I love you and miss you all. I have Savannah and Landry's nativities on our end table in the living room so you're part of my Christmas.
Yesterday we went to Spanish Town. You'll have to look it up on a map. Along the roads were lots and lots of fields of sugar cane, and a lot of other trees. The missionaries there started planning a Christmas party and ended up doing an amazing Christmas program. They had a missionary choir with some members. They sang 5 songs as a prelude and then quite a few in the program, which included narration of the birth and life of the Savior. President Brown, our mission president, spoke a little and then Elder Cornish, our Area Seventy spoke. It was wonderful. They really worked hard to put this together.
They did a flash mob at the mall to advertise and then asked people to bring their friends. They filled several buses from Kingston branches and not everyone was able to get on the buses. Riding the buses was very expensive for the people here even though the branch subsidized it. A woman sitting in front of us came with three of her grandchildren. Her granddaughter, who was fourteen told us that they had walked three hours to come. That meant they had three hours walk back, some of which would have been in the dark. And Spanish Town has the reputation of being a dangerous place. The other two children were 9 and 3.
Things are very expensive here in Jamaica even for us as Americans. I talked with a young church sister today who is studying to be a nurse. When she gets done with school, she will get about $60,000 per month, which sounds like a lot, but is less than $600 American dollars per month. We have found that things cost about the same or more here than in America. It''s very hard for the people here. Many can't find work at all. Taxes are high. The sales tax is 16 and 1/2 percent. They tax their incomes and property as well. There seem to be a lot of people who just live on the streets. And yet they are clean and neat and pretty polite.
Driving is crazy. I don't think Jamaicans could live without their horns. According to the couple who live downstairs, their honks are mostly polite- like to let you know you can go ahead and pull in front of them, but I'm not totally sure. They are very aggressive drivers and will pull in front of you or stop whenever they want to. The motorcycles make their own lane or do whatever to go where they want to. I haven't seen anyone drive on the sidewalks yet though and they usually let pedestrians cross in front of them at any time.
There are window washers and venders in the streets all the time. They start washing your windows and then expect to get paid. We've learned to tell them no. Usually the banana venders are out in the mornings. They charge the equivalent of $1.00 for 5 bananas that they have bagged already. There also starfruit venders, newspaper venders and then venders of any and everything that people can think to sell, all walking between lanes (which are very narrow)of the street.
I hope to be able to use my camera more. I need to get an SD reader so I can send you pictures.
I hope to be able to call you on Christmas. We're going to dinner at 3:30 to a member's house. I love you all forever and ever.
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