Called To Serve - Jamaica : Week 10 - Jamaica

Eric Joseph Call

Jan 23 at 1:17 PM

Hello,

I have been going out and doing some great work I've sent you voice recordings the past weeks I have been using those as my group e-mails from now on it saves me alot of time to email. Maybe I forgot to send them but I know I sent one this week. I've been doing great other than since Friday we have had no running water in our house so that is way fun!

Dad! That's awesome you went out and did some visiting. If that was happening in Jamaica we would have so many less active members come back to the church. The awesome thing is the members here in Yallahs are getting organized and are doing their part now and it's awesome I love the work going on here in Yallahs! Sounds like same old Idaho in the winter but I still love it!!
Here it's so freaking hot I'll be ordering some new garments because cotton poly are way to hot! I also had some awesome shaved ice today when we dropped off the tithing money in Morant Bay. Elder Boyer and I have had some fun on our p-days even when it really is just chores some days. I got my hair cut today by a Jamaican and I was super worried, but it looks quite nice. I'll have to send ya a picture. I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing well. I am trying to do my best to serve the Lord and to align my will with His. I love it so much doing this work! I also saw on the TV at the bank a bunch of things that are going on with Donald Trump and some of his plans sounds quite interesting. I wish you luck haha. I'll be back for the other half - oh boy. I'm continually seeing miracles as I strive to do my best and be obedient. Thanks for e-mailing me every week love ya and keep the pictures coming they are great!

Love, Your son

Elder Call

Eric started sending a Voice Recording via email - mom decided to transcribe them to text so she could post them on the blog because the recording is not in a format that allows it to upload to the blog. Hopefully there will be a transcription of his recording every week if mom can keep up!
Below is the transcribed recording he sent on Monday, January 23, 2017:

Watta Gwan everyone!! – that means “How’s it going” in Jamaican or Patios (Patwa). Hope you are all doing really good! It has been great here, it’s been a great week! Last week you probably got my recording and I sounded all depressed and sad but I really wasn’t, I was just sick and I was done with it – but I was able to get out this week with Elder Boyer and we killed it we did some really great work. We’re really busy with Branch stuff right now, so yesterday we were at the church basically all day but yeah that was rough. Friday we had branch day and we were here at the church most of the day but the days we are able to proselyte we try to do our very best we got to see a lot of people this week. There is a lot going on here in Yallahs!   It’s a beautiful place!!!!
Oh yeah, forgot to tell you also we’ve been out of water since Friday, so that’s great. We have no running water we’re just having to use 5 gallon jugs that we have filled up and we don’t have any more now so the office Elders are supposed to be arriving at our house sometime soon to give us twelve more of those. Hopefully our water comes back on soon though because we are going on day number four now that we have no running water so that’s nice; take bucket showers, fill the toilet up, wash dishes in tubs, we haven’t done that yet so we have to do that today before we go out proselyting again. Yah it’s been great, real enjoyable.
On a more spiritual side, Saturday we went to Spanish Town to the Stake Center there and Elder Gamiette, our area Seventy; he spoke with us. The meeting was from about nine o’clock until about 12:30 but it felt like a half an hour meeting, it was so fast. I loved it! I learned so much there! One of the biggest things I learned is that Elder Gamiette said, “that when you are teaching right and you are teaching with the spirit, you shouldn’t be teaching, the investigator is going to be teaching themselves and they’ll know the truth so much that they can’t deny it because they taught it themselves and so they are gonna want to hide from you and not hear the truth because they know it’s the truth but they are scared to see you because you’re the one that helped them to realize it on their own.” It was really powerful for me and member work, member work is huge; it’s like a team of oxen, if only one side is pulling no matter what you are not going to be able to pull through with that because if one ox is pulling and the other one is not pulling equally it doesn’t distribute and it’s that same with members and missionaries and Elder Boyer and I have really tried to incorporate that in our work. This week we saw Marsha and Leaele they are doing good, they were on a trip Sunday so that’s a big problem so CJ might not be able to get baptized this next Saturday so there’s that. We’ve been meeting with Oralee, who’s also someone we were planning on putting on date he’s just not really willing to commit to church because he has school and he’s really busy, we’re working with that as well so we’ll see how it goes. We also have an investigator named Andreen, haven’t been able to see her at all this week. She’s been up in a place called Montpelier haven’t seen her at all but I’d say the work is going very well really enjoying it here in Yallahs!
We have a missionary broadcast this Wednesday that could apparently change mission rules worldwide so that’s gonna be something really interesting. We’ll see how that goes. I am excited to see what it’s like. It’s going to be interesting I can definitely say that it’ll shape my whole mission.
It’s been stinking hot here in Yallahs and freezing cold in the mornings, like 70 degrees; I need a blanket haha, it sounds so weird to say that haha!!   This Wednesday we’ll have to go into Kingston and that’s actually quite a ways from Yallahs. I also got my first Jamaican hair cut today, had a Jamaican cut it for me. He actually did a really good job, I was really worried because most missionaries say a lot of Jamaicans will really screw up your hair but he did really good, it looks nice so I like it a lot.   This week has been great! I’ve been reading a lot in the end of Mosiah just talking more about kind of the uprising how people get out of temptation like after King Noah and everything; his son Limhi was a very righteous man and they were trying to do the very best they can fighting against the Lamanites and being with the Lord so it was really impressive, I was impressed by that. I enjoyed this week, it was really effective. Hope you are all doing well back home and living your lives as best as you can and always just trying to follow our Savior. Just remember your Savior loves you, no matter who you are, no matter where you’re at your Savior loves you. I love you guys. Bye Bye