One month left today!

Hey family! This week was great! We had no Pday on Monday since we spent the whole time in Kingston and coming back. Tuesday was our really our only real proselyting day of the week. We had our branch presidency meeting that day and got a bunch of stuff done that we needed to. On Wednesday we went to Santa Cruz for district meeting. Had a good little meeting there and then Elder Mathews came back to our area for a trade-off. I am pretty sure that after he came here for a day he did not want to go back to Santa Cruz! Even though it is only about 45 minutes away, they are very different! Coming from Mandeville, to go to Junction you turn towards the ocean, to go to Santa Cruz, you turn towards the desert. It is super-hot over there! It is always 15 degrees cooler in Junction than Santa Cruz and they are on bikes. I've turned into a pansy again, I can't stand being outdoors while in Santa Cruz because it is too hard! So the trade off went well; had good lessons with him there. Thursday we proselyted in the morning then I drove him back to Santa Cruz and we picked up Elder Sullivan. Pres. C. was with us and he showed us a back way to get to Treasure Beach. We were heading over there for a cottage meeting at Sister G.’s house. We had a good cottage meeting. There we 6 non-members there and 3 members plus us. We got to know each other and then we had a good spiritual thought on the importance of prophets. After that she fed us dinner. Had curry chicken, fish, and you guessed it, rice & peas. Friday was weekly planning. That is the only thing that I am excited not to do in a month. We went to a new seminary class in an area called T.  Last week only 1 girl showed up to seminary in that area so her parents said it would be good to have more youth there with her. Obviously we agreed, but the youth that are members in that area just aren't coming. They took it up to invite neighbors of theirs. Altogether there were 12 youth there this time, ranging from 5 to 15. It is a good thing the seminary teacher didn't show up because the lesson was supposed to be on D&C 77 I think. A question and answer given to Joseph Smith about the Book of Revelations, yeah that would have confused all them. We had a fun FHE thing with them tho and then explained that seminary is for a certain age group, but at least they invited people. Saturday we woke up early. We had to drive up to Munroe to pick up Prez C. and then we picked up the Santa Cruz elders and drove up to Mandeville. We had a few meetings there on Saturday. There was a family history training for family history consultants and missionaries. Only missionaries showed up tho. That was good. Then there was a priesthood leadership meeting as part of District Conference. Then there was the general Saturday session of District Conference after that. Only about 30- 40 people were at the Saturday session. Not that good for 5 branches. We took our mattresses up and we stayed the night in Mandeville on Saturday. We had to go to MayPen on Sunday for the Sunday session. It was super awesome to go back and see everyone from MayPen! I loved it!!! This conference this weekend was presided over by Elder Gammiet, he is an area 70 for the Carribean. It was good to spend a weekend with him.

I realized that I am down to 1 month left today...woah. Time keeps creepin’ up fast. I am usually too busy to keep track of time constantly so every few days when I realize how many days have passed since the last time I counted it blows my mind. I am enjoying this last little bit of time here. Thanks for the birthday wishes. For all of you congratulating me and saying now I am legal to drink, I have to say that I have been legal to drink for the past two years! The drinking age is 18 in Jamaica so all of that is old news lol. And now that I am 21, I am old news too. Have a good week. Enjoy the Super Bowl. Love ya!

Respect.

Elder Colton Harris



My 3 sons!

 

Restoration in Jamaica!

 

Alligator Pond and Kingston Traffic

So last week we went to Alligator Pond with a member of the Hopeton Branch and the Hopeton missionaries. We had a great time out there! We went and fried some fish. We didn't bring plates so we ate fish on banana leaves and almond tree leaves. How sweet is that ? I thought it was pretty cool anyways. Afterwards we went to a river and went fishing for a couple hours. That was super great too except that we didn't catch any fish ;( The locals said it is super easy to catch fish in that river but I wasn't seein' it. The river was sweet. It was this jungle river area. Tons of big trees with vines hangig down, I even went a little Tarzan for a second on the vines! After that we went to a sweet beach area. It had a big fresh water river that you can swim in running along the coast of the beach with amazing sand in the middle. That was a cool area.

Well I am sorry that I am sending this email very late! Today was a crazy day. I wrote the previous paragraph at the mission office this morning and now I am at the Vance's emailing. So we had to take our truck into Kingston to it serviced this morning. We woke up at 530 am so that we could get out quick and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there. We got there early and stayed all day in Kingston at the mission office. We left the mission office at 445 pm and it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get from one side of Kingston to the other! I hate traffic!! I was so ready to get back to Junction in the bush where there are no stoplights, no rush hour, etc. I am super glad I have never had a driving responsibility in Kingston cuz it would drive me crazy! It drove me crazy today!! Anyways, we had a great week. District conference in MayPen this week. I am glad to go back and see everyone in May Pen. Anyways, I'll talk to you next week. See ya next month. Love ya!

Love Elder Colton Harris

Fish! (I wish that we caught these!)

We forgot to bring plates, thank goodness for banana and almond tree leaves!!

Some beach

 

Alligator Pond!

Good morning everyone. Our week this week was pretty good. I am pretty sure that for the past 98 weeks or so I have started all of my letters with "our week was pretty good" guess that I am not original at all.

So I don't have a lot of time this week to email. I got on the computer earlier today and had to rush. We were meeting some other missionaries and a member from Mandeville down in Alligator Pond! I'll have to tell you about that trip next week and send pictures next week cuz it was super fun! Last week for Pday we also went to Alligator pond. We went down there are played soccer on the beach for a few hours. It was pretty fun because half of the field that we were playing on was sand and the other half of the field that we were playing on was the ocean every time a wave would come in. If you think a bunch of Americans can look uncoordinated with their feet while playing on grass, wait till you see a bunch of Americans playing soccer in moving water!   It was fun and that's all that counts. We also went to a restaurant. I ordered jerked lobster. It was pretty good, I would definitely recommend it to anyone if you get the chance.

We also did some missionary work this week. Next week I will have to tell you the story about a less active named P.G. I don't have time this week but next week I will.

Devin, I've heard that the sickness you got is comparable to chickungunya, if it is then I feel super bad for you. Chickungunya is terrible so I assume yours was too! Keep up the good work though!

On Saturday we received transfer calls. I am obviously staying here with my comp. It was just bitter sweet because this is the last transfer call that I will receive before the infamous "Elder Harris, yuu a gaa yuu yaad!!” (Elder Harris, you are going to your house.) 6 weeks is all I got, going to make it count.

Keep it Irie.

Love Elder Colton Harris

These are of last week’s Pday pictures.

Played soccer on this beach for a few hours last week. Was pretty fun. This is near alligator pond

Jerked lobster platter!

Jerked lobster again! It tasted pretty dang good!

2K15!!!

Happy 2015 officially now! Our New Year's celebration was was very simple lol. Just had our typical proselyting day, then New Year's day we did our normal proselyting as well. Actually we had a bunch of Kilometers (miles) left for the month of December so we decided to take our dinner break and drive to Treasure Beach to see if we could find somewhere to go get dessert or something, we get there and only bars are open.. nothing else so we had to come all the way back and ended up going to get ice cream at a little shop across the street from our apartment. Got some coconut ice cream and that was it.

We have been having a lot of success with less actives here, I might have said that before but it is true. President C. just has a great connection with all of them, and they all respect him a lot. There were only 29 people at Sacrament meeting yesterday, I conducted so I got to bear my testimony first. It went well. The Stake and the mission here in Jamaica are organizing another huge temple trip to Santa Domingo this summer. We are trying to prepare members so that they can go on that. There will be 154 persons from Jamaica going on this temple trip. They are chartering another airplane and are staying there for a week. The participants are going to only have to pay $150 US, and everything else is essentially covered for most people. The Lord's work truly is great and marvelous. It's a miracle the church is able to make it that cheap for those here in Jamaica. Even though it is only $150, it is still a HUGE HUGE HUGE sacrifice for essentially everybody. But these temple trips show the commitment that the church has to help establish real growth here in Jamaica, not superficial growth where we baptize everyone but they don't really progress too far after that.   

 

As for our investigators, they are still progressing slowly. Too bad, so sad. It is hard in this area. Taxis don't run on Sundays. For most here they either walk long long distances to get to church or they have to charter a taxi. Chartering a taxi costs about $1,500 even for just a few kilometres away from the church, that would be hard for me to pay $15 just to go to church every Sunday. It is difficult to help investigators see the importance of making the sacrifice necessary to get to church, especially when there are so many churches in their own communities that they could go to.

 

So with everyone freezing over there on that side of the world I'll go soak up some sunshine for all of you. We are heading to Alligator Pond right now with some other missionaries. It is the same place I went when I was at the very beginning of my mission and got jerked lion fish to eat, now I am going back at the end.

 

Well, I guess that I will see you guys next month.. crazy to say that. Have a great week, see you soon! Love you!

 

Elder Colton Harris

$1 US per strawberry anyone?

BIG COW! tiny truck

 

Happy New Year!

Well everyone, it is that time of year again, where it is the end of the year.. Skyping on Christmas was great! I can't believe that this was mission Skype 4 out of 4, I never thought that I would get to this point! Christmas week was great and hot as well. So Christmas day we skyped, then had dinner with Elder and Sister Vance. That meal was good, had ham and all the normal side dishes, it has been a long time since I have had ham! Then we went and handed out some Christmas cards to a few members and non members then went up to our branch presidents house and had dinner with them. It was an effective Christmas. Throughout the day we looked for opportunities to do service and stuff as well. Christmas traditions are a little bit different than they are back home or in Cayman. So Christmas eve here seems like the big celebration. In all the town centers they have HUGE parties, they call it grand market. They line the streets with the massive speaker towers that you've seen in pictures. There are lots of things that they can buy at grand market so I think that the things they buy at grand market essentially are the equivalent of Christmas presents I think. But everyone at grand market just seems to be drunk and smoking weed and just chillin in front of loud music. They stay there all night long, then on Christmas day, Jamaica is very quiet, more quiet than I have ever heard, Everyone sleeps for most of Christmas day since they were up all night. They get up and they do eat a big Christmas meal in the afternoon. Give or take a little bit, that seems to be the Christmas traditions here for the majority of people. Not too much to talk about since we Skyped this week. We have been having very good success with working with less actives, that has been very productive recently. Working with investigators... doesn't seem to be going as well as the less actives, but going forward none the less.  Have a happy New Year! Enjoy the time in California! 

That truck has massive speakers all the way around it.  That is at grand market

Star apple

 

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! To start off the letter today I want to start with the Christmas story in my nativish language.

"Iina dem die de, de Ruoman ruula, Siiza Agostos, gi aada fi rait dong di niem a evribadi iina im kingdom. (Dis a di fos taim niem a rait dong sins di taim wen Kiriniyous did a ruul uova Siriya.) Aal im piipl dem didafi go a di toun we dem baan fi get dem niem rait dong, so di gavament kyan taks dem. So kaaz Juozif did kom fram Dievid fambili an Dievid did baan iina Judiya, im did afi lef from Nazaret iina Gyalalii an go a Betliyem iina Judiya. Juozif go de wid Mieri fi get dem niem rait dong. Di tuu a dem did ingiej fi marie dem wan aneda an shi did av biebe iina beli. Wen dem de de, Mieri tek iin fi av biebi, an shi av ar fos pikni, wan bwai. Shi rap im op iina biebi blangkit an put im iina di baks we di animal dem nyam outa, kaaz no spies neva iina ges ous fi dem" -Luuk 2: 1-7

You can go read that alongside the English verses in Luke 2 if you can't understand them. That is copied straight from the patois bible in case you were wondering. Yes, they have a patois bible believe it or not. I can't wait for the patois version of the Book of Mormon, haha that would be the day! And for some reason, church headquarters calls this an English speaking mission, I don't see it, nor hear it very often. Nah, that patois above is very very thick even for locals out here.

Alright, we had our branch Christmas dinner on Saturday, it went well. We got just as many to that dinner as we do to sacrament meeting so that is good. We had almost 30 people. It was a pot-luck dinner. I made liver, turkey neck and curried chicken back and brought that to the dinner. I will say that I made them pretty good if I do say so myself. Watch out mom, your kitchen is about to get some new flavors brought into it in just a few weeks! At the Christmas dinner we put up the First Presidencies Christmas devotional to watch since I don't think anyone in the branch watched it last week.

Yesterday in church was just as hectic as last week. We had 4 speakers planned to give a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday and only 2 out of the 4 showed up. The first 2 speakers finished their talks at 10:40, which meant that there was still 25 mins left in Sacrament meeting. This time I had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting without any preparation. I still wasn't able to take up all of the time so we still finished early, but oh well. The Elders quorum presidency is getting rearranged so they never came prepared for the lesson, so taught that on the fly again like last week. At least we had bread for the sacrament this week though! We have been kept very busy the past couple of weeks. We got home last night at 9:20 and realized that we didn't take a lunch or dinner break yesterday. Not healthy or good for the body I'm sure, but by going that long without eating it makes Mac n' cheese taste so much more delicious than when you are getting 3 square meals! Don't tell my mission president our occasional eating habits lol. Speaking of my mission president, his wife had a baby this week, a little baby girl. I'm not sure what they named her but I did hear that she was born.   

I am super excited to Skype on Thursday! I hope you all have a great Christmas week! As we invite the world to discover, embrace, and share the gift of Christ this year, also remember that the same invitation is being extended to us personally as well.

Big up yute.

Elder Colton Harris

 

 

Pomegranate or in Jamaican a pomgunut straight off of the tree.

In an area within our are named Munro, very often it is super foggy up there, it's high in the mountains and we drive through a cloud all the time!

Treasure Beach area



Anybody want a mango?

The top of the mountain that's covered in clouds is Munro! This picture is takin from Treasure Beach. Super glad that I don't have to ride my bike up that mountain!! :)



Our sign on the Santa Cruz chapel

The kids here love the little toys that you sent out to hand to them!!

Does this compete with the one Devin saw?

Busy Day at Church!

So this week was another busy busy week. We went to Mandeville on Friday for zone conference and also had our Christmas party. Thank you for the Christmas package as well! It was great to receive all of the American candy! The dinner was super good that we had! I was so full for the whole rest of the day too! The spiritual food was great too! Pres Brown did a super great job. Elder Martinez from the Area Presidency came to all the zone conferences around the mission except to Mandevilles, so that was sad. Afterwards there was a little Christmas musical thing by missionaries, I thought about showing off all my musical ability by whistling a Christmas song,, but then decided not to lol, I might have ended up throwing in some Flow Rida lines or something on accident that would not have been good haha. But everyone else's talent was pretty ok. We had to go back to Mandeville on Saturday, there was a district-wide branch presidencies meeting that we had to go to. That was pretty good, took up most of our day again. Talked a lot about strengthening the youth. So we had a lot of travelling to do, glad that I don't have to do this travelling in a taxi! We also took some trips to an area called Treasure Beach. There are a few investigators out there and a few less active members as well. It is a pretty cool area, hopefully we are able to swing some pdays out there soon. There is a member out there named Sis G., she is a picture perfect member missionary. We had her and Pres C. with us on Tuesday and she was telling us about how many years ago when she lived in Canada, she prayed and dreamed of the day when missionaries would be in her community, and then she realized that she was now with the missionaries in her community do missionary work, going to see her friends and acquaintances to share the gospel with them. 

Yesterday was a super busy day, I mean super busy. We got sustained yesterday in church by Elder Vance, he is a senior couple missionary that the district presidency asked to represent them. Pres. C. also had me conduct sacrament meeting as well. There was only one priesthood holder in the congregation that was able to bless the sacrament so I also blessed the sacrament. When I went to the sacrament table after I announced the sacrament hymn, I noticed that there wasn't any bread, so the C. family in the congregation noticed that there wasn't any bread so they sent up a package of crackers. Yes, I blessed essentially the equivalent of Ritz crackers for sacrament. After blessing the sacrament I gave a talk in sacrament meeting on sacrifice. It went well. After sacrament meeting I was supposed to be handing out donor statements to members and having them go to Pres C. for tithing settlement, I noticed that the primary had no teacher so I taught primary for the middle hour of church. After teaching primary, I also went and taught elders quorum for the 3rd hour of church. After church now we went and did the tithing, and had to update a bunch of stuff n MLS. MLS is the computer system the church uses to keep all records and forms etc on. So I had to train myself howto use MLS and then train the new branch clerk the things that I was learning. It was a hectic 3 hours of church I tell you!

So it was a busy week, this next week will be just as busy I hope. It is getting really close to Christmas! Can't believe it is coming so soon! Love all of you! 

 

Layta,

Love Elder Harris

Pic 1) Sunset view from Pres C.'s house last night.

Pic 2) Treasure Beach

Pic 3) The owner of a resort in Treasure Beach is a member of the church and grew up in Idaho... can you tell? :) Deer sheds (antlers) in a tiki hut thing on the beach!! :)