Week 25

Finally, some pictures! 

This is from 2 weeks ago, when he fell in this 'gutter' while showing off popping wheelies. 

He titled this one, 'Adventures in the Caves'. lol.

Slack lining in the Jungle. I think this Elder is cheating though...

Investigators kids, they really like to climb he said. 

Rock cairns after a baptism

Eating cook shop in the middle of the road like bosses. 

The sisters new convert

His district. His comps are the one in the front left, and the one you can barely see.

Luke as a gangster. I don't think he's pulling it off...

Transfers and Glasses

Mom,

If all I could say
was three words for this day
If thats all I could share
To let you know that I care
It sure would be tuff
But it's still just enough
To say
I love you

Happy birthday Mom, I think your birthday's this week right? I'm a terrible son ;)
but I really want you to know how amazing you've been in my life Mom. You've raised me up right and taught me so much, not to mention being my best friend, and all the love you show me.
I love you mom.

Interviews with President Brown were awesome, 5 min. in I started crying and didn't stop till after I'd finished the closing prayer, he cried a lot too. At first, I didn't feel like he understood me but by the end I knew he could really understand me. That guy is amazing. He went teaching with us after the interviews and he made me and Elder Gordan and the investigator cry, it was so spiritual.

Transfers came and I'm leaving Linstead and moving to Old Harbor, and I will be with Elder Simpson. He's 5 foot nothing and Scottish,  he's got a serious accent-- so, pretty stoked for that. Today we went to the caves again. I'll send the pics next week it was way fun.

I bore my testimony so hard to an investigator-- she just looked at me and said, "I hate to admit it... but I just know everything you're saying is true!" What!!!!! It was sick! The spirit was so strong and I felt so much love for her that at the end of the lesson I gave her my glasses. Let me rewind, at the beginning of the lesson she asked if she could try them on and she said they worked really well and she could see great. She had such a bright smile on her face the second she slipped them on I almost gave them to her right there. Then she told me she was trying to take classes to get a job. But she couldn't see the board, so by the end, I just gave them to her and told her if they don't work you can give them back, but if they work, they're a gift. Luckily, the next day she said they worked great, I was so happy.

Which brings me to the other thing-- I probably only have three months worth of contacts, so if you could send me some that would be great. Thanks guys. 

Kissing Lizards

Hello Mom,
That's awesome that you found Elder Fietkau's blog! He's so cool-- he was a convert for a year when he came out on his mission and he's one of the wisest and most spiritual kids I know, I really enjoyed serving around him:)

That's awesome Kate and Ella are doing Peter Pan! Film it so I can watch later. I can't believe Kate broke her arm again! Tell her I'm sending her all my loving healing energy.

The hurricane storm thing didn't even rain over here! In fact there's a drought in Jamacia right now. Since they don't irrigate, all the crops are starting to die. Don't worry, the mission has a great system for huricanes and TONS of precautions against them.

Thanks for sending the stuff mom, that means a lot and I've really missed my mints:)

Sorry I don't have as many pictures this week, not to much happened. But we did have 22 lessons which is the most I've ever had, but this is the 5th week in a row not having any one at church. People just don't like to come to church unless it's the one next door:) And literally every house has a church next door, half the time I think people choose their denomination based on which church is closest:)
I love you so much mom 

Love Luke

This picture is kinda random but seriously what are they doing!?!?!

Me and Elder Ashworth had some extra time the other day so we decided to branch out in to our area... we got lost in the middle of some million acre orange orchard, but it was really pretty:)

Burning some Gs in the front yard... perks to living in Jamaica. Got some trash?... burn it. Where? Anywhere.

Blessings, Fruit and Worms

So far I’ve given a lot of blessings out here, including one to an investigator who is dying of a kidney disease. my patriarchal blessing says everyone I lay my hands on to be healed, will in fact be healed, and I have faith in God that He can really do that, so I’m really excited to see how that all happens.

God’s been showing me that there are a ton of spiritual gifts, like recently He’s given me the gift to mourn with those that mourn. It’s awesome, I feel like I can feel what people are going through, but instead of making me sad, it just makes me have hope for them and then I can help them because I know where they’re coming from. It’s cool.

Let me tell you Dad, I love families. Out here it is almost impossible to find a functioning family. No one gets married, everyone lives with everyone and no one knows whose kid is whose. It hurts me so bad because all I can feel is the pain that comes from it. The people we find out here with families are usually always the most prepared to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives. It just made me so grateful that I was raised in such a strong family, and I’ve learned that I have to do everything I can to raise a strong family too.

So the guy with kidney disease is still alive, he’s not doing so good though. We’ve been trying to help him understand the nature of Christ. He doesn’t even really understand the virgin birth. But in the blessing I gave him I told him he would, in fact, be healed, but the speed in which he would be healed would be dependent on his obedience and faith in God and His commandments. It definitely wasn’t me giving the blessing.

It’s not rude to take pictures of people(I asked why he hasn’t sent any photos home of Jamaicans). I just try not to pull out my camera when there’s a lot of people around (which is almost all the time), cause if people know you have nice things welllll they rob you. I’ll try to take some pics with a few of my investigators -there’s a few I can trust:)

I guess what I do with my time is this, I’m in the house with Elder Packer till 10:00 am, then we leave and walk or bike probably like a 5 mile radius around our house, sometimes farther. We just teach people we’ve made previous appointments with or we find new people to teach by talking to people on the street (everyone just walks up and down the street if they have nothing to do-- which is a lot). Right now me and Elder Packer have got the next 5 days full of appointments with investigators. The only thing is that almost everyone will make an appointment with you and then not be there or tell you they’re busy when you come at the time they set up, hahaha. It’s just kind of the chill mentality of Jamaica, so mostly we just teach whoever is home, right on the spot:) We get more lessons in that way anyway:)

We figured out that Thunder man actually is crazy, whether he’s high or not, he just makes up his own gospel every time:) He calls me Elder Thunder though, which is pretty sick! It’s kinda become my yard name (everyone here has a yard name) plus like 6 other names! It’s so hard to find people sometimes! We’ll ask people, "Hey do you know where Horace lives?" and they say, "Who?"
" You know the Rasta with the dreads?"
"OH Robot!" and then we’re like "... yeah Robot!" It’s funny everyone kinda has their own code language.

They have these crazy trees out here called bread fruit, and it’s basically a green potato tree and you roast them right on the stove top, and then fry them and they’re so good! Look up bread fruit trees online, they look like it’s where Dr.Seuss got his inspiration, in fact I think he got all his illustrations from here.

This is one of the Elders who lives with us in our house, his name his Elder Ostrowskei. In this picture he’s holding a jack fruit. They grow right out of the trunk of trees and get bigger than watermelons! He really likes it, so he’s pretty happy about it:)

This other picture is some guinep fruit, I climbed a guinep tree to get it! It’s so good!!!!! You crack off the shell and then you pop the yellow part in your mouth and kinda suck and chew all the meat off the cherry-like size pit, and WOW! They are soooooooo good --favorite fruit by far!!!!! BoM in the back ground just cause.

This is me and my companion at the church field, we are about to play soccer, and the missionaries actually beat the Jamaican members, but probably only cause of Elder Gordan who’s a Jamaican:) It was a fun night on the way home I got some jerk chicken from a street vendor who was selling it out of a 50 gallon drum/make shift barbecue. It was so good, but I asked for hot sauce and this guys homemade hot sauce was killer! It was so freaking hot, I thought I was going to die! They easily have peppers out here hotter than ghost peppers!

This is a pic of me making chocolate pancakes ( healthy right?;) made from pancake mix cocoa powder and chocolate lasco ( chocolate milk powder).

This is Elder Packer and I. There’s a lady in our ward who’s extremely crafty and he had her make matching planner covers for us- they are so cool! Mine has 51 stars on the American flag haha! She only charged him the equivalent of like $10. She also makes scripture cases! I’m going to get one that is an American flag with 1/4 of the corner a Japanese flag, it’s going to be sick!

A view over the orange fields of Linsted, Jamaica. White people own these orange fields and they live in this huge mansion.

Everyone here calls us white man or white boy. so when I see a white person here I want to say "Hah! white man!" in a Jamaican accent haha!  E. Packer goes home in two weeks! Then I’ll be done with training and I might end up being a trainer myself! That would be crazy though. I doubt they’ll do that:) It’s to bad I’m killing all my trainers- I’m back to only knowing like two missionaries again:) (killing means you’re with them for their last transfer)

My Patois sucks, I can still barely understand it even. Oh, I almost forgot, I got worms!!! I had to take a pill to get rid of them but I was eating so much for a couple of weeks!:) They’re gone now, no side effects from them or the medication, just have to wash the mangos better.

Don’t miss me Dad. Love you both, love the family, Luke

Wild goats

We've got like over ten different investigators right now, some are really doing well. We have one family who we teach ( it's crazy hard to find a family) and the mother has seen angels and both parents believe in love and Christ and devoting their lives to God. I've felt very strongly to teach them baptism, and so far they've agreed to be baptized and our lessons have really been powerful.

This week we taught an older lady named Pam and we invited her to church and she said she didn't have money for a taxi but she'd come anyway because she knew God would provide a way for her, and she came! It really is special to find someone with true faith in God, even to action, and coming to church.

Some of our area is waaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere! hahaha-- it's my favorite place:)

The thunder and lightning out here are insane!!! This is a picture of lightning so far away you couldn't even hear it.

Everyone thinks we're crazy for walking in the rain out here ( they believe that the rain makes you sick). People will just yell out to us, "White man!! Get out of the rain!!" There's one guy in our area, every time he sees us he just yells, "WHITE!" and then leaves! hahaha he's so funny:)

Goats!!!! Lots of goats out here, I can't tell if they're wild or domestic.

Me and my companion. He's really cool.

Jamaica Kingston Missionaries

Outer Space

Hey Mom and Dad,

Today for Pday we woke up at 4 in the morning again to come to Ochi, it’s a tourist town with beaches and craft markets. I didn’t really find anything worth buying in the craft market but I’m excited to go to the beach after this:) I’ll send those pics next week.

It’s sad, but a good amount of people join the church here for support, but since no one really pays much fast offerings there’s never really anything to go around. I don’t know all the details, but it feels like the church out here doesn’t really get very much support from the US. 

It has been so hard out here! I’m not too  tired anymore though, I kinda got used to it, but teaching out here is crazy difficult since no one really has a desire to exercise faith and mostly just want to talk with the white guys and the china man. None of our investigators came to church again which was kinda discouraging, but I guess it’s the norm out here. God always lifts my spirits though. Like the other day, I went to the baptism of the sisters investigator, and wow, she went in glowing and came out shining! I could see she truly had faith to follow her Father in Heaven. I know God has people He wants me to meet out here, even if it’s not to baptize all of them, He still wants me to help them. I’ve never felt so much love for random strangers:) The peoples life style here is often really jacked --and it’s really starting to take a toll on me spiritually. It’s just a lot of darkness, but God is strengthening me by it, without a doubt and I feel I’m growing closer to him every day. 

We bike so much out here, probably like 10 miles or more a day sometimes. My companions have kinda crappy bikes, so they’re pretty slow and I ride ahead. I’ve gotten really good at wheelies-- then I tore a hole in my pants:) oops! Good thing you sent me with those patches! Thanks Mom:) 

I’ve been practicing meeting people and finding potential investigators. My favorite thing to do is to walk up to someone with a smile, pull out the Book of Mormon and say, "Hey! Have you ever seen one of these before?" It works pretty good! The other day, I met and made 7 appointments, which is a lot. But numbers don’t matter, out here it’s all about just helping people at least have a desire to show faith to God. Everyone is Christian, but no one wants to do anything about it. But there are a few we met and things are going well with. One of our investigators, named Kernel, we asked, “When do you want to get baptized?” and he just said, “Whenever you’re ready!!” and he was serious. He’s already read the Book of Mormon one and a half times. He was telling us though, that he wants to make this dramatic exit from his 7th Day church and try to bring some people with him, we just told to bring everyone who would come:)

Ok you will not believe what happened to me literally just now! This old lady came up from behind me and  just kissed me on the neck, and then said, “Do you remember me from outer space?” I was like, freak no lady! I’m writing an email!!! Holy crap, freakiest thing ever!!!!!! 

Me and my friend Elder Gordan, the Jamaican missionary who lives with us, are pretty good friends. Every night we sing an EFY song together and compare Jamaica to the US. We have a good time and I feel like we get each other. This is Elder Gordan and I in front of our house:) The other one is me and my companions on a bridge over a nice river.

Walking to the caves

Entrance to the caves, via tree roots and vines

Elder Fitkau climbing down

Luke climbing down

Inside the cave

Lots and lots of bats, it felt like they were going to run into your face the whole time!

Crazy rock formations inside the cave, it looked like an alien planet!

Oh and happy fathers day dad! I really am so grateful to have my best friend as my Dad. Love you guys.

Caving and Spirit Juice

Hey Mom,

So first things first, and I'm really sorry, but no pictures this week! We are at a bush internet cafe, but next week for sure! 

For P Day today we woke up at 4am in the morning to go caving! Wow! It was so cool! We hiked through the jungle and then climbed down vines into a 20 ft. hole, and then went like 2 miles down into this cave full of bats and crystal stalagmites. Wow, it was sooooooo cool! Especially climbing the vines on the way out. 

It's so hard out here, I'm totally tired every day, but when I teach someone, the Spirit just blasts me in the face with Spirit juice until at the end of the lesson I'm crying. I cry like every day in front of my investigators. The other day our investigator named Anesha said I was emotional and all I could do was agree, as I choked through the prayer. :) I love helping everyone out here, I just hope God blesses me with the ability to teach in a way that might soften their hearts enough to accept the joy that comes from coming closer to God. It's amazing! 

God has really been teaching me how to trust him with my learning. He's taught me how to be teachable from everything. He's also really taught me a lot of sacrifice. A LOT! Freak, I feel like I could go through anything and be able to keep giving, which is such a blessing because all I want to do is serve and make others happy. :) But it is starting to take a toll on me, living in a house with five guys! :) But who cares? It's amazing out here in they ghetto bush country. I love it and I love all the people here! Every day I feel more tired than the day before but every day I want to yell louder and louder that Christ lives!!!! And that God loves them!!!! Wow, such a wonderful time! 

Well anyway, that's about it. Our investigators are all doing pretty good for the most part and we had the first stake conference in Jamaica yesterday. A 70 gave a pretty great talk about sacrifice, which was definitely for me. 

Love you all so much,

Luke

More Thunder Man

Hey everyone,

I’ve been learning so much from my studies and teaching people! Basically, I just want to learn to follow the spirit better so I can follow it like it says in 2 Nephi 32,  because that is the only doctrine given, so it’s pretty dang important. 

My companions are good friends and I love them.  I learn a ton from them! (not when they try to teach me though:) One of my companions’ dad died while he’s been out, I haven’t really talked to him about it, but he’s so strong and a really cool kid. 

I was talking to Thunder man again the other day. I really tried listening with the spirit and I started to realize, this guy is some sort of visionary man!! Holy crap! It was awesome! He was telling me how he was hungry, so he prayed to God to catch a big fish. When he went fishing he caught a huuuuuge fish but it had a crown on its head, which he took and held, and the crown granted him power over the sea, even to covering all the land with water, but because he wanted to restore balance he threw the crown back into the water. When I first heard this I was like what the *^%$?! But when I looked at it from a symbolic standpoint, the spirit likened it unto this cool parable. He prayed for strength from God and God gave it to him because of his faith, but once he had the strength and power he then surrendered it back to God to restore balance. He said it was a great trial for him to throw the crown back. Anyway, kinda weird but I learned something. He also told me about the second coming and the iron rod and the Godhead and how we have to choose the right and grab the iron rod or we wouldn’t see the light come out of the sky during the second coming of God. He told me the only one who could pull us out of the hole with the rope was Jesus, and  the lightning that came down from the sky was God’s commandments and that’s why he grabbed on to them to choose the right!!!! Wow. I just want to hear more from this guy! Anyway, the whole time we were talking I really felt like he was my friend and that I loved him. I’m glad the spirit prompted me to talk to him so I didn’t just judge him as hopeless.

This week we’ve been teaching a lot of people, but most just like to hear us talk, not pray or read or do anything! So we have to drop a lot of people and let them know we’re here to invite them to Christ through faith, and then not teach them for like a month and see if that does anything-- and it works a lot! They realize the lack of spirit and it makes them want to act and have faith for themselves. I love the people who are so ready to put the gospel to the test and find their own witness. They’re so easy to teach! We have this one guy who has read the book of Mormon one and a half times already and knows it’s true and knows the gospel is true, but he won’t come to church because of his social life in his 7th day church, but he’s a really cool guy and we are inviting him to go cave exploring with us next  P-day.  That’ll be fun! 

The investigators named Suzette and Hores who are married came to church last week and they had a good experience. They appreciated the classroom setting of Sunday school and actually learning doctrine, but they missed the shouts and praises of their church. I tried to explain we don’t worship God just with our lips but with our heart and that that was the environment we try to culture at church-- one where you can find God inside of you, instead of around you. 

So far I’ve met a few prophets, or so they claimed to be-- but mostly it just sounds like they had some satanic experience, even though they describe the spirit and God perfectly. I think people out here are so open to the spiritual realm, and because of that they have a lot of good experiences, but they also lack discernment to tell when they’re straight-up possessed, and think it’s God. I haven’t had to cast out any devils yet though...

The fruit here is crazy! I’ve had star fruit and jack fruit and bread fruit and cashew fruit and mango and cane and coconut and everything! Everyone makes really good juice to go with their chicken and rice (which is still the only dish I’ve been feed) except for when they feed us fish, but I’m not complaining-- it’s all so good-- they have the best chicken in the whole world here! 

We did some more service for a member, pulling dirt up two stories onto a roof to make cement for her house construction. When we leave a spiritual thought with a member, my companions always say, "Well, we’d like to leave a spiritual thought with you, Elder Johnson has prepared one for you." Even though I hadn’t prepared anything. It’s mostly just funny and I always make it work, but after like the tenth time I started doing it to them:) They didn’t think it was funny:) I’ve been soooooooooooooooo tired lately, but today I’m feeling pretty good. I always fall asleep during nightly planning. I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon. 

Anyway, I think that’s about everything. Me and my companions buy ice cream like every other day for 100$ ($1 US), it’s become a tradition. Also the other day I had a jelly, which is a coconut that’s full of water. They hack the top off right there and you drink it and give it back,  then they hack it in half and you scrape the meat out and eat it and then pay them. It’s pretty cool. 

The computer is really bad and I can't send any photos. Sorry. 

Love you guys,

Luke