Well, obviously the posts have slowed down. Elder K. has been so busy and most of his recent emails have gone something like this: "I don't have time to write much this week. Things are going well. I'll try to write more next week." And then we get the same thing the following week. :)


We are happy and excited to announce that Jake will be coming home in just a couple of weeks!!!


He will be speaking on August 19th at 1:00pm at the Eastridge Chapel in Logan. We will have lunch at Kartchner home immediately after. Send a message to cwkartchner [at] msn.com for an address and directions.We would love to have any of Jake's friends or family join us in welcoming him home.

Monterrey Sunset

An Update

Well It was a good week but not really much to report since I wrote on Wednesday. Its still just as hot as ever.

We are getting ready to receive our new mission president next week and saying good bye to the old one. Its a little weird to be honest. It will be good to learn from a new president but we will miss president Romney.

I will be home on the 15th of august so the 19th works out just fine [for Elder K's homecoming talk].


Yes, we still go to the temple once a month... well I go there more because my chapel is right out side but we only go into the temple once a month. We still eat with members here but it is very diverse. This area has super poor members a really well off members. So each day is a surprise of what we are going to eat.


Sounds like you guys are just as busy as ever. I keep thinking I will be going home to the calmness and away from the craziness of Mexico, then I remember where I come from haha.


As for cooking I have not really learned much but I will practice when I get home. haha don't worry... or maybe you should worry.


Love you guys,

Elder K

A Dirty Dog

Things are going great here in Estanzuela. We baptized Francisco the other day and we have a few other people that are getting to that point. I am really liking this area but not so much the sun. It has been getting really hot. We walk a ton up and down the mountain so you get real sweaty. I took some pictures but big surprise that the top notch computers that they have here aren't letting me attach anything... so you will have to wait till next week.

The only story that comes to mind right now is about a dog. The guy we baptized always has dogs show up at his house from the street. on Monday a little puppy (no more than 6 months old) showed up. It had hundreds of big ticks in it and even more fleas, on top of that it hadn't eaten for a long time. so we spent a good chunk of time picking all the ticks out of it, giving it a good bath and feeding it. It was nasty. You couldn't even see inside its ears because there were soooo many ticks. I am happy to say that he looks a lot better now.

Not really much more to report. Just truckin along. I love you guys. Thanks for everything.
Elder K

Time Flies...

I agree 100% time is flying by. I had an odd feeling yesterday as I realized that I only have 10 more Sundays in the mission. Don't worry, I'm not letting the trunkiness get to me. Things are going awesome here. I love having the temple in my area and the people here are great. We are going to have 2 baptisms this Sunday. One of the people that is going to get baptized helped build the temple 10 years ago. He had always wanted to stop by the church and see how it was but never had the guts but last Tuesday he was driving his truck along with out any problems when all the sudden it broke down out of the blue right in front of the temple. So the guard came out to help him and he left his info so we could visit him. To put it simply we visited him and he accepted baptism in the first lesson, went to church yesterday and will be getting baptized this Sunday. Funny how his truck decided to brake down in that very spot--haha.

My comp. has 18 months in the mission. He finishes in December. We checked it on google maps and he lives 3 min away from our house how crazy is that. What is this persons name that Jenni thinks is his cousin?
It was super hot here and going up and down the mountain all day makes a guy very sweaty. I felt like the only time I wasn't sweating was in the cold shower but even then I might have been sweating and just didn't realize it. The past 4 or 5 days have been pretty cool though. Some storms have rolled in every night around 6 so we get soaked and the roads turn into rivers but I think its better than the hot.

That will be crazy having Justin and fam so close by. I feel like I haven't seen them in forever. Where will he be working?

Well good luck with summer vacations. Things are good here. Love you guys.

Elder K

Ch-ch-changes

I got transferred! I am now in Roma stake in the area Estanzuela. It is right in the heart of good old Monterrey. The temple is in my area is that's cool. We have a nice little branch which was a little funny to me because we go to the chapel that is in front of the temple Which is the biggest nicest richest one in almost all the mission.

My comp. is really cool. His name is Elder Knowles He is from Logan as well. He lives like 5 min. from our house and I think he knows more people from our ward than I do. It will be a good Transfer working here. I will be finishing out the mission here but I will have one more companion change.

It's nuts all the changes that everyone is doing. I cant believe that Jenni is going to finish high school. It really is like everyone just jumped ahead two years. In my head everyone is still how they where. Sounds like good things are happening for Justin I just hope the best thing offered gets him to Utah--hehe.

 

Apart from transfers we also had leadership council this week. It was a little different because it will be presidents last one till he goes home in about a month. He invited some lawyer and big business guys to come talk to us about leadership. It was really interesting and made me realize even more how much all of the stuff we learn on the mission will apply to all of life.

 

Well I gotta get going. I love you all and will talk to you soon.

Elder K

Progress

Well, we just got done playing a bunch of soccer in the hot sun. We also found a tennis ball and got a zone game of wall ball going. It was awesome. I think the last time I played good old wall ball was in elementry school. Just so you know... it's still fun.

The zone ended this transfer really well considering the rough start we had so I am happy about that. Tonight we find out about transfers. I hope they give me my wish and let me stay here but if not it will be off the a new area tomorrow where I will finish the mission. It will be interesting to see what happens because there are so many things that could happen.

We have been having a bit of a tough time in the area the last couple weeks. It is known as one of the harder areas of the mission, sometimes I ask myself why I want to stay another transfer, but I feel like things are going to pick up. The zone is in a really good spot for starting the new transfer. We have a few people we are teaching but they just haven't been able to give up some old habbits. Yesterday we had a really good lesson with a 45-year-old woman we are teaching that made me feel that she is finally going to stop smoking and she is telling everyone at work she is going to become a Mormon so that's a good sign for the future.

Well I am not that great when it comes to writing. All the things that happen in the week just kinda slip away when Monday roles around. Things are going good, I hope all is well on the home front. I love all of you.

Elder K

Well things have been going pretty good here. The news of the week is that it is getting so hot that I can almost smell my skin cooking as we walk in the street. We also finally found the fattest man in the world. We had heard that he lived in our area and we found out he lives just a few blocks from us. He has the world record for being the fatest man in the world and also the world record for losing the most weight in a year. He lost like 400 Pounds but still wieghs like 700. We taught him twice and he is a way cool guy.

I attached some pics of him and the two people we baptized last week (Orlando and Jamie) We also made some sweet soccor jersey for the zone so I took some pics of those. All went well in the Zone conference and now we will be just trucking along this week to get things done and get the baptisms going.

Thanks for the package. The clothing was much needed but I think my soul needed the candy even more--haha. It has been a while since I have had some good old Easter candy. I had forgotten how good a chocolate marshmallow egg can be.

I love you guys tons and thank you for everything. I will try and send some heat up there because I sure dont want it.

Elder K

 

Elder Bednar, etc.

Well, it was another crazy week here. We had two people (not related at all) show up to church yesterday that we had only taught one time each and they both accepted baptism this coming Sunday. It's weird how sometimes the people you least expect are the ones that are wanting to take the step or leap of faith and make the changes. Things are looking really good in the zone this week. We are hoping for all kinds of success.

Me and my companion have both been pretty excited to be able to speak English to each other but we have come to realize that it doesn't matter how much we try, sometimes it just comes out as a language that only a gringo in Mexico can understand--haha--it's cool though. It makes for a good laugh at some of the words we invent.

Sounds like the house is going to be just as crazy as usual when I get back, but it wouldn't be home if it weren't like that. I must say though things will be a lot different than I ever would have guessed. I think that that is also part of the Kartchner home, haha.

Things were awesome with Elder Bednar. The East and West missions were there. We all got to shake hands with him but they told us that we could not try and small talk with him or anything so everyone shook his hand and kept on moving. So when he grabbed my hand and didn't let go and then asked me a question I thought I had peed my pants! It wasn't a big deal, he just saw the last name and asked where I was from I said I grew up in Stansbury and his wife piped in and said ¨oh we were just in stansbury the other day, it's so beautiful and Kartchners are good people¨ As I sat down feeling all important everyone started asking me ¨Elder do you know him or something? You guys were holding up the line and everything just to talk¨ haha So apart from my feel-important moment the conference was really awesome. He didn't really give a talk. He asked us to study a couple of his talks beforehand, then for three hours we just talked. There were a bunch of mics so he asked questions and we asked questions and it was sweet. He is different from what we see in conference. It's cool to see a more personal side of an apostle. Also it was awesome because I was sitting on the 4th row back so I could almost feel the spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. It was sweet.

Well, that's about all I have time for today. I love you guys.
Elder K

More Pictures!

Hey, I got my card reader working again. Here are some pics of the center of Monterrey and of the family we baptized a couple weeks ago. Love you, Elder K

A Busy Week and A Bucket Shower

So I will be sticking around in my area (San Nicolas) at least until the end of May. I got a new companion, Elder Fifield. My first American comp. since I have gotten to Mexico. He is from Kaysville, UT. It's going ok here in the zone. We really struggled yesterday with baptisms but we are looking a lot better for this coming Sunday. We are starting to crack the whip a little more to get things moving this transfer.

This last week was nuts. We spent almost all day Tuesday in the bus center getting all the transfers done. Wednesday we had the district meetings then it was off to the center of Monterrey for a Zone Leader council that ended on Thursday evening. It's always nice to go to those because we eat good American food and we play basketball. Gotta love it. Then Friday and Saturday we had time to work in our own area and do interviews of the people being baptized. It was a crazy week.

On Friday night we had a nice experience while waiting for a bus. We had just gotten done with some baptismal interviews and we were waiting for the bus back to our area (about 9 at night). The bus just went zipping past us so we decided to walk to a more lit up part of the street. As we walked we saw a man in front of his house a little ways off and even from a distance we could see that he had been drinking. He was standing behind a little 4 foot wall dumping water on his own head. He started yelling ¨Hey Mormons! Over here!¨ So we started walking faster. As we came to the house and were trying to pass quickly he jumped out from behind the wall and to our surprise he was butt naked. haha! He had been taking a nice bucket shower in front of his house, and I thought he was just a drunk pouring water on his head. How silly of me. Needless to say our speed walk became more of a light jog at that point and we decided it would be best to wait even further down the road for the bus haha.

That basically sums up Mexico for you.

Well, thanks for everything. I love you all. Have a great week.
Elder K

Easter Week

Well, it was a quick week, and as usual we didn't get everything done that we wanted to. There are nver enough hours in the day but at the same time sometimes you just want the day to end--haha--wierd how that works. So we have transfers tomorrow. I will be getting a new companion and I feel like there will be a lot of changes in the zone but its a good thing. I think it will help us to explode with success this transfer. We are going for records!

Sounds like downtown Salt Lake has changed a little with all the City Creek stuff. Can't wait to see it. I saw a little on the report of the church between conference sessions. It looked really cool.

Everyone's spreading out all over the place. Jonte in Job Corps, Summer and Dave out of the country, man no one will be around by the time I get back! It's all good though. Thats how life goes. Sounds like it's a good thing for everyone.

Easter Weekend was pretty good here. We didn't really do anything different. The entire week is celebrated here. Its the Semana Santa (Holy week). A ton of stores shut down the entire week and every day in the churchs (mainly Catholic) they have special events. They even act out all of the trial and death of Christ. They don't mess around.

Well, not too eventful this week, just getting excited for the Elder Bednar's visit next week! Love you all.

Elder K

Success!

Things went great this week. We were all over the place but we finally got things done. The Nieves couple got married on Friday and then them and their two daughters got baptized on Sunday. It was one of the best baptisms that I have had. Everyone was super excited and President Romney even came.


I am super excited for conference this week. Usually it's a little harder to bring investigators to church because we have to go to the stake center but where I am right now the stake center is pretty close so it won't be to much of a problem. It's always refreshing to hear the church leaders speak and do something a little out of the norm.


I am trying to send pictures of stuff but the computers are a little dumb at times here so it's not looking like I am going to be able to.


Love you guys. Thanks for everything. Happy Birthday Jenni, Brandon, and Ben.

Elder K

Can it get any shorter?

Sorry I have zero time. I feel like my emails are getting shorter and shorter--haha. I promise that next week I will make sure I have a bunch of time to put some good stories and everything.

 

Everything is good here. We found a family of four that we are really excited about. We are planning on getting them married next week and the baptizing the entire family on the 25th. Its easier said than done, but we will be working hard to get it done. Keep the Nieves family in your prayers so everything can go according to the plan.

 

I love you all and thank you for everything.

Elder K

An Even Shorter One

Well I am in the same area with the same companion but there were a lot of changes in the zone. So we are working hard to keep the success going with all the changes that are going on. Not really much to report this week. Time is flying by so fast that I don't even remember what happened when--haha. They just told us today that Elder Bednar with be coming to talk to the mission in April so that will be something to look forward to. Things are going good here. I love you all and thanks for all your love and support.
Elder K

Well the week was pretty good. It flew by because I was only in my area for like 2 days. I was all over the zone doing interviews and trying to help some investigaters out. It was a crazy week but we ended well as a zone which made it worth it. We finished with 6 of 8 areas baptizing yesterday and around 25 people were batized in the month of Feb. Not to bad but we are hoping for more this transfer. We will find out about transfers tonight. I feel like I will be sticking around in this area another transfer but who knows. They are sending us new info on the new president that will be getting here in July. It's kinda wierd to me that I will be finishing with a different president. I will only be with him for one transfer. So I will finish the mission with 3 mission presidents counting the time in California.

 

To answer some of your questions mom...

• Yes, we only drink bottled water. In some parts of the mission they say it's ok to drink the water but I haven't been so lucky when I have played the 'is this water safe?' game so I just don't do it haha.
• We meet in a nice church building. I dont know if you would call it regular, but for Mexico, yes, it's regular haha.
• It's getting pretty warm here. It makes me scared for the summer because it never got really cold this winter like it did last winter. So it makes me think that this summer is going to be killer hot. The good thing is that I will be going home in the hottest part of the year.
• The worst Mexican dish I have eatin by far is menudo. It's a nice smell--soup of cow stomouch and they love it here.
• Overall I have been staying pretty healthy with the food and water. At times were I don't sleep a lot I get a little bit of a cold but it's nothing like the ones I get at home. I think its because it doesn't get nearly as cold here.

Well, I got to get goin'. I love you all and thank you for everything.
Elder K

 

 

A Short One

This month has flown by. It's wierd how slow the days seem to pass a times but how the weeks fly by. Yesterday we had a baptism of an 11 year old boy named Jose Angel. He was super excited. All of his cousins his age have gotten baptized in the past few months so he was excited to be part of the Mormon gang. We have transfers next week. Should be an interesting one. I haven't been in this area for long so chances are that I will be staying but there is a very good chance that I could be changed as well. Who knows really. I wouldn't mind staying here for another transfer. The zone is doing really well and the area is tough at times but I like it here. Our ward is good sized and the members help us out a lot.

Well I don't have a ton of time to write because we are going to have a super mega awesome activity as a zone so we gotta get going.

I love you all, everythings good here. Have a good week.

Elder Kartchner

Well we had a really good week. In our area we baptized a man named Jesus. Itwas a different expirience with him. He is in a wheel chair because he has almost no movement in the left side of his body. It was crazy trying to get him in and out of the font but it was worth all the work. Apart from the baptism in our area the zone did pretty good. All the areas in my district baptized and the other district of the zone did pretty good as well. We are hoping to do the same this coming Sunday.

To answer your question mom, yes, Spanish is different in other countries. My companion (from Argentina) has a whole set of different words, different accent and other stuff. You could compare it to us and England. We understand what they are saying but some slang words and phrases they have to explain and they sound funny at times.

My mind always goes blank when I sit down to write to you guys. There is so much going on but at the same time I can't think of anything to write--haha--I will try to get better at that. I have officially passed the 18 month mark--6 months left. How nuts is that?!

Thanks for everything. Things are going good here. I will try to send some warmth your way. Love you all.
Elder K

I finally fixed my memory card!! So I can now send pictures again. Things are going good here in the new area. We have brought new people to church the two Sundays I have been here but no one has accepted a baptismal date yet. It will be coming soon though. We have some really good people that we are teaching but here in the city part of the mission the people are a little slower in making the choice to do it.

It was kinda rainy and cold the past couple days so it made it a little more difficult to find new people but today is short sleeve weather so it's looking like it's going to be a good week of work.

We had our Zone Conference on Wednesday. Normally the Zone Leaders present 2 topics and the Assistants do 1 topic but this time President wanted to try something new and we presented all 3 topics. It was draining having to stand in front of everyone and talk for hours but I say that we did pretty good.

Just so you guys know I will be going to the temple next week so I wont be writing again until next Wednesday. It will be nice to go to the temple again. I always look forward to it but at the same time I don't look forward to getting up at 4 in the morning to do it--ha ha.

It's good to see that dad is going back to the good ol´ facial hair look--ha ha--it's just a dad trademark look. I think he is doing it a make a statement of 'don't call me to the bishopric'.

The pictures are kinda old but I put some of New Years, making brownies (thanks Kaleena.... and Couper I guess), my last zone, and some other random pics.

I love you all and have an awesome week.

Elder K

 

San Nicolas

Well it's been another crazy week in the mission. I got changed to a new area called San Nicolas. It is super close to were I was but it's nice to have a bit of change. My new companion is from Argentina, Elder Chevoievsky... yes, I spelled it right--haha--good luck saying his name. It's been getting pretty hot here. They say it's going to get cold some day but I am starting to think that its just a lie that everyone tells themselves hoping that one day it won't be hot.

We also had Zone Leader council this week to plan everything for the zone conferences. We have ours on the 25th. I hope it turns out good with not much time put into it. It blows me away how fast time is flying by at times.

We have found some pretty cool people in the time that I have been in this area. We brought two people to church on Sunday but they weren't so sure about being baptized yet. We are hoping that with a little bit more help this week that they will be 100% for baptism this Sunday.

Well that's about it for this week. I love you all and thanks for everything.

Elder K

P.S. Still haven't figured out the picture problem, sorry.

Cool!

My convert got the Melchizedek priesthood and is now the Young Mens president and his wife is now Young Womens president. He only has 2 months as a member!

Elder Oaks

So the week was pretty good. We have transfers tomorrow. Still don't know if I am staying or going so who knows. Yes, I got the note from Bro. Gomez...three times, haha! I guess everyone wanted to make sure I got it. I have been close to his family a few times. Right now I'm not really close but my last area in Saltillo was close to some of his family. I might have even meet some of them because the name rings a bell. Also the town where his dad was born is my first area in Mexico. I have also visited Piedras Negras. I will have to keep an eye out the next time I go to one of those areas.

Things went pretty well this week. To put things simply, this is one of the hardest areas that I have had but we are working hard. I am trying to think of what new things I can do this week to pick the zone up a little bit. We had Stake Conference yesterday. It was a broadcast to all of northern Mexico. Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke and asked three questions and then told us we should always be asking these questions to ourselves to improve. These are my translations from Spanish:

1. What does the Lord expect of me?
2. What have I done/am I doing to live up to these expectations?
3. What can I change to more fully live up to these expectations?

It was a good conference and the questions made me look at what I am doing a little differently.

 

Really not to much more to report this week. I am still trying to figure out why it won't let me send pictures. Hopefully they come soon. I love you all.

Elder K

New Year's Pictures

Bummer

Well it was a bit of a bummer week. The good news is that we are teaching more lessons now that the holidays have passed and we are finding more new people, but the people that we thought were going to get baptized got sucked into some wierd ritual stuff and told us that they will come looking for us when they feel like they should get baptized... bummer. I am hoping that the efforts of this last week pay off in the week that we are starting and that we have a whole ton of people, but we sure have our work cut out for us.

We have transfers next Monday. I am pretty sure I will be staying here another transfer, but in the mission you never know whats going to happen.

Everything is going good here. I am loving the weather and even more when I hear about how cold it is there. I love you all. Have a good week.

Elder K

 

PS I am trying to send pictures still but I think somthing happened to my card reader.

Happy New Year!

We are hoping for two baptisms this Sunday that's coming. We spent New Year's Eve (until 1030) with a family of members with a piñata and all that jazz. I was going to send a bunch of pictures this week but we are having some problems with the memory card. I am hoping that they all didn't get erased.

I had one of the coolest things that has happened to me in the mission happen this last week. I had the chance to interview a Jewish man named Bit-el. He is 100% Jewish with the cloths and everything. He lives 100% of the law of Moses and knows 8 languages and a whole ton of doctrine. I was a little nervous going into the interview. We were talking for almost two hours about how Christ is our Savior to the 12 tribes to the law of consecration--almost anything you can think of. Talk about revelation. There are so many things that I said that I know God gave me the answer. It was nuts and so cool I can't even put it all in words. He accepted to get baptized.

The day after his interview his parents took a flight from Russia just to come chew him out. They took is money, job, house, everything. They disowned him as a son and he is no longer allowed in the Jewish community, but he was baptized yesterday. He knew that this would happen but he go baptized anyway. He said he knew it was right so he had to do it. There are still a lot of things that he has to change because he is so use to the law of Moses but he is willing. It has been a real testimony builder to me.

I am with you 100%, mom. It doesn't matter what others think and do. We stay focused on what God wants us to do and we do it.

I love you all and I hope you all had a Happy New Year.
Elder K