Beach Barbeque

Mon, Jun 11, 2012

Well, we had a fairly good week. We went to Port Antonio on Wednesday and spent the day with the elders there and did some baptismal interviews for them. Thursday we were in Kingston all day. As far as things in Ochi, it's going alright. We had one lady we were teaching that was doing really well, but she's been hiding from us for the last few days, so I'm not sure what that's all about. Besides that all the contacts we got from the forum are being difficult to meet with again. Anyway, we've hit a bit of a rough patch but we're working hard right through it and praying that the Lord will bless us for it. 

 

Today we hosted another combined zone p-day here in Ochi on the beach. This time Elder Wright and I cooked up a whole bunch of Jerk chicken and festival. It was quite a hit.

Love you all lots!

Elder Kartchner

Howdy

Mon, Jun 4, 2012

We had a pretty good week here in Ochi. Elder Wright worked really hard all week to advertise and get people to our open forum. We put up posters and handed out flyers and invited everyone we met. Of all the people we invited, however, I think only one person came. What we found to be effective was to meet with all the members in the branch throughout the week and have a lesson with them and give them 5-10 flyers and committed to give them out to their friends and family. That approach worked fairly well. We had the forum on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday night and had at least 15 or so of the members friends that showed up. We got a couple of good new investigators out of it and some more that we need to follow up with. Besides all of that, things are going well. We had good church meetings yesterday even though the attendance was low. It was a bit weird to think that it was my last testimony meeting in Jamaica. Their usually pretty exciting which I'm going to miss. Well, this week should be very busy for us, which is good. No time to think about home. Sorry guys. Anyway, have a great week. Love you Lots!

Elder Kartchner

We've had a really good, busy week this last week. We've been working really hard to find some good people to teach. We've made some good progress this week. We're advertising for an open forum this weekend where the public can come and ask questions and be part of a discussion about our beliefs and such. We're really excited for it. We'll see how it goes. In advertising for it we've been able to find a few people who are genuinely interested already. Church yesterday was good. We finally had a few investigators at church. Things are starting to pick up again. I love you all lots. have a great week.

Elder Kartchner

Hey Fam

Mon, May 21, 2012

We've had another good week here in Ochi. Things are going well for us here. We've finally started to see some good progress with a few of the less-actives that we've been working with. We're still struggling with our investigators. We don't have any right now that are really ready to change, so we're trying a number of things to find some new investigators. Besides all that, things are going well. We had good church meetings yesterday. I got to teach gospel doctrine which was fun. So, have a great week. Love you Lots!

Elder Kartchner

Thanks for the Call

Mon, May 14, 2012
Hey Fam,

 

It was so good to see you all. I'm glad the internet worked well. I appreciate all the good encouragements. I'm definitely working hard right to the end of my mission. Things are going well for us here. This week we had a really good opportunity to spend some time with some of the elders in our zone. It was a companionship that has been really struggling this whole transfer. We went on a 2 day trade-off with them and worked with them on a few things. It really helped them out a lot which has been really good to see. Unfortunately we weren't able to see the same improvement with our investigators this week. We have several investigators that we've been working a lot with the last few weeks but it seems like none of them are really ready to make a real change. It's been a little frustrating at times but humbling at the same time, which has been good for me. I'm continuing to learn a lot and I'm looking forward to what I can still learn in the few weeks I have left. 

Happy Mother's Day once again! Thanks for all you do. Love you lots!

Elder Kartchner

Mon, May 7, 2012

Well, I'm assuming you didn't get my email last week since I got on my email today and found out that all the emails I sent last week didn't go through. Anyway, This week was good. It was a bit slow since as far as missionary work in our area, but it was still good. Wednesday we spent the day in Port Antonio with the elders there and Thursday we were in Kingston. We also got tons of rain this week which always makes missionary work interesting. It's been good though, we have some good people we are working with. The best news of the week came today when I talked to the elders from Linstead and they told me that Vaughn, who I helped get baptized when I was there, received the Melchezidek Priesthood and is engaged to be married in the Salt Lake Temple.

Today we had a zone p-day with The North Coast Zone and Spanish Town Zone. Everyone came here to Ochi and we went to the beach. We borrowed a grill and had a big cook out and played some beach football. It was a lot of fun, but I am really sun-burned right now.

  

Talk to you soon! Have a great week.

 

Love you Lots!

Elder Kartchner

Happy Last Day of April!

Mon, Apr 30, 2012

We had another good week in Ochi, in spite of the rain. It rained most of the week, but we managed. Things are going well. We have a few good referrals and others that we are beginning to teach, so we'll hopefully begin to see some results fairly soon.

 

This week we had zone conference. President Hendricks spoke about the main concern the Brethren have with the church experiencing growth, but not real growth. The church is growing amazingly fast numerically, but many of those baptized are not being retained as a result of a lack of true conversion or a lack of understanding of repentance among other things. This is definitely the biggest problem we have in Jamaica. If you noticed in conference, several of the speakers addressed the issue of Real Growth. Anyway, our meeting was very good and opened my eyes a little bit more.

 

As for Mother's Day, I was thinking that I don't really need to call since I'll be home soon anyway. Ok, Just kidding. Skype would be the easiest thing for me. We'll have to do it in the evening. We'll probably use the same member's computer as last time so hopefully it works better this time.

 

Have a great week. Love you lots!

Elder Kartchner

Warming Up

Mon, Apr 23, 2012

 

Hey Fam,

We had a very good week here in Ochi. The only problem is that it went by too fast. It seems like my weeks keep getting faster and faster. We were able to get a lot done though, in terms of finding some good new investigators and getting some good referrals. Things are starting to pick up a bit. We spent wednesday and part of thursday in Montego Bay working with the elders there. besides that we've just been doing some good old fashioned missionary work.

 

That is really cool that you get to work in the temple. How often do you get to do that? For the conference talks, I wish we had a way to read them online, but I'll just have to wait till we get the May Liahona.

 

Well, have a great week. Talk to you soon. Love y'all lots!

Elder Kartchner

 

Happy Easter!

Tue, Apr 10, 2012

Hey Fam,

 

Things are going well. We didn't get to email yesterday since all the stores were closed for Easter. It rained all day anyway so we just stayed inside. My new companion, Elder Wright, is great. It helps having a Jamaican companion to connect with people. He's really good though, and he's a great cook. I got a taste of his rice and peas and fried chicken yesterday. It was good. I think I might gain a few pounds this transfer. Anyway, besides all that, things are going fairly well.

 

I'm sure you heard about the big storm and such in Texas last week. Well, we had 7 new missionaries that got stuck in the Dallas airport during it all. they were supposed to get here on Tuesday, but didn't make it until Friday. Two of them are in our zone now so I'm glad they made it.

 

Besides that things are going on pretty normal. We haven't heard any more about Cuba. I'm sure we'll talk about it when we have our meeting with President Hendricks on Thursday. Well, love you all but I've got to go. I'm a little short on time today.

 

Elder Kartchner

Happy General Conference!

Mon, Apr 2, 2012

General Conference was great. We got to watch it at the church here in Ochi via the internet. We just had to run a wire from the computer upstairs down to the TV and presto! Thankfully it didn't freeze up during any of the sessions which was a miracle since the computer got a bad virus last week. Anyway, the talks and such were amazing, as usual, and answered a lot of my questions. We had one investigator there on Sunday. It was really cool.

 

Well, this week is transfers. Elder Randle is getting transferred to Kingston and I'm staying here in Ochi with Elder Wright. I'm sad to see Elder Randle go. We've been serving together since the beginning of December and he's been a great companion. I'm excited though for Elder Wright. I don't know him at all. I just know he's a Jamaican from Kingston.

 

Well, sorry to miss all the Easter egg coloring fun. You'll have to eat some extra for me. That's cool that you got to see Joseph. Tell him hi for me and could you also get his email for me.

 

Have a great Easter! Love you all.

Elder Kartchner

Another week

Mon, Mar 26, 2012

We had another good week here in Ochi. Things are going well. It has been pretty busy for us. Tuesday we drove to Montego Bay to drop off some stuff. On Wednesday we had district meeting in Port Antonio and a trade-off in Highgate. Thursday we had to take one of the elders in our zone to the dentist in Kingston for a root canal. Besides all the busy work it has been good. Marine and Shantal are doing very well, and we're starting to find some new people to work with. Church yesterday was excellent. We had good attendance by both members and investigators. We had a visitor from the mission presidency there. After Fast and Testimony meeting he got up and had to teach everyone how to bear a testimony. I was glad he did because we get some interesting ones sometimes.

Just in case you wanted to know, this morning I woke up with runny-belly. I'm thinking it probably had something to do with the cow-foot and tripe that we had for dinner yesterday. I'm starting to feel better now though.

Have a great week. Love y'all lots!

Elder Kartchner

St. Patrick's Day?

Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 9:39 AM
Hey Fam,

It's been another good week, as always. It's been busy as usual with teaching and driving and meeting and such. On Wednesday we were in Montego Bay for District meeting and exchanges. On Thursday we had to go to Kingston for a zone leader meeting. Besides all that we've had a good week of teaching. We have some good investigators but it seems a couple of them have plateaued a bit. We're having trouble getting them to come to church consistently. Yesterday at church was a bit interesting when Elder Randle and I were the only ones there at 10:00 when it was supposed to start. We had about 11 adults there by the end of Sacrament meeting. The attendance was pretty low for members and investigators but we still had good meetings.

 

At our meeting on Thursday we got some exciting news. Cuba has been dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. Elder Bednar went there a few weeks ago and dedicated it. We knew that it was scheduled to happen over a month ago but it wasn't public knowledge yet. It's pretty exciting though. Cuba is in our mission. They still don't know when they are going to send missionaries in there, but they are working on doing it as soon as possible. There is one small branch in Havannah already and there are other groups meeting throughout the island. President Hendricks told us about one group of 20 or so in Santiago? that somehow got a copy of a Book of Mormon and a conference report and are meeting together every week convinced that this is the true church. They are just waiting for somebody to come teach and baptize them.

 

Well, thanks for all you do. have fun on your camping trips and such.

Love you Lots!

Elder Kartchner

Hey Fam

Mon, Mar 5, 2012

Hey Fam,

We had another good week in Ochi. We had district meeting on Wednesday in Port Antonio and a trade-off in Highgate after that. It's always fun to go back to an area where you've served. Besides that, nothing too exciting this week. The baptism that was planned for Saturday coming got pushed back a few weeks so that was a bit of a bummer, but it's still good. Our investigators are still doing fairly well. We had a good surprise yesterday when This man who we met two weeks ago, came to church. He came last week as well but we didn't think we'd see him again. He's kind of old, and he preaches at another church, but he's cool. President Hendricks was at our church yesterday. He interviewed several people for their patriarchal blessings. They got permission for one of our senior couples, who's a patriarch, to give patriarchal blessings here which is a big deal since they didn't have access to one before.

Well, tell congrats to Paul for me and Golden and Becky too! In some ways Paul doesn't know how lucky he is. Sometimes I wonder what a mission would be like where you have church buildings and wards and stakes and temples and everything else. I'm excited for him.

 

Well, have a good week. Love y'all lots!

Elder Kartchner

Un Rio

Mon, Feb 27, 2012

We had a really good week here in Ochi. This week was a little crazy as a zone leader with transfers and all. We spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on the road picking people up and taking them to their new areas. If you want to follow on the map we went from Ochi to Montego Bay to Ochi to Highgate to Spanish Town to Mandaville to Santa Cruz to Sav-la-mar to Negril to Montego Bay to Ochi to highgate and back to Ochi. It was quite the road trip but Elder Randle and I are glad to be back teaching again. In spite of our being gone half the week, our investigators are doing really well. Yesterday at church we had 9 investigators at church. Alecia, who we've been teaching for a while, finally was able to come now that her baby is old enough. It was awesome to see Marine there since she's missed the last two weeks. She got called into work sunday morning but chose to come to church instead. We also had about 10 tourists there so it was a full house. I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament Meeting on Prayer which was really good for me. Having more effective prayer is something that I've been working on for a while now.

 

To answer Dad's questions, they say that there is 8 rivers that the city is named after but I can only think of 3 or 4. It's hard to tell though. Also, to get new contacts, we try to work through referrals as much as possible but we do have to spend some time contacting on our own. To contact we try different stuff like Street contacting, door to door, going to places like the park, or setting up a table in town. We have also been planning to set up a piano class for the public.

 

Well, sounds like you all are having fun. That horse back trip should be good. I hope you know that I still haven't been on one yet. You always wait till I can't go. I'll forgive you this once...maybe. The trip to California sounds good to me although I was thinking we should go to Nassau instead.

 

Well, have another great week. Love you lots!

Elder Kartchner

Happy new week!

Mon, Feb 20, 2012

We had another good week in Ochi. We got transfer calls on Saturday and Elder Randle and I are both staying, which i'm glad for. Our investigators are doing fairly well. It seems like something comes up every Sunday to keep them from coming to church. Hopefully we can help them figure it out pretty soon. Yesterday was good still even though we didn't have the investigators we expected at church. One of the Sisters we've helped to re-activate invited her cousin to church and she loved it so we'll start teaching her this week. We also got a few other referrals that we can start with this week.

I've been playing the keyboard for sacrament meeting for about a month now, and I'm getting much better at it. I started this week to teach Nephi (the kid we baptized about a month ago) to play the keyboard. Piano lessons are so exciting to teach. Now I see why Mom always fell asleep! One of the other members asked me to start teaching them this week, so we'll see how that goes.

As for things I need, there's nothing really. I think I've got everything I'll need till June. I am accepting donations to the Elder Kartchner's Gym Membership Fund, though. Also, if any of y'all want any souvenirs or such from Jamaica tell me what you want and I can get it while I'm still here in Ochi.

Have a great week. Love you lots.

Elder Kartchner

Happy Erica's Bday!

Mon, Feb 13, 2012

We had another good week here in Ochi. We had the baptism for Charmaine Linton on saturday. She's about 40 yrs old and is a friend of one of the members. It went really well. Even though it was at 8:00 in the morning we still had a good turn out of members that came to support. We did the baptism in White River, which is really pretty, but the current makes baptizing a challenge. We had to do it about 10 times before we got her all the way under but we got it done. It really was a neat experience. She was confirmed yesterday in Sacrament meeting.

 

Yesterday at church was the first time since i've been here in Ochi that we didn't have any investigators at church. It was just an off day for us. We have several really good investigators but they all got called into work yesterday morning. That's the only problem with a tourist town is they make people work on sunday. 

Besides all that, things are going really well. Today we had our zone P-day. We went out to Green Grotto Caves which was pretty cool. Transfers is next week so I'll find out saturday if I'm staying or not. I hope I stay because we have several people that should be baptized in the next few weeks and we have some good new potentials.

 

Well, hope y'all have a great week. Love ya lots!

Elder Kartchner

Howdy

Mon, Feb 6, 2012

Well, we had another good week in Ochi. I got to see pretty much the whole island this week. On Wednesday we went to Montego Bay for district meeting and spent the day with the elders there. Thursday we drove to Kingston for a zone leader council. We finally got back home late thursday. On Saturday we drove up to Brown's Town, which is a really pretty town way up in the hills, to see some members. Other than all that, things are going well. Charmain will be baptized this Saturday so that's exciting. We have some really good investigators. Again on Sunday we had just as many investigators as members at the beginning of sacrament meeting. I played the keyboard again for Sacrament meeting. I'm glad your testimony meeting was good. Ours was a bit sketchy. You always know there's going to be trouble when the old pentacostal ladies get up to preach. The branch itself is doing ok - it seems to be improving slowly. We are working with a few less-active members but there's not a whole lot of potential priesthood, which is our biggest problem. We'll hopefully be able to find some soon.

 

Well, tell congrats to John Michael, Barbara, Paul and Uncle Rex and Aunt Kay. That's cool. Anyway, hope everything's going great. Have a good week. Love you Lots

 

Elder Kartchner

Hey Fam

Mon, Jan 30, 2012

We had another good week, as always. This week we went to Port Antonio for district meeting and then helped the sister missionaries there move to their new house. It is really pretty there. Besides that it was pretty uneventful. Our investigators are still doing good. Charmain missed church for the first time this month because she was sick, but we stopped by after church and they had listened to the first 10 chapters of the Book of Mormon on CD so that was cool. Grace was finally able to change her work schedule to come to church. Marine and her family are doing very well also.

 

Besides that we're just working hard and having fun. Oh, I played the keyboard yesterday for Sacrament meeting for the first time and did surprisingly well. I've been practicing all week. Anyway, hope y'all have a great week. Love ya lots!

 

Elder Kartchner

Pics

 1. Nephi's baptism at White River a few weeks ago

2. Reminder of Home - this is a farm we passed driving through Linstead.

3. "Wastin' away again in Margaritaville!"

4. This is Ochi - it's a little blurry but our house is right in the middle of the picture by the yellow hotels.

5. we see some awesome scenery driving on the north coast. this is Port Maria.

Another Good Week

Mon, Jan 23, 2012
It's been another good week in Ochi. The weather has been awesome - not too hot. We had a good week in missionary work too. Our investigators Charmain, Alecia, and Grace are all doing very well. Charmain should be baptized in the next few weeks. Alecia is doing awesome but just had a baby so she hasn't been able to come to church. Grace is doing well but she's had to work almost every sunday. We fasted with her this last Sunday for her to be able to work out a way to come to church and already this week her work schedule got changed so she should have off most Sundays. We also found a family that we are teaching and they came to church yesterday for the first time and loved it. When I say family I mean the mom and kids - that's as close as we can get.

We spent the day on Wednesday in Montego Bay working with the elders there. We had Zone Conference this last Thursday here in Ochi. It was really good. President Hendricks explained the doctrine of "Grace" in a way that I've never understood before. He also talked about how to improve our prayer relationship with God and to help our investigators do the same.

We're still going strong on our working out in the morning. Elder Randle and I have gone every morning this week. I've also borrowed the keyboard from the church and I've decided to relearn the piano so I can play for church. This singing along with the CD's is getting old.

As for the Larsens, I've heard the name, but I haven't met them yet because I think they just got here. As for the zone leader thing, it's ok. I enjoy having a truck anyway. besides that it just eats up a lot of time driving and such. our zone covers from Montego Bay to Port Antonio - the whole north coast.

Congrats on the calling mom. Stake RS presidency huh? you must be important. I wish we had a stake.Oh, could you send me Grandma and Grandpa's mailing address? I think I have it somewhere but can't find it. Thanks.

Love you all lots!
Elder Kartchner