Happy Grandma K's 100th Bday!

Mon, Sep 27, 2010

We had a good week this week. We are still having a lot of rain, but I haven't gotten too wet. We've been struggling lately finding new investigators so that's what we focused on this week. Last Tuesday morning we had an appoointment cancel on us so we were riding through different neighborhood when we passed one house with the door open. Elder Ronhaar felt like we should stop and call at the house. We did and we met a man named Carl who lives there with his wife and daughter (a family!). He is awesome and we've been able to teach a few times now. He is full of questions but we've been able to answer them using the Book of Mormon. His wife hasn't opened up to us yet, but I hope she will soon. I also felt like we should try contacting in a fairly new housing development on the far end of town. We just started calling at doors and throughout the week we were able to teach a lot of people and find several new investigators. There are three of them especially who I feel were truly prepared to receive our message. The Lord has truly blessed in our efforts.

Yes, the people here have to go to Panama to get to the temple. There is no flights that go directly from Jamaica to the DR.

Attendance at church yesterday was quite small (less than 20 people) due to the rain, but it was still good. I'm looking forward to General Conference this weekend. We get to watch it at the building in Spanish Town.

So I'll try to rehearse the 8 principles of Preach My Gospel. I haven't gotten all the training on them yet, but I'll at least list them off. The first focuses on our purpose as missionaries as found on page 1 of PMG, and clearly teaching these basic doctrines of Christ. The second emphasizes the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. The 3rd is to teach investigators to receive revelation through the Book of Mormon. 4th is teach them to receive revelation through church attendance. 5th is to teach them to receive revelation through prayer. the 6th emphasizes the importance of teaching people, not lessons. the 7th has to do with the commitment pattern in that we invite, they commit, and we follow up. the 8th is about how to begin teaching. There is a lot more to each one of these principles, but I don't know all the details yet.

As far as some ideas for primary, maybe you could share a bit about the food. we get all kinds of good stuff here like chicken foot soup, goat head soup, cow foot, ox tail, stew peas (made with pig tail), stew pork (cooked with all the fat and skin with the hair still on it). For transportation, very few people have cars. most people walk, ride a bike if they have one, or take a taxi or bus. All the school kids have to wear matching uniforms and the girls have to wear dresses. There are dogs and goats everywhere. you'll be walking down the street and pass through a herd of 20 goats. Instead of baseball, they play cricket. They also play a lot of soccer and dominoes. As far as their dress, they don't wear enough, so that might not be the best topic of discussion. The Rastafarian men wear their hair in dred locks. For church we meet upstairs above an old hardware store. The only way you can tell that it is a church is because of the small sign that hangs out front. The primary meets in a small room where the chalk board is a piece of plywood spray painted black. On a good sunday we have about a dozen primary kids that meet in there. Hope that's enough. I can't really think of anything else.

Thanks for the emails and prayers. Love you all.
Elder Kartchner

Igor? (the hurricane)

Mon, Sep 20, 2010

Well, we got a lot of rain this week. It could be spin-off from one of the hurricanes nearby. I don't really know. It has been raining and flooding a lot which has slowed us down a bit. I will try to send pics.

At this point we don't really have any investigators that are progressing. We have a few new investigators so hopefully something will happen.

This weekend was the Spanish Town District Conference. (there are two districts that have been organized to prepare to become stakes. President Hendricks is still the presiding authority but we also have a district presidency and district couselors and such that essentially act as stake presidency, high couselors, and so on.) The conference was good. We got to go to the Priesthood leadership meeting as well as the adult and general sessions. They talked a lot about making and keeping covenants. They also talked a lot about paying tithing and sacrificing to make it to the temple. The members in Jamaica have to go to Panama to get to the temple so it is quite a sacrifice.

The 1st presidency came out with 8 principles, during the new mission president training in June, to help missionaries more effectively use Preach My Gospel and be more effective in general. That has been President Hendricks' main focus. I think they are trying to get all the missions on board so they can start teaching it in the MTC starting in May of 2011. I can't remember them all off the top of my head so I'll have to follow up with that next week.

I will try to send some pics but it is not cooperating very well. Anyway, thanks for the emails. have a great week. Love you lots.

Elder Kartchner

Good Morning

Sep 13, 2010

Things are going good. Its too bad you haven't got much rain as of late.  Lately it's been raining here just about every day. It will be sunny in the morning and then the clouds will roll in and rain for a half hour or so in the early afternoon. This morning though, I woke up at 5 to a nice steady rain that continued until 10. The clouds haven't let up either so we might get some more.

Last wednesday we had a zone meeting in Spanish Town which is the town just to the east of us. Elder Ronhaar and I got the crazy idea to ride our bikes there. I'm not sure how far it is but it took a good 50 minutes of hard riding to get there. It was a great ride though. We had the nice morning ocean breeze and we were riding right through all the big cane fields with the hills in the background covered in fog. I think I'm used to biking enough now that I could keep up with Mom (maybe).

Yes Dad, it is interesting to see the effects the family structure has on the youth. I can't think of any of the youth or even primary kids in our branch that are still living with both of their original parents. That is a very rare thing here and you can see the consequences of it everywhere. Sometimes I wonder how much stronger the church would be here if we had more families.

Well, you put your finger right on it. getting people to follow through with their commitments is the biggest challenge. The two people we have with dates were very close to being ready for baptism but have stopped progressing. Hopefully that will change soon. We're now having to focus on finding new people to teach. We've been teaching a lot of different people but so far not much has come of it. Most of them has just been curious. We did talk to a guy the other night that seems to be really good so we'll see how it goes when we teach him again tomorrow.

Yesterday we had good meetings as well. Elder Ronhaar and I were the speakers for sacrament meeting. I talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how we need to endure to the end by continuing to strengthen our faith, repent, and renew our covenants of baptism and receive a remission of our sins by receiving the Holy Ghost when we partake of the sacrament. I felt like I needed to talk about the basics of Christ's teachings. I think too many times we get caught up with all the little details and we "look beyond the mark" as Nephi says, that we forget about these essential doctrines.

Anyway, have a good week. Thanks for the emails and prayers.
Elder Kartchner