August 28, 2008

HEY! I am in my first area already! The mission home should have sent you a letter with a picture and stuff already. That letter will have a lot of information from the last couple days. The mission home is like 50 yards from the temples doors! I have been so busy! I am in the Catford area and my companion is Elder Warner from Ogden Utah. He is really cool and I think things are going to go well. We already have two teaching appointments tonight! I am in the London area so it’s really busy around and lots of people. I don’t have a bike, we will just take the bus everywhere. All companionships have cell phones, but it’s strictly for missionary work. My comp holds on to it.
I did get my scriptures back. Sorry I forgot to tell you. Thanks for sending another copy of my blessing though. Yeah it seems like mail has been taking a while. If you send it to my direct address now that I have one, it should go a lot faster. It is- #9 Highland TerraceAlgernon RoadLewisham, LondonSE13 7ABEngland I’m glad everyone is healthy and doing good. That’s cool that it’s been raining. Az really needs it. That’s great that you have been reading about Joseph Smith. I love him. He was such a great man and did so much for us. I know that he is a true prophet of God and really saw Him and Jesus Christ. We watched the Joseph Smith movie that usually shows at the Visitors Center in the MTC. It is amazing. If you haven’t seen it lately you really should. I watched it by myself before I left too. It really brings the spirit. Everything has become so much more real since I’ve come out here. I love it. Quite a few family members have written me and I’m working on writing them back, I’ve just been way too busy. Thank you for passing parts of my emails and letters on. It really helps. I’m really trying to write them and love getting their letters. All in all, I’m doing great. I love missionary work. It’s so good to hear from you, It’s the highlight of my week. I love you and hope things continue to go well. Thanks for everything.

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

August 23, 2008

I wanted to try and send you pictures but its not working. Ill keep trying. i have a lot of really good ones. Church history stuff and some that would work for my thing on the wall at church. I won’t be able to explain them very well if i do. Stuff like the temple and where President Hinckley stayed when he got that letter from his dad on his mission. The place where the twelve apostles stayed and where their first meeting house used to be.

The group I’m in has 22 elder 2 sisters and an older couple. Actually the couple is gone already. Everyone is going to either London, London South Or Birmingham. London will take the train and the other two will take a bus together. It’ll take mine the longest to get there. Probably 4 to 5 hours.

Oh the first Sunday I sang in a quartet haha. It was fun. We sounded pretty good I think. We got a lot of compliments.

I went trackting on Thursday! I was a little nervous but it was pretty fun. We drove about an hour away and just knocked doors in a neighborhood. We taught one lady like half of the first lesson and then realized she was repeating herself a lot. She was really old and it turned out had memory problems. She kept telling the same story about getting taught by catholic nuns as a little girl. She seemed really interested in hour message, but we left eventually. We talked to e few other people briefly and then we ran into an inactive guy. He let us right in and said he went to church as a teenager, but joined the army. He hadn’t been to church in twenty years! It didn’t seem like he was planning on going back real soon, but it wasn’t out of the picture. He was really really nice though. He was grateful that the church kept him out of trouble as a kid and had been out with the missionaries way back in the day so he knew we would like to see a friendly face. I turned his name in when we got back and they set up people from the word to go talk to him. I talked to a guy personally and gave him everything I knew. They are supposed to go meet him today. Hopefully I’ll hear what happens. He was home on sick leave because he broke his leg. Hopefully they can reactivate him before it heals and he leaves again haha.

The verse I wanted was in Alma 37: 35-37 i think. It was in my letter I think. My comp is going to Birmingham. I just resent that first email I tried to send dad to moms email.

The church out here is really strong, but the members are pretty spread out and a lot are converts. I don’t know what else to try and cram in- in the time I have left.

It sounded like everything was great! Write back soon! I don’t know when my p-day in the field will be for sure. I think it’s wed and I’ll be traveling so it might be a week and a half. I love you and i hope things are still going well.

Love, Elder Kade Karges

August 16, 2008

Hello Everyone!

Things are going amazing here. Thank you so much for sending the letters. I got that first one after I had already emailed and written you. I don’t know why it took so long to get to me. I just got your second one today that you, Dad, and Kevin all wrote in.

Ill try to answer as many of your questions as you asked, but in the interest of time I cant really go back and reread it as I write. I have been to the temple and it was amazing. It is so beautiful. I have spent a lot of time walking around it too. They let us go anywhere on the grounds some parts of the day.

As far as traveling, I didn’t meet anyone until I got to Atlanta and they were at the gate. And yes I have a mission companion now I’ve had one since the first day. His name is elder Bedford and he is from St George Utah. He is a nice guy and he works really hard. He is an awesome companion. And I can understand pretty much everyone. Some people I’ve heard talk really fast or kind of slur their words, but I haven’t had trouble understanding the majority of people. I didn’t hear many people talk in the airport, but I’ve already been to town twice. Once to Preston where we visited a bunch of church history sites (I took pictures that ill try to send you) and the on P-Day we got to go to Chorley to buy stuff and look around. They are pretty lenient at this MTC. We all just walked to Chorley as a group of elders and they let us do whatever we wanted. I bought a new alarm clock because the one I brought doesn’t seem to work and some sweat pants and a jacket. I took pictures of a lot of things, including me in my new clothes. We get to play sports everyday and I usually play soccer or football as the call it here. A group of us went running one morning too and we were allowed to run off 'campus'.

We got to practice teaching on some Sweedish young men today it was really cool. It was probably the coolest experience I’ve had so far here (besides the temple). They were visiting the grounds to go to the temple and stuff. They were really cool and we taught them a lot about missionary work. We ended up having a testimony meeting with them too, or rather a few of us elders bore our testimony. They asked me and two others too. I hope we influenced them to want to go on missions.

I am doing great here and love you all. There is so much to tell but so little time. I really got to go. Thanks and i hope i can say more next time.

Love,

Elder Kade Karges