The New Week

Brandon's email came on time, but my hit-or-miss internet access while camping kept this post from being on time. His first photo shows his weight loss; the second one is him cutting a new notch in his belt, and the third picture is the notches with progress dates. Any guesses on how many pounds he's taken off?

He writes:

Well, well, well, it has been quite the week here.

I've learned that they need to announce a new weight loss advertisement. It should be called the Mormon Missionary. All you have to do is join our religion and serve a mission. HAHA!! It really does work!

On a new note, our P-days have now been shortened. This is effective for all missionaries everywhere by announcement of President Monson. We now end P-day at 5 instead of 6.

Elder Harris is now going on a special diet (he's hit 18 months) now all he eats is bread, tuna fish, eggs, and mac'n'cheese. He only eats breakfast and lunch (supposedly) so I laugh everytime he complains. I've been doing that since I got on the island (the eating at breakfast and lunch only).

We had Zone Meeting last Wednesday. It was very good and spiritual. We're supposed to do our interviews with President those days, but our interviews went short because he had to go somewhere for another meeting.

Along the lines of President Graff, we're now going to be remaining in our areas a lot longer. Before, you'd move about every 3-4 transfers, now it's more like 4-7 transfers. So I'll probably be seeing less of the island now. (I'm disappointed.)

I've finally met Elder Talbert (Mom talks about him a lot). He dropped off a bike for me. (FINALLY!) He saw my Rubik's Cube. He picked it up, messed it up, and fixed it with only 3 glances. CRAZY!!!

I dunno if I've talked about it before, but people down here have yardnames. They basically have a second name given to them. For instance, the lady I just baptized, her real name is Falyn (Fay lynn), but her yard name is Clair. So sometimes, you could be looking for someone who "doesn't exist."

Last Tuesday, our power went out again, this time at 11:00 at night; it didn't come on for at least 18 hours. Needless to say, I had a gallon of milk in the fridge that went bad. Which is another thing, I didn't know powdered milk could go bad. Apparently it does.

That's all for this week.

P.S. Check out the weight loss (I'm not saying how much)

Repent Ye!

Brandon sent a few interesting pictures this week. Before you cry foul, please know that we will be sending him a new pair of shoes, but are debating whether to send them separately (as we've been advised to), or to follow suit-no pun intended-with Brandon's companion, who received a pair of shoes together without problem. If you're not aware, shipping items to the island can be hit-or-miss, if the local postal workers think they can sell something you've sent, it can disappear before delivery. So if you separate a pair of shoes into 2 boxes, about a week apart, you're more likely to get them through. After all, who is going to buy just one shoe?If shipping weren't so outrageous, I wouldn't even worry about it. Anyway, Brandon sent this:

Well, I experienced my first bus preacher. HAHA! Interesting, right? There apparently are people who when they get on the bus will just shout quotes from the Bible and a few other things and a repent ye in there too. I was laughing inwardly the whole time. I wanted to just yell, "Wo unto all ye hypocrites!" haha.

Well, we have a new assignment from the mission president, President Graff. We are to find 5 less-active members each week and work on bringing them back to church. Needless to say, while we were looking for one of these members, we walked for an hour and a half in one big circle. We realized that when we saw our branch president's house, which is in the area we started. That sucked! Then we realized we were in the wrong area. We were going down roads we didn't know and eventually got to the circle point. THAT WAS CRAZY!

Wednesday, after District Meeting, Elder Harris and I tried to do some shoe shopping for me. We stopped at 5 shoe stores, none of them had size 13's in a polishable black shoe. That was dumb. So we're going to another town called Maypen today to see if we can't find any.

There's been a lot of new changes with our new mission president. We now are supposed to locate those 5 people every week, and a few other weird changes. Not only in rules, but there are some elders that have been having problems, so there has been a lot of missionaries moving around the island.

That's all for this week!

Elder Huffaker

And in a P.S. for him, he sent this photo with the question, Can you tell what's wrong with this sign? (You may have to click to enlarge it)

Two out of Three Ain't Bad

(Um, the title is from the song; no reflection on the content of the blog entry.)

Brandon's email brought pictures and news of a baptism! We're so excited for him. He writes:

Alright, so I met the new Mission President last Wednesday. President Graff is an interesting person and has already instituted new rules. The trip to zone conference is much better though. We travelled to Linstead, and once you get out of the cities, it is beautiful country. There's times when it looks like the plains of Africa with the weird trees, like you're along the Amazon and like the forests back home. ITS AMAZING!

I learned that investigators will sometimes join the church thinking that we can solve their problems. Thinking we will give them money for dental care or to get glasses, etc., then they don't come to church anymore when they realize this. Makes ya wonder how many investigators are sincere.

We baptized 2/3 of a family yesterday. The father and mother were baptized (the Seaton family), but when the son watched, he flipped out and did not want to. He sat in the water for like half an hour and just wouldn't. We're working with him for next Sunday though. Elder Harris baptized Bro. Seaton and I baptized Sis. Seaton.

On the way to the baptism, we passed a donkey cart, like the one photo that's been goin' around on the internet. Except instead of a truck cab, it was just a wood cart. But it did have the car tires. Haha.

Then last night, the power went out in the middle of the night. It sucked! I kept waking up waiting for the power to come on and cool me. That was one of the roughest nights I've had here.

I'm getting a watchline with my "amazing tan" I would like to hear everyone's opinion on whether I should keep it or get rid of it. Lemme know!

Elder Huffaker

This Week

Brandon's weekly email was a little short, but full of news. With no new pictures to add, this will be a short blog entry. He writes:


This week has been pretty interesting. I had my first jellie (an unripe coconut). Before they become coconuts, they call them jellies and they have this water that tastes pretty weird. Still waiting for an actual coconut.

Ladies down here are obsessed with hair extensions. They love to use them, especially colored ones. One of the things they do down here as well is wash their shoes. I mean stick them in a bucket of soapy water, take a brush and scrub. I've never done that before, but they like their shoes nicey-nice.

This week we had 6 investigators at church. It was amazing! The only bad thing was is we were supposed to have a baptism yesterday, but the investigator called in the morning and backed out. But we do have 3 for this week that are really solid.

That's all folks,

Elder Huffaker

It's the News

Brandon sent a few more pictures to go along with this email; the first is the elders in his apartment (house): Elder Jones, Elder Huffaker, Elder Harris and Elder Darling, taken the day Elder Jones went home. He took a few shots of the view from the house, and the last photo is of his suntan - after only a month there's a big difference between the arms that see the sun, and the legs that don't!

He writes:

Alrighty, so the most popular thing going on here in Jamaica is the fact that Michael Jackson is dead. So they have been playing his music nonstop! Forget the reggae and the dancehall! Someone even pulled out 4 speakers 3ft by 4ft by 2ft in the middle of the street just playing his music!

I've had my first taste of straight-up noni juice. That is soooo bitter. We got it from our progressing family. I learned that there is a difference when you say peel an orange down here. When you say peel an orange, it means to just get rid of the orange outside, they leave the cream rind on the orange, so if you don't want that part, you say you're gonna peg an orange.

Elder Jones, a Jamaican missionary who I lived with died (finished his mission) and went home Wednesday, I got to see him yesterday at a district conference (equal to a stake conference) in Maypen. When Elder Jones went home, Elder Darling, the other elder living with us, joined our companionship and we became a threesome. We felt that we probably looked formidable walking around. That was Elder Harris' first time in a threesome and he's been out for almost a year and a half.

So I mentioned district conference in Maypen, that's probably the last time I will see President Gingery, being as he goes home today and President Graff will be coming in. They talked about preparing this district for becoming a stake and also the Kingston District, and they dissolved 3 other districts and made the branches mission dependent. Still no stakes yet, and they say it's because of a lack of worthy Melchizidek priesthood holders. So the sooner we get more of them, the sooner the church will flourish here.

Elder Harris finally got his shears back from some other missionaries, but they're broken, so it looks like we're goin to a Jamaican barber, which I have heard, are not too good at cutting hair. they're more of stylists down here.

A couple of emails ago, I mentioned bag juices, and I finally realized what they're like. It's similar to otter pops, except instead of tube form, change it to like a ziploc bag, sandwich size. I picked up some rice a couple weeks ago and cooked up too much rice, so I was eating rice for about a week, and I finally finished it last week on Wednesday!

Last Monday, Elder Harris and I went and played some good-ol' American football in Spanish Town. It was the Spain zone (mine) against the Kingston zone, needless to say we lost.

That's all for this week