wHaT!?

Well, as I'm sure you are all aware. We had a tropical storm/hurricane. So last Monday was prepping for the storm and getting all our supplies. AND WE WAIT.

Wednesday I went into Kingston for a leadership meeting with Pres. Hendricks and the Assistants. It was pretty good, except for the fact that I pretty much sat there all day. Elder Jarman went to Portmore for the day. When I finally got Elder Jarman back and reached Yallahs, it was 7:30 at night, and we left out at 5:00 in the morning. LONG DAY!

Then we had our "storm". Thursday was as quiet as all get out! I've never seen a place in Jamaica so quiet. We couldn't really teach anyone because they would lock themselves in their homes. This storm was supposed to hit Thursday morning, then Thursday afternoon, and then Friday morning. I'm sittin' here thinkin'.... what storm? It just drizzled a little and they got everyone worried about that. Well, I guess you can never really predict these things, better safe than sorry. But I'm still trying to figure out where the storm went.

Apparently it turned into a hurricane after it passed Jamaica and was on it's way to Haiti.

Friday was kinda interesting at our Friday night activity. We had two investigators that came (we had more than two but these two made it interesting) that also happen to be sisters. Well every game we played, I think they were out to get each other. Especially when it came to a water game. They just gave it! It was pretty funny to watch. AWWW Family love!

Lastly for this week. ITS 18 MONTHS!!!! This means I burn a pair of pants! WWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Please see photos:

Elder Huffaker

What a Week!

Well everyone, I hope you are doing just as good as me, because this week was interestingly amazing.

So, last p-day Elder Gantt and I decided we needed to cut our hair. I buzzed myself and had him line me up in the back. I'm sure many of you also remember that I can cut other people's hair . So, I trimmed Elder Gantt as well. Sometimes, however, barbers do make mistakes. I nicked a mark behind his ear. He threatened to shave his name into my chest. Still hasn't happened yet, so I have many sleepless nights ;).

Then, we went up to a member's house for dinner and we got to try cashew fruit. It wasn't fully ripe and it had the most bittersweet taste I've ever had. Ok, so it's more like sweet-bitter because that's how the taste works.

Then, on Friday, we made a giant chocolate chip cookie and had Jamaican cola to drink. That was a stomach killer.
Next, we received a phonecall on Saturday that Pres. Graff is no longer our mission president. Elder Coleman of the Seventy is our temporary replacement until the next one comes. No answers as to why as yet.

Lastly I celebrated my year mark with the traditional burning of a shirt.Elder Gantt and I also cooked up some spam and eggs. (Spam is a "delicacy" down here.)

Enjoy the pics!

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

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)