Young, wild, and free

 Morning y'all, hope life is treating you well, let me know how y'all are doing wherever you are in the world. That means email me or text me on messenger, not read this and ignore it:)

Anyways back to the fun Jamaica stuff. We've been having more success this week which is totally awesome. Last week we had my homie Ms. Dixon show up. She claimed that she had 3 visions that she should come to our church and she decided to act upon it and now we're teaching her. I've got a very good feeling about her and I'm knocking on our wood table as I type this to not jinx myself. We've also been trying to meet with more members instead of Street contacting, because referrals almost always have better results than random people that just want us out of their faces. 

Personally I'm doing pretty good. Last week I was a little pissed off because we weren't teaching very much and just walking around. Now that our roster is pretty set up I'm thriving. I'm loving the area and can probably survive a day or 2 out here without anyone's help. I can also understand what people are saying about 60-75% of the time. Jamaicans are really funny people when you actually know what's going on. I've learned that Jamaicans like to talk to actual Elder Turnbow who cracks jokes, and not fake Elder Turnbow, but I guess that's nothing different than average people. 

We had mission tour this week with Elder Nielson. It was actually a really good talk/devotional/discussion about the redeeming power of the Atonement compared to the enabling power. His wife gave some really good insights about how we need to love our companions and how we can get along with the ones we don't like very much. I took very good notes on that topic because as most, if not all of yall know about me, is that some people just really piss me off for no reason. I already know that President is gonna have some divine inspiration to give me a comp that absolutely drives me crazy. I gotta start preparing for that experience now. 

Elder Nielsen also came to church with us in Portmore. He got lucky that we had the best Elders Quorum discussion I've had here so far. Some of the ones we've had in the past have gotten a little off track/out of hand and may have had some false doctrine sprinkled on top of it. Nevertheless I'm glad he came today and not last time. 

Highlights of the week:

There's these little things called shops everywhere around Jamaica. Imagine everything that a gas station has, but it's ran and is on the side of a street like a lemonade stand. One day i was really craving this soda that's exclusive to Jamaica. Its called a Bigga. It's similar to Fanta where there's a couple of different flavors under the same name. Anyways I asked the shop keeper "do you have any Biggas?" It took a couple seconds of her awkward staring at me with a shocked look on her face to realize that she thought I said the N word too her. I had to quickly start explaining that I said bigga with a B, not a N, and that it's a soda. We had a good laugh about it afterwards 

My comp and I were out Street contacting earlier this week when we got caught talking to a Rasta. He started arguing with us about how we're getting paid, and that we're just here for the women and other things that people usual harass us about. My dear comp, Elder Stone, decided he wanted to have a good laugh with him and said "We aren't here for the women because of this" and continues to hand him a Law of Chastity pamphlet. We had a very good laugh about that one. 

Spiritual thought:

Lately this week I've been realizing how real the adversary is. Satan works hard on everyone everyday. I've felt his temptation and negativity even more than usual since I've gotten here in the field. Earlier this week we were praying with some guy on the street to help him get the strength to overcome his sickness and weakness. While Elder Stone was praying for and with this guy, I remember thinking "what the fetch am I doing, listening to my comp talk to himself in the middle of the street" after thinking that i immediately remembered all my experiences with prayer that has grown my testimony. All the times I've been on my knees, crying to my Savior. All the time that I've been in tough situations and I got down down pray and immediately felt comfort. All the times where I've prayed for help to overcome certain challenges and he's placed someone in my way that day to help me along the way. Anyways, this is kind of all over the place but I want to invite yall to get down on your knees and pray. I don't care how long you do it for, but just catch up with our Lord and Savior. Tell him how life is going, what's been good with life, what's been kind of sucky. I promise that he'll help you out with anything you need. Just remember to be patient and faithful, and be aware of everything. He may not help you in ways you're expecting expecting Him to, but you will get help.