Hey guys,                                                                                                            December 23, 2013

Christmas Eve is tomorrow...that's nuts. Mom, Dad sounds like you guys are excited for the Skype call haha it's just about all you talked about in your letters. Don't worry so am I. It's going to be really weird because it's been so long since mother's day. I hope you all have been enjoying the holiday season and that you have a great Christmas Eve and everything. Dad to answer your question, yes I did open all the presents and I love the watch you gave to me it's great. I just need to take out like one link so it will fit better. I can do that really easy though. I loved all that was in the package. I'm snacking on all the candy and everything. 

Well this week was interesting. We had our Christmas conference on the 17th with president. It was fun and uplifting. It was also Elder Rowe's birthday that day. After that we both ended up getting sick. Elder Rowe is almost always sick, but he felt worse, and I got sick too, but nothing too bad. We were still able to teach our progressing investigators and they all went to church, so next Sunday we will be baptizing 4 awesome people. Jose Juan, and then a family Salma, Miriam, and Eduardo. They're great. President Reeves has a friend he has made at Costco who checks the receipts and he lives in our area and has been practicing English with the Elders for a while. President invited him over to the mission home for dinner, and Elder Rowe and I also were invited and we invited Jose Juan our investigator. After eating we shared a message. It was a cool experience. 

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Keep up the awesome tradition that we had our reading in Luke 2. I love that. I'm going to do it as well. Let us all keep the real spirit of Christmas in our hearts. I'm so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you guys for being so awesome!

love you,

Elder Ryan Kitchen

Hey everybody!!                                                                                             December 16, 2013

I know you're all probably wondering why I'm writing so late. We were able to do some fun things today, but the reason why it's so late is because President Reeves had us go into the North Mission quickly to talk to a referral/investigator from our area that he is friends with. Long story short, we weren't able to make it back this way on time. Anyway...wow I'm 21 years old right now!! Aren't you glad I'm a good kid and on a misión because if I wasn't maybe I'd be out drinking right now for my 21st hahaha just kidding. Thanks you all for all the birthday wishes!!! I won't be able to write you all back, but again I say THANK YOU. I really did have a great day. I met up with Victor after lunch yesterday so I already have my package. I didn't open it up yesterday, rather I waited until this morning and then I just couldn't wait any longer! WOW it's awesome!! You girls outdid yourselves! I LOVE IT SO MUCH. You put some many awesome things in there and so many cool ideas! I love it all. I'm actually wearing the pants right now. Mom basically everything I mentioned is in there haha there were just suggestions, not a list of what has to be in there! ha but thank you. I really enjoyed all the letters and the testimonies in the Book of Mormon. I wore the pajamas that Grandma gave me as well. They are great. I'm going to get studying again in that grammar book too.

 

So this week went awesome! I loved it.  We got to see all of our good investigators and we taught quite a bit. We were able to challenge the rest of Hermana Pilar's family to be baptized and they all accepted!! The rest of the family! We now have 4 more dates for the 29th of this month. We did our best to visit all of them and 8 investigators were in church this Sunday! It was great. We hope to find a lot more investigators this week. We are working with our Ward misión leader a lot more and he has given a bunch of references. SOOOOO the Beltran Leon family got baptized!!! All 4 of them as a family and also their grandma. Five people got baptized by 5 different people 4 of which were missionaries. I got the privilege to baptize Jessil the daughter. It was so cool. They are easily my favorite family I've taught on my misión and I got so close to them. It made me so happy to see them all baptized. The spirit was so strong and they all gave their strong testimonies after...wow it was such a great moment.

 

Well I probably got to go. Sorry for giving you a scare for writing so late. Today after washing and getting a breakfast with some members, we called up our newly made friends from the driving range (going with the bishop ended up not working out). They took up golfing! We were able to talk a Little about their beliefs and get down their addresses and all that, and they accepted visits from the missionaries. It was a fun birthday/golfing/missionary experience. The Brazilian Doctor drives a super cool sports car...yeah we felt pretty cool. After that we went and talked with Marco, that guy that works in the north misión and got a donut. It was fun. I love this work and I am having fun doing it. I love each of you and thank you for everything you do for me. Have a great week!

 

fuerte abrazo

con amor

 

Elder Ryan Kitchen

 

Hey Family!                                                                                                     December 9, 2013

Hola mis queridos how have ya'll been doing this week? I hope that school and work has gone well and that you haven't all frozen to death yet. WOW I can't believe it snowed so much in St. George! That's nuts. I'm sure they're all dying down there. Well here in Puebla thinks have warmed up quite a bit. It gets pretty dang hot during the day still and just right at night. It's honestly paradise here as far as the weather. So my Utah family hasn't gone skiing yet??? I'm down here where snow doesn't exist, so you guys better take advantage of it! hah

Well this week was pretty interesting. We had some great divisions with one of our district leaders. I went with the one who is just jr. comp and is having a hard time getting a hold of Spanish. I gave him so really good tips, and we had a good day as far as missionary work. Elder Rowe got kinda sick a few times this week. We had to make some trips to the Dr. to get him some meds and all that. He has problems with his stomach...Mexican food to blame. Because of that we didn't have a fantastic week, but we were able to get an okay week together. We found this awesome guy named Juan by contacting in the street. We were trying to find a part member family's address that we got and we were walking around in the hot sun after church trying to find it and we weren't having any luck. We decided not to give up. We started asking directions from various people contacting them at the same time. Ends up that we never found the house we were looking for, but because of being diligent, we were able to contact Juan. He was the last person we talked to as well. We've had two lessons, he went to church, and he already accepted baptism and a date and everything. It's a testimony that this is the Lord's work. Anyway to answer your questions...yes it has been tough being with two missionaries in a row going home. It's worse this time though because Elder Rowe is from Utah and likes a lot of things I like! But we are still doing great. We get along just fine and I'm glad I have a good companion during Christmas. Well lets face it I've never had a bad comp. on my mission. I've been really lucky. So today for P-day we went to the driving range that's right by our house. We are planning on golfing with the bishop on my birthday, so we had to go to the driving range to practice today. I hit the ball REALLY well actually. Funny thing is there was about 4 really rich golfers there too, and they were watching us hit our crappy rented clubs, so after we impressed them, they shared with us their brand new Callaway clubs!! We ended up making friends with them and he also invited us to play golf a different P day. We are going to share the Gospel with them because they aren't members. It's going to be a fun missionary experience. One guy was a rich Brazilian plastic surgeon, and the other two both from here in Mexico are also rich. It was fun. 

I had a great experience reading the Book of Mormon this week. Pres. Reeves challenged us to read it before Christmas. I've been reading really fast to be able to get it finished. He promised us that if we did this challenge that we would strengthen our testimony in the BOM. I found that strengthening in 2 Nephi 33 this week. Nephi gives his final testimony of the book and the things that he wrote. It is awesome!!! I loved it and I felt another conformation that it's true. I need to get to Alma 36 (where I was when pres. made the challenge) and I'm now in Mosiah 15. I'm going to make it. READ IT. All of you! It's a powerful testimony and evidence of the Restoration. Love you guys so much. I can't wait to see you on Christmas via internet! Love you!

P.S. the Beltran Leon family is getting baptized as a family this Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy! It's the family me and the Elder I trained found! I'm so happy for them. I'm going to the baptism

fuerte abrazo

con amor

Elder Ryan Kitchen

Hey!                                                                                                                December 2, 2013

Well a lot of changes have happened in the zone. It seems that about half of the missionaries that were here have been switched out with new ones. I'll get to who my new comp is and everything in the next paragraph...haha I'm sure you've figured out how I do my little pattern every letter. Well thanks guys for letting me know how the thanksgiving dinner went and everything. I really enjoyed hearing about it and seeing some of the pictures that you sent. I'm glad that everyone had a good time. It sounds like other than Thanksgiving dinner, you were all able to do some fun things as well. As for me and my comp, we decided at around 8 on thanksgiving night that we'd go get some pizza at Little Caesars haha. It was a different thanksgiving that's for sure. Our house is right by a Wal-mart, Sams club, Chedraui (Mexican grocery store), and like a little mall, so we have it good as far as the city life goes. Everyone kept saying that it was different and weird without me and Tyler ha I guess it feels nice to be missed. I feel like Tyler and I are the black sheep or something haha. I can't believe Christmas is coming so soon! Wow it's getting cold already up there huh? Here it is a little chilly at night too.

Well on Tuesday morning I helped Elder Betts get all of his stuff to the mission home. We had the fortune to be able to eat Sister Reeves awesome breakfast before the transfer meeting. It was something new knowing the whole transfer that I'd be getting a new companion for sure. We had a great transfer together and we really got along great. Well this time Pres. didn't call the Mayorazgo zone until the last, so I ended up knowing who my comp was before he announced it. I'm am now with Elder Rowe from SLC Utah. He is a great guy and we have a ton in common. He is my 7th comp total and my 3rd American comp. Our first day together was spent talking about golf haha because he played on the East High School golf team and he loves golf as well. We have a lot of the same hobbies. As for our week, it went a little bit slow because Elder Betts and I weren't able to find very much new investigators because of how busy we were. We still have 2 more baptismal dates for the future, and we are working on finding new investigators to teach. Funny thing is this is Elder Rowe's last transfer on his mission as well. He is going to be home on the 31st of Dec. which is a week early so that he can go to school. It's a little rough at times because he has been a bit sick for the past 6 months. He has ulcers in his stomach and a bug I think haha which makes it hard for him sometimes. We are still able to work and everything, just sometimes he has to sit down for a sec and stuff like that. There is a lot of exciting things that we are planning together though. With Christmas and all there is a lot that is happening. My birthday is on the 16th and his is on the 17th which is cool. My birthday lands on a P day so were are trying to work out with our bishop a round of golf together on his country club!! Hope it works out! We are also trying to plan a caroling in the center of Puebla as like a joint zone Christmas activity that would be big and missionary work because we'd be able to contact and everything. I'm excited for this transfer. We are still working with great investigators as well.

I love you guys! Thank you for everything. Keep in mind what the Christmas spirit is all about. I hope you don't get too cold up there in Utah. Keep that fire place running. I'm going to miss all of you over this Christmas holiday, but I know where I'm supposed to be. Next Christmas after this one I'll be with ya'll. Personally and as a companionship we have been praying to find a family to teach. Pray with us! Don't worry mama we bought a few Christmas decorations and everything. We are also going to buy a small natural tree. It's going to be a nice mission Christmas. Have a great week!

fuerte abrazo

con amor

Elder Ryan Kitchen

Aló!

Hey. Thanksgiving is this week right? On Thursday? That's cool that you're all going down to St. George as a family. I'm sure you'll all have a good time. Eat a bunch of turkey for me because I probably won't be doing anything on Thanksgiving, well unless someone invites us, but nobody celebrates it here. Don't worry though there is this kid named Adrian in the ward who turns 16 on the 16th of Dec. too so we're going to do something together like share a cake and eat some tacos or something. Also, I'm not sure if I told you all this, but our Bishop here lives in one of the nicest gated communities in all of Puebla. It's called La Vista. The mission Pres. of the North Puebla mission lives there. We've already gone to eat at the Bishop's house a few time...wow it's so nice. Anyway the Bishop already invited us to go there to his house on Christmas! Woo! Mom it's always cool to hear about everyone coming and leaving on their missions. It's nuts. I'll look out for Sister Seegmiller. One American girl has gotten here also from St. George. There are only 3 other American girls showing up in the next few days because not all of them got their visas.  Dad I just imagined you eating a ton of turkey and then falling asleep to football and it really isn't that hard to believe! Enjoy. Thanks for the zone leader tips pops and don't worry I miss ya too. Before you know it we'll be sinkin' them birdies on the 18th. 

Well right now I'm wondering who my next companion is going to be. Yesterday we had to go to the mission home because Elder Betts got his final interview from Pres. and he took an online English test. Later on me got all the news for the zone about transfers. Like we thought, I'm staying as Zone Leader in Tres Cerritos ward for at least another transfer. I'm just either going to get another zone leader from a different zone, or a new zone leader, who knows. The meeting is tomorrow. Today I'm still with Elder Betts. He doesn't leave until Wednesday morning, so we'll be together until I get my new companion at the meeting. We were going to visit an old area of his, but it's far away and he decided he just wanted to have a peaceful last P day. Dad I haven't done a zone conference yet. We just had interviews this month, so Zone Conference is coming up next month. There are 24 missionaries in the zone...yeah we get busy sometimes. Well this week was both awesome and kind of not so awesome. Awesome because we baptized a young man named Carlos Villegas! He is awesome. Elder Betts's birthday was on the 22nd and he baptized Carlos. Tyler was right when he said that this ward is on fire. We hope to keep finding new people to keep this going. This week was not so awesome because Elder Betts was starting to slow down. I don't understand yet what your last week would be like, but he had a hard time focusing, which affected the way we worked. It's okay though because this whole transfer we worked super hard and did a lot of great things. We had 6 baptisms this transfer and all of them were in 4 weeks and from 6 different families. It kept us SUPER BUSY. I loved it. It has been my favorite transfer of the mission. I love being zone leader too.

Well like I said before I hope everyone enjoys Thanksgiving. There needs to be a lot of thanks giving over there...you don't understand how blessed we really are. Out of all that turkey eating and football watching take time to recognize the many blessing in your life. Take time to write some things down and then thank God. I am grateful to have such a wonderful family that loves and supports me. THANK YOU. I am grateful to be here serving the people of Puebla. I love being here and I love the people. I am grateful for the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ that blesses my life each and every day. I am grateful for my Savior who gave his life for me. Through Him, I am.

Much Love!

Fuerte abrazo

con Amor

Elder Ryan Kitchen