Ok so here is my first general email.
We left at the MTC early monday, and our flight from slc to dallas was
delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to miami, and when we
finally got to miami, we missed the next flight to Trinidad, and had
to stay the night. our travel leader was so stressed! so we landed
in trinidad the next day, and got picked up and driven to the mission
home (on the left side of the road!). cool story, gas in trinidad is
75 us cents a gallon or litre, im not sure which because the
government subsidizes it here. anyhow, we had some orientation, met
the mission president, got assigned our companions and our areas and
then went to the mission office for more orientation. after, i got
given some letters and packages to take with me to Grenada because its
cheaper that way. btw if your going to send packages, dont send
packages. the taxes on the stuff in them comes out of my MSF (food
budget) and i can buy decently enough stuff here. some money everynow
and then would be nice instead so i can just buy the stuff cheaper
here but you have to hide it. a good way my companion taught me is to
twist out a deodorant or gluestick all the way and fold up the money
in there and then twist the whatever back down. i should be able to
use my debit card though, but im not sure whats on it or how it works
for conversion at an atm. so anyhow, the next morning we took off
from trinidad on local airlines for grenada. btw, its pronounced
Grenade-Uh. also, that other ticket to st. vincent was just a false
ticket to help get us past immigration. so we took off before sunrise
and I got to see the sun rise while just above the cloud layer. It
was the most beautiful sunrise I have EVER seen, it was celestial!
(literally). so the flight was short and i landed in Grenada.
customs took longer, and then I got picked up by the senior couple and
dropped off at an apartment with some other missionaries in it in St.
Georges for the afternoon before eventually getting dropped off at
Grenville, my area. Geez, so much to tell!!!! ok so my area is
grenville. Me and my companion, Elder Wilson, are the only
missionaries in our area, which is on the opposite side of the island
(1 hour drive away) from the others. we hold church in our apartment,
and have 8 or so members. Its so weird coming from utah in the
biggest wards in the world, to here, the smallest. our apartment was
trashed. we got here at 4:30 and spent the nxt 6 hours cleaning it,
and still werent done. it was terrible. we killed some cockroaches,
flame-throwered some massive "X-men" spider (its what they are called
or nicknamed) and cleaned up loads of mouse and rat droppings from our
cupboards. the water was off, because it was leaking so bad, we have
to turn it on every time we needed water and dump buckets of spillage
constantly. That got fixed eventually though. my companion is Elder
wilson. I am his last companion, he goes home in 6 weeks, and im his
first trainer. he is nice, we get along well here. its so pretty
here! grr, so much to say, so little time! Its hot, average is 85
degrees and 50% humidity according to my alarm clock. the Coca cola
is amazing here, the islands all produce their own from their own
local cane sugar, adn its soo sweet,and loads of it. people here and
weird, you never knock doors, you just shout "hello inside!" or
something like that. people always greet eachother passing on the
streets, and the cars honk or flash lights to say hi as well, which is
annoying as our house is right off the main road to grenville, on top
of a small tire shop. I miss nicer food, we eat a lot of ramen,
macaroni, and spaghetti, and cereal although the milk sucks. There
just isnt that much available food wise in the stores. no fresh fruit
yet, its not quite in season, that will be in a few weeks. the
church has only been in Grenville for a little less than a year. Me
and elder wilson are essentially the only white people here, although
i would barely consider him white as he is tan, i am more of a
sunburnt pink now anyways. the mosquitos arent too bad here, the sea
breeze is good and keeps them down, what is the worse is chiggers.
these tiny bugs hang out on the end of grass and hop on you and then
dig into your skin and suck your blood. they are very small, but make
annoying red bumps and its weird cause you know they are just chilling
in your arms/legs. I have probably about 30 total bites between
chiggers and mosquitoes.
people here are funny, they have nice cellphones, nice cars
(sometimes) and really louds sound systems and crappy houses. weird
priorities. they don't speak english, regardless of what you have
heard. I can barely understand so many of them, but I am learning.
I am already picking up a lot of local slang/language. lots of drunk
people and high people. I like it here and its so cool to be out here
experiencing all this. this young white boy from utah is in a all
black island in the carribean, its so weird! lol. speaking of being
young, I am the first (not counting locals) 18 year old to the west
indies mission. I know everyone says this, but I literally think this
is the best mission, its so awesome here! I fixed a fan in our
apartment, which was sketchy cause it was either going to be fixed, or
take out the power for our area when I plugged it in. thankfully, i
guessed right, and it worked! ok probably would have just tripped a
breaker, but it was scary! but now i have a very ghetto fan for my
bed (my bed sucks by the way, paper thin mattress with a massive dent
in the middle). I named my ghetto fan Jaanequia, cause its a ghetto
name for ghetto fan. Im having fun, and i probably forgot loads of
stuff to say, but this is all i can think of for now, i will send more
if i have time.
We left at the MTC early monday, and our flight from slc to dallas was
delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to miami, and when we
finally got to miami, we missed the next flight to Trinidad, and had
to stay the night. our travel leader was so stressed! so we landed
in trinidad the next day, and got picked up and driven to the mission
home (on the left side of the road!). cool story, gas in trinidad is
75 us cents a gallon or litre, im not sure which because the
government subsidizes it here. anyhow, we had some orientation, met
the mission president, got assigned our companions and our areas and
then went to the mission office for more orientation. after, i got
given some letters and packages to take with me to Grenada because its
cheaper that way. btw if your going to send packages, dont send
packages. the taxes on the stuff in them comes out of my MSF (food
budget) and i can buy decently enough stuff here. some money everynow
and then would be nice instead so i can just buy the stuff cheaper
here but you have to hide it. a good way my companion taught me is to
twist out a deodorant or gluestick all the way and fold up the money
in there and then twist the whatever back down. i should be able to
use my debit card though, but im not sure whats on it or how it works
for conversion at an atm. so anyhow, the next morning we took off
from trinidad on local airlines for grenada. btw, its pronounced
Grenade-Uh. also, that other ticket to st. vincent was just a false
ticket to help get us past immigration. so we took off before sunrise
and I got to see the sun rise while just above the cloud layer. It
was the most beautiful sunrise I have EVER seen, it was celestial!
(literally). so the flight was short and i landed in Grenada.
customs took longer, and then I got picked up by the senior couple and
dropped off at an apartment with some other missionaries in it in St.
Georges for the afternoon before eventually getting dropped off at
Grenville, my area. Geez, so much to tell!!!! ok so my area is
grenville. Me and my companion, Elder Wilson, are the only
missionaries in our area, which is on the opposite side of the island
(1 hour drive away) from the others. we hold church in our apartment,
and have 8 or so members. Its so weird coming from utah in the
biggest wards in the world, to here, the smallest. our apartment was
trashed. we got here at 4:30 and spent the nxt 6 hours cleaning it,
and still werent done. it was terrible. we killed some cockroaches,
flame-throwered some massive "X-men" spider (its what they are called
or nicknamed) and cleaned up loads of mouse and rat droppings from our
cupboards. the water was off, because it was leaking so bad, we have
to turn it on every time we needed water and dump buckets of spillage
constantly. That got fixed eventually though. my companion is Elder
wilson. I am his last companion, he goes home in 6 weeks, and im his
first trainer. he is nice, we get along well here. its so pretty
here! grr, so much to say, so little time! Its hot, average is 85
degrees and 50% humidity according to my alarm clock. the Coca cola
is amazing here, the islands all produce their own from their own
local cane sugar, adn its soo sweet,and loads of it. people here and
weird, you never knock doors, you just shout "hello inside!" or
something like that. people always greet eachother passing on the
streets, and the cars honk or flash lights to say hi as well, which is
annoying as our house is right off the main road to grenville, on top
of a small tire shop. I miss nicer food, we eat a lot of ramen,
macaroni, and spaghetti, and cereal although the milk sucks. There
just isnt that much available food wise in the stores. no fresh fruit
yet, its not quite in season, that will be in a few weeks. the
church has only been in Grenville for a little less than a year. Me
and elder wilson are essentially the only white people here, although
i would barely consider him white as he is tan, i am more of a
sunburnt pink now anyways. the mosquitos arent too bad here, the sea
breeze is good and keeps them down, what is the worse is chiggers.
these tiny bugs hang out on the end of grass and hop on you and then
dig into your skin and suck your blood. they are very small, but make
annoying red bumps and its weird cause you know they are just chilling
in your arms/legs. I have probably about 30 total bites between
chiggers and mosquitoes.
people here are funny, they have nice cellphones, nice cars
(sometimes) and really louds sound systems and crappy houses. weird
priorities. they don't speak english, regardless of what you have
heard. I can barely understand so many of them, but I am learning.
I am already picking up a lot of local slang/language. lots of drunk
people and high people. I like it here and its so cool to be out here
experiencing all this. this young white boy from utah is in a all
black island in the carribean, its so weird! lol. speaking of being
young, I am the first (not counting locals) 18 year old to the west
indies mission. I know everyone says this, but I literally think this
is the best mission, its so awesome here! I fixed a fan in our
apartment, which was sketchy cause it was either going to be fixed, or
take out the power for our area when I plugged it in. thankfully, i
guessed right, and it worked! ok probably would have just tripped a
breaker, but it was scary! but now i have a very ghetto fan for my
bed (my bed sucks by the way, paper thin mattress with a massive dent
in the middle). I named my ghetto fan Jaanequia, cause its a ghetto
name for ghetto fan. Im having fun, and i probably forgot loads of
stuff to say, but this is all i can think of for now, i will send more
if i have time.