Nov. 24, 2008

Hello!

When things are crazy or just all over the place, one of my Zone Leaders calls it a 'yard sale'. This Week has been a yard sale!! haha Things are going really well, we are really busy with everything, that is why I only had a half hour to email last week, well Thursday. I don’t remember everything I talked about last time, but ill try to pick out the highlights of the last two weeks.

Of course the biggest highlight was the Baptism of Mary Folusho Olatunbosun. She has been an amazing investigator and has a strong testimony. I know she will be an amazing asset to the Lord as a member of the church. Everything went well and the day was focused on her (I can’t remember if I told you already, but Sujana wasn’t baptized. Her husband didn’t like the idea of tithing and got upset with her. He even wanted her to move back to Nepal. She is still in London, but we haven’t seen her. She is a strong woman and wants to be baptized still, so I know she will find a way eventually.) She didn’t know too many people in the ward, but we still had a couple speakers and a full program. I felt really honored to be the one to baptize her. It was cool to have it right before church too, because she got Confirmed by Elder Christensen right after, in sacrament meeting. All and all it was a great day. I am trying to send pictures of it right now.

On Wednesday this last week we had a dinner appointment with a lady that actually ended up being at a care center (rest home). I don’t think all the guests were staying there, but they were all pretty old. She had intended it to be a thanksgiving dinner, and it was pretty close. I really enjoyed it. We wanted to try and teach some of them, as none of them were members, but they were pretty set in their ways, plus once they started with the wine, there was no chance. It was pretty entertaining though, to say the least. One of the men was Jewish, and long story short, he ate pork without realizing it! I know that’s bad, but it was kind of funny too! haha. An older lady asked him if he had ever had pork before and he said ''no... wait I thought this was chicken!!! I was thinking wow this chicken is really good.'' He stopped eating it, but said that it tasted good.

We had a couple other DA's recently. One was Monday night. We took Mary for her first FHE at a member’s house. That went well. We had another one Saturday night at Elizabeth’s again. She is in her mid seventies, but is the best member missionary I know. She had her son's fiance’ and three of her grand children over so we could teach them. They all live out of our area, but we still enjoyed it.

It seems like we have been teaching a lot of people that haven't become investigators because we don’t have a return appointment, or they are out of our area. We have had an excellent week though and have two more baptismal dates planned right now, a kid named Ricardo Graham (16) and a lady named Shade (late 50's pronounced Sha-Day). Their date is on the 7th of December right now, but might be moved back a week.

It is so good to hear from everyone and hear about the old ward. I miss everyone, but I am loving the work. Elder Christensen and I get along great and work well together I love him and look up to him as a missionary.

That is such exciting news about Kyle and Jenny's engagement! I am excited for them and look forward to having a new sister-in-law. I really have appreciated all of her letters and look forward to them :) She has been a big support to me. Let her know that and also tell Harmony I said hi back.

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Love Elder Kade Karges

The first pic was of my district last moves. The only thing that has changed since then is Elder Coombes on the far left is gone and Elder Call is here. Oh and we have a new Zone Leader form Scottland named Elder King!! He is really cool

Me, Elder Gasperado (From Italy), Mary, Elder Lee (From Gilbert, AZ), and Elder Christensen (From Delta, UT) right before Mary's baptism. The other two missionaries are from Peckham and are the ones who found her and refered her to us.

Christensen, Mery, and I right before her baptism

November 20, 2008

You were right. When we have moves, pday will be on Thursday instead of Monday. I am still in Catford with Elder Christensen, but we had to go with Elder Sorbonne to get his new companion, so we had to wait till now to email. Pday still ends at six our time and that only left of 30 minutes to email, soo this will probably be a short email. Its funny how i have even more days to write about than normal, but less time!

On the bright side, not too much happened during the week last week. We had several teaches, and did a lot of finding each day. We are constantly cycling through investigators. We actually started teaching a few old ones again which is cool. We saw Mary all week long and the Bishop and his wife actually took her to see the Temple and the new visitor’s center on Saturday! She had an amazing week that led to an amazing baptism on Sunday! She is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints! It went soo well and it was a really special day for her as well as for me, it being my first baptism. It was by far the best day of my mission so far. I can’t wait to hear how she progresses in the gospel. She is only living here for another couple weeks though. She is moving back to Nigeria for a while (she was actually here an holiday for a month or two). I am completely out of time now. I love you all and will talk to you Monday.

Love Elder Karges

November 10, 2008

HELLO!!

Things are going great here, still working away. Our two investigators with the baptism dates are doing amazing. They have learned so much and will have a joint baptism on the morning of Sunday November 16th! I am so excited for them. They are so cool. Mary is from Nigeria and Sujana is from Nepal. They didn’t know each other, but they have met a few times now. We just had stake conference and it was great! Both of them came.

I’m glad the family enjoys the letters. That’s why I try so hard. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it up though haha. I’ll just keep telling about each week as it happens. They are pretty repetitious, so I might just start telling the highlights. As for this week...

Monday (PDAY!) went by really fast. I talked about it last email. We had it cut short on both ends. We have been really blessed for giving up some of our Pday time to teach, but today we made sure to have the whole day open haha.

Tuesday I went on exchange to Crystal Palace with Elder Poulsen. He is a cool guy. He was my District Leader (DL) last moves, but now he is training Elder McLacklan. Elder Christensen (my comp) is DL now so he needed to have an exchange with the new guy. Elder Poulsen and I just got to do it for fun. I liked it a lot. I’m used to Catford though and like it a little better. Crystal palace is kind of slow, while Catford is crazy busy.

Wednesday, we switched back halfway through they day. I was happy to be back. We had a few teaches and helped one of our new investigators pick up a large amount of groceries for a big family event coming up. I’ll talk more about that later.

Thursday was a really good day. We taught both Mary and Sujana one right after the other. Earlier in the day we got an unexpected phone call from the other Catford Edlers. Apparently they had found $70 on the ground! That’s like 140 bucks! They decided to share their little miracle with us and took us out to eat at Nandos. Nandos is a really good Portuguese restaurant that is famous among the missionaries. Everyone goes to Nando's and tries to see how hot of chicken they can handle. I am proud to say I worked my way up to "Extra Hot". I have a little sticker on the back of my badge to prove it. Ill have to send a picture to explain.

Friday we went on exchanges with the other Catford elders for about half the day. Elder Coombs and I had fun. We work in the same are so it was pretty normal. Mary and Sujana had their Baptismal interviews and passed with flying colors!

Saturday we had a dinner appointment with Elizabeth again. I have been over there a few times now. She is from Nigeria and is an amazing cook! I love Nigerian food. The rest of the day went well. We did a lot of finding (as well as the rest of the week).

Sunday was great! Like I said we had Stake conference. We took a train there, but were able to get a ride back with the bishop which was nice. We found the rest of the day except for one visit to an investigator named Felix. He is the one we helped get groceries. He said we could come over and when we got there, they were having a big party! They recently had a baby girl and they were celebrating with a lot of friends and family. We stayed for a while and they fed us some more amazing African food. We talked to their friends a lot and were trying to learn how to say things in their tribal languages. It was fun, We were the only two white guys at an African party haha!

Today was Pday again and we had a really full day. I think I did more today than any other Pday. We went and saw Tower Bridge as well as The London Eye and Big Ben. While by the Eye we did bumper cars and bowling. I have a lot more pictures that I will send later (I’ve already made a CD or two. I was going to surprise you and send them home). To answer your question about the weather ITS WAY RAINY! Yahoo said there is a flood warning over a lot of England. We got soaked sight seeing and I’m still wet.

I love you guys and hope things are still going well. Take care. You are always in my prayers.

Love Elder Karges

Nov. 2, 2008

Nov. 2^, 2008

Hey, I am running late with my emails today, I’m almost out of time so ill tell you how my week went first and try to answer questions.

Monday was good, but busy last week. P-day got cut short by appointments, but Ihave seen the blessing because of it. Theteaches we had went great! It was a good day.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal and everything went well. We taught an older guy that is a new member. It was kind of hard to teach him because he likes to tell stories and his wife isn’t a member but she is nice. She made us some kind of weird Sandwiches... They had some kind of meat balls, sauce, and what I think were chunks of butter. They were cold because we taught before we ate, but its all good. We scarfed them down. During correlation on Tuesday we had banana bread! It was good. I told Alex (18 year old ward mission leader) That I always email home telling what his mom makes us haha. I love their family.

Thursday went by fast. We had Zone Meetings in Wansworth. It went really well and I learned loads. That took all day, but it was good. We have a huge zone now because they combined WW (Wansworth) east and WW West. The missionaries are really cool, I love working with them.

Friday and Saturday were very similar. Both days most of our teaches cancelled except for one. Friday we taught Mary and Saturday we taught Sujana. They are both amazing and the teaches went great. They have strong Testimonies and are looking forward to their combined baptism on the 15th (maybe 16th). I am so excited for them and can’t wait for the baptism.

Sunday was just the icing on the cake with our baptismal dates. It was Mary's first time to church and she bore her testimony!! She is so cool and has a really strong testimony. When we taught her the word of Wisdom she said she was excited to go home and teach her family haha. We ended up being late to our first teach after church, but it still went amazing, and although it was our first time at their house and basically our first time talking to them, they fed us some amazing African food. The lesson went good as well :) We also got fed by a member right after that haha. We didn’t know it was going to work out that way. We were wayyy too full. I guess that’s what we get. We haven’t been getting dinner appointments lately so we have been trying to work that out. I think our Heavenly Father has a sense of humor and decided if we wanted food, He'd give it to us.

Today is another hectic P-Day. We had a meeting this morning and a teach that cuts our day short again, but after seeing the blessings that came from it last week, it’s not a problem at all. I love missionary work and know that it is the Lord’s. He has His hand in everything that we do. I am so grateful for a living prophet and the Book of Mormon.

Well that was my week. I hope yours went well, it sounds like it did. I love you and hope you all have a good week.

Love Elder Karges

(Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I thought it went up Monday night, but I guess I forgot to push the publish botton. - Katie)

October 27, 2008

Hello!

Man the weeks seem to be going by faster and faster. Everything is going great here, as normal as things in London can be. It sounds like a pretty good week back home. Keep it up with the house hunt. It’s always in my prayers. Maybe the Lord just needs you in that ward for now. Everything happens on his time.

Another package sounds great!! I don’t even care what’s in it :) I’ve been trying to put some thought into what I want for Christmas and all I can think of is candy, more cheez-its, and music. I need more music... I have a few requests with that ( Insideout and Colours - Katie should have those CD's, Vatamin String Quartet - Kyle or Kevin might be able to find that, and any EFY cds, Hymns, or Conference talks that you can find). Those are things that I have noticed a lot of other missionaries have and I Enjoy. Thanks! Anything else you want to throw in would be greatly appreciated.

I found out that one of the elders (Elder Ryan Lee) in my zone is from Jacob Allen's home ward and knew Jacque. We talked about it when Elder Christensen and I went to Peckham to meet a new investigator at a baptism the Peckham Elders were having (Peckham is close but out of my area). He is really cool and knew a lot of the people I did. He was so surprised to hear that I was Jacque's cousin haha. It was funny.

As for the week... We did a lot of finding on the high streets and knocking. We dropped a few investigators and picked up a few. We have two baptismal dates right now one is Sujana Maharjan from Nepal and the Other is Mary Folusho from Africa (we met her at the baptism in Peckham, she was a referral from Elder Lee and Gasperado (from Italy)). They are both really cool and progressing well. Sujana still doesn’t know a whole lot about Christianity, but we are hoping that she will continue to learn quickly. Mary didn’t come to church on Sunday because her husband decided he finally want to go to his church again and have her come too. Hopefully she will come the next two weeks even though the second one will be stake conference in Wansworth. They have the same date of the 15th of November.

P-day was good. I Still haven’t seen Big Ben. I’ll have to do that in the next couple weeks. I’ve been up near the river, just not right there. We wrote letters and did some shopping and then went back to the football turfs we played at last week by the war museum. Other Elders in the Zone wanted to play again and I love playing, so I couldn’t pass up the chance.

Tuesday we had I left with Elder Cusick to Peckham. Elder Barker stayed to Catford with Elder Christensen. The day went really well. He is a cool guy and a great missionary. He has been out for a while now. At the end of the day we taught a lady form South America and I mentioned that Kyle went to Venezuela on his mission. Elder Cusick said that his brother did too!! The same mission as Kyle in fact and around the same time. He is a little older than Kyle, but the name sounds familiar to me and they easily could have known each other. It would be cool if they did. Let me know if you find out anything about that.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all pretty normal. We mostly found all day. We saw Stacia and Andrew again. Things are still slow moving with them. They haven’t found a place to move to yet. We don’t even count them in our number of investigators, but we still visit every once and a while.

Saturday was a good day. We had four teaches, one with the "Graham" Family (They are a good family and I thought it was cool that their last name was Graham), another with a Lady named Shade (Sha-day) who used to be a Jehovah's Witness, and an Elderly guy named Trever who we have since dropped. The last Teach was with Mary after the baptism I have already mentioned. We actually didn’t even make it to the baptism. Traffic was horrible on the buses and it took us about 2 hours to get there, but we made it and now have a baptismal date with her!

Sunday went very well. It had a primary program that was really good, but kind of different... there were only three primary children haha. Sometimes there is up to ten, but not this time. It was pretty funny when Sujana called us in the morning saying she was on her way an hour early. We had reminded her that it was daylight savings (I’ve never had to do daylight savings before, I think its more trouble than it’s worth), but she forgot. She waited and showed up on time. Our clocks got turned back an hour so I’m guessing we are only 7 hrs ahead of you now? Shade also came. She walked about two mile by herself to get there! I was so surprised. I know she will be blessed for it and am excited to keep teaching her.

Today is P-day again, but not much of one. We already had one teach at Noon and have another one at 4:30. We couldn't really get around it, but hopefully good things will come of it

I love you all and hope things continue to go well. You are always in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

Elder Christensen and I at the new Visitors center (the mural behind the Christus has a really cool story, don't have time to tell it, but remind me later

Me at the war museum getting shot by a cannon

October 20, 2008

Hello everyone!

Everything is going great here in London! Last P-day we went and saw a really cool war museum. I cant remember the name, but I’ll try to send some pictures. I could have spent days in that place. We played football with all the Elders in our zone after that on some turf courts next to the museum. It was a lot of fun. I am picking up on my 'soccer' skills a lot. There are some really cool Elders in my zone. A couple are from AZ. One grew up in Jacob's ward and knows his family his name is Elder Lee. There is another one from queen creek. I know there are a few more throughout the mission, but I don’t know much about them. There is a sister who's family lives in Chandler and goes to Corona. She lived there for a few months before coming out, but is originally from Utah. When I asked her, she said she likes AZ more ;) I agreed.

Normally we would have district meeting on Tuesday, but because zone (temple) conference was Friday we didn’t. We did have correlation with our 18 year old ward mission leader (Alex). He is such a good kid. I am constantly impressed by him. Growing up in the church here in England is nothing like growing up back home. All the kids band together though and keep holding strong. The London lifestyle doesn’t effect them. Alex's family is amazing though. They hold a lot of callings is our ward, and his mom always gives us treats when we come for correlation. I think I’ve mentioned that before, but that’s how much I appreciate it! She baked us cookies this week. American cookies! What British people call cookies is totally different... We had a few teaches and did a lot of finding all day. Some times we have really good talks with people, but its just doesn’t turn into anything. They don’t realize the importance of our message and how very real it is that this church is the only church with the fullness of the gospel. They will talk to us and learn so much, but then just move on. Maybe we are just planting the seeds with those people though. As they come in contact with the church more, they'll start to recognize it.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty normal. We had several lessons, did some street contacting and door knocking. It is getting colder out and darker sooner. We picked up some new investigators. One is a lady named Sujanna from Nepal. She is so cool! She doesn’t know a whole lot about Christianity, but is learning quickly and had a baptismal date already. We just realized that weekend is stake conference so we are going to push her baptism back a week. We still have a LOT to teach her before she is actually ready for baptism, but we have been asked to be more upfront with our purpose and commit people to be baptized in the first couple visits. We meet SO many people in London and need to sort through them to find the ones that are true investigators.

Friday was amazing! We had Temple Conference in the visitor’s center that is by the London Temple. They just rebuilt it and it is such a blessing to have. I was really impressed. I took having a visitor’s center for granted back home. It is such a useful tool and you can learn so much there. I wish it was closer to my area or even in it so I could go more often and take investigators. Maybe I’ll serve there before the end of my mission. We got to go through the temple as well. It was amazing to see so many missionaries in one session. The spirit was so powerful. I love that temple. We had a good conference as well. President and Sister Swinton did most of the speaking. They are truly amazing I am so grateful to have them as my mission President and Wife. We get to here some pretty cool stories from Sister Swinton about President Monson because she is writing his biography. She spends 6 hours a day doing it and gets to talk to him on a daily basis.

Saturday was a miracle day. We taught 2 new families, picking them all up as new investigators! Sunday was good as well. I was disappointed at how few of our investigators should up for church, but it all went well and we will just keep working on them.

I don’t know what I want for Christmas... sorry. Surprise me. Maybe a cheap quad. Lots of snacks (cheez-its) Oh and tell Jenny she is amazing for sending that package of letters! I am totally out of time.

I love you all take care!

Love Elder Kade Karges

October 13, 2008

Wow it sounds like things are going amazing back in good ol AZ. I miss it. The weather here for the past couple days reminded me of it because for some reason it got warm again, but I know that won’t last long. It looks like its going to rain a lot today and everyone keeps telling me how cold and rainy it gets... I’ll manage though. I definitely need more winter clothing, but I’ll need it before Christmas. I’ll have to buy it here, possibly today. I’m going to buy a better jacket for keeping warm. Right now I just have one rain coat. I’m going to buy a sweater too. I’ll need them soon. My new companion is really cool. I like him a lot. He comes from a small town and has a bit of a small town accent. He hunted a lot back home and did other out door activities. We get along well and are learning tons from each other. Both of us are pretty young so we are learning at the same time. I feel confident though and I’m not worried. The Lord will provide a way for us to do it all. He has the extra pressure of being District Leader too. I loved Elder Warner and miss him too. He was an amazing trainer. He called me last night to see how things were going and just ask about our investigators. He told my companion to take care of his boy. In the mission they call your trainer your dad or father, making me his son or his boy. I’m his "first born son" haha. But then his trainer (Elder McConkie- the apostle is his literal grandpa I believe) is my Grandpa and my Great Grandpa (Elder Sean Gardner -there were two Elder Gardners) Just went back home to Orem this moves. Elder Gardner was also my zone leader. He had a glass eye too which was pretty crazy. He got in an accident a few years back and lost one. I have a good lineage though and look forward to making my ancestor proud ;) As of the other lingo I use. White wash means opening a new area or putting two new people in an area they have never been in. Elder Warner and his companion both came from other places to Oxford. There was already a companionship there, but they are a brand new one. Footie is just short for football (soccer back in the states) and that is what we have been playing some mornings and on p-days. The flat is just our house. A flat here is usually a room that a person rents kind of like an apartment, but because there are so many people and it is expensive a lot of times it’s just a room. Flat has become a term used to just refer to where ever you live. Technically ours is a house, but it is more like a large apartment or condo back home.

That was so cool that you had a couple days off Mom. The family sounds so good. I am so proud of everyone. Tell Chris Baker I said hi if you see him. I get emails from Katie’s Blog and the one that came this time I think had a video, but the comp wont let me see it. Oh well. I really enjoy their pictures though. I can see the kids growing up. My invetigators.... are doing okay in general. We have a problem with Keisha. She hasn’t talked to us in a couple days. Last time we talked everything was still ok. Her testimony of prophets was a little shaky, but the problem was that a friend had said he was bringing her a video about the Mormons for her to watch. We tried to discourage it, but she probably watched it and it was probably anti stuff. We are going to try to get back in contact with her, but for now her date for baptism is dropped. We are seeing Andrew and Stacia today so we will see how they are doing. We have several other investigators. We are hoping to give a girl named Nelicia a baptismal date this week. She is really cool and solid.

Overall last week was great! I really did enjoy it. It seemed so fast. It has been interesting having to run the area on our own. We are doing well though. I was a little worried at first because London is a big and busy place, but we've actually done quite well with the buses and knowing where to go. I’m looking forward to this week. We get to go to the temple this Friday for temple conference!! It’s going to be sweet. We are going sight seeing today. I will get to see big Ben and a few other cool things along the River. I’ll take pictures and send them.

Kevin. I think they have most of the same holidays over here. Probably not Thanksgiving :( I think Greg is doing great on his mission. (He was in Bolivia and was moved to Peru.) I’ve heard from him a couple times. I haven’t heard from Brit. Have you heard anything about him? Thanks for telling me about my friends too. I don’t hear from them. Tell Beau to keep up the good work and get them papers in. It is so worth it! I love missionary work man. I can’t wait to hear where he is going.

Thank you for your love and prayers. I know they are helping. I Pray for you all everyday as well. I hope they are helping. I love you all and can’t wait to talk to you next Monday

Love Elder Karges!

A couple of random P-day pics.

A piece of cement in line with where time starts.