Im Finna Get Dreds From A Jamaican

Oh my gosh, island life is a different life.

Yes, Puerto Rico is an island too, but Puerto Rico is like 400,000,000 times bigger than Tortola, and the culture is so much more Spanish than island.

What is island time? Why is it that our church starts at 10? We didn't start church yesterday until 10:30, and we only went at 11:40. We had 30 minutes of sacrament and 40 minutes of gospel doctrine. It was really short and really off schedule. All I can do is grin from ear to ear because it's the best thing I've ever seen in my life, whether it's the island culture or the Virgin Islands.

We met a girl who was like (22), so around our age, and she was so funny. She said, "So I was strolling on TikTok, and these people say that if you put a cinnamon stick in your purse, you get tons of abundance and riches." "It was just a scam; it didn't even work. Like, who would say such a lie?" We were about to crack up laughing. We were like, "Oh my gosh, this girl really just fell for the TikTok lie of putting a cinnamon stick in your purse and getting tons of abundance." It was so funny. She was really cool and super interested but was on vacation from St. Vincent.

This is the thing: I drove for the first time on the left side of the road, and oh my gosh, my brain is like... um, maybe a little bit broken. It hurts so much. I am having to get over paradigm paralysis right now because I hate the left side of the road, and I want to drive on the right. It's not that it's not fun; it's just that the driver in the car is on the left side, not the right. So my brain doesn't switch easily. I have to think too much about driving on the left, and I accidentally keep going to the right side of the road and realizing it because my comp told me. So if I wreck, it's my bad, but muscle memory is the reason that it's happening.

I've also decided that this place is a lot poorer and has a lot more hustle. I have seen and met some pretty humble people here with humbling experiences. It really helps you just be grateful for all that you have as a human being.

The people here are also all about work, work, work, which is a good thing but a bad thing. They are very hardworking because of the cost of living (I also think they are just hardworking because they grew up without all the blessings that we had). It's good because they have good work ethics, but when it comes to meeting with the missionaries, it's like, "I ain't got no time to visit with you, mon." This also causes people to not show up to church.

But then there are so many people that need the gospel who do come to church, so it's like people are here, but no one is consistently here week after week.

Yesterday, we decided to just let God handle it. It was really cool to see how much God actually is in our lives. We went to this guy's house at 6 because he told us to go, and Elder Teuscher was like, "We need to go visit Inez." Alright, fine by Elder Tew, so we went, but she wasn't there. Then we started talking to another guy who definitely needed us there at that moment, and it's crazy to see the details of that. The Holy Ghost prompted Elder Teuscher to go to Inez's house just because he knew that we had no idea where this guy lived. So we went, and then we were put in the right place at the right time. It's cool how we even parked, and Elder Teuscher started singing with the music for about 10 seconds, and it hit me all of a sudden. We were wasting time, so I just turned the car off and handed him the keys from the passenger seat and said, "Oraremos." By the time we knocked on Inez's door, this dude walked out of his back porch right when we knocked on her door. If we hadn't wasted those 10 seconds, we wouldn't have been in his path. It's weird how it just hit me so randomly and strongly. It was like, "Alright, now turn off the car." It was like, "BING! You're wasting time, get out." It's cool how God uses us missionaries and members as instruments in His hands, especially because that man really needed us right then and there to talk to him. But without God's hand in our work, we would've never made it to where God wanted us to be.

We found a guy helping him move his washer into his house, and then we talked and found out his 17-year-old son was in the states getting a "minor operation." Elder Teuscher goes, "Oh, what kind of operation? If you don't mind me asking." "Yeah, no problem, man. He's getting circumcised." I almost peed; it was so hard not to laugh. It's not that it's funny; it's just the way it went. It was so awkward yet so funny.

We got some lemonade paid for us while we were talking to our friend who's a bartender. They tried to give us alcohol, but it's chill because the bartender speaks Spanish since he's Dominican. So we just talk to him in Spanish and let him know, and he's mega chill.

A lot happened this week, but I hate typing, so I'm done for now. We also ran away from the crazy lady this week.

Please pray for our friends:

Bibi

Delarosea

Inez

Cherles