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