Christmas ... Round 2

This week and getting ready for Christmas has been hectic. More so than any other time, or at least so it feels.

As part of being branch clerk, I get to take the deposit to the bank each week. Well someone decided to close the banks in Jamaica at the most ridiculous time of the day. 2:30 p.m.! It has nothing to do with Christmas either, this is for any other Monday through Thursday in the year. So when I went to take care of the deposit on Tuesday, we left Yallahs and reached the bank in Morant Bay at what time?... 2:30 p.m.! The doors are LOCKED! You cannot come in at closing time. I was more than miffed about the matter. I basically wasted $240 JD for nothing. So Elder Snelson and I had to go back on Wednesday. GRRRR

Then most of the week was spent getting ready for our branch Christmas social for Thursday night. Elder Snelson and I pretty much spent Thursday running around getting every last thing that was not acquired during the week. The social was well attended and went fine on Thursday, but getting ready for it was a big pain.

Friday was our Christmas party for missionaries... see photos. There was singing and skits. Pres. Hendricks made the comment that if Pres. Uchtdorf can talk about the Grinch in the Christmas devotional, we can watch it. So we watched the cartoon version and also Mr. Krueger's Christmas. I got a kick that Jimmy Stewart has a cat named George.

Saturday being Christmas was spent with joy and bliss. Getting to talk to family was so nice! Wish some of you could have been there.

TA-TA

Elder Huffaker

Hustle and Bustle

(Brandon's letter from December 20, 2010)

Even though it's Christmas and it doesn't affect us too much as far as getting presents, dinner supplies, etc.; it doesn't change the fact that us missionaries are always on the move.

First off, After emailing on Tuesday last week, Elder Snelson and I went back over to the Meddows yard and worked some more on the pile. We are now halfway through the pile! While going through this pile, we found forty-leggers. These things are deadly if they bite. We found a couple of them and they were killed on sight. Not the biggest ones I've seen, but enough to do some damage. The other thing we found were snakes. I don't know what kind of snakes they were, but they were silver, pink and brown in color. It was kinda a glossy color at that.

Wednesday after district meeting, the zone leaders took Elder Brough and I out to Morant Bay while Elder Snelson stayed in Yallahs with Elder Toutai. While there in Morant Bay we picked up some supplies from a building supply store for a member. It was kinda weird. There wasn't really an order to things and I'm surprised I got through. We had sheets of zinc and lumber going from the tailgate to the cab (on top) it was a sight to see and I had no camera. It was an adventure when we went to take the supplies to the members home. We tried to take the upper road, only to find out that the wall had collapsed at one part. So we had to back up (no space to reverse) and take the lower road. We were stoked that we made it backing up.

Friday was another rain dumping day. Thankfully we were inside when it started and it stopped long enough for us to get out the door and start down the road before it began again. It was kinda miserable Friday just to get wet and dry repeatedly.

Lastly, I dunno if I talked about this last week or not, but Elder Brough and I along with our companions sing the twelve days of christmas, adding one day for each day. Yesterday was seven swans a swimming and today we will add 8 maids a milkin'!

The pics are of Yallahs from the hillside overlooking it. I tried to get a closeup of our house, but there are a lot of trees in the way.

Merry Christmas
Elder Huffaker