Haha just joking it definitely was clickbait, but I have to get more people to read my emails somehow. If you fell to the clickbait please let me know, I'm genuinely curious.
This
week has been an absolute douse let me tell you. So much has happened
so let's see if I can fit it into an email for your viewing pleasure.
Tuesday
was transfer day. A lot of chaos happens throughout the whole mission
on this day. I've heard that other missions all just gather at one spot
to exchange and everything, however the JKM does not do that. There's
always like 4 pages of travel logistics of this guy is taking this bus
to go to this place, while this other guy is being picked up by this
guy, to wait at the mission office to be picked up by this other other
guy and driven to our areas, and a whole leap of stuff like that. I
ended up taking a bus to Kingston and I drove to my new area. While I
was waiting for everything to happen, all of us at the office got our
own phones that were keeping with us the rest of our mission, as well as
our own sim cards and phone #s. We each have 16gb of data which seems
like a lot, but when yo8 have to do hours of zoom call meetings a week,
plus calling family on pdays, etc, etc it might go down fast. I'll
possibly give yall an update on how it goes later in the month. Don't
count on it though
Now
for one of the crazy parts of the week. My drivers test. I'd never
thought I'd have to take one of those again, but oh well. I got 100% on
my first one, so why should my second one be any harder? Well it was
definitely harder, but not unachievable. First of all, I haven't driven
in 8 months. Second of all, I haven't driven a truck in a year. Third of
all, I haven't driven a small truck like that in 4 years, and 4th of
all, I haven't EVER driven on the left side of the road, and right side
of the vehicle before. However President told me that all I had to do is
back into this spot 5 times, and 3 of them had to be good. Can't be too
hard right? He then proceeds to tell me that I'm allowed turn my head
around to see where I'm going, but that I'm only allowed to use my
mirrors. That literally goes against everything I've ever been taught
ever when it comes to backing up. As he told me this I can just imagine
my parents and Coach Briggs yelling at me on why it makes no sense to
drive backwards without looking backwards. However, I 1 nephi 3:7'd it
started to do it. My first attempt was absolutely horrible just because I
was getting used to driving again and being on the right side of the
car. That messes you up more than you'd imagine when you just start and I
felt like I didn't have complete control over the car, which was really
weird. I completely blew the first attempt and almost hit like 3 cars,
but then I did good enough on the last 4 to allow me to pass. Right
afterwards, I'm supposed to drive 3 people to their areas, pick up my
companion, and head to my area. However, right as we start driving, the
heavens open up on Kingston St. Andrew Jamaica. It was literally pouring
rain. There was easily a half a inch of water just flowing all over the
street with a decent amount of speed. Somehow by the grace of God we
got everyone where we needed to be with only hitting 1 curb, almost
knocking someone's head off with the side view mirror, and hitting the
windshield wipers while I'm trying to turn my signals on a couple times
too many.
2 days later
we get told we're supposed to drive the 3 hours back to Kingston after
being in the area for a singular day to get the truck checked out for
something or other. While its getting checked out, we just sat in the
mission office for like 4 hours with literally nothing to do. However,
while I was there, I saw on the board of missionaries that one of my lifeguard
friends from South Jordan pool is going to be coming to the JKM whenever he starts
and gets his Visa. If anybody knows Chris Block tell him that I'm hyped
to see him soon!!
Now
we've got another crazy story. So first of all, my area is complete
Bush. The joke around the mission is that my area is referred to as a
"extended camping trip", because there's literally nothing out here
whatsoever, just pot holes and back roads that lead to who knows where.
There's just so many pot holes of all different shapes and sizes, that
my companion has always referred to as "big". So while we were driving
down a new road I've never been before, he tells me to "watch out for
the big pothole". What's running through my mind is "oh just another big
pothole, I'll try my best to avoid it, it looks like trying to put it
between my tires would be the best way to avoid it and be less bumpy"
boy was I wrong. All of you that have driven with me know that I may
drive a little fast sometimes, but I'm not stupid when I drive. I'm
pretty aware of what's going on and slow down if I need to. So, I'm
trying to go decently slow over this pothole because you never know
what's going to happen when we literally just dropped. Why didn't
anybody tell me that the tower of terror was in the bush of Jamaica?
Anyways, both of my front tires end up just 3 feet lower in the ground
than the back tires, with my front right one rapidly deflating. As soon
as this happens my comp and I instantly get out to see what happened and
I'm kinda pretty pissed off at myself, I didn't swear though, so I call
it a win. Anyways we're on the phone with the vehicle coordinator
telling him what happened and everything when like 10 Jamaicans just pop
out of nowhere with like 3 car jacks and somehow start getting the car
out of the hole. Eventually a tractor came out too and pulled it the
rest of the way out. Apparently we're not the only people that have
fallen into the whole, but we might've been the only white people to fall
into the hole, so as soon as they helped us we started getting asked
for all sorts of things and we had to say no to most of them. However I
did give like 200 JMD (1.33 USD approx.) to the guy who did the most
work to get a juice. We ended up switching the flat on our own, which
wasn't too bad. However, its not crazy hot out here, but it's crazy
humid! I wasn't even hot but I was literally just dripping sweat. The
miracle of the week was that the tire was one of the biggest things that
happened to the truck. The front bumper had minimal bumps, dings,
dents, and scratches. I'm also still driving the truck as of right now,
nobody has told me not to so we'll see what happens later.
Since I'm also out in the middle of the Bush, we don't have a church building, or even a branch.
We had 5 people come to church yesterday, and we met underneath a mango
tree in the yard of one of our inactive recent converts. Supposedly
there's a lot of drama out here in the group and it's crazy. I'll be
getting crazy good at public speaking soon though from speaking every
week in sacrament meeting!
Another
crazy thing I found out this week was how much weight I've lost on my
mission. My new apartment has a working scale and it says that I'm
around 195. I haven't been that low since like middle school or
elementary school. I've lost like 35 pounds since I've been out here
which I'd absolutely crazy.
Spiritual thought:
As
I was reading through 1 Corinthians this week in the Come, follow me
book, I really liked the parts where it talks about the resurrection of
Christ and why its important. The people of Corinth started spreading
false doctrine saying its not real, and Paul had to step in and say why
are you so wrong? The resurrection is literally one of the big reasons
of why we follow Jesus Christ. When Christ performed the atonement, he
overcame the fall of Adam. When Adam partook of the fruit of knowledge
of good and evil, he became fallen. Fallen spiritually (meaning not
being able to be in Gods presence anymore), and physically (being
subject to mortal death). The resurrection part of the Atonement was
done so that we could overcome physical death and become immortal. I
know that this is true from reading the scripture and feeling the
promptings from the spirit telling me they're true. I encourage y'all to
read some more about it to grow your knowledge of our Savior.
Love y'all and bless up,
Elder Turnbow
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