It's been many years since I served in Jamaica. In fact I never served in the Jamaica mission... It was called the West Indies mission at the time.

When I arrived in 1983 there were 6 missionaries on the island, 4 elders and 2 sisters. The sister were located in Mandeville the elders in Kingston and Maypen. They were the final sisters to serve on the island unless the policy has changed since then.

I was called to the Florida Ft. Lauderdale mission and arrived in November of 1982. At that time Most of the West Indies were part of our mission including Haiti, Jamaica, Guantanamo Bay, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Leeward and Winward island groups. Dominican Republic and Puerto rico were there own missions. Some of the French speaking island were part of the French missions and missionaries from France were transferred there near the end of their service. About 6 months into my mission I was called to serve in Jamaica around April 1983. Also at that time Haiti became it's own mission.

At our mission conference held in Miami that month the mission President Kenneth L. Zabriskie announced that the Ft. Lauderdale mission was to be dissolved and that Ft. Lauderdale would be part of the Tampa mission. He would be the new West Indies mission president. I was scheduled to leave for Jamaica in July/August 1983 and was working on getting my passport and working Visa to go to Jamaica. Pres. Zabriskie took about 20 missionaries from the Ft. Lauderdale mission with him. He set up the mission Home in Christchurch Barbados. I'll continue part 2 as time permit and memory returns LOL!

The Growth in the Jamaica Kingston Mission over the last two to three years has been exciting to say the least.

I arrived in Jamaica in August of 1985 as part of the first group of missionaries assigned to the newly-formed Jamaica Kingston mission. President Richard Brough, from Kaysville Utah,