Hardy's in Jamaica: District meeting in Port Antonio

As always, P-day is on Monday. We invited Elder Egan and Elder Hall to dinner. Elder Egan is going home a week from Friday and we wanted to have a farewell dinner for him. He is from Pocatello, Idaho and is serving as district leader here. He is a great elder and we will really miss him. We were asking him about his plans for schooling and he said he was going into mechanical engineering at Utah State. We told him that our granddaughter was going there also. His father is in CES.

I tried out my oven for the first time. I made cookies using a cake mix that we had in the apartment. They turned out okay so I will try baking in it again. I gave the elders their choice of a chicken or beef dish and they chose beef so I made stroganoff. I thought I had brought some Johnny's seasoning but I forgot so I had to improvise but it turned out alright. After dinner we took the elders to two family home evening appointments that they had planned with the L and Tracy and Rohan and Tracy's children. We had a good time.

Tuesday we went with the sisters to visit a sister in Highgate. I really like here. We tried to encourage her to come to church. We talked to her about showing us where some of the members live and we also told her that we would have a family home evening there if she wanted to invite some of the members. She seemed very excited about that. We will see what happens. The members that live in Highgate think it is too far to come to Ocho and they want their branch back but I don't think that will happen until the members there show their willingness to come to church. We have heard all kinds of stories of why they closed it. We heard that one Sunday there wasn't any priesthood holders there so the mission president closed the branch. We also heard that they were debating which branch to close and Ocho had more tithe payers so they chose to keep the Ocho branch open.

Today we went to district meeting. The sisters came over for breakfast and we left for Port Antonio around 7:45. Today was also Jamaica's Independence Day. A lot of businesses close for this holiday so the streets and towns were fairly quiet. It made for a wonderful drive. After the meeting, Elder Lee, Brain and myself went to KFC to get some chicken for lunch. It cost us around $36 just for one bucket. I had made some Spanish rice for the activity that the Port Antonio branch was having but since we needed to get the sisters and elders home and there was no way to heat the rice at the church, we went to the elder's apartment and heated it in the Microwave and took it back to the church so we could eat it with the chicken. Some of the members had started arriving but the elders didn't want to feed the members too early because they will eat and then not stay for the activities. Even though the members knew we were having a meeting, it was hard for me to enjoy the meal knowing that some of them were probably hungary. We did not have enough food to feed all of them. We said our goodbyes to the branch members who were already at the church and then headed for Ocho. I felt bad for Sister G's son. He had come home after spending some time in another city and he left his back pack with all his clothes in the bus while he went to get the money from his mom to pay the bus driver. When he got back, the bus driver had already left. Money doesn't come easy to these people so I don't know what they are going to do. There is not a DI to help them like we have at home. I so badly wanted to slip her some money but missionaries are encouraged not to do that because it can show favoritism and then where do you stop. Our mission president also wants them to learn to be self sufficient. Sometimes it is really hard not to help.

When we got home, we followed the sisters back to their apartment so that we could do an apartment check. They have a cute little house that they rent. Sister Walker gave us a plum (nothing like the ones we are use to eating) and some guava to taste. We picked up the extra mattress that the sisters had and dropped it off to the elders and then headed back to our apartment. I spent the next hour or more talking with Sister Pearson about the food that we are suppose to purchase for our zone conference coming up in two weeks. She also gave me a heads up on the food assignments for family home evenings since Brian and I are in charge of the one in September.

We had no desire to go out tonight because we were told that the Jamaicans party all night long in the streets for this holiday. The streets are overly crowded when it is not a holiday.