This past week was probably the most
stressful week I have had in the mission yet! It also marked a very stressful
week for my fellow leaders in our zone as well, they mentioned it being the
most tiring 7 days they have ever had as well. It all started last Sunday when
Elder Rodriguez and Elder Hales planned a surprise zone meeting the last two
hours of the night to meet up in the stake center, it was a meeting to give us
animo and a push to give our all this week for the last week of the month and
to finish strong with our fechas that we had for the 27th. After each district
leader gave a little discurso, Rodriguez was the last one to speak to us and he
randomly called each one of us up to do a practice on the spot. He took off his
name tag and un-tucked his shirt and he called Hermana whipple, "Whipple,
come here, I’m your less active and you want me to go to church, bare your
testimony, go!" After ten seconds, he called Elder Christianson,
"Christianson, I’m your investigator and you want me to get baptized,
ready, go!" I whispered to Castro and said, "Man, I hate it when
Rodriguez does this..." As I started feeling nervous, I had the impression
that he was going to call on me. As fate would have it, he did. "Kennedy,
I’m your less active, I haven’t gone to church in years, go."
I stood up and I looked him in the eyes and I immediately thought of Lorena, who is my real less active, who finally came to church that day, even though she was late, she came and I remember realizing just how hard it was for her to enter the capilla. Lorena was trembling in Relief Society as I sat next to her...I just remember that and Elder Sharp coming up to me and saying, "you did it Hermana Kennedy, you reached one of your goals, you got her to go to church." So as I looked at Rodriguez, I just told him as if I was talking to her, "Rodriguez, no se que ellos le hicieron, no se y no puedo sentir su dolor en su corazon pero estoy aqui para contarle que hay una persona que sabe y ha sentido todo, y el haria todo por usted and ha hecho todo, el esta llamandole a la iglesia." I struggled to get the message out because I could tell my lips were tightening as tears ran down my face. As tears ran down Rodriguez´s face, he told me to sit down.
Heavenly Father Recognizes Hard Work…Unexpected
Miracle
Friday finally came by this time I
had taken several Advil capsules due to running back and forth of errands
trying to put together a talent show. Rodriguez did me the favor of making a
sketch for us. He took the story of Ammon with king Lamoni but substituted
Lamoni for Pablo Escobar. The invitations said the show started at 7:30 so that
people could get there by 8pm but by the time it was 7 we hadn’t received the stage
lights and music system. Castro and I had to quickly clean the bathrooms and
chapel because they were so Cochino! Meanwhile, another pair of Elders were
waiting for us to pick up the balloon arch from our mamitas house and we still
hadn’t had time to start setting up the chairs. By 7:10 other missionaries
finally started coming and setting up everything, we were finally setup by 7:35,
all we needed to do was wait for people to get there, 8 o’clock rolled around
and only 5 people had come, that didn’t include the number of missionaries. 8:15
came and I started getting nervous, 8:30 and I started shaking. I sat down on
the pulpit pew and Rodriguez came up to me and told me not to worry that people
would start coming...meanwhile Hertler called me because I had invited him and his
companion to bring investigators, he called to tell me that they were going to
be late due to a baptismal interview their investigator was in. I told him not
to worry about it because there was hardly anyone here.
Rodriguez gathered the rest of the
crew together and we prayed on our knees to ask for more people to come, as we
came out of the room, Hertler and Garrido came and they could tell I had a
worried look on my face, so they left to grab random people from the street to
bring them to the talent show. Finally by 9:10 there was a sufficient amount of
people to start the show. We only had 9 acts because each act was about ten to
fifteen minutes long, the show was long enough, when we Castro and I did our
act, we had some issues with the lights and sound but I started to cry with
tears of joy as the whole crowd laughed and whistled at our act, they
absolutely LOVED it! By the time we finished, the refreshments rolled out and I
looked behind me to see a full house of people in the chapel.
While we cleaned, I thanked everyone
for their help and Elder Sharp looked at me and said, "Kennedy, we just
witnessed a miracle."
On Saturday, Castro and I celebrated
with two baptisms, we surprised the Familia Galleguillos in Alto Hosipicio for
Miguel´s baptism. They were so happy and they asked us to share our testimonies
in the end. We took photos and talked, we planned to go back up there the
following pday. As we came back down, we got our investigator Freddy ready for
his baptism, We combined our final zone baptisms for that day in Lynch and it
was a very relieving evening :)
When Sunday came, we met up as a
zone for the last time to share our testimonies and take pictures, our zone
leaders took our title of liberty and ripped it up into 12 pieces so that we
could each have one. I said bye to my old zone but for the leaders, I told them
that I would be visiting them soon and I know that’s true because even though
we got moved to a different zone, I know we will visit. After that, Hertler
invited us to his farewell meeting in his chapel. He taught a lesson on things
that have helped him the most on his mission and things that he held super
special since he learned them from President Bruce. In the end we said bye and
exchanged regalos, he ended up giving me his favorite Charlie Brown tie and
signed the back.
This morning, I had the pleasure of
talking to Hermana Cram on the phone as well, her flight back home leaves at 1
o’clock today, it was kinda nostalgic to talk to her and to realize our mission
is changing a lot with the missionaries I met when I got here that are dying.
Today Castro and I will be at the bus terminal saying good bye to some of our
friends and looking forward to our new zone this week.
With much love, Hermana Kennedy
No comments:
Post a Comment