August 17, 2009

Ca va (Su vah)!?

"Ca va" is what we say to all the Mauritian people we meet. It means 'how are you' in French. Sometimes they get the wrong impression and go off speaking loads of French we don’t understand though.

This week has been full of miracles. Things are really going well. We finally taught the nieces I mentioned last week. Their names are actually Darian (12) and Taylor (10). They are really cool and are excited to get baptized. Their mother is less active and the father isn't a member, but we hope it will be good for the whole family. Their baptismal date is for August 29th. There is also a part member, less active family we found from Mauritius. Two of them, Kevin and Nando, now have a baptismal date for Sept. 12th. They are going to need a lot of encouragement to get there, but we are counting on the Lord to get them there.

We had two exchanges again this week, this time with Elders. I stayed in Crawley with an English Elder named Elder Tomlinson for the first one. He actually came out with me, so it was pretty cool to work with him. The other exchange I had was with an Elder from Bountiful who came out a moves after me. He was trained in the same district as me in London. Both exchanges were pretty good and the second was pretty exciting.... he didn’t know how to drive manual. We didn’t realize that before we started the exchange. Since I'm not allowed to drive, there was nothing I could do except pray and hope we made it through the day. We did, but it felt strange to me to have smooth shifting when Elder Gasparato came back to the area. I know the Lord was looking over us.

Crawley doesn’t have a whole lot of things to do for P-Day, but today most of the zone is coming here. We are going to play some English Football and have a good time, so I’m excited. Hope all is well. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

August 10, 2009

Hello!

My stress levels have finally gone back down after this week. It was an amazing experience to see the family get baptized and a great way to celebrate my hump day weekend! I’ll try to send a picture with the names of everyone involved with the baptisms. It was a great blessing to be a part of. Even now it doesn’t seem possible, and I know it wouldn’t have been without the Lord. The cake and other food helped to celebrate as well. (We had a grocery store deliver him a “Congratulations” cake and some other favorite foods to celebrate his hump day.) Thank you so much!!! Elder Gasparato says thank you as well :) To top it all off I passed my driving theory test on the 6th! Now I just have to schedule and take my practical. Until I pass that, I cant drive anymore :/

We have been finding and teaching other people all along the way, but most of them haven't stuck around for long. Now that we don't have the family as investigators, we really need to focus on finding new ones. We have some that we are excited about though. There are two nieces of a reactivated member that we have been trying to teach, but are struggling to make appointments with. Their names are Leigh and Taylor. They could be baptized this month if we see them soon. We are also teaching a cousin of one of the YSA that we bring on a lot of teaches. Her name is Emma and she doesn’t want to feel rushed, but she could be ready if she wanted.

We had two exchanges this week, both with sister missionaries. That was a first for me... I thought it might be a little weird, but it actually turned out really good. On a sister exchange we don’t go to their flat, but we can meet at the church and study with them and/or do some finding. With the sisters in Worthing we found on the highstreet for a couple hours and with the Epsom sisters, we did both. All four of the sisters in our zone are good, hard working missionaries, so we are grateful to have them here. We have several exchanges coming up with the rest of the zone.

I love you and hope things continue going well back home. I appreciate all your letters and support and if I haven’t written anyone back, let me know!! It is easy to forget who I have and haven't written. Have an amazing week!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

Me with all of the food my amazing family sent me for my hump day! Thank you!

All of the Zone Leaders of my mission at Zone Leader Council with President and Sister Shamo

Dave Sinclair, Jason Orr, Dieuma Soopramanier, Katijah Naiker, and others!

Monday, August 3,2009

Hello,

This week has been really full and kind of hectic. Everything turned out good in the end though. It’s always good to hear that back home things are going well.

To start the week we had a meeting called ZLC (Zone Leader Council). All the zone leaders met at Presidents house for basically the whole day Tuesday and talked about things that need to happen, goals, and plans for the next 6 weeks. It was really cool. Last moves they had a different meeting in place of it, so this was my first one. On Friday we had Zone Conference (ZC) where members of three different zones all came to the Crawley chapel to meet with President and Sister Shamo. Immediately afterwards we had an appointment with the family we are teaching.

This is where things got hectic. President needed to come with us to help interview two members of the family, but he needed to interview some Elders right after ZC. One of our district leaders, Elder Church, was supposed to do the rest of the interviews, but we were going to go on splits with President and him so we could be more effective. Elder Church and I finally left to their house over thirty minutes late, but when we got there, they weren’t even in. President came with Elder Gasparato twenty minutes later and the family arrived home around the same time. Eventually things worked out, but it was stressful. Sunday wasn’t much better because the ride for the family to come to church didn’t work out as planned, but the good news is that it did work out and they are still on track to be baptized on Saturday!! Until then I think I’ll still stress out about it a little. It has been such a blessing to teach this family. So many miracles have happened to make it possible for them to be baptized.

I’m sorry if that story sounds kind of confusing. I am out of time for emailing so I was trying to hurry. I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

July 27, 2009

Hello!

Things are still going well this week. Its only been a few days since my last email, so there's not a whole lot to tell you. Thank you so much for the pictures (the picture of Bekah looks just like Brinton to me! ha-ha)! I saved them to my memory card so I can look at them on my camera.

Our investigators are doing well. We have been finding new ones, but they haven’t been sticking around long. Our focus is on the family and now another Mauritian named Dorella. She is the daughter of the first Mauritian to get baptized in Crawley. We taught her a while back and tried to commit before, but she didn’t accept. After dropping her for a month and coming back she was ready. The only worry we have for the family is that all of them need to come to church this Sunday! Different family members have been sick lately and so some of them have only been once. To be baptized they have to come at least twice. Their date is still good for my hump day on the 8th.

Thank you for Jacob's address and for always letting me know so well how things are going. I love getting Katie's blog too. I hope all is well and will continue to pray for everyone. I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

Elder Gasparato and I in the car with our district leaders, Elders Purser and Church last moves.

Elder Gasparato and I with the plan of salvation poster and scripture chain we made for Dieuma's family

July 23, 2009

Hello!

Time keeps going by faster and faster. It seems like every week I am telling you that we have to wait till Thursday to email, but it’s really every 6 weeks. Today is moves day and we did go to the temple, but only to take other missionaries. Both of us are staying here in Crawley. Every other companionship in the zone (5/6) changed except one so next moves should be a pretty fresh start for the zone. I think the zone as a whole is going to be a lot better.

We have had a really good week and are excited for this next moves. The family we are teaching here in Crawley is back on track. Not only that, but the daughter that seemed the most against it before is now the most for it! The mother's name is Dieuma (Gemma) so we call them Diema's family (the daughters have different surnames). Dieuma and her 5 daughters that are old enough are preparing to be baptized on August 8th! My year mark! They are doing really well and are excited for their baptism. They prayed about and picked the day themselves. We have been really blessed to get to teach them. They have truly been prepared by the Lord in every way. Every time we teach them it amazes me how well they listen and help each other.

We are teaching a few other people as well. Some of them are close to accepting baptismal dates, but they are scared to make the commitment. It is clear that they are receiving answers, but they're not so sure. We have hope for them though. I’ll update you on them next week.

As for my driving tests, I won’t be retaking my theory test until Aug 6th now. I was supposed to do it July 28th, but we have a leadership meeting. I have a cd that I got from the office that I can use to practice that part of the test I failed before, so this time around it should go a lot smoother.

I love you guys and pray that things are still going well. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

I finally made the sugar cookies you sent me ages ago (maybe for Christmas?). They were a little bit dark, but still tasted good :)

opening my birthday package! I was excited and surprised to see the mini PMG. Thank you! (I guess the starburst didnt make it through the heat of the post)

July 13, 2009

Hello everyone,

I am happy to hear that mom is up and moving. I have been praying for her every night. It sounds like she has a good doctor. Our family is really blessed with having the support and things we need. I look forward to getting the letter from the primary kids and will try my best to write them back.

This week has been good, but I definitely feel like it’s been a trying week. The reason why I say that is because the people we thought were close to baptism are really struggling. We have been working hard and feel that we are doing everything we can, but right now we have no baptismal dates. It feels good to know that we have done our part though. We are really looking forward to the next week to see how things will progress. We expect them to. We are still teaching the family, Sariya and others. The Lord has blessed us a lot this week with people to teach, we have a lot of investigators right now. I’ll tell you more about them as things happen though.

There is only one ward in Crawley. I don’t know if there are any areas in the mission that cover more than one ward except where the Spanish branch is in London. Elder Gasparato served there for 9 months, so he knows Spanish as well as Italian, English, and understands some French. He actually trained one of the other missionaries from Mesa, named Elder Lee. I think I mentioned him before (I think he knows Jacque).

As for my driving test.... I didn’t pass ha-ha. I got all the answers right, but they have an interactive part where you have to watch a video and click whenever you see a potential road hazard. In my opinion (as well as many others), it’s not very well made. I missed passing by just a couple of points. I have to retake the test in a couple of weeks and pay the fee again. To help me prepare the mission office sent me a CD-rom I can use during pday to practice with. I think I’ll be fine next time though. I think I misunderstood how that part of the test worked at first. I probably won’t have the driving part of my test for a couple months which means for a month or two I won’t be able to drive. Oh well. I am not worried about that part of the test. It feels normal to drive here now.

I can’t believe another moves has already almost gone by. Moves is next week on Thursday already, so I won’t be emailing you again until then. Both of us will most likely stay here, but a couple members of our zone will be going home, so for me things will still change a little.

I am really grateful to have you all as my friends and family. I love you and hope that you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Kade Karges

PS: I forgot my camera so I can’t send pictures this time.. sorry!

Oh and people have been asking about my last name. Where does it come from?

You were right about other missionaries asking where I got the mini PMG (Preach My Gospel). So are they still available??

July 7, 2009

Hello everyone!

Things are going great here in Crawley. Things have seemed different lately, but I have new responsibilities that I'm getting used to and now new leadership (ie President). We have several investigators, but our main focus is on a Mauritian family of a single mother with seven daughters! They are really cool and excited to be baptized on the 25th of July. Well, most of them are. They range from 17 years old to 2 months and the 15 year old (Melissa) likes to be the odd one out, so she isn’t so sure about it. Two of the girls are too young, but the 6 year old is probably more excited than the rest! haha. They are really cool. There is a Russian lady named Sariya that we hope with accept a baptismal date this week as well.

It was sad to say goodbye to President and Sister Swinton, but President and Sister Shamo are really cool. They have a daughter with them as well. Her name is Meagan and she is 15. They don't seem as executive, but are more on common level with us. President Shamo wants to come out on teaches and even finding with missionaries. We have already met him twice, first for Zone conference, then for zone Meeting. (as a side note, I didn’t realize how particular this setup is to my mission, I don’t know of any other missions that have zone meetings). That is actually why PDay is today instead of yesterday. He mentioned to me that he plans on leaving things how they are now, but in a few months he has a lot of things he might try. He has also been telling the whole mission about some changes that might happen church wide in missionary work. He said he is not allowed to tell what it is yet, but it is going to involve members a lot more.

You are right, that it will probably take a while to get to know him, but he is funny and cool. He is definitely different than President Swinton, but that’s what I expected. He served his mission here and told us that he and his companion got put in jail for a night once! haha. He is really happy and excited. Apparently he is responsible for basically all church videos and broadcasts that have come out in the last 30 years. He worked very closely with President Hinkley. He has already told us several stories about that and I look forward to hearing more.

Thank you for letting me know how the cabin was :) I was actually hoping you would. I was thinking about it over the weekend, but not in a sad way. It sounded like you had an exciting church service! haha. (We had a bear come into camp while we were in Church.) It is cool that Kevin got to fly in. I wanted to thank him for writing me as well. He can write directly to me if he wants. I would love that. Tell him I know what he is talking about when people say "amen" and "that’s right" during church. I don’t know if I ever told you, but we had a guy yell good morning back to the bishop once when I was in Catford. The same guy later said "that was a good snack" and "no thanks, I’m not thirsty" during sacrament.

Driving has been going really well. I need to learn specific maneuvers like parallel parking and backing around a corner, but I think I’ll be ok. The father of the family we live with is a driving instructor and offered to sit in with me for an hour to help, I think for free! Normally it cost like $30 an hour. That is a major blessing. I have to take a written theory test before I take the real thing. I have that test tomorrow, so your prayers will be greatly appreciated. I haven’t had as much time to study as I would have hoped, so I’m praying hard!

I love you guys and hope your summer is great. Enjoy being on your feet mom! (Five & ½ weeks after foot surgery, they finally took the pins out of her foot and she is now in a walking boot. Yea!!)

Love,
Elder Kade Karges

President & Sister Swinton and I at the last conference i saw them.

Elder Gasparato, Danny(a YSA in the Crawley ward), and I outside of the temple.

My old district in Portmouth.

Sister Mitchel and I just before I left Portsmouth.