A BIRTHDAY SURPRISE!!!
I was surprised on Tuesday night to
receive a birthday celebration with decorations and a piñata from a group of
members and other missionaries in the Chapel. It was something I didn’t expect
at all and it really was awesome. Almost half of the relief society was there
and some of my great friends. We ended up having cake and I opened presents! The
decorations and planning was done by my two mamitas, Hermana Medina and Hermana
Fernandez, seeing almost all of my friends there almost made me cry I was so
happy! I hit open the piñata and then I had my first tortazo!! Everyone pretty
much filmed it and it was epic! The video is too big to send over email but I
got pictures! The tortazo is a tradition to get some of the cake on the
person´s face after they blow out the candles, well for my first one, it wasn’t
just a little bit on the chin, as you can see it was my entire face!!!
The following day, I woke up with a
cold. Not being able to talk, Hermana Castro went out with our friend Maureen
to get some citas while Hermana Fernandez took care of me and was my companion
for the day. She made me drink Tapsin which is this gross menthol drink and
afterwards I sat on the bed while she ironed the clothes and we talked a lot
about spiritual things and things I have learned on the mission and things she
has learned through her son on his mission. Afterwards she brought me a tray of
grilled cheese and hot chocolate and we watched Mormon messages and a LDS film
online. I must admit, that for my first sick day in the mission, which was also
my 9 month cumplemes, it was probably the best sick day I’ve ever had.
The following day we had our car
wash, Castro and I ended up being the sign people which meant we had to dance
and yell at the people to come to our capilla. We had a pretty good turn out
about 20 or 25 cars came and we got about 10 references. Not nearly as crazy or
productive as the first carwash but hey it was an activity. Good news, this
past Sunday Iquique had a stake conference and we had two investigators in
church, plus all of our converts were in church so I was very happy about that
:) Castro and I have been lucky to have found someone progressing, his name is
Cristian and he is the boyfriend of one of the members in our ward. He is very
receptive and reads two chapters from the Book of Mormon every day, which is
super amazing because not even members do that on an average basis. We are
planning on challenging him to baptism on our next cita on Tuesday. I’m sorry
if this email lacks more interesting details but I find myself responding to a
ton of mail I hope the pictures can make up for it! Thank you everyone for
writing me, your words uplift me.
Love Hermana Kennedy