March 26, 2009

HELLO!

Moves came and went and I am still in Portsmouth. I really wanted to stay actually, so I'm happy. Not very many people moved. A couple missionaries went home, but no new ones came out, so things didn’t change much. I’m still DL and Elder Church is still here with me. Only one person moved from my district and that was Elder Hayes. So we are losing our Welshman, but we are gaining a Swedish. The new guy in Chichester is Elder Wiklof. This moves is only 5 weeks long, so it’s a bit shorter. We have one short moves a year I guess. I know there is a reason for it, but I can’t remember what it is. I think it has something to do with us needing to go home two weeks early. They don’t want us staying past our Visa, so it just a precaution.

Things are going great. We had such an amazing week. Vicky Beatrice Odhiambo and Sophie Turner are now both members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ! The baptism went great. Both of them were pretty nervous before hand, but they were just glowing afterwards. They both had lots of visitors as well. Hopefully we can start teaching some of their friends and family soon. The ward showed a lot of support as well. There were probably about 50 people there. The preparation for the service went well. Elder Church and I made invitations to give to anyone and everyone we met and gave some to Vicky and Sophie as well. Baptisms are the perfect missionary tool. We had each of them pick a speaker (Lyndsey Taylor and Myself), a hymn, and someone for the prayers. Our ward mission leader (Steve Taylor) helped make the program and some of the calls. They also chose who baptized and confirmed them. Elder Church baptized Sophie and I confirmed her. I have never done that before, so I was excited and honored. Brother Mark Taylor (Steve's dad) baptized Vicky and Elder Church confirmed her. Our Zone Leaders did both of the interviews. Since they are my investigators, I can’t interview them. It has to be someone who didn’t teach them.

We spent the whole day at the Church Saturday before the baptism. I don’t know if I described the situation before, but Vicky hasn’t lived in her place very long and I guess one of the other ladies living in the same house has caused her a lot of problems. She made some threats and even tried to act on them once, so... it wasn’t safe for her to stay there anymore. She stayed with her sister in London during the week, but came down for the weekend. We brought any church videos we could find and some Ensigns and things for her to read and she stayed at the church all day Saturday. We taught her a few things and had loads of other stuff to do there so it worked out great. We were in charge of filling the font and setting up as well.

I don’t have my planner with me so I’m trying to remember what we did the rest of the week ha-ha. I don’t know why I keep forgetting it on P-Days. I’m pretty sure the rest of the last week and a half was pretty normal. We did some finding, taught and had DA's, and had the baptismal interviews. Oh and I went on another exchange with Chichester. Other than that I don’t know. If there is something I’m forgetting, Ill catch you up on Monday.

Thanks for the info on President Shamo. I knew a little, but would like to know more. What week of the Church News is it in, because the member we live with gets it too. You can still send it if you would like as well. Getting post is always good :) I got your last envelope as well. Thank you! I like the jokes and stories you send. I actually used one of the stories in me district meeting a few weeks back. It was the one about the missionaries on the plane that you sent ages ago. I copied it and gave it out to my whole District because I really liked it.

Thanks for all that you do. I love you!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

Elder Church and I in front of the London temple

Everyone that came on the temple trip from Portsmouth.

Lyndsey Taylor, Steve Taylor, Myself, and Elder Church

Me, Vicky, and Elder Church

March 15, 2009

Hello Everyone!

Things are going amazing here. This has probably been the best week of my mission so far. It’s kind of strange too, because Elder Church's back has been hurt, so we couldn’t always be out working, but he really pushed through it and we have been blessed. We have two baptisms coming up this weekend. Vicky Odhiambo I think I have talked about before. She originally had a date for the 28th, but we challenged her to move it forward and she accepted! Her story just keeps getting more miraculous. Apparently she moved in to the place she is living now only 2 days before we met her and we met her walking home. We met her on the 25th of last month and she is getting baptized less than a month later. Sophie Turner was the referral we got from Lyndsey Taylor. She had come on our first teach with Vicky and then referred her friend. Sophie also originally had a date for the 28th, but after going to the Temple and because of some activities scheduled on that day she moved hers forward too! She is going to be baptized 15 days after we first met her!! It’s amazing. They were both ready even before we met them. God prepared them. I have been so grateful to be apart of it because I know that any other missionary could have, but Heavenly Father chose Elder Church and I. The other thing that made the week so good was that we got to go to the temple! We took both Vicky and Sophie and a bunch of members came. Most of the members were YSA, so it was loads of fun and we got food afterwards. I am so glad we have the new visitor’s center and I love the Joseph Smith film. I have some good pictures of a lot of the things that have happened lately, but don’t know if I’ll be able to send them today.

The rest of the week is pretty much a blur. Zone Meeting (Z.Conference was earlier and includes multiple zones, Z. Meeting is just ours and we have our interviews) was great. President Swinton talked and usually Sister Swinton does, but she stayed home to focus more on President Monson's biography. I don’t know it I told you or not, but our new mission President is coming in July and will be Lyle Shamo.

I am excited for the upcoming week and glad that the baptisms get to happen before moves, which is next week. So I won’t be emailing next Monday, it will be Thursday. I hope I stay here with Elder Church. We really get along and I love the area and the ward. Things are going so well, but I have been here 2 moves already so there is a good chance that I could move. I’ll keep you posted. Oh and thank you for arranging my backpack to be picked up. Maybe I can go and get it on moves, or if I stay the ward has Stake Temple day on the 28th so that will work. Oh and I noticed that you said there was a cord in my backpack. I don’t think there is. There is a little card reader for my memory card, but it looks more like a USB drive. That reminds me that my USB drive is in there as well ha-ha. I’ll let you know if the envelope you sent comes next week. Thank you so much.

Things sound good back home. I was thinking just yesterday how big Brinton and Bekah must be. It’s weird to think about, but I’m excited to see pictures and things. I am praying that the home will be available for you as well.

I really like hearing from you Kevin. That sounds like quite a problem with not having a place to live after summer ha-ha. It’s all good though I know you'll work it out. Missionary life is good man, they find the place for you... for two years! If you know of a way to get Tommy or Aden's email it would be cool to talk to them. Man it doesn’t seem like all those guys have been gone that long, but its good to hear they're back.

I love you guys, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

The Hovercraft i road on to get to the Isle of Wight.


The house we live in. Sister Mitchell lives downstairs, we live upstairs.

March 9, 2009

Hello Everyone,

This week has been great, but kind of all over the place. Usually I try to tell you what’s happened all week by looking through my planner, but I left it at the flat today, so I probably won’t be able to remember most of it haha. Without my planner I don't know what’s going on. We had zone meeting on Friday which went great and we had two exchanges this week, so we have been really busy. Tuesday I went to Chichester with Elder Hayes and Friday (after zone meeting) I went to the Isle of Wight with Elder Proctor. Both exchanges went great. Miracles always seem to happen on work overs (another name for exchanges). In between it all, Elder Church was out of commission for about a day and a half. He hurt his back which sucks. It hurt him really bad for a couple days before he got a blessing. Since then he has been feeling better, but it still hurts in the mornings.

We have some really good investigators right now. One has a baptismal date, but there are soon to be more. We met Vicky Odhiambo less than two weeks ago and she has a date, has been to church twice, and is going to the Temple/Visitors Center this weekend. She is such a miracle. We were on our way to a dinner appointment when we realized we were going to be early. We decided to pray to know where we should go to find. We thought we could either stay where we were and contact people walking down the road, or go knock near where the DA was. When we opened our eyes from the prayer, there suddenly seemed to be loads of people on the street, so we started talking to them. We stopped Vicky and talked about the Book of Mormon. We asked her what it would mean to here if it was true and she said "A Lot!" So we set up an appointment the next day and taught her the full restoration. Two days later we taught her again and asked here if she wanted to be baptized! She said yes and has been diligently reading and praying ever since. The miracle doesn't stop there though. We wanted to take a member with us to teach her and ended up calling Brother Taylor (councilor in the bishopric). He recommended we take is 16 year old daughter Lyndsey, so we did (the single sister rule isn't in force in our mission, if you were wondering). It was her first time ever coming on a teach, and she loved it and has been on a couple teaches with us since then. I guess we made a good impression and gained her confidence because the next date she referred her best friend, Sophie Turner. We are teaching her at the Taylor's house now and she loves it. We will be asking her about being baptized this week. She has already been to church a couple times and is going to the Temple/Visitors Center as well. We have a few more investigators coming along, but those are the two most exciting.

That’s pretty cool that Kyle and Jennie are in the Allen's ward. It’s funny how things are working out. I’m impressed Mom.. a Face book account!? I never would have guessed haha. Good work with the missionary effort as well. Every little conversation helps. Sounds like good old Alma 12th is doing well. I like hearing about them, keep me posted. If you ever here things about my friends, let me know too. I don’t hear from them all that often. I love you guys and hope you have another great week!

Love,

Elder Kade Karges

March 2, 2009

Hiya!

It’s March Already!? What happened to February?? haha. It seems like New Years was just yesterday. This week has been pretty eventful. We have been on two exchanges, dropped a baptismal date, picked up a new one, and got our bikes fixed. I was excited to see the wedding pictures that you sent last week. I would love to see more. I'm glad things are going well for them. It’s ok that you haven't been able to get the family pictures to me yet. I'm not in a rush, but would still like them. Wow, Sadek is coming home already? That is pretty cool. Let me know how that goes.

Monday this week went well. We had kind of a lazy PDay. We didn’t do much, but we didn’t have bikes to travel with, so we couldn't go real far. In the evening we taught Isabel and Alison. Alison is the former investigator whose father recently passed away. We are still teaching her, but slowly. She wants to believe, I think she is just scared to actually try and find out because she is scared she won't get an answer. They fed us dinner though and hopefully we'll see them soon.

After district meeting Tuesday we had our first exchange. The Zone Leaders came to our meeting so that right after I could just go back to their area with one, while the other stayed here with Elder Church. I was with Elder Packard (from Idaho) in South Hampton. They actually have a five man flat over there tight now (the zone leaders and a tri). There used to be two normal sized companionships, but there was a late arrival a week into moves. Elder Bien is from Ohio and went to the Provo MTC because he was called to Mandarin Speaking ELSM. He served in Utah for a month while waiting for his Visa and then come out here and now serves with Elder Cook (St. George, UT) and Elder Judd (PIMA, AZ!!!). It was a good exchange. I learned a lot from Elder Packard and it was cool to me around all the other missionaries for the day.

Friday was our exchange with Chichester. I went there with Elder Hayes, while Elder Seidle came here. We all had a good day. Chichester has been struggling a little, but they are diligent and will be blessed for it.

The other days of the week were pretty normal. We ended up dropping Marnie, well he dropped us. He still believes strongly in Karma and things and had just been meeting with us for information sake. I know he felt the spirit though, so hopefully he'll give it another try. We met a lady named Vicky this week that we have taught twice already and came to church. She is amazing and is by far the best part of my week. She has a baptismal date already for March 28. Moves is on the 26, but hopefully both of us get to stay to see it. We had a few good teaches with Isabel this week. One of them we had a laurel aged girl with us and we all sang Joseph's First Prayer. It was really cool. We are teaching a few others, but they are kind of off and on so I'll keep you posted if anything big happens.

Oh and we got the bikes back Saturday :)

Elder Church and I are still getting along great. We probably talk too much sometimes, but we work hard too! The district is doing great. I haven't had any interviews yet, but will in a couple weeks with the Isle of Wight. I love you guys and hope you have a good week.

Love,
Elder Kade Karges