Here's what Mackenzie had to say yesterday! I always watch the computer on my Missionary Mondays to make sure that I don't miss her. I got used to "chatting" with the boys and don't want to miss out on that opportunity with her. So here is her email and some of what we "chatted" about........
Love and miss you all so much, everything is going great here. I love Jamaica now. It was just so different at first. I miss every single one of you. Some times I think "hmm.. wish I could lay in my parents big huge comfortable bed and not have to worry bout bugs" or "hmmm wish I could go in the fridge and get some yummy food!" hahahaha but everything is going good. I have been touched by these wonderful people. Such a humbling experience....what we have at home.... it's like we live in a mansion compared to here. They seriously have nothing. Its really sad to see. Everyone is good and nice here :) I am still alive ahaha. I can't wait to get the cord so I can send you all my pics. I had a good experience my first night. I was excited to be in Jamaica. I stayed at the mission home and it was good. President B interviewed me and I bore him my testimony. Of course I have a strong testimony of the Atonement. That's something that me and Sister B have in common :). Pres B is wonderful. He is very loving. I just love him. He made me tear up because he just carries the spirit so strongly. I ate rice and broccoli my first night. More rice .... yayyyyyy.... The next day I got my companion then I drove to my first area. Sister B is from Mandeville . She is wonderful. Her father passed away when she was 15. She is one strong companion. I just love her. Everyone drives like 100 mph. Its like there is no speed limit and they always honk. Honking here means a lot of different things. Sometimes I get annoyed and want to honk back but I don't haha...so far. Since I drive a truck, when I pass kids they tend to run and jump in. So if we see kids we have to speed up or they will hop in the truck LOL. That's a funny little fact about Jamaica. We have a washing machine but no drier. We hang them up to dry. Our house is full of bugs.. and I mean a lot of bugs. There was a HUGE ROACH that woke me up one night. That's a funny story about me and my companion. I literally woke her up so she could kill it but she missed it and its still alive somewhere in our house. We have lizards, big ants and baby roaches in our house as well. It's just a lovely experience that we all have with gods creatures. They just love to be with us HAHAHA! its horrible and so gross but anyway.. I will take a picture of our house and show it to you. You will think its awesome. Our neighbor made us dinner thank goodness and she brought it over. We were literally starving so thank goodness for her! :) We don't have dinner appointments so we starve here. Everything we eat here is served with beans and rice except for pizza hut and burger king. Beans, rice and chicken.. and they keep the bones in the chicken. But i'm used to beans and rice. It's fine we are survivors. I have looked at the star apple but have not tasted it yet. It stains your mouth and you use the peel to clean your mouth. It's a clear foamy mess that you get on your mouth it looks gross. When you open it its a legit star inside with a lot of seeds. But I will try some and have my companion take a pic of me eating one haha!! They machete down their fruits from the trees lol. Also we don't get ensigns here.. but we get what is called Liahona? which is a magazine like the ensign. But you are more than welcome to send me ensigns that would be good to. Well this week here in Jamaica was different and I will tell you bout the experience I had haha!! Okay so we were walking down the streets and a guy stopped us and he said "what church you from"? We told him and he said "Oh okay" then he continued to say that he is a messenger to all of us and that he will assign himself 12 apostles. So in other words he thinks he is a prophet. I got so frustrated with him. But my companion and I left and LAUGHED so hard bout it! I have been teaching so many investigators and they are just wonderful. One person I just love and adore is this guy named S. He's my favorite. He is 22 years old and he confessed to us that he is addicted to ganja (weed in the U.S). I have talked to him so much about how he can become better . We have been working with him on that and he is now down to smoking twice a day.. which is such a BIG THING! He will soon have a priesthood blessing and I know that once he has that blessing miracles will happen for him. He has such a great desire to be baptized. He knows the church to be true so I am very excited for him. He will get baptized and he will be such an amazing member. He is awesome. For service last week we washed S's clothes. They don't use washing machines we washed by hand. So that was a great experience! Sister B told me that she feels that I came here for S, because of his addiction. She doesn't really talk with S but I do. I do my best to help him out. He has such an amazing spirit and I can see that, it makes me angry that Satan is doing the best he can to destroy him but we are not gonna let that happen. He is going to be baptized after this addiction is gone and done away with! Every time I give lessons here I tear up when I bear my testimony because I feel horrible seeing them in their situations and I just want to help them. Its just that I feel the spirit so strong in what He wants me to tell them. I tell them and I tear up. They listen and they feel good after I leave but that's some thing that is common for me here. I always tear up in my lessons.. well.. most of them. I begged this guy to better his life and I teared up and bore my testimony to him.. just like the Sons of Mosiah. I care for the eternal welfare and it saddens me to see them stuck in Satan's trap. I want them to endure this life to be with our Heavenly Father. That guy i talked bout was the guy who thought he was the prophet but he really listened... and he said that he knows we were supposed to bump into each other so that was a good experience even though he was such a weirdo lol. We go see this lady who is a less active and she is hilarious! She thinks everyone is after her. She says that people blow smoke in her window while she is sleeping? BUT she lives in a house where its all GATED round her whole house. There is no way people can get in. I just love these people.... and such wonderful children here. They just come up to me and hug me! I hate that I can't pick them up! dang it. Lots of crazy stories and it is hard at times.... but I keep pushing through. I go forward with faith in Christ and in my Heavenly Father. There's not a lot of people in the branch..it's small. We have like 5 families here that come to church...if that.....i don't know. Most of them are inactive because they have no way to get to church .. either they are too poor or they don't have shoes so its really hard for us as missionaries cause we are not allowed to take anyone to church. They believe the church to be true but they can't go to church. Its very hard for us to see that.. hard for us to see their living situations.. and hard for us to see them not coming to church. We always visit the church members in their home as well as investigators to keep them active. We just keep encouraging them to come no matter what the circumstances. Faith is a big thing here.... they just need FAITH. The church is not a church building. We don't have pews. They are more like picnic chairs. The branch is above a grocery store and the primary room is up in the attic. It's not a building! It's small. We all suffocate its so hot.. so we have fans all over the place in there. Testimony meeting was good. I bore my testimony. It's not big like ours but it was a testimony meeting. We just have a microphone and a little stand... that's it. There is no stage for the bishopric to sit on. Just our President L here who is our "bishop". I was able to watch general conference however, in our small little branch above the general foods here, we watched it on a small t.v. about the size of Adams new t.v.. Of course they didn't have a HUGE monitor that we could watch it on like back at home. Sometimes it would pause cause of the connection but hey, it was still a good conference. Okay, so today for P-Day we went to the falls and gardens with the senior couple, Elder H and Sister H. They are just so wonderful.They are awesome and so fun. They make me feel loved and at home. They are like my grandparents here. It was a blast. It was a fun day but very hot! lol!! The birds just flew all over us!! They had a ton of birds. It is definitely kind of like Okinawa. Both rain foresty and a lot of banana spiders! We couldn't climb falls dangit. In order for us to climb them we would have to be in the water and we can't get in the water cause we are missionaries but the senior couple could. We went over there to their place (the H's) for women's conference as well and it was wonderful. You definitely need to watch that. The elders are really nice. We are pretty close here. We all joke around and hang out. It's funny cause you see the missionaries in the u.s. and they are so quiet and sweet. But here we do all the activities. They all love us missionaries. It's just funny how we get used to the different cultures. How are all of you?? tell me all about it. So here are some Jamaican for you guys back at home. "Mecca gwaan" is "let us go", "Wagwaan" means "wats up" and when someone asks you about your day you say "everyting is everyting" haha! It's hilarious. I have gotten used to the country. I drive every day so I am used to the roads. Its a piece of cake now! This place is a third world country.. but its great I love it here. Yes I have mastered the language here as well lol!! I can't wait to Skype on Mothers day! Well hope everything is going good back at home. Love you!! and tell everyone I love them too.
