FELIZ NAVIDAD

It´s so weird hearing the instrumental version of "Feliz Navidad" on the Mexican radio... It´s just not whole without the lyrics. (We got to listen to the Mexican radio while folding laundry again this week. Much happiness).

ANYWAY.... Here´s my diary for this week.
Wednesday: Chris spoiled "Into the Woods" for me. I´ll forgive him. Eventually.
Thursday: I dreamed about Voldemort and his pet armadillo. Good to know my dreams are still weird. Talked about charity and how we need to pray for it. TODAS LOS DIAS. En la mañana. En la noche. En la tardes. (It´s an inside joke between my comps and I. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.) The mountain was on fire, but the baptism B was still there. Started talking to Latinos at dinner. We´re best friends now, even though I still have no idea what they´re saying. One day.
Friday: Went contacting. Taught the Restoration to a couple of other missionaries. Yeah. Great fun. That´s about it.
Saturday: Played beach volleyball with 25 people and 3 balls. I´m amazed that I didn´t get hit in the face. We taught Hermana Rena for TRC. She´s so sweet! She pretty much taught us. We didn´t even try. The Spirit was so strong and we were all crying. Stupid tear glands. We also gave a Book of Mormon discussion on virtue. Read Mosiah 4 and see how it relates to virtue.
Sunday: Had a reader´s theater for Relief Society. I was the musician. In a lot of ways. Never again. The things I do for Hermana Gill (The choir director). I also gave a 6 minute and 20 second talk in Spanish on (guess the topic) FAITH in sacrament meeting. Hahaha. It´s only the topic I´ve given talks on since I was 12. I didn´t write it until sacrament meeting. Pretty proud of myself. (Our talks are supposed to be 5 minutes, btw). Had the best devotional EVER. It was by the director of operations down here, Shawn Cates. He´s a cool guy, and a gringo, so we get along well. Hermana Gill made me brownies. They were delicious. Triple fudge topped with powdered sugar. Watched the Restoration movie. We cried. It was beautiful. We also watched two videos. "He is the Gift" (#sharethegift) and "The Nativity" by radiant.org . It has the Piano Guys and David Archuleta and Peter Hollens and Alex Boyé and Jeremy from Studio C. Watch it. Love it.
Monday: We took our farewell MTC pictures. Our colors were blue, yellow, and gray. Can´t wait to see how they turn out. Nothing else really happened.
Tuesday: Taught Carlos (and other people) The Law of Chastity. It went surprisingly well, except when I said that breaking the law of chastity is a really bad fish instead of a really bad sin. Mi español es roto. Had a devotional by Bishop Gary E. Stevenson where he pulled a sword (a real one) out of nowhere and said "Isn´t that narley?". Have your sword of the Spirit with you always. It´s your one weapon. Everything else the gospel gives in a shield/ protection.
Today: Cleaned. Packed. Shined the shoes. IT RAINED. Best Christmas Eve ever.

FELIZ NAVIDAD! But remember the reason for the season, for without Christ, there would be no Christmas. Share his gift, his many gifts, with the world. The gift of His Atonement. The gift of His Gospel. The Gift of His Service. STAY AWESOME.

Love,

Hermana Kennedy

Oh, and here´s some random quotes:

Hermana Hawkes referring to my nickname (A): "I´ve been sitting for the past fifteen minutes wondering how you can get "A" from "Kennedy"."
Hermana Hawkes: "Animal torture is the first step to serial killing."
Me: "Happy Christmas, Harry." Hermana Hawkes: "Happy Christmas, Ron."
Hermano Cates: "Stay on target. YOURÉ A DISEASE!" (My new life motto.)
Our Latino friends: "Aqui!" (Referring to when we hit the volleyball in the completely wrong direction.)

P.S.
"Mal Pescado". (It´s a very bad fish). It´s doctrine. Leviticus 11:9-12.

¿Porque no?

Our crazy district.

Elder Wilde

Christmas is coming!

We all need a little more Jesus in our lives

Sorry for the boring title. I couldn´t think of another one. In English, at least.

So, here´s my diary for the past week:

Wednesday: A new group of missionaries came in, and I was happy to see on of my college orchestra buddies, Clarissa Reed down here! She´s going to Alabama and will be in the MTC for Christmas, New Year´s, and her birthday. Poor girl.
Thursday: Instead of doing language study, we had choir practice because we were going to sing at the visitor´s center on Sunday. We ended up singing at the employee´s Christmas party after practice. My teachers were making faces at me the whole time. Not cool. Not cool.
Friday: It was Guadalupe day. There were a lot of fireworks. A LOT. We couldn´t sleep the night before because they were so loud. They were really loud during the day, too. Not cool.
Saturday: We had TRC today. TRC is where you teach volunteers about a certain topic that your teachers assign. We taught two members separately, Mario and Valeria. Our lesson with Mario was perfect, even though he talked super fast. The Spirit. It does cool things. We laughed most of the time with Valeria. She didn´t really have any questions or problems, so we just taught her and gave her reminders. But, at night, we had a wonderful Christmas program by some RMs, planning to be missionaries, and teachers here. It was the Nativity story in folk dancing. Satan made an appearance. He was really creepy. Never want to see that again. But the rest of the program was wonderful! They had an epic sword dance, and a piñata, and this adorable little girl. So cute. But the elders behind us were being really loud and disrespectful. They got a mouthful from President Pratt the next day, though, so it´s cool. People just don´t know performance etiquette. It makes me sad.
Sunday: I DIDN´T HAVE TO GIVE A TALK IN SACRAMENT MEETING. But next week´s topic is on faith, and that´s been my topic since I was 12. It´s going to happen. I know it. Today was the day we performed at the Visitor´s Center. There were 36 of us, and a lot of people showed up. The room was so packed that they had to move people to other rooms. And they got packed. We sang some Christmas hymns, This is the Christ, God Loved Us So He Sent His Son and He Sent His Son, I Know that My Redeemer Lives, and Oh Holy Night. Hermana Streuling and I did a piano/violin duet to Oh Little Town of Bethlehem. I did a piano solo for O Come O Come Emmanuel. Another Hermana did a gorgeous Christmas Medley. It had my favorite Christmas songs--Carol of the Bells, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and We Three Kings. Yeah I was happy. She asked me to turn pages right before, so of course I said yes. It was great. I felt so sick--like fainting sick. I didn´t faint, though. I just snuck off my sweater and sat down to play the piano. It worked out perfectly. We also watched this movie called ¨"How Rare a Possession". It´s about the Book of Mormon. It´s a good movie. Watch it. Cry. Love it.
Monday: Instead of studying, we had an epic discussion about lightsabers and everything in the Star Wars canon universe. Shows how much we work... We´re getting better, though. That´s about all that happened.
Tuesday: Carlos is on a baptism date! So proud of him. Now he just needs to keep the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. Fingers crossed. It was also Hermano Melara´s last day with us. He´s leaving to go to school. He showed us an awesome inspirational video that his mission made. He better send it to me. It made me cry. Partially because the music was by Hans Zimmer. Time from Inception and another song from the Da Vinci Code. It was beautiful. We cleaned bathrooms for our service project. We´re pro cleaners now. I also played at the devotional. It was a really good devotional by an Elder of the 4th Quorum of the Seventy down here. Ask me about it, and I´ll tell you.

Fireworks still go off every day here. We yell Guadalupe every time we´re in our casa and one goes off. Yeah.

Love you!

Hermana Kennedy

P.S. We get to see Meet the Mormons on Christmas. I´ll be smarter this time and bring tissues. Yup. It´s going down.

"Sista Time!"

Sister Kennedy and her companions

"Our Christmas tree"

"My Decoration"

"The Elders"

"The Sisters"

Mexico City Temple 

"Temple Time!"

"Visitor's Center Decorations"

"Funnies"

"Jesus! (Because, why not?)"

"These are the guys from my district. This is what they send me on P-Day. Yeah. We're perfect for each other. We know." 

"Elder Etter's Arm. It's very veiny"

"Our teacher's last day and our party"

"Mexican Coke. Yum." 

Another week gone.

Sister Kennedy's MTC District

I know I´ve only been gone three weeks, but we´re in week 4! Solo español week. Es no bueno. I have to speak only Spanish for the next 3 weeks before I leave! Yeah. Not happening so well right now. Thank goodness I have a companion who´s pretty much fluent. (I love you Hermana Campbell!)

So, we got two new progressing investigators, Carlos and Julian. One´s my day teacher, Hermano Saucedo and the other is my night teacher, Hermano Diaz, respectively. Julian has committed to baptism. We teach him again tonight. Carlos is... Carlos. He´s more interested now. He´s reading el Libro de Mormon, so that´s good, right?

A lot has happened this week. We started this thing called TRC. It´s where volunteers come so that the missionaries can practice their Spanish teaching skills. They´re either nonmembers, members, investigators, or inactives. We got a member, Miguel, who was actually one of the teachers here. We taught him about prayer, reading the Book of Mormon, and Satan. It was fun. And terrifying at the same time.

We went to the visitor´s center for the Mexico City Temple today. It´s absolutely beautiful! We didn´t get to go inside the temple because it´s closed for the next six months. (It was sinking, so I completely understand.) We did get to tour the visitor´s center and see their beautiful pointsettas! (Pics are coming, I promise.)

I also went running with Hermana McArthur on Monday. We both threw up after, but we´re ok now. Thank goodness for the priesthood.

Spiritual things: We´ve been talking a lot about being converted. Having a testimony and being converted are two completely different things. A testimony is something you know is true. Being converted is living your testimony every day. It´s called having integrity. If you don´t know the definition, look up Renee Pay and she´ll be happy to tell you. Actually, just ask her about the 8 keys of excellence, and you´ll be set for life. Anyway, conversion is a lifelong process. It´s not a big, grand experience. As you keep living the principles you know are true, you´ll begin to be converted in that one thing. Then you move on to the next principle and repeat. Endure to the end. All that fun stuff.

Funny things: My district laughs a lot. We´re really close, and we don´t want to be close to anyone else, so we´ve become "That district". I´ve also heard "the Kennewicks". We have a reputation. It´s kind of awesome.

Keep loving everyone, especially Jesus!

Happy Christmas season everyone! Remember the Savior every day for the next 13 days. He´d really appreciate it.

Love,

Hermana Kennedy

P.S. Our service project this week was folding laundry, specifically sheets. I am a pro folder now. We got to listen to Spanish Disney music. It´s awesome! Although, Hakuna Matata in Spanish is kind of weird... Oh well. I liked it. We got to listen to the Aristocats, and I got very happy. :)

Too much Elder Holland!

Hola!

This week was THANKSGIVING. So, here´s a list of a few things I´m grateful for:
1. My mother. Pretty self explanatory.
2. My father. Also pretty self explanatory.
3. My siblings. I´m still trying to delude myself into thinking that I don´t miss you.
4. Mis compañeras. They´re awesome. And wondeful. And do my hair.
5. Peaches. They make me happy.
6. Mis maestros. Sure they talk really fast and I can´t understand what they're saying half the time, but I can now construct sentences in Spanish. Pretty awesome.
7. Mi distrito! They´re awesome! 6 elders and 5 hermanas = the best time of our lives. So excited to come home and have a Marvel marathon with then.
8. The nerd life, The girls in my district are all Sherlocked. It´s great.
9. The scriptures. They´re so calming. Read them more.
10. Marking crayons. Having 12 different colors is muy bueño for my purposes. Everything is color coded. Sassy moments are in pink. I don´t think I´ve ever realized just how sassy Nefi was until now...
11. El CCM. The workers put tablecloths and real plates and silverware on the lunch tables for Thanksgiving! We had Thanksgiving! With turkey and creamy mashed potatoes and green beans and I was happy.
12. Devotionals. WE HAVE SO MANY. One on Sunday, one on Tuesday, one for special occasions (like Thanksgiving.) Two of them so far have been by Elder Holland. We´ve watched so many videos with Elder Holland. Mis maestros quote Elder Holland. SO MUCH ELDER HOLLAND. It´s awesome.

So there you go. I would have put God and Jesus Christ as my number one and two spots, but I thought that went without saying....

This week in the CCM has gone by so fast! We commited our first investigator, Russel, to baptism! And then we found out that he was our night teacher... #awkward. Hermano Diaz is awesome, but I still can´t help but call him "Russel". Now we have two more investigators, Carlos and Julian. Carlos is one of our day teachers, Hermano Saucedo, and Julian is Hermano Diaz again. Exciting, right?

Typing with a Spanish keyboard on a Spanish computer is weird. It makes me question my English...

I haven´t gotten sick or had a mental breakdown yet, so I´m pretty proud of myself. We´re also going to the mall today because Hermana Campbell needs shoes. ... We´re leaving the compound.

Also, here in Mexico City, they celebrate a saint EVERY SINGLE DAY. WITH FIREWORKS. IT SOUNDS LIKE A WAR ZONE. That and all the honking from the horrible traffic does not help with the noise level. Guess I´ll be ready for the fireworks when I come back to the US for New Year´s. #notcool

Also, according to Hermano Saucedo, having chairty for others is like having a bromance with them. Like Ammon and King Lamoni. Best bromance ever.

Well, we´re about to leave, so I´ll sign off!

Love you!

Hermana Kennedy

P.S. Elder Bednar gave the Thanksgiving devotional last week. We got to email him questions and he answered them. The people in the Provo MTC got to text him. Guess what? I saw Sister Sydney Sands texting Elder Bednar! It´s good to know she´s actually alive.... Ok. I´m going now. Adios!