It is pouring service!

Family! 

      Well Devin is off, wow. I am glad that he got there all safe and sound. The mtc and Brazil in general is going to be so sweet! Anyways, as for Jamaica...another week has passed by and this week was a little bit of a different week for us, but it was still a good week. 

      So as you probably know, after every lesson we usually ask if there is anything we can do for whoever it is that we are meeting with. We usually volunteer to do service in the yard or help paint their outside grills or cement walls, (which they paint often). Well since their has been a drought the past couple of months, no one has needed their yard chopped or anything. The past 4 or 5 months we have been asking and no one has needed anything done. They don't have irrigation here, so when it rains, stuff grows, when it doesn't rain, things don't grow... and that is your science lesson today brought to you courtesy of Elder Harris 1! :) Ha anyways, so since there has been quite a bit of rain the past 6 weeks or so everything is growing, almost everyone we ask now wants us to come over to help chop their yard. I guess the saying that when it rains, it pours, in this case it is pouring service. We are limited to 4 hours of service per week so we are trying our best to spread it out and get to everyone. Since there is a lot of service going on Elder Chappell and I decided to go out and buy machetes (that's what we use here to chop yard aka cut grass and weeds. I've never been so grateful for weed wackers and lawn mowers in my life till I came here, even push lawn mowers I am grateful for.) Thurday we had service at  one of our investigators house, her name is S. She has pumpkins growing on this steep rocky hill next to her house and there are these other plants, they are weeds but they are like vine weeds that grow throughout her pumpkins so in order for the pumpkins to grow and not get suffocated out, we had to go and pull all these vine weed things. We had to have pulled out miles of them, just small little vines, and we were only working in a pretty small area. It looked a lot  better. In 2 hours I think that I sweated at least 5 whole gallons of waters. It was pouring off of our faces like a water fountain for 2 hours straight.  Saturday we also did service for a recent convert's father. We went to his house and helped him chop his yard, that one didn't last as long. He was a funny guy. He spoke thick thick patois, he couldn't understand perfect Enlgish when I was talking to him. It's funny cuz the more slang I talked and the more I mumbled and joined my words together and talked faster, the more he understood when I talked. Afterwards we went and helped a member trim her hedges for a little while. 

     There were 3 missionaries in the district that got sick this week, I know that 2 of them had chickungunia virus and the 3rd one might have had it too. It was 3 different missionaries all living in 3 different houses here in May Pen so we couldn't really set up splits with the healthy companions. I went with Elder Lee for a few hours on Wednesday so that he could get out of the house. Elder Lee is from Spanish Town and lived close to where we did while I was there, he would go to lessons with us while I was there so now that he is out on his mission it is cool to have him in the district. I went with Elder Arrington on Thursday for a few hours in his area, we went and did some finding so that they could get some return appointments cuz right now they are struggling to find people to teach, so I went there and just talked to everyone on the streets that I could and we got some return appointments for them so hopefully it works out. It's not the most effective way to find, but it's a lot better than nothing. The other one that got sick was a sister so not a lot of help from me there. It's been a weird first full week for Elder Chappell.  He had to stay in with the sick companions for those trade offs.

      Wow, a rainstorm just barely moved in and it sounds like a big one! The buildings here, including the internet cafe that we are at, they have tin roofs lined with a really thin particle board on the underneath side as a ceiling, so when it rains it gets super super loud cuz it's a downpour hitting tin.

     This week we also helped a one armed rasta change his flat tire, we were just riding by and thought we would help. Before we stopped we didn't even know he had one arm so it worked out good.

      The water and electricity has been super off and on this week.  IDK why, it's super annoying. we can't do dishes when there is no water so I ended up having to eat cereal out of a cup with a knife cuz that was all that was clean. (It's a good thing I had some water in the fridge so that I could make my cereal that day since we use powdered milk. as you know the non refrigerated box milk is gross and costs $1,000 per gallon so that is only an occasional treat.) 

      As for investigators, A. didn't come to church again! NO! Sometimes I wish that I could take away peoples agency and make them come! I think I am slowly starting to understand how Heavenly Father feels when we know what is right but we choose to do what is wrong anyway. For this example, I know how much church will bless her in her life, but we can't force her to do it. C. came to church again. She is doing good, just is super scared of acting on spiritual promptings. She is letting fear get in the way of her faith. Another investigator came, his name is P. He is a new investigator but hopefully things turn out well for him. Also S. didn't come to church. Ugh. Had a great great lesson with her this week with a recent convert who is or used to be friends with her way before either of them started talking to the missionaries. The recent converts name is Pr.  and was just baptized last month. We met at the church and had a lesson on the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has changed Pr.'s life and she contributed a lot to the lessons and bore powerful testimony. I love recent converts testimonies because they are so pure and simple, yet powerful. They haven't had enough time in church to say a scripted or repetitious testimony, so it's great! They will be good for each other in the church.

    

Well this week was good, have a good week back home! Love everyone.

One Love

Big Up.

Elder Colton Harris