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