Awesome Zone Conference!

Well this week was really good! Tuesday we went into Mandeville for zone conference. That was really great! Elder Cornish was he for that and wow it was just great! In the past I have tried really hard in letters to quote things that they say or lessons that they give and when I read over them after they are typed I realize that they make no sense, so I don't think that I will do that this week, but just know that it was powerful! He talked a lot about working with less actives to do missionary work. Not just to get them reactivated but as a way to kill two birds with one stone essentially. He said to find non members around the less actives and start teaching them. This way when the less active is being taught with the non member friend it will bring back the good feelings the less active used to have when they were active. It works really good. The vast majority of less actives that you talk to love the gospel, they don't have any bad things to say about the church, just that they haven't come for a few years. So it was a 7 hour meeting of awesomeness and I was just able to ruin it in 1 paragraph.  Anyways we also had DLC (District Leader Council) before zone conference with him. It was a great meeting too. Elder Cornish and his wife, Prez Brown and his wife, the Assistants, the zone leaders, and us 3 district leaders were the only people in that meeting and it was powerful as well! For zone conference preparation like 2 weeks ago, Elder Cornish had all the missionaries prepare a 5 minute talk on the process of true conversion and another 5 min talk on My purpose as a missionary. They said that they were going to randomly call 2 missionaries to give those talks in zone conference. Well I prepared a really good talk on The Process of True conversion. I made it so good that I didn't even leave time to make a talk on My Purpose. So I said there is like a 1 in 30 chance that I even have to speak so I won't even worry about making one. Well pres announces who is giving talks about half way through zone conference and I was one of them. I am so glad he had me talk on the process of true conversion! I would have been able to wing a decent talk on the missionary purpose but I know that I always have to be prepared now just in case! The taxi ride to Mandeville was awful, they put like 30 people I swear in a 15 passenger van. Ugh it's awful.

This week an investigator invited us over for dinner. We got fed Kidney, calaloo, boiled green banana, and dumpling. It wasn't too bad. I will say that because there was kidney on my plate, boiled green bananas have never tasted so good in my life before! :) I ate it, it was doable, I think I like liver better though. I eat chicken bones now too. I think for you guys to hear that it might sound weird but it's not too bad, you guys should try it sometime after you get done with some KFC chicken or something.

Yesterday we woke up and had no electricity AND no water in our house. Try getting ready for church without a shower or an ironing board while on a mission lol. We actually have a reserve tank of water that is hooked up to our bathroom so that is good! Water goes out pretty often so I am so grateful for that! Sometimes when the water goes out in the house, I have to go and rinse off my lettuce or whatever I want to wash off in the shower. It's a little bit awkward gut it gets the job done. It's better than other houses in the mission tho, there is one house where they only have water in the shower, so they do everything from putting water in their oatmeal to washing all the dishes with the shower. We have to fill up our washing machine from filling up buckets in the shower and taking them to the back of our house and dumping it in the washing machine. Hey it's a heck of a lot better than hand washing so I deal with it!

Well have a good week now that school is starting! Happy birthday Grandpa Newman and Kierstin this week! Pictures are coming next week hopefully. The camera fixer man is on Jamaica time and keeps saying "Your camera soon come." <-- that's Jamaican for it's going to take a long time! :)

Big Up.

Elder Colton Harris