Howdy

I'm assuming Devon still has all his teeth......
Mom

Mon, Oct 25, 2010
Sounds like things are going good. We had a pretty good week. This last week we've been trying to visit the 2/3's of our branch that are inactive. Our plan is to try to bring them back to church and get referrals from them in the process. We'll see how it goes. There has been a gradual increase in excitement about missionary work in the Branch. We have received several referrals from different members and had others tell us they are willing to teach with us. One of the members invited a man named Wayne Palmer to friday night institute class (institute is for everyone, not just YSA) a while back and he has been coming for several weeks and really likes it. We finally got to meet with him this last Friday and he is solid. He told us he wants to be baptized but he wasn't able to make it to church. We'll have to see where that one goes.

This past Wednesday night I was on a tradeoff in May Pen. We were hurrying to get home on time so I was going pretty fast on my bike. The roads were all wet because of the rain and there were no street lights. I had never biked on that particular part of the road before and it turns out there is a old railroad track that crosses the road at a diagonal. Well, I hit it and my front tire slipped on the wet track and I went sliding down the road face first. There wasn't too much damage. I only scrapped up my face a bit and ripped one of my good shirts. Oh, and I jammed my finger pretty good which puffed up like a sausage and turned purple and green. It was pretty sweet.

So, if I remember right you all have your hunt this next week. Good luck. I hope Karina gets the biggest one.

Thanks for everything. Love you all.
Love, Elder Kartchner

Happy Goat Week!

On Oct 19, 2010


Well, sounds like things are going good with mom's goats. I really wish I could be there for the national goat convention, but I guess you can't have everything your way. It was a good week. We talked and met with a lot of people. We still don't really have any progressing investigators. Sharon and Nicola are kind of on hold at the moment because Nicola should be having her baby anytime now. We are working on our finding. We've been trying different ideas and trying to talk to as many people as we can.

Yesterday was Jamaica's National Heroes Day so that's why we had P-day today on Tuesday. This morning we went to Portmore to play basketball with a bunch of other missionaries. It was fun but I think my legs got a little sun burned.

Wow, you are down to 40 degrees? I've forgotten what anything below 75 feels like. Now I get cold whenever it gets below 80.

Thanks for sending a package. I hope it gets here before Christmas.  Speaking of which I thought of a few more package ideas. you could send more music on the mini SD cards. Also, if you had any extra room you could send me out my rope - mostly for sentimental reasons. I got talking to another elder who did team roping and calf roping before he came out. We got talking about roping and branding and such which got me a little homesick. well, not really, but, you know.

Well, Dad, Too much feed, huh? Don't have that problem very often. Oh, any word as to what's going to happen with my horse?

Thanks for everything. Love you all,
Elder Kartchner

Hurricane Otto

Mon, Oct 11, 2010

So, the first week with my new companion, Elder Mackey, has gone well. We get along real well which is nice. We had to spend quite a bit of time at the bike shop and home fixing up a bike for him to use. I think I could open up a bike shop when I get home. As far as the weather, we had a mostly sunny week last week but we got soaked again all weekend.

For the jump rope a weighted one would be nice. Wow, sounds like St.David's got a pretty good football team.

We had really good Sunday meetings yesterday. Church attendance wasn't too bad considering the rain. (Most Jamaicans don't like to leave the house if it is raining or if the ground is wet.) We even had 2 investigators there. Sharon and Nicola are a mother and daughter that we tracted about 2 weeks ago. We finally got to meet with them again last week after the storm blew over and they are doing great. They are both very receptive. When we went to visit them last Tuesday Sharon had already read through 1Ne 9 and was telling us how she wanted to be like Nephi and trust in the Lord and not be like his rebellious brothers. They are doing really well, but they still have a lot of questions, which is ok. They enjoyed church and some of the sisters in the branch took it upon themselves to get to know them, which was awesome. Hopefully all goes well with them. One thing that might slow us down with them is that Nicola is expecting to have her baby this week. I figure if an investigator like Nicola can come to church in the rain when she is 9 months pregnant, then no one else has any excuse. Besides them, we don't really have any progressing investigators so Elder Mackey and I are still trying to do a lot of finding.

Other than that things have been going well. Last night I finally trapped the rat that's been raiding our kitchen, so that's good. I got a good trophy picture with it but didn't send it because I didn't figure mom would appreciate it.

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

My internet is ON

Tue, Oct 5, 2010
Hey Fam,

So yesterday was transfer day so that's why I'm emailing today. Elder Ronhaar left and is on his way home to Mt. Vernon, WA as we speak. I am still in Old Harbour but my new companion is Elder Mackey. He is the Indian looking elder from my group in the MTC. It's a little weird to be with someone who's only been out as long as I have. It should be good though. I am really excited about it. We get along real well and he's a hard worker.

I have never seen as much rain in my life as I saw this past week. We had a big storm come through. It started in earnest last Monday and didn't really slow down until Friday. All the roads became rivers which made it a little hard to get around. There was major flooding all over the island along with landslides and even a tornado in Savanna-la-mar. A lot of the missionaries around lost electricity and water for several days but we got lucky and only lost it for a few hours. It made teaching a little difficult and we had to stay inside for a lot of it, but we're all good.

We got to go to Spanish Town for Saturday and Sunday to watch General Conference at the building there. It was great. I really enjoyed it. We heard all of it except for during Elder Christofferson's talk Saturday Morning when it started to rain so hard on the metal roof that we couldn't hear a word he said.

Thanks for all you do and have done. Elder Holland's talk made me stop and think just how much my parents and family and friends have done for me.
Thanks for the Emails and Prayers. Love you all
Elder Kartchner

P.S. just in case you were thinking of sending me a package anytime soon, I think it usually takes about a month to get here. Just thinking ahead for birthday and Christmas so don't think I'm begging, but some ideas for packages could be another pair of shorts, peanut butter, pictures, a jump rope, a small bag like mom has on her bike, polyester ties, and some nice bike handle grips.

Pics

Tue, Oct 5, 2010

1. one of our attempts at keeping our appointments during the storm

2. This is our church building. we meet upstairs on the right. The only thing that makes it recognizable is the sign on the fence.

3. Sunset view from our apartment taken a few weeks ago.

Pics

Mon, Sep 27, 2010

1. me riding through the flooded road that goes to our house

 2. Elder Ronhaar

3. Colbeck Castle - we were riding out through the hills last week and had to stop for a few pics.

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