I prefer it to 2003. Anyways, that is about it for the week.
Life goes well, I am doing quite well, I got a new tooth brush, that is exciting. I hope that school goes great this week and that the whole painting of the car thing works out. I love you all and hope you have a great week.
Elder Talbert
Friday, October 16, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Full Speed Ahead
Family,
For some reason this computer naturally types in Italics and I haven't bothered to turn it off for this first sentence. Any ways, This week was good, and it was good to hear from all of you again! Sorry that this email Is late, general conference pushed our preparation day to Monday instead of Saturday. First the random nuts and bolts, the door looks nice, especially the window thingy, glad that Joseph is doing well again and that it was just a minor illness. For things to send in a package, the conference ensign for this last weeks conference, and it would be great if you could even get the CD version of conference so that we can listen to it as we drive around. Lately we have been listening to Jesus the Christ after we got tired of April 2009 conference. That will probably take a while for both of those items to come out (at least a month) but that is all I can think of that I want/need. A new rule was made by Pres. Graff, we can now email anyone and receive emails from anyone, so if anyone asks for my email you can give it freely, but I can't promise I will respond other than maybe a one liner in the email I send to the family. I just thought of this, if you could send me a copy of the TT that would be great! (whenever the next one comes out). Good job on the Camera dad, I think I would have enjoyed trying to fix it.
This week has been good. Last week we had 5 baptisms in our Branch! 2 from my companionship, 2 from the Zone Leaders and one child of a member. It was a very wet floor, partially because we had 5 different people performing the baptisms. Unlike back home, the font does not exit into the bathrooms but into the hallway. So everyone walks down the hall wet and leaves a trail of water behind them. It was really good and since then the 2 that we taught are doing great. We are teaching 2 more referrals from the same Member and hopefully that goes over just as nicely as the last 2 did.
On Tuesday Was Zone leader council, which means car inspections from the office Elders, but we didn't have to do it and got put with another task. A missionary had a 200 lb dresser fall on his hand and had split one of his fingers open really bad. He had ignored it for a day and it now looked like a big blob of strange meat coming from his finger. It was really gross and we got put on hospital duty. For 5 hours I sat in the waiting room while his finger was x-rayed and repaired. It was a very dull day, but oh well, afterwards Sis. Graff fed us dinner and that made up for it! Haha.
Bike Transfers happened on Wednesday and our final stop in Old Harbor presented itself with a lot of traffic and so we sat in traffic for 2 hours moving nearly no where and Elder Brown sang a good 50 hymns as we sat there. Another random event, Elder Brown and I one night, after teaching, were bored and decided to have a water drinking contest from bowls, the only rule was no hands. So We got everything ready and while elder Brown wasn't paying attention I pored a ton of salt in his. We then proceeded to drink the water. It was funny, he made it for about 2 minutes before he stopped and told me that their was salt in his water. He had just been drinking it trying to find out why it tasted so funny. Haha
General Conference was amazing! We had satellite problems due to a giant storm on Sunday so the morning session kept coming in and out. We missed out on a lot but we will get to read it soon. I think my Favorite talk was Elder Holland's talk on the Book of Mormon. That was a very powerful talk. Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on Charity from Saturday was also very good, I liked a lot of the things he said. I would be a bit more insightful here but I don't have my notes with me. One thing from Elder Bednar's talk that I remember was about Family prayer/scripture/Home Evening. He talked about being consistent in those 3 activities, That is the only thing I can really remember from my childhood was that we were consistent, I am sure I learned things, but as Elder Bednar mentioned, most likely we will just remember if we did it or not, and that was true. One of the biggest problems here in Jamaica is that no one does those 3 things. There are few strong family relations, the parents might be active but rarely are the children active.
Something else I just remembered, on Monday we had family home evening with a family from the branch. They had never had it before and I think they had a lot of fun. The Lesson and activity that we planned were connected in that we read from the scriptures, discussed them, and then had fun acting out the story that we had read. We read from Mosiah about the sons of Mosiah and Alma persecuting the church.
Elder Ballards talk from priesthood session about father/son relationships was really good, I enjoyed that one. I also liked That member of the seventy from Sunday afternoon who talked about a change of heart, that was a good talk that made a lot of sense to me haha. The main themes that I saw in conference this session were to listen and follow the promptings of the spirit, and Love one another. Well that is about all my conference garble for this email.
During sessions we just ate food, thankfully different members prepared food for the missionaries between different sessions. We had some good ham/cheese sandwiches, and some delicious rice/curried chicken.
I am running short on time again. But I attached a photo of our most recent baptism.
In the photo Elder Rebeiro and I are on the right/Left. Sis Buchanon is in the middle wearing the green shirt, she is the one who referred us to the baptism candidates. Shaka is the guy wearing white by elder Rebeiro and Elaine is next to me in the white. Overall a good baptism. Confirmations in sacrament meeting took a decent amount of time.
Well life goes well in Jamaica, I am having a good time and the work is progressing forward. I think that We stand a good chance at getting 1000 baptisms next year if we keep moving forward at the rate at which we have for the past month. Winter is coming, but I can't tell at all, the weather is still 90-95. It was odd, the other night we looked at a thermometer and it was 82, we all thought it felt nice and cool and we were glad it had dropped so low.
I hope this next week is great and I will be having my next p-day on Saturday. Enjoy school and don't get lazy in homework! Haha. Hopefully there aren't to many spelling errors in here, I try to type moderately well. Good luck with your calling mother, you are fully capable of doing all that is required. I love you all.
Elder B. Kent Talbert
For some reason this computer naturally types in Italics and I haven't bothered to turn it off for this first sentence. Any ways, This week was good, and it was good to hear from all of you again! Sorry that this email Is late, general conference pushed our preparation day to Monday instead of Saturday. First the random nuts and bolts, the door looks nice, especially the window thingy, glad that Joseph is doing well again and that it was just a minor illness. For things to send in a package, the conference ensign for this last weeks conference, and it would be great if you could even get the CD version of conference so that we can listen to it as we drive around. Lately we have been listening to Jesus the Christ after we got tired of April 2009 conference. That will probably take a while for both of those items to come out (at least a month) but that is all I can think of that I want/need. A new rule was made by Pres. Graff, we can now email anyone and receive emails from anyone, so if anyone asks for my email you can give it freely, but I can't promise I will respond other than maybe a one liner in the email I send to the family. I just thought of this, if you could send me a copy of the TT that would be great! (whenever the next one comes out). Good job on the Camera dad, I think I would have enjoyed trying to fix it.
This week has been good. Last week we had 5 baptisms in our Branch! 2 from my companionship, 2 from the Zone Leaders and one child of a member. It was a very wet floor, partially because we had 5 different people performing the baptisms. Unlike back home, the font does not exit into the bathrooms but into the hallway. So everyone walks down the hall wet and leaves a trail of water behind them. It was really good and since then the 2 that we taught are doing great. We are teaching 2 more referrals from the same Member and hopefully that goes over just as nicely as the last 2 did.
On Tuesday Was Zone leader council, which means car inspections from the office Elders, but we didn't have to do it and got put with another task. A missionary had a 200 lb dresser fall on his hand and had split one of his fingers open really bad. He had ignored it for a day and it now looked like a big blob of strange meat coming from his finger. It was really gross and we got put on hospital duty. For 5 hours I sat in the waiting room while his finger was x-rayed and repaired. It was a very dull day, but oh well, afterwards Sis. Graff fed us dinner and that made up for it! Haha.
Bike Transfers happened on Wednesday and our final stop in Old Harbor presented itself with a lot of traffic and so we sat in traffic for 2 hours moving nearly no where and Elder Brown sang a good 50 hymns as we sat there. Another random event, Elder Brown and I one night, after teaching, were bored and decided to have a water drinking contest from bowls, the only rule was no hands. So We got everything ready and while elder Brown wasn't paying attention I pored a ton of salt in his. We then proceeded to drink the water. It was funny, he made it for about 2 minutes before he stopped and told me that their was salt in his water. He had just been drinking it trying to find out why it tasted so funny. Haha
General Conference was amazing! We had satellite problems due to a giant storm on Sunday so the morning session kept coming in and out. We missed out on a lot but we will get to read it soon. I think my Favorite talk was Elder Holland's talk on the Book of Mormon. That was a very powerful talk. Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on Charity from Saturday was also very good, I liked a lot of the things he said. I would be a bit more insightful here but I don't have my notes with me. One thing from Elder Bednar's talk that I remember was about Family prayer/scripture/Home Evening. He talked about being consistent in those 3 activities, That is the only thing I can really remember from my childhood was that we were consistent, I am sure I learned things, but as Elder Bednar mentioned, most likely we will just remember if we did it or not, and that was true. One of the biggest problems here in Jamaica is that no one does those 3 things. There are few strong family relations, the parents might be active but rarely are the children active.
Something else I just remembered, on Monday we had family home evening with a family from the branch. They had never had it before and I think they had a lot of fun. The Lesson and activity that we planned were connected in that we read from the scriptures, discussed them, and then had fun acting out the story that we had read. We read from Mosiah about the sons of Mosiah and Alma persecuting the church.
Elder Ballards talk from priesthood session about father/son relationships was really good, I enjoyed that one. I also liked That member of the seventy from Sunday afternoon who talked about a change of heart, that was a good talk that made a lot of sense to me haha. The main themes that I saw in conference this session were to listen and follow the promptings of the spirit, and Love one another. Well that is about all my conference garble for this email.
During sessions we just ate food, thankfully different members prepared food for the missionaries between different sessions. We had some good ham/cheese sandwiches, and some delicious rice/curried chicken.
I am running short on time again. But I attached a photo of our most recent baptism.
In the photo Elder Rebeiro and I are on the right/Left. Sis Buchanon is in the middle wearing the green shirt, she is the one who referred us to the baptism candidates. Shaka is the guy wearing white by elder Rebeiro and Elaine is next to me in the white. Overall a good baptism. Confirmations in sacrament meeting took a decent amount of time.Well life goes well in Jamaica, I am having a good time and the work is progressing forward. I think that We stand a good chance at getting 1000 baptisms next year if we keep moving forward at the rate at which we have for the past month. Winter is coming, but I can't tell at all, the weather is still 90-95. It was odd, the other night we looked at a thermometer and it was 82, we all thought it felt nice and cool and we were glad it had dropped so low.
I hope this next week is great and I will be having my next p-day on Saturday. Enjoy school and don't get lazy in homework! Haha. Hopefully there aren't to many spelling errors in here, I try to type moderately well. Good luck with your calling mother, you are fully capable of doing all that is required. I love you all.
Elder B. Kent Talbert
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Seaborgium
Family,
It has been a good week. And I am yet again thankful for the emails. I am glad that Nathaniel had a good birthday and that he enjoyed the money (In Jamaica that would almost buy him a Twix bar depending on the store). Recently (like last week) Jamaica came out with the $5000 bill, so that will be exciting even though I will probably never get one, the missionaries rarely carry more than $1000.
Transfers happened and I am still in the office. I was also told that I would probably be in the office till at least January so that will be good. My companion Elder Rebeiro got Transferred to Maypen and now I am with Elder M Brown (the M denotes which brown since there are 2) He is a dying missionary, goes home in December and It is looking like I will be his last companion before he goes home. He is really cool, from Kansas (not so cool), but went to BYU and enjoys learning random things. We get along really well and it is going to be a fun 12 weeks serving with him. He is also a fast learner so he is catching onto the office work quickly.
Interesting story of the week. We have been looking for a new house and it has been a high priority, 2 missionaries needed to move by Friday. We looked and looked (a hard thing to do in Jamaica, no one puts up signs, or uses the internet, or uses classifieds) we had to go door to door and ask people if they knew anywhere for rent. We found a ton of places but all of them had some strange problem-like the power lines ran through the house, flashlights were needed to see, it was on the same lot as a church, etc. finally yesterday, Friday we found a house at like 2pm. The landlady talked with us over the phone and negotiations were made. So we were going to meet her at 4 and move in at 5. We met her but learned she wanted a check in her hand now and not an electronic transfer into her bank account. So we had to go back, get a check, then argue with her about the price formally agreed to, and then begin moving in. we got everything done by 10pm and missionaries moved in at that time. It was crazy trying to find a house, sign everything, and move In all at once. Since then the land lady keeps calling us telling us that she needs a name to put on some document. We keep telling her the church name but she tells us that it has to be the name of a person, we have tried to explain that the church name will be fine and it has worked on hundreds of other houses but she doesn't believe us. We just told her to call the office on Monday and she can talk to Elder Cheesman about it.
Today we have 2 baptisms. Elane and Shaka. Both are doing great! They are excited for today and everything is planned out nicely. The zone leaders have been a wonderful help! We have been so busy with housing that we have had no time to plan a baptism so the zone leaders did it all for us and now we just have to show up and make sure the investigators get there. I will make sure to attach 2 photos next week of both people. The only thing I just realized is that I don't know if we ever found baptism suits, I guess I will have to get on that soon. On a side note right as I typed that the zone leaders called and asked if I had found suits yet and now they are out looking for baptism suits, yippee! Teaching them has been great. They have both been very receptive. Shaka asks a lot of questions and has a lot of doubts about his commitment and if he really could do it but he is ready and now he feels ready.
On Sunday we had a big district conference. It was great! Their were tons of members everywhere! The talks were good, they reorganized a lot of the branch presidencies and the mission presidency was changed (everyone who was in the mission presidency was moved to a branch presidency) and it looks as if they are setting up all the branch presidencies to prepare them to have a stake in the next year or 2. They are putting people into the branch presidencies who really know what needs to happen and how to get it done. The conference was a lot of fun, afterwards we had to ship all the chairs back to where they came from so that was good.
Nearly finished the book of mormon again, it has been a great read so far, I have really been paying attention to the cycle that just continually happens, righteousness to pride to humility back to righteousness, etc. It happens so fast and it just amazes me. I can see it all around me in the church to, there are a ridiculous amount of less actives who, for one reason or another fell away and are willing to work their way back to church.
I am short on time I got distracted during my email time looking for a flight for president that he wanted, (got that done!) and so I will just finish up here. I am attaching a picture of a tie you got from missionary mall, it would be great if at some point in the next few months (doesn't have to be soon) if you could see if they have another one similar to it and send it to me! That would be great! If you can find a duplicate that works to. Also a random thing that Elder Cheesman brought up. He was looking at his credit score for something or other and asked about mine (non existant! Haha) he mentioned that when his boys were on missions they added the boys names to their cards and such so that it would affect the boys credit score so that when they get home they have something to work with (don't know if it is a good idea or not, don't even know if it is possible but just a thought).
Mission life goes well, I am glad that CJ and Shea are doing well. I know that Alex is soon out of the MTC haha, hopefully he enjoys it but my guess is that he is tired of the mtc. I like the work you have done on the door dad, I think it looks good and should be kept with a gaping hole in it, its cool that you saw Mr. Mayntz, I liked that guy he was a good teacher. I hope that school goes well for everyone this week, and happy Birthday again Nathaniel. I love you all!
Elder B Kent Talbert
It has been a good week. And I am yet again thankful for the emails. I am glad that Nathaniel had a good birthday and that he enjoyed the money (In Jamaica that would almost buy him a Twix bar depending on the store). Recently (like last week) Jamaica came out with the $5000 bill, so that will be exciting even though I will probably never get one, the missionaries rarely carry more than $1000.
Transfers happened and I am still in the office. I was also told that I would probably be in the office till at least January so that will be good. My companion Elder Rebeiro got Transferred to Maypen and now I am with Elder M Brown (the M denotes which brown since there are 2) He is a dying missionary, goes home in December and It is looking like I will be his last companion before he goes home. He is really cool, from Kansas (not so cool), but went to BYU and enjoys learning random things. We get along really well and it is going to be a fun 12 weeks serving with him. He is also a fast learner so he is catching onto the office work quickly.
Interesting story of the week. We have been looking for a new house and it has been a high priority, 2 missionaries needed to move by Friday. We looked and looked (a hard thing to do in Jamaica, no one puts up signs, or uses the internet, or uses classifieds) we had to go door to door and ask people if they knew anywhere for rent. We found a ton of places but all of them had some strange problem-like the power lines ran through the house, flashlights were needed to see, it was on the same lot as a church, etc. finally yesterday, Friday we found a house at like 2pm. The landlady talked with us over the phone and negotiations were made. So we were going to meet her at 4 and move in at 5. We met her but learned she wanted a check in her hand now and not an electronic transfer into her bank account. So we had to go back, get a check, then argue with her about the price formally agreed to, and then begin moving in. we got everything done by 10pm and missionaries moved in at that time. It was crazy trying to find a house, sign everything, and move In all at once. Since then the land lady keeps calling us telling us that she needs a name to put on some document. We keep telling her the church name but she tells us that it has to be the name of a person, we have tried to explain that the church name will be fine and it has worked on hundreds of other houses but she doesn't believe us. We just told her to call the office on Monday and she can talk to Elder Cheesman about it.
Today we have 2 baptisms. Elane and Shaka. Both are doing great! They are excited for today and everything is planned out nicely. The zone leaders have been a wonderful help! We have been so busy with housing that we have had no time to plan a baptism so the zone leaders did it all for us and now we just have to show up and make sure the investigators get there. I will make sure to attach 2 photos next week of both people. The only thing I just realized is that I don't know if we ever found baptism suits, I guess I will have to get on that soon. On a side note right as I typed that the zone leaders called and asked if I had found suits yet and now they are out looking for baptism suits, yippee! Teaching them has been great. They have both been very receptive. Shaka asks a lot of questions and has a lot of doubts about his commitment and if he really could do it but he is ready and now he feels ready.
On Sunday we had a big district conference. It was great! Their were tons of members everywhere! The talks were good, they reorganized a lot of the branch presidencies and the mission presidency was changed (everyone who was in the mission presidency was moved to a branch presidency) and it looks as if they are setting up all the branch presidencies to prepare them to have a stake in the next year or 2. They are putting people into the branch presidencies who really know what needs to happen and how to get it done. The conference was a lot of fun, afterwards we had to ship all the chairs back to where they came from so that was good.
Nearly finished the book of mormon again, it has been a great read so far, I have really been paying attention to the cycle that just continually happens, righteousness to pride to humility back to righteousness, etc. It happens so fast and it just amazes me. I can see it all around me in the church to, there are a ridiculous amount of less actives who, for one reason or another fell away and are willing to work their way back to church.
I am short on time I got distracted during my email time looking for a flight for president that he wanted, (got that done!) and so I will just finish up here. I am attaching a picture of a tie you got from missionary mall, it would be great if at some point in the next few months (doesn't have to be soon) if you could see if they have another one similar to it and send it to me! That would be great! If you can find a duplicate that works to. Also a random thing that Elder Cheesman brought up. He was looking at his credit score for something or other and asked about mine (non existant! Haha) he mentioned that when his boys were on missions they added the boys names to their cards and such so that it would affect the boys credit score so that when they get home they have something to work with (don't know if it is a good idea or not, don't even know if it is possible but just a thought).
Mission life goes well, I am glad that CJ and Shea are doing well. I know that Alex is soon out of the MTC haha, hopefully he enjoys it but my guess is that he is tired of the mtc. I like the work you have done on the door dad, I think it looks good and should be kept with a gaping hole in it, its cool that you saw Mr. Mayntz, I liked that guy he was a good teacher. I hope that school goes well for everyone this week, and happy Birthday again Nathaniel. I love you all!
Elder B Kent Talbert
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Life, the Universe, and Everything
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
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
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
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