STILL IN KINGSTOWN WITH ELDER T, ELECTIONS WERE THIS WEEK, QUARANTINED TO OUR APARTMENT AND THE CRAZY NEVER ENDED

So, transfer calls came in, and I am staying here in Kingstown, St. Vincent with Elder T. (: which is great because now I can spend more time setting a solid wedding date with Brian and Sister Halloway and be able to go through with Kay's baptism on January 2nd! I'm pretty happy. We're going to start this new transfer with a lot of contacting as well, so we can get more people to teach. Hopefully, all goes well. I also just wanted to spend Christmas here in Kingstown because I've made a lot of good friends here.

But, other than that, this week has been craycray! Elections were Wednesday, and it ruined missionary work. The day before elections is crazy and the day of is crazy and the day after is actually a holiday. Aha, so we were in the apartment for those three days and then Labor (one of the parties) cheated, and they had to recount Thursday. Turns out they did cheat, but the Prime Minister was already sworn in, so now NDP (the other party) is protesting and it's getting crazy again. Well the crazy never ended... so it's dangerous. People usually die during election season, so we're told to stay inside, so not much has changed this week. Just a group of five missionaries doing silly things for a week in our apartment. aha.

CRAZY DRIVING, MANY STREET VENDORS, SLOW COMPUTERS AND UPDATE ON THE WORK

Driving with T. Good times.

The people drive crazy here, aha, but I manage just fine. I've adapted. The roads are thin and full of pot holes, there is no law enforcement, everyone drives super fast and will randomly stop in the middle of the road and park. So yeah, driving is fun. Also, people sell everything from fresh coconuts to pirated movies on the side of the road. Ice cold coconut water is a cool experience, but coconut water is not my favorite.. aha.. the juice here is amazing, though, and they have so many different types I've never heard of. Luckily, the water here is clean, so I drink plenty of it seeing as I'm in the hot sun all day.

Sorry about the lack of long letters. The computers here are really slow and sometimes the power surges, and I loose everything I was writing and other stuff, but I should tell you how the work is going. It's been less than stellar, but there's some amazing aspects as well. So this has been my life for the past few weeks. If you remember from my previous letter, we had three baptism dates a month ago... and now we have one and a half. One lady avoids us because her mom told her not to associate with our church and this if she's baptized she'll go to hell because you are only supposed to be baptized once, among other things. Moesha is 18, but she kind of has to obey her mother, so we haven't seen her in quite a while.

The other baptismal date was Brian. He's been living with Sister Halloway (a member) and has been for a very long time. They are practically married just without actually being married. So, we've been trying to set a marriage date for them. Sister Halloway is good to go whenever, but Brian is a little less sure. He's the one I gave the blessing to, by the way. So, we are teaching them together about the importance and beauty of marriage this week to try and set that wedding date. Just pray for us.

Lastly, is Kay. She's our golden investigator. Always progressing, keeps commitments, knows the church is true. But, the baptism date that she gave us was January 2nd because she wanted to do it at the new years to turn her life around. That's a solid baptism date, but I don't know if I'll still be here because it's after transfers. I guess that's not really the important part but I just wanted to be there to see the result of hard work. Kind of selfish thinking, I know.

Other than that, we've been contacting and meeting amazing people. The problem is, just because they are amazing doesn't mean they accept the restoration or care enough to change their lives. This letter might sound pretty down, but I want you to know that I'm doing fine. It's just the reality of missionary work. I guess people's agency just makes things very unpredictable. (:

Thank you for your prayers, love and support. It helps more than you know.

Love,
Elder Mikesell the 4th

So, it's election season here, and the two major parties are NDP (new democratic party) and Labor. So, Elder T and I got Labor t-shirts... and NDP shirts... I just haven't taken a picture in my NDP shirt yet, aha.