Monday, February 1, 2016

That One Subject Line That One Elder Decided

My companion. And me. But, I'm not the important one.
Note to self: Never ask Elder Saitman for subject lines. Although, I probably couldn't have come up with a better one... #noimagination

Wow! I can't believe it's already February! It seems like it was just December yesterday! Time sure flies when you're having fun! Here's how this week went:

Monday: Awesome P-day. Saw Claudius with some members and it was such a spirit-filled lesson! Hopefully he'll come to church and be baptized soon. We also got to see a part-member/ less-active family with our ward mission leader and his wife. They remember everything and their little 9 year old daughter really wants to be baptized. We'll get to work on that. :)

Tuesday: Well, I had the privilege to go with the fabulous Sister Torman, and I got to leave our area! Not that I wanted to leave, but Sister Harston hasn't stayed at all... We worked hard all day, did some service, saw a less-active member, and had a wonderful member dinner. Later on at night, all of our plans fell through, and she really didn't want to go tracting, and I didn't really want to go tracting, so we decided to get to know their neighbors and tract their apartment complex! And at 8:45, we found a Spanish less-active that let us in and let us teach her. Miracles happen when we just get out and go to work.

Wednesday: We had an awesome zone conference. President Lewis asked me to get all the sisters together (on Sunday) and do a musical number. So, we did. And it was awesome. And the rest of zone conference was awesome. I can't even begin to summarize what I learned. But, I'll give you guys a few clues later. After zone conference, we went on some more exchanges! We were able to see Natalya. She fell asleep at the end of our lesson, but it's ok. We all fell asleep during the prayer. #supertired

Thursday: Well, we had a super cool experience. Hermana Harston found a new investigator, L, last week, and I got to go back on exchanges for the return appointment. I was with Sister Holmes, so I was all by myself in my Spanish... But, I have a testimony that the gift of tongues is real! Anyway, L is literally the composite of all the "who do you know who" questions. She recently moved here to the US (6 months ago), she speaks no English, her husband was murdered about 7 months ago, she got remarried in December, and she's pregnant. It's a crazy life. We started teaching her, and her daughter just came home from school and sat in the lesson. And had questions. Which were answered by the gospel. It was amazing!

Friday: We had a great ward activity on Friday. We played volleyball and had cookies. And I didn't slip and fall and dislocate a knee. And I did it all in a skirt. That's what's up.

Saturday: We went to our stake women's conference on Saturday because the Stake Relief Society President asked us to translate. It was insane. We each had a sister to translate for, and we became very aware of how little Spanish we actually knew. But, Hermana Harston endured to the end a lot better than I did! She made it the full 3 hours translating. I could only do two, and then I passed my baton off to Hermana Campbell, who graciously accepted. And then we went out and worked for the rest of the day.

Sunday: One of our recent converts, S, came to church. IN A SUIT!! And got to prepare the sacrament. It was so heart-warming. :)

Your funny experience of the week comes from our fellow missionaries working with us in our ward--Elders Turley and Tanner and Elders Mendoza and Kiser. Elders T and T have a minivan, and Elder K and M catch rides sometimes. After our ward missionary coordination on Thursday, we were driving behind them to go home, and they suddenly stop in the middle of the road and do a Chinese Fire Drill. We just flashed our brights and they got moving.

Some spiritual thoughts: We had an amazing stake women's conference this Saturday. The theme was "brightening our vision", and at the end, the stake president talked a lot about hope and how, as women, we really need to have hope. I was pondering his message as we went about the day, and I was kind of complaining about how tired I was. And then, it hit me. I wasn't properly using the Atonement.  So, I've been focusing my studies lately on the Atonement. I was reading in True to the Faith, and the following stuck out to me: "The Atonement is the supreme expression of our Heavenly Father's love for us. It is also the greatest expression of the Savior's love for the Father and for us." Maybe it's just because it's February and love is on my mind a lot, but I just could not comprehend the fact that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us so much. Which is slightly ironic because my Christlike attribute that I'm focusing  on this month is charity and love. It was just meant to be. Anyway, I made the connection that as we show forth that Christlike love to others, we can have hope in good things to come.

Zone Conference: Repentance is a change of attitude that ultimately leads to a might change of heart. Alma 17. If you're a missionary, read it. Something that stood out to me is verse 23. It says something along the lines of "I desire to dwell here for a time--maybe even until the day I die!". Let me tell you. Ammon served a 14 year long mission. I'm at 14 months, and I don't even have close to the same desires he has. My life needs to change. A lot. Faith is a gift. We have to pray for it everyday, and then we have to act to grow it. It also helps us develop all the other gifts we have. We have to choose faith. See Elder Andersen's talk from the October 2015 General Conference "Faith is not by Chance, but by Choice". And, it all comes down. Everything in the gospel boils down to the fact that God is our Heavenly Father and He LOVES us. That means YOU!

Well, I think that's about it for this week. Have a miraculous week and be on fire with the Spirit!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Kennedy


My companion. And me. But I'm not the important one. 


Plus, some other cool peeps. 

Maybe you know some of them!




Porque no?

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