Dear Kitchen Family,                                                                                      January 28, 2013

Yet another Monday. Sounds like things are going well. P-days sure a busy. Some people where say día de descanso which means day of rest, but they were right to call it preparation day haha. I really enjoy reading about the family every week, thanks for keeping me updated with whats goin on with you guys. Mom I don't think I've gotten that letter that you were talking about. I did get a letter from G&G Kitchen with the family picture/Christmas card in it. It takes a really long time for the letters to get to me out here, so maybe I'll get it next zone meeting or something.  Oh and you also asked about the hike over to Dolores house? Yeah it literally is a hike. We have to walk down from our side to the bottom and then back up to the Colonia side. It's not a really long distance, but it's really steep! It's cool though. We've gone over there early like 8 o'clock to help him with this project he was doing on his house. It's beautiful here. I would like to come back kind of like we did with Tyler and New Zealand the only thing is you guys wouldn't be able to understand anybody haha. Well sounds like everyone is doing good. It was good to hear more about what Tyler, Jami, and Kaylee have been up to. Sounds like the S.G. house is going well.

This week went really well here in Atexcac. We had quite a few less-active lessons, and actually a few investigator lessons too. We started to teach Ennis Torres Rdz. the 10 year old who lives with less-active members. This week we taught him the first and second lessons and he has a baptismal date for the 10th of Feb! We're hoping it will all work out for him. The only thing is that we hope he doesn't just go in-active right after because his family is. We want to work with their family as well so that they can all come back to church. We also had a family night with this less-active couple that lives with this other couple as well. They are all members except for a man named Alberto Gordillo who was there when we taught the first lesson. We have another appointment. set as well, so it should go well. Oh and you asked about Dolores...he is doing so good! He hasn't missed one day at church since the first time he came. He truly is a converted member of the Church. I also wanted to tell you a little more about Elder Olvera my companion. He is the youngest of 9 kids in his family of 11! He has a big family. His oldest brother is like 40 years old. His mom has been a member for a long time, but in-active until they were visited by the missionaries when Elder Olvera was 15. Elder Olvera and two of his siblings were baptized shortly after. So Elder Olvera is a convert who used to be an active Catholic. In San. Luis where he's from there is only a small branch. He said when he came to the mission he didn't even know who the prophet Nephi was haha. He had a lot to learn, but he is a great missionary now. He is SO good at soccer like I told you before. He was playing semi-pro soccer before he came out on his mission. He and I get along great he's really cool. 

Anyway I better go now. If I missed something that you wanted to know, just ask me next week. I love and pray for ya'll. Keep up the good work with school and work! ¡Echa le ganas! Está bien ya supe que le hiciera. Les amo familia. Ya he aprendido un buen en la misión. No me se preocupe estoy muy bien aquí en México. Yo encuentro aprendizaje, gozo, y satisfecho en la obra del Señor. Sé que la Iglesia es verdadera realmente no tengo ninguna duda que es la Iglesia de Jesucristo la que ha sido restaurado por un profeta José Smith. Hasta la próxima semana.

Con Amor,

Elder Kitchen

Dear Kitchen Family,                                                                                        January 21, 2013

Hey! How's everyone doing up there in sub-zero? I'm glad to hear that Grandpa Kitchen is doing a lot better. I hope he continues to get well. Hear you'd say: ¡yo espero que te mejoras abuelo! ¡Cuidate eh! Anyway ¿cómo está familia? ¿cómo se pasó su semana? Anything new going on? I'm glad to hear that you got the furnace fixed and everything. Also it's good that you were able to head down to St. George over the weekend to escape the freezer. How's the family doing down there in St. George? I hope ya'll have a good time, and that you return in safety. So Tyler is working now huh? Is he back at Milagros? How is school going for everyone? Well I hope you all have a good week.

Time just keeps flying by out here. This week was yet another slow week out here in Atexcac. We did a lot of service again this week. Two early mornings this week we hiked over to the Colonia where our convert Dolores lives to help him with something he is doing around his house. He wants to put sealing to keep water out around the foundation, so we helped him dig. We dug quite a bit. I have a few blisters on my hands, but other than that I'm doing fine. We also husked more corn this week too. I actually helped a little kid with his math...in Spanish. That was fun haha. We had a few appointments that fell through as well this week, but we've made a bunch of appointments with less-active families for this coming week. It should go well. Also, when we visited some in-active members, the mom told us of one of her grandchildren, who is 10 years old and who hasn't got baptized but who wants to. We are going to teach him and hopefully baptize him. Well all is going well here in Atexcac. We had a zone conference with two zones and President Reeves on Thursday in Cholula. It was really good and I learned a lot! President had the Elders that would be leaving soon and also the new Elders (me included) bear their testimonies in front of everybody...yes in Spanish. I was a little nervous, but it went well. Some of the Elders commented saying my Spanish is good for only having 5 months. That makes me feel good. Also I asked Elder Olvera if he thought that I'm pretty much fluent in Spanish and he said that I am in his opinión. I feel like I am too...finally! I have a long way to go, but I can communicate now fairly easily. Anyway that's what's going on here. If you have any specific questions just ask.

Anyway I gotta wrap it up. I love and miss you family! I hope you all have a great week. Oh you asked about the spider picture. Well it's pretty dang big compared to home, but I think the picture makes it look bigger, so it's not THAT big. We got some Raid and a lighter and scorched it to death hahaha. Well I read a cool quote from Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf in the Liahona this week. It was in Spanish, so I'll try and translate. It's simple, yet powerful: "Compared to God, we are nothing; however, we are everything to Him." I hope and pray for your well being and happiness! Have a great week! Keep it up with the scriptures and praying. It's the small things that make all the difference.

Con amor,

Elder Kitchen

Dear Family,                                                                                                           January 13, 2013

Sounds like ya'll are freezing up there haha! I hope that it warms up a bit so you can go skiing and all. That's too bad your having furnace problems, hope it all gets fixed and all. Mom I think it's funny because every year you just about head for Arizona because you don't like the cold. Thanks for keeping me updated with Grandpa's situation and all. Sounds like he is starting to do better. Tell me that I'm sure that he could still beat me in a round of golf, AND take out a pheasant faster than I can haha. Love you Grandpa! Get well soon! Also thanks for sending some pictures I enjoyed them :) I get a kick out of how spoiled Kit is! You should keep me updated on how the house progresses. It looks pretty good already. Anyway I hope all goes well this week. What is going on with Tyler and the girls? Have they started school back up yet? Is Tyler still bummin' it at home?? Let me know how things are going. 

Anyway my week has gone really good. Lots of changes! On Tuesday we headed out to Puebla after spending the night in Nealtican with the Elders who have the "Monster house" (you'd know what I'm talking about if you saw it). The transfer meeting went really good. President Reeves is awesome! It was fun to see all the Elders from the MTC and all. Well I got my new comp. and his name is Elder Olvera a native from San. Luis Potosi. He is awesome! He can't speak any English at all, so it is exactly what I wanted out here. Actually...he speaks Spanish like 500 mph!  He told me that even some of his Mexican comps tell him he speaks really fast. Because of that I don't always understand him, but I'll get the hang of it. Just from this first week I can already see that I will be able to grow a lot this transfer. I have been completely leading all the planning and speaking situations because Elder Olvera knows nothing of the area. Also, speaking Spanish all day everyday has already helped my Spanish. This week we've done more service and actually had a lot of less active lessons. We have had some good talks with the Bishop and the Ward Mission Leader about some of the goals that we have and how we're going to start working more effectively. So I'm excited to see what will happen. I had a cool experience teaching Margarita the other day. I shared/explained a scripture and then bore my testimony for a while and it was one of those..."hmm what did I say" moments after when we were walking back home. I know the Lord is supporting me out here with His work. The mission is such a great experience I love it! I have learned so much already it's nuts.

Anyway I'm gonna wrap it up now.  Things are really looking up though. It's interesting to me how the Lord works in teaching us here in this life. I went through a couple rough spots with Elder Tinoco, but I realize now how much I learned from it, and there is no other way I could have learned the things I learned. That is the way the Lord works sometimes :) Well everything is going great here in Atexcac. Oh YEAH I forgot to tell you something crazy happened like the week before Elder Tinoco left. Something happened to the water lines, so we had no running water for like 5 days!! haha and guys think the furnace is bad, we had to shower with buckets of water, we couldn't clean dishes, or wash our clothes haha! All is good now though it's working again. Anyway love you family! I look forward to hearing from you soon! I'll keep Grandpa in my prayers, and all of you as well. Have a good week!

Con Amor,

Elder Kitchen

Dear Fam,                                                                                                            January 7, 2013

P-day already! It was good to hear from you all again. I hope you have all enjoyed your week, and that you´re loving the 0 degree weather over there in Utah...haha! Sounds like you had fun with the New Years party and all. That´s too bad that skiing this year isn´t going very well yet. I won´t lie, it makes me happy to know I´m not missing much this season ha. Mom that was cool to hear about the changes in the way we are going to teach the youth. Sounds like a really good program. That was cool to hear that you used PMG to teach part of the first lesson! I´m sure it´s an inspired change. I´m sure you are an amazing Sunday School teacher mom. Dad told me a while back that you do a really good job with your calling, and that you're both enjoying teaching them. New Years Eve was pretty good. We ate a good dinner, but not a whole lot else happened. New Years Day is actually bigger there than New Years Eve which is opposite of the United States. Everybody takes the day off on New Years Day even if they would normally work on a day like Christmas. We actually played basketball with the Ward in the morning for an activity that they planned. It was pretty fun.

Well as for this week, it went better than the last two weeks. We still don´t have any progressing investigators, but we did do TONS of service and had quite a few lessons with less active or recent converts. We did hours of service with week helping people husk corn again. Just about everybody in town has corn right now. We have a less active...well better to say in-active member named Alberto who we taught the 1st and 2nd lessons this week. I actually lead both lessons. Elder Tinoco is giving me more opportunities to lead, so that I can learn more. They were great lessons. Other than that we just do what we can to help people out here. It feels good to serve :) Anyway before I wrap it up we got our news about the transfers last night via phone call. Elder Tinoco and Elder Betts are both leaving the area, so Elder Matt and I will be staying with new companions. We will be going tomorrow to the big transfer meeting in Puebla with President and everybody. I'm really excited about the changes actually. It's going to give me a chance to lead in this area, because my new comp. won't know anything about the area. Also, I am really hoping for an Elder who can't speak English, so that I can learn even faster!! We'll see what happens. Elder Tinoco has been great, but it's going to be a fresh start with a new companion here in this area. 

Well I've really got to go. We have a ton to do today getting ready for Elder Tinoco to leave and all. I hope you all have a great week! Please keep me updating on Grandpa's condition. I will be praying for him! I love each and every one of you. 

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Kitchen

Happy New Years!                                                                                   December 31, 2012

Es Año Nuevo already huh? I`m glad that the world didn`t end haha. I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, and that you`re still enjoying the holiday break. Like Mom, my favorite thing about Christmas was getting to talk and see you guys on skype! That was so awesome. I say we skype every time cause I loved it.  I just had SO much to tell you guys about Mèxico, and it`s really difficult to describe things over email. Sounds like you guys enjoyed the call as well.  It was really good to see each of you and how well you are all doing. I really enjoyed hearing about what you`ve been up to, and it was fun to tell you everything I could about Mèxico and Atexcac. You both asked what I did for the rest of Christmas. Well by the time we got back to Atexcac, we went to the appointment we had made, and they weren`t there. We thought that they probably didn`t know we made it on Christmas or something. So we went to the Bishop`s house because they invited us to a really good dinner. After we visited others in the ward who were roasting marshmallows over a fire. We then visited another family who fed us some more, and they we headed home. Oh and the next day we did end up going to Nealtican to the dinner at the President of Nealtican`s mansion house. We told them we didn`t want to go at first, but our zone wanted us to, so we did. WOW it sounds really cold there! It`s still pretty warm here. I couldn`t believe how cold it was in Park City, Dad. I can`t belive you guys went pheasant hunting in that weather...you`re going to kill Kit! Looks like you had fun. Thats cool you`re headed up to Damon`s tonight, yeah tell them all hi for me! I hope you all enjoy New Years Eve! As for us...I`m not sure what we will do. It`s funny New Years Eve landed on a P-day. I think we are going to get a hair cut and then...well I don`t know listen to the millions of fireworks that will be going off haha! 

Anyway so as far as the work goes this week was pretty rough as well. Because of Christmas and the activity the next day, we had a really shortened week again. What we did do a lot of this week was service! So I`m happy about that. Everybody in town is bringing in their corn from their fields right now, so we have been going to various houses and helping them corn husk for a few hours. This week we helped a few different families multiple times. We are corn husking pros now! Other than that we had a few lessons with members trying to get them motivated to help us with the work and references. We committed a couple of families to work on a reference to be able to teach together with their family. Hopefully that works out. As for investigators...well it`s going slow. Adàn just gave us news that him, his wife, and kid are moving to Mèxico City to try and find work out there. That's a bummer. With Anita we still haven`t been able to teach her, but we did do service for her family twice this week. We will work on it this week.  Anyway it`s going good here and Spanish keeps on coming`.

Well I probably better wrap it up.  I hope everyone has a great New Years Eve tonight! I love and miss all of you. During the call you all made me feel really good about my Spanish. It was definitely a confidence builder. It helped me realize just how far I`ve come in 4 and a half months. When I don`t understand something or I say something wrong I just got to remember that. I want to thank each one of you for the continued support. I have so many opportunities and blessing because you your support. I am the person I am today because you your teachings and help. I said this in Spanish to you during the call, but obviously you didn`t understand haha! Also, I wanted to thank my grandparents Grandpa & Grandma Ellsworth/Kitchen because I was told you helped my parents with the Christmas Package, so Thank you so much! I was going to write letters, but I`m not sure when I`ll find time, so I thought I`d thank you now. Well I LOVE my mission already. I`ve already learned so many things, and have been humbled so much. I can`t even explain to you how blessed our family is. Our whole family. Be grateful for the things you have. Even the small and simple things. I love you family! Until next week.

¡Hecha le ganas! 

Con amor,

Elder Kitchen

Dear Family,                                                                                                    December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas everybody!! I hope you all are enjoying this time of year. Mom is right it really is a special time of year to be able to remember the Savior´s birth. Sounds like you have a good day planned for tomorrow. I hope it all goes really well. Tell everybody Merry Christmas for me at the party :) Are you going to go skiing at all during the Christmas break? That´s cool that is sounds like you´re going to have a white Christmas! I love those. Here in México it´s pretty dang warm during the days. The mornings and nights get a little chilly, but not too bad. It´s funny cause people are always like : "¡Ay, hace mucho frío, verdad Élderes!" and I go...Sí while thinking in my head of the 20 degree snowy winters back home haha it´s not cold here at all!  So has it been snowing a lot lately? How have you enjoyed the holidays so far? I´m sure you guys have enjoyed having Tyler living there for a while.  Hey so I finally received the Thanksgiving letter from the family! Oh and Kylie´s too. Based on the few letters that I´ve received it seems like it takes a little over a month for the letters to get here! Patience is a virtue haha. 

Anyway today is also Elder Tinoco´s birthday, so when we went to wash our clothes at the Bishop´s house this morning, we made on of the brownie mixes that you sent in my Christmas package. They were really good! The whole Bishop´s family had never had brownies before either, so that was cool for them. As for the rest of Christmas Eve we have something planned with our investigator Adán to go to their house and have cake for Elder Tinoco, and maybe celebrate something for Christmas too. We want to go to Hermano Pablo´s (the one who makes bread) and do something cool there too...maybe sing some Christmas hymns and eat something good. We also have a Christmas Dinner planned with the Zone in Nealtican on the 26th so that should be fun. As for tomorrow we will probably just visit people and I´m not sure do something Christmas-y after the phone call. I´m really excited to talk to everybody!! Anyway the work this week was actually really really slow. Honestly we went from having our very best week of the change to our very worst week of the change as far a numbers, lessons, etc. It was rough. Don´t worry though were just gonna try harder this week. We did do some service and made a lot of visits this week. As for our investigators nobody is really progressing right now. Adán doesn´t want to go to church yet. We are still teaching him though. Our other investigators are just so-so for right now, but Anita is a promising investigator, so we are going to focus on her this week. Anyway things are going great and I´m so happy to be out here serving the Lord in México!

Anyway I gotta wrap it up. Dad just told me to "finish my letter" so I better obey ;) I´m going to miss all of you during Christmas, but I honestly wouldn´t want to be anywhere else than right here serving my mission at this time. I look forward to the many Christmas memories that we will spend in the future. This is clique, but really try and find the real Christmas spirit. Give something of yourselves to help somebody else. It a great time to be able to celebrate the Birth and life of Jesus Christ. Keep our Savior in mind especially this season, but always as well. I can´t wait to get the call tomorrow! 

¡Feliz Navidad de Elder Kitchen a toda la familia! 

Con Amor

Elder Kitchen