#WeWriteofChrist

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Hoy, vamos a hablar sobre hashtages. Que es un hashtag? Porque tenemos que usar los hashtag? I still don't know what a hashtag is, but I use them all the time. Maybe somebody could send me the definition or something. ANYWAY, this week is the start of the last 8 months of awesome letters you will be receiving from yours truly. As part of them, I'm going to start including some special hashtags for the month. I would encourage all of you to use them when posting on social media and other sites. Or, you could even just send them to me. ;) This month, the month of October, the hashtag will be #ldsconf. Share your favorite messages from conference with the world! I'll finish out this letter with my example. If you want more information about this event, go to www.wewriteofchrist.org  or ask Christopher Kennedy for more information. But for now, you must suffer through another day by day breakdown of Hermana Kennedy's week. Listos?

Lunes: We walked and OYMed a lot of people until we finished the night of by contacting a referral. When we knocked on the door, the woman opened the door and invited us in because she saw the scriptures I was carrying. As we talked to them, we found out that they were friends of some members and were actually interested in our message! So we shared a little bit of it, set up a return appointment, and left. Miracles everywhere!

Martes: We were on exchanges today. I was finally in my own area with Hermana Bailey, Hermana Streuling's trainer. We had an awesome day of service where we painted fire hydrants and had to us steel wool to get the paint off our skin. Hermana Bailey also broke our phone, so... It was rough. We got some dinner and then walked. All of our appointments fell through, and we didn't have a car, so we walked and talked and walked and knocked and walked until a member invited us in for some juice. We accepted, shared a spiritual thought, and left. We met some pretty cool people walking, though. The other sisters picked us up and we exchanged back. I learned a lot from Hermana Bailey, and I'm so excited to serve in the same branch as her and her companion! We're super close since we share a car, a branch, and now dinners too! (Next thing you know, we'll share an apartment.)

Miercoles: We knocked and walked and talked until we found an English less-active! Missionaries haven't stopped by for a long time, and she was actually thinking about going back to church. It was a miracle in the middle of a rough afternoon. We stopped by a member and set up a time for her to come out with us. And then we realized that it was during Women's Conference... Needless to say, we changed it. We had dinner with Gray, and she made the best quesadillas! We also had a contest to see how many times it took to throw grapes into our mouths before we actually caught them in our mouths. I won. We then had a two hour discussion with Gray about her life story and how she has seen the gospel change her life and the life of her family since she started accepting it. She is so ready! She just needs to get married, and then she can get baptized! Her esposo is so much happier, too! He never smiles, but when we came over for dinner, he was smiling so big! After our talk, we went to the church and served some members/ set up some appointments for the rest of the week. Hermana Brighton is very good at making bowties out of napkins, so if anyone wants to use her skills, feel free. :)

Jueves: We had an AMAZING zone conference. (Guess who had to do the musical number? Which was actually the closing song...) I still haven't had a chance to wrap my mind around how awesome all the messages from zone conference were. One day, I'll get it. We had dinner with a member. She bought us American food, but gave us tortillas, so it was totally Mexican food. Then we walked to see some of our appointments. They all canceled, so we started to find some members that supposedly lived in the area. The first one we tried had moved, but we got a new investigator out of the single mother living there, so it was ok. We knocked around the apartment complex and found some pretty cool, solid people. Then, as we were walking home, we found two people outside smoking. Tom and Kimmy. They were super anti-Joseph Smith, but as we explained the Restoration, they opened up. Turns out we were the first Mormons they would let talk to them. Kimmy was pretty challenging and said that she would never change her mind about Joseph Smith, but by the end of the lesson she accepted a Restoration pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. And she prayed to know right then and there if it was true! Awesome end of the night miracle. Except that Hermana Brighton and I had to go home and shower so that we wouldn't smell like heavy smokers. Pros and cons.

Viernes: We actually finished weekly planning! On a Friday! And we had an awesome lesson with our part-member family. He's getting baptized next month! Her divorce came through, so they're going to have a wedding/ baptism/ party day! They are SO solid. And then we saw a less-active family that had come to church the week earlier. She gave us some chile reyenos which were delicious, as usual, and we had a good discussion about living the gospel. We invited her to the women's conference on Saturday too.

Sabado: Well, we had an awesome coordination meeting with our branch mission leader. Followed by about 2 hours of walking, falling through appointments, drunk Mexicans, and talking to pretty much everyone we talked to on Thursday. It was pretty fun. We took an earlier dinner. (We made Mac and Cheese with almond milk. It's not bad.) And then we went to women's conference! More to come on that. The rest of our appointments that night fell through, so we stopped by some potentials, and walked and talked with other people. It was pretty fun.

Domingo: Well, church was awesome as usual. The organ broke, so I got to play the piano again. :) And then after church, some members (the new ward missionaries, in fact) fed us some Peruvian fried rice and no bake cookies. (He's Peruvian. She's American.) Twas delicious. Then we went to contact some referrals. No luck, but we met a black lady from Arkansas, and she is so awesome! I'm so sad she speaks English. I wanted to teach her. :( Oh well. We're all on team Jesus, right? Then we saw some investigators that live next door to members, and the members invited the investigators over for family home evening tonight! So we did some service for the members and talked about what we'd do tonight. We are all super excited! We knocked and talked with some white people, and they were all kind of grumpy, so I think the Seahawks lost last night. I've never paid attention to football as much as I have on my mission. (Will, you're going to have to keep me updated on the Seahawks. My mission depends on it!)

Well, that's about it! As for your spiritual thought this week, it comes from women's conference! #ldsconf Something I loved about women's conference was Sister McConkie's talk. She talked about the cause that we are all united in, the work of salvation. The work of salvation is our entire labor here on earth--to help our Father's children return safely as sealed families. We all need to participate in this work. Here's the five steps to participating in the work of salvation.
1. Member Missionary Work. Be a member missionary! Go out with the missionaries or give the missionaries someone to teach! Pray for guidance to know how you can be a better member missionary! #share1invite1
2. Convert Retention. For the recent converts in your wards and stakes, be a friend! Help them to stay active! Give them something to participate in and nourish them with the good word of God,. #sharegoodness
3. Activation of Less-Active Members. The best way you can get less-actives active again is to be a friend. Show them that you care about them, and not just your ward roster or assignment. #sharegoodness
4. Temple and Family History work. GET ON YOUR FAMILY HISTORY! (Myself included.) And then, when you find names, take them to the temple! The temple is the most important part of the work of salvation. It's only through the ordinances of the temple that we can return to our Heavenly Father as sealed families. #findyourcousins
5. Teach the Gospel. In your homes, to others, to friends, to family. I don't care how you do it, but teach the Gospel. This can best be done through the scriptures or the words of the prophets! #wewriteofChrist
There you go! Go and do! Be an active part of the work of salvation!

I love you all so much! Make sure to take some questions to ponder during General Conference this next weekend!

Con MUCHISIMO amor,

Hermana Kennedy