All New!

Yes, it's official, the latest transfers are over! I'm still in Old Harbour, but I now have a new companion! I'm now with Elder Olson, who was in Linstead last transfer. GET THIS! They turned the house back into a four man house intead of two man. IT GETS BETTER! Elder Tonks and Hicken are the other two Elders. Elder Olson is from Spokane. Elder Tonks lived in Spokane until about 2 months before his mission. Elder Hicken has already been in Old Harbour (about a year ago). I can relate with everyone really easily. IT'S AWESOME! Elder Harris was moved to Kingston.

So on the Wednesday when they all got here we did a deep cleaning of the house - it needed it and I couldn't do it all every Monday. THE HOUSE IS CLEAN!!!!!! It's really great being here. I feel as if I've left a big pit of despair. They are no longer dividing into areas for missionaries, but are just sending them to serve in cities. So we can go wherever we want. We did decide, however, to split up our less-active members we see.

I also got my mom's package, which included a box cake and frosting, and we celebrated transfers (since my birthday was about 3 weeks ago). It's goin' really great down here.

Sorry I don't have any photos, but I promise to have some next Monday, we got to go and purchase more stuff for the house now that it's a four man again.

LATER

Elder Huffaker

The Rain is Tess...

It rained a lot this week, and it just made me think of a song from the musical, “Paint Your Wagon,” called Mariah. The song takes place when it just rains and pours constantly.

Photos or no photos, an email is always good to have. No package, no dear elders and I’m only receiving the monthly letters from Brother Young. I'm guessing the box should be here by Wednesday, which is also when transfers are (instead of Thursday when they used to be) I really need to pick up a hole punch, unless you sent one, so I can "document" all the letters I receive.

I haven't really been anywhere to take scenery photos, the best place to get those would be on the way up to Linstead, and I haven't gone that way in the longest time, everywhere I'm at is so developed. As far as changes go, transfers are this week and I won’t find out what's happening to me until its here... They want to send two more missionaries to Cayman and two more to Turks and Caicos, which means a total of 14 missionaries off island now. (Cayman:4, Turks and Caicos: 4, Bahamas Nassau: 2, Bahamas Freeport: 4) Transfers are Wednesday instead of Tuesday now, so we'll see what happens.

As far as the work in Old Harbour, it's taken a sharp drop. We have people that won't keep commitments and it looks like we're gonna have an all new teaching pool, instead of gradually adding and dropping some. President Graff did meet with the investigator that needed interviewed, but she has since had a change of mind on getting baptized. Same with another investigator we had. It's seriously taking a turn for the worst since I've been here. We are very far down on investigators and dropping a lot and it looks like more will be dropped. I know we've got one solid 14 year old girl who has already been coming to church with a member before being taught by us. The next closest baptism right now looks like Oct. 18, unless by some miracle we get a turn of events. Our inactives are not going so well, we've had 3 out of the 70 or so inactives actually come back to church, sadly though it was only for one Sunday that they came back.

Last Tuesday, when our mission president came here with his assistants to do the interview for baptism, my companion, Elder Harris, went with him and one of the assistants, and I went with the other. (our own little splits) Then, he went on a trade off this Wednesday and the district leader came here to Old Harbour with me, and my district leader is really weird. He would walk on the other side of the road for as long as possible and really complained a lot.

Then I decided to do some experimental deep frying this week. I made deep fried "snickerdoodles" For those of you who aren't familiar with snickerdoodles, they're a sugar cookie with cinnamon. I just threw together flour, salt, sugar, water, baking powder and cinnamon (not necessarily in that order) and deep fried them. Very good and I highly recommend it. There's no set recipe, so experiment for yourself if you want.

Next Monday, you'll get the update on what's happening here in Jamaica. Keep it up at home, and I sent a snail mail last Monday, so it should be there either at the end of this week or sometime next week.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS,

Elder Huffaker

A Quiet Week

There isn't much that happened this week. We did have a couple of baptisms postponed though. We have to get our mission president to make sure they're ready. Normally a district leader does the interview unless a big concern arises. Well, we've got a couple of candidates with that issue.

We had quite the experience yesterday. A recent-convert brought her uncle, who was visiting from Chicago to church. Needless to say, we found out that he was a Pentecostal minister. So in the middle of our last meeting, he stood up and went on about the day of Pentecost (because that's pretty much the only thing they know). I was just blown away that a visitor would stand up in the middle of church and start preaching his own doctrine.

That's all for this week, sorry I have nothing else.

Elder Huffaker

A Week Mostly Dedicated to Food

Well, I've had quite the interesting week. Yes I am now officially 20 years old and I don't feel too much different thankfully. This email is mostly dedicated to food as I have had quite a few experiences.

I learned that peanut butter is not best to leave on your skin. It eventually becomes a lot like superglue and hurts when you 'peel it off'.

This last Wednesday was zone meeting and we learned how to make a weird juice mix that's supposed to be like Gatorade, but isn't. Afterwards, we went to Pizza Hut/KFC like usual, and Elder Harris and I had a specialty pizza called the jerk sausage bites pizza (see photo).

Then Friday I made a birthday cake, double decker style. It was a white cake with cherry frosting. (see second photo)

Then yesterday, while we were at a recent convert's house, I ate aloe vera. Yes that's right, he grows the plant and gave me a slice to eat. It smells like onions but is very slimey and takes a lot of water to get down. It also has a bad after taste. He also has an almond tree and you can eat the fruit of it. The nut is not the only thing edible (I didn't know).

Lastly, we had some cool cloud formations. I wish I had my camera but we're not supposed to walk around with it. One of them looked like the surface of Mars and another one looked like waves in the ocean at night. Wish you could've seen it.

Elder Huffaker

How to Find Little Joys

Brandon's email this week was 3 1/2 days late. I still can't figure out the delays. The first photo is of the cinderblock making machine he talked about last week. Then, Brandon described how they ran out of propane to cook with, and he finished cooking his egg on the iron, as shown in the second photo. Ahh, the mother of invention!

August 31, 2009

First off, I hope everyone is having a good week. I do love to hear from everyone and always look forward to emailing.

This week, I've noticed that my companion's and my life are a lot like Shrek and Donkey. I'm Shrek and he's Donkey. He just keeps on talking and singing, and I can't get him to shut up. Other than that, I'm not like an onion. ; D

Last Wednesday, I had a pizza! I enjoyed it so much! Just a plain pepperoni pizza is amazing. Me and two other Elders went in on this pizza. HAPPY DAY!!!

As far as what is happening in the mission, we are no longer allowed to cut our hair very short. We're in one of the hottest countries in the world and we cannot have short hair. On the next note, it's rumored that someone is training in the Caymans. Everyone is not happy about that. Going off island used to be an honor to good missionaries and you had to be at least 6 months out. Apparently not any more.

I also learned how to make a glaze. I tried making some frosting with a recipe my mom gave me. Generally you use powdered sugar, but I don't have any so I tried using regular sugar. When I was whipping the frosting, it was still very chunky, so I tried applying heat to see if I could get the sugar to break down. It didn't, but I did learn that's how they make a glaze like for doughnuts.

On another note, I have found a "replacement" for little Emma in my life. There's a family we're teaching that has a 9 month old daughter. So when she started to cry during a lesson Elder Harris was teaching Sunday, he immediately said, "Elder Huffaker, quiet that baby!" So this is one of my little joys on my mission, although we still can't hold children. :(

Well that's all for this week.

Elder Huffaker

We Pause Now for Station Identification. Please Stay Tuned!

It appears we have another week of emails that did not make it through to us. On that thought, I am creating a new email account for myself, in hopes that it will work better for Brandon. I'll post his next message......... as soon as I get it!

In other thoughts..... please keep Brandon in your thoughts and prayers; this Saturday, the 5th of September is his birthday. He's turning 20! So Happy Birthday to Brandon, and we keep him in our prayers continually.