1st Transfer to Patrick City, Kingston with 2 New Companions!

 Hey mom and dad,

Well my new area is very hot and humid and its back to the City but we are in a very residential part of Kingston. We do have addresses here in Kingston we live in Patrick City. We live on Patrick Dr. lot # 21. We go to areas like Waterhouse, Seaview Gardens, Duhaney Park, Drews Land and our boundary ends where the church is located which is where Dunrobin meets Constant Spring so you could google map those areas if you want to see what our area looks like.


There are no wards in Jamaica only branches, we don't have a Stake in Jamaica yet but are working hard to get one. President Hendricks doesn't have a branch he attends each week,  he just goes all over the island. We are the only ones in our branch but the Zone Leaders and the Assistants are in the Constant Spring Branch in the same building as us but they meet after we do so we see them when church is done. We go from 9am to 12pm.

It is a lot different being with 3 missionaries instead of 2.  Elder Snelson is awesome and a great missionary we're good friends and have a lot of fun and work hard. He is from Sacramento, from a city called Antelope so I'm not sure if thats near Aunt Kathy or Carolyn. Elder Ferrin is from a small town near Tucson Arizona, he is pretty quiet but a great missionary and together we have been working hard and the work is going really well over here. We had two investigators at church on Sunday and we all three spoke in Sacrament meeting. This is actually one of the stronger branches on the Island so we don't have to take charge that much.

Andre is an investigator we have who is in his late 20's and we've been helping him overcome his ganja and drinking addictions and he's been doing awesome and he has changed so much over the past week and a half since we started teaching him, he is a lot happier and a lot more driven to make the right choices in his life. We have two more investigators Sister Tingling and her 11 year old son Richard and they have been taught for a while and know a lot about the gospel so when we go to teach them we read whatever chapter Sister Tingling is on in Gospel Principles. She is looking for a house to move into so she can move out from Richard's dad who is against the church. So she cant get baptized until she moves out because they aren't married. Richard could get baptized but he doesnt want to until his mom can get baptized. 

We've talked to a few crazy people on the street. There is Digicel Rising Star who is always high and sings songs for us and he wants to be a big star and receive money from an unknown source :). Rasta Smiley who is a rasta man who took us back to his little garden backyard with trees, turtles, and fish it was actually pretty cool he was rambling on forever about crazy stuff we just sat there entertained. Oh and there was a man walking a cart trying to sell sticks so ya only in Jamaica. Its pretty urban in the area we are at and we have to walk by and cross over the gullies a lot to get from place to place. Its really hot here but it feels a lot like summers back in CA so I'm pretty used to it. 

Oh and I read a talk by president Monson this morning for personal study called Finding Joy in the Journey and Id like you to try and find it and read it if you could it was really good. It was in the talks that Kyle gave to me on my birthday.

Love,  Jake

Elder Clark's New Investigator "Peter"

Last Week and This Week!

Hey mom,

Ya Arlene was baptized in our building we have a font. most buildings in Jamaica do if they aren't renting like old doctor's offices etc. Tavia, Arlene's daughter, and a teenage girl named Tatiana both have baptismal dates for June 18th so that's exciting and we were blessed with a lot of referrals last week so we are going to be very busy this week contacting and teaching. It always feels good when the work picks up. It's really hard when you feel like you have no investigators and you have to spend most of your time finding.

Lets see a story... well last week we watched President Richardson get his bee suit on and go to a tree and gas out a ton of bees and then put them in the bee box we carried down. He might take us one time to go do some "bee work" whatever bee keepers do. They have a lot of bee boxes and they get the honey from them. It was a really cool experience to watch actually how you get all the bees. You mainly are looking for the queen bee it doesn't matter how much males you get. Some people clip the queen's wings so she cant get away. Because once you have a queen in your box the rest will come. Its so amazing actually how they have hundreds of bees to a box and like 12 boxes right next to each other and they just know which one is their home and they travel up to 2 and a half miles away to go get nectar and they know how to get back its pretty cool. We've had some fresh honey here with no sugar added straight from the bees and it tastes so good.

Wow I cant believe Dan had his baby already it seemed like just yesterday we were at their wedding crazy right. And gees Sam too thats crazy. I actually kind of figured she was gonna get married to that guy pretty soon after I left so its shocking yet not shocking at the same time. But good for her. Ya I heard about Rene getting baptized thats awesome. Well I sent off my letters with the British lady to Shawn and Dennis so I hope they get them sometime.

Hey Family,

Things in Hopeton are going well. Another lady named Andrea who lives in the same yard with Tatiana was jealous that she was getting baptized and she called us and was upset that we werent continuing to visit with her and that she wanted to get baptized too. We used to teach Andrea but we had a drop lesson with her because she wasn't keeping her commitments and wasn't progressing so now we are going to continue to visit with her and hopefully she'll get baptized soon as well. Whats a bummer is that we don't know where I'm going but we do know that I am leaving next week so I wont get to be there for the baptisms. We get transfer calls on Saturday.  And we know that Elder Larsen is going to be training in Hopeton. Our best guess based on everything else that is happening though is that I will be moved to Old Harbour with Elder Toutai (a Tongan) so we will see if we were right this weekend. Elder Larsen has one more transfer left he will arrive home on July 28th. It's been great serving with him and he has been an awesome trainer for me. We are good friends and I'm sure we'll keep in contact after the mission. Besides he has family in southern California so I'm sure I'll probably see him sometime cuz they come down a lot. He'll actually be in CA a week after he gets back for two weeks. My trade off with Elder Kraus went really well. He's an awesome missionary and I learned a lot from him we teach really well together and he's a good friend of mine out here as well. 

Today we went to Treasure Beach for a Half Zone Pday. So it was me, Elder Larsen, the ZL's (Elder Kraus and Dale), and all 5 sisters (Payne, Speakman, Wilkinson, Smith, and Everette). Treasure Beach was awesome and very beautiful. We played a game of soccer in the mud and had a bit of a mud fight as well. Elder Dale and Kraus picked me up and threw me in a huge pond for initiation it was pretty funny. We had a blast. We also went to a really nice pizza restaurant that a lot of tourist there go to and had pizza and ice cream. The water was beautiful its a bummer for all of us to look at it and know we cant go in. Ill send pics next week we just got back to Mandeville and are still wet and muddy as we speak on the computers. I left the cable at the house. I got my first email from Seth so I am going  to write him after you I haven't read it yet. 

Love Jake,

Elders Clark & Larsen

Hopeton Branch President Richardson and his family