Monday, October 26, 2015

The First Week of Motherhood

Mi hija. :) 
Well, for those who are interested, I have a new baby! (Background information: in mission terms, somebody is born when they get into the mission field. Their first companion, or "trainer", is their parent--either a mother of father respective of gender. I am currently a trainer, and my greenie was born on Wednesday.) :) Her name is Hermana Ayala. She was born in Mexico City, but currently lives in Murray, UT! (She's only like 20 minutes away family! Go visit her family!) Anyway. She's pretty awesome. She wants to be a robotics engineer for Volkswagen, and I am so excited to be her first companion! 😅

But, here's your rundown for this past crazy week!

Monday: We saw our philosophical Hispanic investigator and invited him to be baptized. He said yes. We saw M and E too and talked about prayer. That was cool. And then we went home to work on moving two other sisters into our apartment/ get ready for transfers. Did we? Nope.

Tuesday: We started moving the other sisters in, went on exchanges with the new missionaries. I was with Hermana Pons. She's from Argentina and is wonderful. We met some pretty awesome people, but we had to take them back. :( Oh well. After that, we contacted a referral super fast, had dinner with the other sisters, went to visit a recent convert family, went home, moved some more stuff in, dyed Hermana Brighton's hair, and had a sleepover. I had the best night's sleep ever.

Wednesday: We went to transfer meeting where we got a new car (that we still share with the other sisters) and I got a brand new companion! (See above for details.) We went and did some service for a while until we had to go to dinner. We had dinner with an awesome member family who had a non-member there. We had enchiladas and tortas. Mmmm. Delish. It was a great first meal for Hermana Ayala because it reminded her of her home in Mexico. After that, we went back to the apartment to clean everything up because we had apartment inspections on Thursday and there was literally just a small walkway on the floor to the kitchen, the bathroom, and our rooms. So, we cleaned, and put things away, and cleaned some more, and then M and E texted us and asked us to go over, so we went over and when we got home, the other sisters had finished cleaning, so we called it a night and went to bed.

Thursday: We aced our apartment inspection with flying colors. (Then again, they had just come from the elder's apartment...) We went out to work for about 20 minutes where we talked to two people and then we went to do service at the Salvation Army. That was fun. After that, we did some daily contact and went to dinner. Chicken, pineapple, and rice. Yummy. We have the best members. I also learned that porpoises scare sharks away. And the word for porpoise in Spanish. That was cool. After that, we tried some people, but they all weren't home, until we saw a less active family that was sick, so we actually got to talk to all of them! They really want to come to church, but they can't because of work. So pray for them to not have work on Sundays anymore. :)

Friday: We had an awesome trainer-trainee meeting where I was reminded that we do this work because we love our Heavenly Father. Everything in this gospel revolves around love, as a matter of fact. Love. All of our set appointments that night fell through, except for the one with the philosophical Hispanic which we actually brought a member to so that we could have it inside, but we did it outside in the freezing cold instead. :( Oh well. C'est la vie.

Saturday: We did about 5 hours of service installing fire alarms for free for the Red Cross. We had a cool experience. The one house we went to was a Hispanic woman who was making tamales. While the other two people were installing, we were talking to this woman, Guadalupe. More like filling out information to take back to the Red Cross. Anyway, Guadalupe just opened up to us and told us her life story, which is pretty rough. She broke down in tears, and we didn't know what to do, so we told her what we were here to do as missionaries. We ended our visit and got her information so that we could give it to the elders because she was in their area. We gave them the referral and they went back later that night, taught her the Restoration, and put her on date to be baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People can recognize that we are missionaries and that the message we have can change their lives. THEY CAN FEEL IT. So that was our super cool experience. After that, we did some weekly planning, got some bread and pizza for dinner, and Sister Call was kind enough to drive us to Tieton. We saw some awesome people, got some new investigators, saw our golden family, and called it a night.

Sunday: Well, it rained, and Hermana Ayala was sick, but we went to church because it was the Primary program. It was so cute. Our philosophical Hispanic and part member family came to church. And then we finished our weekly planning, went to dinner where we had curry. Yum. And we tried referrals all night. One didn't exist. The other was busy. So, we saw Gray. She and Hermana Ayala lived in the same place! It's all who you know, ya know? We had a cool lesson with her about being examples, and Gray was all over that. She loved it. Then we picked up the other sisters (because rain) and called it a night.

As for #ldsconf, this week is the last week for it! So, here's my takeaways from the Sunday Afternoon session:

1. The church (organized religion) was made by God, not man.
2. Ponderize. Prepare spiritually for things to come.
3. Obedience is how we become converted.
4. The commandments are a manifestation of God's love.
5. Obedience is how we show God we love Him.
6. Trust God. Trust Jesus. Trust the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Trust your parents.
7. Repent and be clean! Live the doctrine of Christ!
8. We need to be good at getting better.
9. Learn to be faithful through your trials.
10. Align your will with God's will.
11. We need strong, old men to guide the church.
12. The Lord inspired the calls of everyone in the church, especially the prophets and apostles. When they speak to us, it is the same as when Christ speaks to us.

"Don't be too critical of the barrier. It's the only thing keeping you from being devoured." #ldsconf Don't be too critical of God's commandments. They're the only things keeping you from being devoured by the gaping jaws of hell.

"A powerful message of a lifetime from a man I love." #ldsconf #wewriteofChrist #share1invite1 #sharegoodness Be an example and a light!

Well, family, I love you! Have a miraculous week!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Kennedy 😵

Hermana Brighton with M and E and a member.

Hermana Brighton y yo.

Oh. And my shoes died. Here's proof. Examine carefully. 

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