Cute sleeping babies

Here are 18 sleeping baby pigs. They are about a month old and will be sold in about 2 more weeks. They will be called wiener pigs because they have been wiened from their mother. We have dozens of pig projects coming up in the next year so we will buy a lot of piglets. Lucky aren't we?

Trying to count squirming baby pigs

I tried to count the babies but they were running around too fast. We will probably try to buy smaller pigs like these in the future when they get to be about 20 lbs.

Pig projects

These are some of the members and myself buying some pigs one day. We bought 7 Canadian Whites that weighed about 45 lbs. each. The members were excited to get their pigs and start a little business of raising them. Much different than all of the chicken projects we have done.

How to weigh a pig

This is Mr. Nash our pig farmer friend weighing one of the pigs we bought. He simply put the pig in a grain sack and hooked the sack on a scale. The pig weighed about 45 lbs and was sold to us for about $80.00 US. When the pig gets about 130 lbs., they will either sell it for meat or have the females bred for more pigs. Pigs have a 3-3-3 cycle for having a litter. Three months, three weeks and three days and they deliver after getting pregnant

Sorrel

This is a fruit bud called sorrel. The local people use it for a delicious drink mixed with ginger. Very tasty with a little bite from the ginger. The farmers on the 5 acre farm have about 2 acres of sorrel almost ready for harvest. They have to take a large pit from the center of the bud and sell the petals on the market for about one dollar a pound.

Corn and pumpkins

The farmers are growing some so called sweet corn (actually field corn) and some pumpkins in their 5 acre farm.

Cucumber patch

This is part of the first of the vegatables that were sold on the 5 acre farm. At least it was a start for them so they could start paying their own expenses.

Beautiful children

We went to a pre-school to give them some school kits and found these delightful young kids. They were really excited to get some school supplies from the church and we were happy to give them some. These kids have nothing.

Hair art

This young girl had her hair weaved by her mother. This process took about 4 hours to do and they leave it in for 1-2 months at a time. Very beautiful and artistic.

It works!!

I suppose the truck in front of us couldn't find a red flag to put on the back of his ladder so he just improvised with a bunch of flowers.

Pigs, pigs, and more pigs

You thought we were only building chicken coops. Wrong!! We are officially now starting with the pig projects. We have over 50 projects with pigs to do and then on to the goats. All of these projects will help the people here gain a little food and money if they do the projects right. All we can do is train them and leave them to do the best they can. Some of the people here are so hungry or have not money that we don't know what they will be when they sell their chickens, pigs and goats. We hope they will continue and buy more animals to start a new cycle.

Pig farm

Here we are touring a pig farm to get ideas about raising them. This picture shows Elder flake and some of the govt. people we have been using to train the local people going up to the sow pens. This farm was way up in the mountains and we were glad to have a 4-wheel drive truck to get there.

"Jerk"

Most of you have heard the term "jerk chicken or jerk pork" but don't know what it is. Jerk is simply the rub or spice they put on the chicken or pork before and during the cooking of the meat. Most of time the jerk seasoning creates a hot to very hot taste. This picture shows the way the Jamaicans cook their meat. They simply cut a 55 gallon barrel the long way, open it up with a pair of hinges and put a stand under it. They use home made charcol as the heat and the result is delicious. I just love the chicken and it's wonderful BBQ flavor. There are hundreds of stands like this over the island and are very popular with the tourists and native people

Member involvement

Whenever we do a project for an organization like a school or hospital, for example, we have the local branches do some kind of service project for them. This picture shows members and young elders repairing a parking lot for a school. It's good to see members come and work together on such projects because the members here have seldom worked together as a team or helped each other.

Young Single Adults

We had the young single adults on the island come and paint the emergency container we have in Spanish Town as a service project. We try to have members involved in such projects especially the young people.

Handing over ceremony

This is a special day when we turned over a gift from the church to a large hospital in Ocho Rios. We donated a portable anethesia machine to them and they were thrilled. Sitting by me are several doctors and administrators of the hospital. The hospital performs about 30 surgeries a day and their old machines are always breaking down.

Media coverage of special events

These are media people covering the handing over ceremony at the hospital. I was interviewed and asked a lot of questions about why the church does such things as giving equipment away and helping the people in Jamaica. It's good to have coverage like this but I don't like being on TV.

Three cute chicks

Corliss the chicken woman. Did you ever think you would see her holding chickens? These baby chickens are only about 3 hours old and are thirsty and hungry. We have to get them out of the crate and into the brooder area where they can eat and drink. It only takes 6 weeks for these chicks to grow to maturity. They will weigh about 5 lbs then will be slaughtered.

Grandchild hungry

Sister Whitehead gets a little homesick for her grandchildren so once in a while she gets to hug a native baby. Isn't the little girl cute?

Jamaica wedding

This is Diedra. She is walking into the chapel with the Branch President to get married. She married another member and will live in another branch. It's good to see our members marry right. It's a law in Jamaica that the members here have a civil marriage before they can go to the temple. The biggest problem is having enough money to travel to the temple so a lot of the members have to wait a long time to go there.

Cute little Gold Wing

Isn't this a cute little motorcycle? Whoever owns it put a lot of time installing metal banding on it.

Kingston sisters

This is a picture of most of the Relief Society sisters in our branch. We had a training meeting with them about food storage and afterward had a 24th of July meal we prepared for them and some of their husbands. The branch president was so impressed with potato salad that he came back several times for more. These people know how to eat.

Dry pack food storage

We are teaching a large group of sisters about food storage. Jamaica has two dry pack seal machines for the two districts and we are trying to train the members about food storage. The main problem is they don't have anything to store and nowhere to store it. We try to instill in the members to at least store a little even if for just a few days. Many have lived through hurricanes and other disasters without food so they know it's important to store something. Many have little or no money to buy and store a great amount. They read in the Ensign about a years supply and are dumbfounded that anyone could actually do that let alone afford to do so.

More dry pack food storage

Humble home

We have two large districts in Jamaica. This is the District President on the West side of the island. He is very poor but a spiritual giant. This is a house he is going to move in just the way it is because he can't afford to finish it right now. He has 4 kids and will live in two small rooms with no water close by or electricty. It will take him years to finish the whole house but he will do it.

Sugar cane

This is how they used to squeeze sugan cane to make sugar syrup and molasses. From molasses, they make their famous rum.

Fair time

Every year Jamaica has a very large fair that deals mostly with agriculture. Here is a large display of some of the wonderful fruits and vegatables grown here. The fair was fun because of the food, displays and animals. Not quite the Blackfoot fair but very fun

Young Single Adults

We spent a couple of days with 165 young single adults on the North shore of Jamaica. Here is Sister Whitehead checking in and giving the young people name tags. It was really enjoyable to see these young people enjoy themselves. Many of these kids have never seen this part of the island or stayed in a hotel before. This is an event held every year so the young people can get together and meet (hopefully some of will marry and stay in Jamaica).

Patriarchal blessings

Here is Elder Smith (new patriarch) talking to the youth about receiving blessings. Already, he has given 10 in the last two weeks. For some reason, no one from our branch has asked for one.

Lots of questions

At the young single adults conference, an evening of questions and answers. The mission president along with several other leaders answered many questions about dating, marriage, missions and education. The young people really enjoyed it.

Checkers anyone

Look at what they play checkers with. It works!!

Me sweating again

I am cutting 2x8 lumber to make raised garden containers. We have a lot of these to build while serving in Jamaica but they are fun to do. With the help of the young elders and family members, the work goes fast and they start their gardens as soon as we leave. Each family had to attend 3 classes on gardening and pest control.

Something besides chickens

You probably thought that we only worked on chicken coops. We also are helping dozens of members build raised garden beds in their back yards. This is Sister Sousa who was delighted that she could plant several vegatables in such small areas. We teach the people to plant and fertilize the correct way so these little gardens will provide a fairly large quantity of produce.

Honored helpers

The senior missionaries in this picture are the Smiths. He is the brand new Patriarch. Jamaica has never had a Patriarch before so he will be busy. The Smiths love to help us on their days off and we love to have them help us. We are building raised garden beds for a member who is a single widow who needs a lot of help.

Finally

There is a group of 11 farmers in one of our brances that had the Church lease 5 acres of ground so they could plant various crops to supplement their income. We had a lot of issues such as distance from their homes, water, clearing of the ground, plowing and making furrows and security. Since the Church gave this group a lot of tools, it was decided to purchase a 20' used container and convert it into a secure storage facility. The truck delivering the container had trouble delivering it because it broke down several times and probably wasn't adequate in what it was designed to do.

Where's OSHA

After a long struggle, they finally unloaded the container but had to move it around a lot to find the most level spot. The next problem is getting a welder there repair the doors that were damaged in shipment. We have to weld large metal boxes over the areas where the door locks are so thieves don't break in so easily.

Thousands of school kits

The Church gives numerous containers full of supplies to Food for the Poor here in Jamaica. We are allowed half of what we give this organization if we want it. We decided to take a container that was full of school kits (assembled in Boise by the way) and distribute them to the various branches and organizations that need these kits for school children. Whenever we travel to a town that has a branch, we take a hundred or so of these kits and let the Branch President distribute them. This picture shows one of 12 pallets we unloaded at the Spanish Town Branch building. This building has a large storage room in the basement.

Hard working Sisters

This is Sister Whitehead and Sister Flake taking one of the boxes of school kits into the branch basement for storage. They were tired because we stored over 5,000 kits that day.

I asked the Elder to show me his shoes because they looked like they were worn out. Sure enough, you could actually see the sole of his foot through his shoe. His socks had large holes in them besides. Most Elders shoes look like this after a while.

Almost home

Here is a picture of a typical Elder right before he goes home. He is very slim, has a short hair cut and tanned. We have very good Elders here and are blessed by their desire to help us whenever we ask them.

Banana spider

This spider is about 5" in diameter and scared me to death when we ran into it's web. I don't know if it is poisonous or not but I wasn't about to find out. Double click on the picture so you can see how colorful it really is.

We have eggs!!!

This is Sister Grant with a large pan full of eggs from the layers we gave her. She gets between 30-38 eggs everyday and takes them to her neighbors or to the market to sell them. She gets about $2.25 a dozen and it really helps with her bills.

Another great sign in Jamaica

Jamaica has dozens of interesting highway signs throughout the country. I think they must have had a contest on slogans.

Chicken coop projects

We have over 300 projects we are working on in Jamaica. I think we have over 150 chicken coops that need to be built. All of the participants (member of the church or not) have to take several hours of classwork to learn about raising chickens, marketing, and the upkeep of the coop. After they have completed their coarse, we come out and help lay the building out and help square the building for them. Most people here have no idea about how to build a square building. Members of the branch come and finish the building and those that finished their project are expected to help those that came and helped them. We found out that most of the members here have never really associated with other members that much. These projects make it so they have a lot of association with each other and get to meet their neighbors. This picture shows several members and non-members digging footings for the little coop.

Typical coop

The whole idea of building these coops and other projects is to help members start being self sufficient and being able to supplement their meager incomes. Members of the branches come and help each other build these projects with a little help from us seniors. We design the project, buy the materials and make sure it is started and finished properly. We don't worry about craftsmanship or the time table because the people in Jamaica have their way of doing things and we don't interfere too much. So far, the little coops have been a great blessing to the members and non-members alike. They take such great pride in building these little structures and give us great big hugs and smiles throughout the project

Coop on a roof

You wouldn't believe the weird places that we help build coops. This project was for a member that only had a roof to build the coop on. As you can see, it was a challenge and I worry since hurricane season is starting soon and I don't know how much wind it can take. I tried to anchor it down as best I could. We also build on hillsides and in places that scares me because of the difficulty in getting materials to the job site.

My chick-mobile

We had to convert my little pickup into a chicken hauler because the company that sells the chickens do not deliver them to every little customer. We had 3 deliveries that day and the truck was really stinky and messy from all of the chickens. Sister Whitehead even picked up 2 chickens at a time and put them into the truck. This is Elder Schaefermeyer and a member helping me with the chickens. Elder Schaefermeyer is the missionary I will replace.

Happy Sister Grant

This is Sister Grant. We helped her build the first chicken coop in a town called May Pen. We try to build a coop in a remote area so the other members that are building coops can come and see exactly what they are supposed to look like. She is a single sister that we gave 40 laying hens so she could sell 3 dozen eggs a day. She will make about 7 dollars a day doing this but it is a lot to these people that have nothing.

P-Day

Every once in a while, we get to take a special day and just relax and goof off as senior missionaries. There were 10 of us seniors that made a trip to the East side of the island to visit the famous Reach Falls. This picture is of a view of the ocean where we stopped and ate lunch before we continued on with our journey. Beautiful water. This beach is about 2 hours from Kingston.

Reach Falls

Our goal was to get to this falls on our p-day activity. This is a very secluded falls called Reach Falls. You have to drive about 3 hours from Kingston to get there but it was worth it. We had to hire a guide to take us to the falls from the parking lot but he stayed with us the whole time. What suprised us was how cold the water was. Apparently, it comes out of the side of the mountains somewhere thus making it cold as it filters through the mountian. This was the coldest I have been since I arrived in Jamaica.