Bug Bites & A Farmers Tan!!

It's Conference Time!!!!!!

Hey everyone!!

This week has been pretty interesting and crazy!!...

On Tuesday, we went to do service for a lady that we are teaching. :) She asked us to chop her yard (mowing it with machetes).. and it was quite the experience. haha.. It took me about thirty minutes to get the angle and how to swing the machete to get the grass (and weeds) to cut right, but once I got it down, I rolled through that yard haha.. It was so exhausting though! My jeans changed color from sweat and I couldn't see through my stinging sweaty eyes by the end. Oh, and the next day i was sooooo sore. My right arm, back, and leg muscles were just done for. It was crazy hard. But i am now a yard chopping master, and i have the blisters to prove it :) Thats definately why Jamaican guys are in such good shape... they don't have lawn mowers!! Maybe thats the secret to the obeisity problem in the States haha.. blow up all the lawn mowers and give people machetes.

Wednesday was district meeting in the morning, and then we did a trade off with Ochi. I went to Ochi to serve with Elder More for a day. He's a really cool missionary, and i'd love to serve with him sometime in the future, but we'll see what happens. But while we were there, we taught this lady who was posessed by an evil spirit. It was really creepy/weird. Anytime we'd start teaching truth, she would just moan and scream and stuff. It was crazy!! but the rest of the trade off went normally, and we had some really good lessons.

I cooked my first rice and peas (rice and kidney beans jamaican style) this week too. :) it was amazing!! so good. but it takes forever.. so prolly not gonna do it too often.

ON the way up to Norwich (a 20 min bike ride) Elder Ashton's pedal broke off his bike about halfway up the S crank, so we started the long walk back to town and have been walking the rest of the week. Walking takes forever!! some of the places are like an hour walk away, so i'm super excited for when his bike gets fixed :). But til then, we're taking the two ankle express. haha.. So, since the bike broke, its been a pretty exhausting week. but, no complaints. :) thats life

I'm super excited for General Conference this Saturday and Sunday.. Definately watch all 4 sessions... thats my challenge for everyone for the week :).. Me and Elder Ashton spent about 3 hours hooking up this PC-to TV thingy at the church so that the people here could watch it and when we finally got it all hooked up, it wasn't working haha... we messed with it forever and finally called a guy, and he told us there was a remote, so we found it, pushed one button, and it was fixed... super awesome... haha.. the whole time i just wanted to call my dad cuz i knew he'd know what to do.. but we got it figured out :)

But my time is gone... So til next week

Elder Kraus

Exhausted!!!

HEy everyone!!

THe past two weeks have been pretty up and down. I can't remember how much i have written in the past couple weeks... so if some stuff is repeated... my bad...

A couple Mondays ago.. we had a zone P-day... it was pretty good..we got to play volleyball on the beach. :) it was a lot of fun... Some Jamaicans came and played with us too, and that made it a lot more fun, because it was a little more competitive. So that was a pretty fun day.

Oh haha... my bike broke again.. i had to get a new back gear block... the guy said that i was pedaling so hard that the metal parts on the inside broke off... but i think he was just trying to suck up to me so he could keep my business and also trying to cover for how crappy the parts they make in Jamaica are.. I swear sometimes they make them so that they will break and you'll have to buy more... but who knows.... I've started to notice something kinda weird too... i kinda have been smelling somthing that smelled kinda like yeast the last week or two.. and i couldn't figure out what it was.. and then i realized it was me!! My sweat is starting to smell like yeast... maybe its because... i'm damp all day... maybe i'm starting to rot haha... but if anyone has any clue why i would be smelling like yeast...lemme know :)

But nothing too eventful has been happening... We have been working super hard, and lately having quite a few really hard days... So, the last little while has been very slow... Time is crawling. I've just been exhausted all the time!! When i write in my journal at night, i fall asleep like two or three times just during the course of writing haha... But ya...nothing too eventful has been going on. Lots of hard work and biking.

We did meet this family that lives like a 20 min. bike ride away... and they told us to come visit them every day! :) I was way excited about that.. haha but the bike ride is just brutal!! I'm getting in better shape every day. But til next week...(i'm basically caught up now... so i will have more details and stuff starting again next week :))....but... everyone keep writing :)... I love the letters.

Elder Kraus

Linstead

k... well last week, i don't remember a whole lot, but i served for 3 days in linstead on a trade off with a really cool guy named elder montgomery. he has only been out for like a week. and i was way impressed with him for taking charge of his area after only a week. it was quite the adventure. we did find our way around an started to get to know the area pretty well by the end. but there are some way cool people in linstead. haha... i had fish for the first time in jamaica there, and it was rough.... lol.. they don't skin the fish or take the head off or anything here.. they just fry it up and give it to you.. so ya, that was an interesting dinner, oh, and then she gave us these mangos that were huge!! it was awesome!! they were so big!!! bigger than both my hands together... it was amazing!! best fruit i've had since i've been here. we met this guy named sheldon too.. he was really cool... he invited us over to teach him a lesson and he made me a sweet dancehall cd, but i won't be listening to that for two years. haha but he is a dj... so he made me one..i was pretty happy. oh and i got a machete to help people chop yard. i'll try to send pictures next week.

this week was awesome too... crap my time is up, but i'll email this week next week lol...

Beach Volleyball P-Day

Hey! It was great to hear from you all! :) I don't really have a lot of time today, cuz we are having a zone p-day in ochi (basically all the missionaries in the zone are meeting up here to play volley ball and stuff on the beach :)... it should be fun. We are emailing real fast before we go play, so this weeks email will come with next weeks. I'll explain then.

Sorry. :) Keep writing me.

Elder Kraus

Tommy!

Hey everyone!

THis week has been good. We are still meeting with TOmmy, and he doesn't cease to amaze me. :) He has been shot 9 times, and is now an ex drug dealer in Kingston! We tend to teach quite a few people who have at some point in their lives been shot or sold drugs. But Tommy is really awesome. He gets everything that we are teaching, and is super commited to do all of it. He is serioulsy the coolest guy. His house is between, ours and the church, and on Sunday, we walked to meet him at like 9. When we got there, he asked us to go get a bike for him, since his foot is still "all mash up" (he went in for x-rays today), so we were like ok, cool. BUt then when we got back he hopped on the bar between the seat and the handlebar sidesaddle, and was like lets go. haha so i biked him to church Jamaican style. (knees out with a passenger in the middle haha) ELder Ashton said it was quite the sight. BUt it was awesome.

Also, on Sunday, the whole mission presidency came to our branch and went to church here. Elder Ashton was super nervous cuz he was teaching combined relief society and priesthood. But he did well. It was a good Sunday. OH except for I crashed hard on my bike riding to an investigator after church. haha. We were riding to see this girl and I saw a member so i turned around to say hi, and right when i wasn't looking, i hit a pothole and went right over the handlebars... it was solid crash! haha i'll bet it was pretty funny to watch. but, i'm ok, not too banged up, my right hand is purple, but i think it is just bruised bad, i'll keep an eye on it, and just some scratches on my legs, but other than that i'm good. :)

Oh, and this week, we were 5 min late to seeing a car drive through a house!! We were coming back for dinner, and one of the houses close to ours had a car sized hole all the way through it. THe story is that someone got stuck in the ditch and was half in half out of the car pushing on the gas to try and get it out, and it finally got traction and just took off, right through the house and over a cliff.. The guy lived through the night, but sadly died this morning. :( But, my time is short. Everything in Jamaica is going good.. We are working super hard and even then at times it is like watching grass grow, but the work is moving foreward slowly, but surely. til next week..

Elder Kraus

My first Jamaican hair cut, in the power stance!