Exclamation Point !

October 14, 2013

General Conference (exclamation point)! I enjoyed conference so much and I loved that investigators, less actives, and members would pop into my mind on certain topics. Since this is my first General Conference as a missionary, I’ve never had quite the experience of thinking of so many other people besides myself. Missionary work is quite the topic among the general authorities and it’s so exciting to be a part of that work. It gave me more resolve on how important this work is and it will pass faster than I know. It was also wonderful to see so many faithful saints and to feel a bit more at home seeing Utah. I use lots of exclamation points in writing and speech so it was fun to hear the General Authority who talked about that, even though he played football for BYU:) The Saturday morning session was sadly a private viewing for the missionaries.. but the Elders had an investigator Saturday Afternoon and we had one come on Sunday. Members don't see the excitement of watching Conference, but one day they will understand how exciting it is to hear the living prophets.

The cute family we're teaching with Sister Taleni. 

They're sad Sister Taleni will be leaving.

This is a pretty big week! I have my 3 month Birthday and my 21st Birthday. In celebration of my Birthday, I would love it if everyone sent me 21 things that they are grateful for in their life. Having an attitude of gratitude can really help as a missionary, so I am anxious to hear what you all are grateful for!

We ran into this guy when we were contacting a referral. "Hi, we're Sister Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". He said, "Oh that's cool your church has missionaries, usually you just see the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons out!" Ha we told him we were Mormons and it confirmed his missionary observations. But he was nice and showed us his pet chinchillas. He only had shorts on so it was a bit weird, but we had a nice chat.

When I was in the MTC a member of the 70 came and told us about how they assign missionaries. He said that often the missionary is assigned to a specific mission not because of the region, but because of the mission president they will serve under. Pretty neat, right?? Well this week I came to the conclusion that Heavenly Father did the same when he was assigning parents. He knew who would help us to grow the most, teach us the best way, and be the best for us. I don't know what I did to belong to my family but I'm sure grateful!! I think we all have so much to be grateful for thinking of the families we've been born in to. Some aren't as lucky, but they're still the ones who will help us to learn and grown the most.

For P-Day we went bowling and it was super fun. We were able to go as a district and it made me feel a little normal just being out and playing. None of us were very good, I guess we haven't been on enough dates bowling ha.

This week will be great! Every day we are finding a miracle and we're exercising greater faith and obedience so we will be deserving of them. We leave to Nelson today for exchanges but we'll both be staying. There will be 4 Sisters to really focus the work there so it should be really great. The Sisters haven't been out much due to illness so we're going to help speed up the work. Exciting!

Remember to Look Up! Be happy and choose the right. (A lot of people see my CTR ring on my wedding ring finger and think I'm engaged or married. They seem disappointed when I tell them what it means and that it's the only finger that fits.)

Love, Sister Kennedy

By their desires and their works you shall know them.

October 9, 2013

You know that cute little phrase, "don't let the bed bugs bite!" That's no longer a cute phrase but a sincere prayer of mine every night. Ha I have been eaten all up my arms and legs with these bites. We had a District Meeting over in Nelson and the mission president's wife was there. I had her look at them and then all the elders came over. She asked them what they looked like and one elder said, "They look like really scratched up bed bug bites". Ha, it's so hard not to scratch! I washed everything on my bed, vacuumed my mattress, and it seems to have gotten better. Apparantly most Americans get the bites; they like our blood.

Leaving our mark with our shoes on the fence to Nelson.

We had a super weekend in Nelson. There's a fence on the drive there that is covered with shoes people have left. It stretches from quite the distance and so we wanted to leave our mark with it! We bought some shoes at the second hand shop because we didn't really have any of our own to leave. I decorated mine up with things I love and left my testimony inside. Maybe one day someone will come and switch shoes with it and find the gospel, who knows! There's an ice cream shop on the way there and it's tradition we stop to get a scoop. Then the 2 cars of missionaries can actually get to the chapel because it's not too easy to navigate alone. We had District Meeting with our district, the Zone Leaders, the Senior Couple and also Sister Kezerian. We each had interviews with President during the meeting. It's always so nice to be surrounded by leadership and get their input on how we can better meet the needs of our investigators. On the way home we took the Queen Charlotte Drive home and it was filled with majestic lookouts on the water and mountains. Sometimes I just can't get over the beauty of this country.

We were able to do a bit of service this week. Service is the best because I can actually wear jeans and feel human. We went over to an investigators house and although she wasn't there we were able to get to work and weed her front garden. We stopped by another investigators home to drop off a FHE assignments and we were able to stay there for an hour and help them weed around their whole home. The kids and mom came out to work alongside us, which was great! We then threw the rugby ball around and played some touch. Always good!

P-Day this week was special because we had the whole district together. Since we can't drive we had the elders come in on buses and we all biked to the park. We had a little sausage barbeque with our small means as missionaries. We invited all the kids in the branch to come play with us and we had a great turn out! It was pretty much a branch activity ha. We played touch rugby and I actually did good! Usually when I get the ball I just stop and pass it to someone else, but this time I would actually run the ball and get right into it. It was a beautiful spring day, something everyone is Utah is probably missing right about now! It's getting quite warm, but then like Utah it freaks out and rains and gets really cold. 

Epic picture thanks to my enhancing feature on my camera. 

This is a look out on Queen Charlotte's Drive.

We'll get to watch General Conference this weekend and we are so stoked!! It's exciting to hear about it from the letters I've received so the real deal will be even better.

D&C 18:38. Everyone should read secton 18 of the Doctrine and Covenants because it is great! The title of my letter this weeks comes from this section. They were asked to go out and find the 12 apostles and the Lord told them that it would be by their desires and their works that they would know them. As followers of Christ and as disciples because should be able to look to up and see our works are in harmony with the teachings of Christ.

This gospel is true and that is why I continue to serve! I love you all and am grateful for the influence you've been in my life. You have all impacted my life. We are all accumulations of what we've seen, heard, and felt. You all have added to who I am and I am truly grateful for the amazing people you are! 

Love, Sister Kennedy

The Priesthood is great!!

September 30, 2013

I saw the power of the Priesthood this week!! I’ve always loved the Priesthood, but this week made me love it more. One of our progressing investigators, Candace, was in need of a blessing. She’s mentally ill and we offered her the blessing and she agreed with some nervous feelings. The Elders and Branch President came over the next night and gave her a powerful Priesthood blessing to calm her and give her help. She just kept telling us how peaceful she felt and that she felt an overwhelming calm. Candace is a single mum and she needs so much help in her life. We were able to share with her The Restoration DVD and the whole night was filled with the manifestation of the power of prayer, the Priesthood, and the restoration of the gospel. That was my spiritual highlight of the week and a wonderful teaching lesson!

Something that is crazy to me. The town I am serving in and the surrounding towns that we cover is about the same size as the cities from Brigham City to Tremonton, and there's only one small branch of members. Back home, that's over 15 stakes of members!! I think about all the great families in my home ward that I love and look up to. I know those families exist in Blenheim and they just need to be found!! We are so blessed in Utah because we have members everywhere. Here, the members have to work much harder with callings and being strong because they don't have much help. It's humbling to see their faith and work, but it keeps me motivated to find people and bring them to the church.

I'm so jealous of everyone who will get to watch General Conference this weekend!! We have to wait until next weekend until the DVD's come to us. I've never been more excited to watch conference, so it will be a treat even if I have to wait another week.

The senior couple who is in our Zone are the Edward's. I've talked about them in past letters and they are great! When they were here last weekend we were talking about life before the mission and found out that he owned a Big O Tires in Sandy. They really enjoyed that and they said they know Brother Toyn, so that is neat.

Sadly this week we have had to push our baptismal dates back. They are still doing well, but they haven't been to church and that is definitely a necessary step towards becoming a member. We pray daily that they will be prepared for the new date of the 19th of October. That would mean confirmations on my Birthday:) But it's not for me, for them.

We have exchanges tomorrow and I get the privilege of leading the area. My companion will go to Nelson and I will stay with Sister Bromley who's been in the field only 3 weeks. This means I'll get to pretend I know what I am doing and train her, make appointments, and act like a confident missionary. Ha it should be quite the growing experience, I'm actually really excited. We also have interviews with our mission president on Friday, which is great. I love President and Sister Kezerian. They are absolutely called of God to be in New Zealand.

We had day light savings this Sunday, and although we missed an hour of sleep, it stays light outside until after 7pm. That's beautiful because we go door knocking from 5-7 every Tuesday and Thursday and people are usually grumpy when it's dark outside. But now that it's staying light, people are a lot nicer ha. Most people tell us, "You are very sweet girls, but it is much too late to be out!" They would tell us that at 6pm and we just laughed thinking how early that really is in our night.

This week we had a Family Home Evening with a member family and we taught about the Armour of God. We always have to get creative when we teach because Tongan is their first language and they are pretty simple with their english. We had them find things around their house to make the Armour of God and they were all about it! We thought they did a pretty great job though, the picture shows their creativeness.

I'm memorizing D&C 4 this week and I love how it tells us that "If ye have a desire to serve God ye are called to the work". I'm so grateful to be surrounded by missionaries and have so many close friends and family who are also serving. That desire is so important!! That's what gets me through the hard days.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week. Thank you for everyone who writes me, you don't know how much it lifts my spirits:) We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father and He wants us to be happy!! Not happy one day when something good happens, or happy only in the past. He wants us to be happy right now, so be happy!! Just remember, miracles are a response of our faith.

Love, Sister Kennedy

"Let us not be weary in well doing."

September 24, 2013

Wow, I am seriously overwhelmed!! This has by far been the best week for mail. Seriously, it's so wonderful to hear from loving family and friends to give me the boost that I need. I love you all much more than you know! Thank you to everyone who wrote. Every word keeps me enthused and happy.

What a weekend. I was exhausted after such a long weekend with the Open Home and Special Sunday service. The day of the event, Saturday, it was pouring rain outside. The Branch President called asking what we thought we should do. Of course we just wanted to go ahead, but he seemed doubtful. Miraculously, at 12:45pm it just stopped raining. We were able to wash cars, give chapel tours and invite others to see our church.

The cute kids in the branch on the street to get cars 

to our free car wash Open Home!

One of the biggest successes from the event was the support of the branch. We had members there to wash cars with the youth, the Primary President and Relief Society had beautiful displays and were welcoming when visitors came, and the Family History Specialists were busy all day because that’s where most people were interested. We had children holding signs on the curb inviting the cars to the car wash and youth and adults were willingly washing the cars. We had a less active member, who loves to grill sausages, out back grilling our sausage sizzle. Overall, we felt like it was a successful day. We felt it was such a miracle that it stopped raining so we could have our car wash. We had members who didn’t come or who came late because they assumed we would cancel the event. We probably should have impressed on them that we had no intentions of cancelling or postponing due to weather. Us missionaries never cancel what we plan!

The Kivalu family is the BEST! 

We played the fruit game where you can't show your teeth, 

and we all laughed heaps.

We had a pretty successful Special Sunday service. We had an investigator come with her husband for the first time and they both enjoyed sacrament and Sunday school. All the missionaries in the District sang “I Feel My Savior’s Love” and that was really special to have everyone sing together.

We are teaching the cutest lady name Pra. She's from Thailand and she moved to New Zealand when she met her partner on the internet. When we door knocked into her she thought that we were there to teach her english, which we just rolled with! We've been meeting with her for the past couple of weeks. It's definintely a new experience to be teaching english, especially from someone who speaks Thai. She has decent english skills, we work hard to say things simply and help her understand. We are teaching her to read, spell words, and we always try to teach a gospel principle from the english lessons we teach her. We were thrilled when she and her partner came to church on Sunday for the Special service!! My companion has this gift where she says someones name and they appear. She looked at me and said, "I hope Pra comes," then she walked in the door ha. She didn't understand a whole lot but she loved the music and we helped by moving our finger along the words of the hymns.

Speaking of my companion's gift for seeing people she talks about... We were on the road driving when she told me, "Pull over! It's that girl I was talking about." One of the ladies she had been teaching in Wellington was walking the streets in Blenheim and she was so happy to see Sister Taleni. We were able to go to her motel and catch up with her. She told me that she hopes I serve in her city so that I can continue to teach her:) Then we were in our companion study when she looked out the window and ran to the door saying "Will you follow me outside?" She then yelled after a Stephanie and we ended up running down the street after this lady. She was a recent convert from Wellington area and she was in Blenheim visiting family. What are the chances that we have run into these ladies?? Seriousy a blessing and it's been so fun to see the Lord's hand in Blenheim.

I'm 2 months old now! Cool. Go Utes! I'm so excited to hear that they beat BYU. Elder and Sister Edward's are the Senior Couple here and they are die-hard BYU fans. It was quite fun to call them after hearing the results of the game and get to rub in a little bit that we won. All in good fun though because football scores don't really compare to the work of the Lord in New Zealand:)

This transfer we set a theme: Galatians 6:9 "And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." The Lord knows our abilities and our weaknesses. He wants us to make weaknesses strengths by working hard and relying on the Lord. We can all do what is asked of us because Heavenly Father knows we can do it.

Much love!!
Sister Kennedy