A festive door for the Chilean Independence Day Sept. 18th
The Original 7 of 12 from Zona Esmeralda
Mi mamita me ama!
Not sure why I'm doing this, just thought it would be fun ... or funny if I fell in
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Me and my kid Castro
Ready for Alex's baptism
The 6 amigos, all of us arrived on the same day to Antofagasta, a rare occurrence in a mission that covers most of the Northern part of Chile and has approximately 200 missionaries
As close as we could come, to the beach
A fun pday with the boys...
Saturday, September 21, 2013
A Little Look at Iquique
- Castro and I top of Mt. Cero it was a tough hike up.
- City of Iquique
- Castro and I with the Familia Gulleguillos
- Castro and Kennedy with pequena hija
- City of Iquique
- Castro and I with the Familia Gulleguillos
- Castro and Kennedy with pequena hija
Birthday Surprise and A Good Sick Day
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 tradition to get some of the cake on the
person´s face after they blow out the candles, well for my first one, it wasnt
just a little bit on the chin, 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, for my first sick day in the mission which was also in my
9 month cumplemes, was probably the best sick day I have 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.The good
news is, 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 read two chapters from the Book of Mormon
every day, which is super amazing because not even members do that on an
averagely basis. We are planning on challenging him to baptism at our next cita
on Tuesday. I’m sorry if this email lacks more interesting details like my
emails but this week I find myself responding to a ton of mail, so I hope the
pictures can make up for it!
Love Hermana Kennedy
At The Car Wash...
This week was super busy! We planned four activities in 7
days and yeah you feel just a little stressed out...BUT it paid off, the car
wash idea worked brillantly! I was so afraid it wasn’t going to be that
successful since we didn’t really have that much time to advertise at all, aka
24 hours. But sure enough within ten minutes cars started rolling in. I had
organized three groups to switch every hour, with the group A in charge of
advertising with signs on the street, group B in charge of teaching and giving
tours to the people waiting for their car to be cleaned and Group C in charge
of, well… cleaning the cars. As the cars rapidly started coming, there only
ended up being 6 of us talking to people, giving pamphlets and tours and four
people with street signs and the rest of the 16 missionaries washing cars and
with one hose too. I ended up running up and down the capilla, delegating the
work, I loved it so much. We ended up getting pretty soaked too and the sharing
the gospel this way ended up being so useful, the people were a lot more
receptive this way into discussing and it was so easy to bring them inside the
church that a lot of their fear from the ¨unknown¨ vanished once they entered.
We ended up receiving 26 references in two and half hours!
Our talent show is in the works, it looks like it’s going to
be great this Friday. Apparently a lot of other wards found out about it and
other missionaries wanted to know if they could go so they could bring their
investigators and I said sure! I think what helped is Elder Rodriguez asked
Castro and I to be a part of a Youth conference workshop on missionary
work with members. Well, we made a presentation on the thing we do the
best...ACTIVITIES! I felt pretty cool to be there with the other district
leaders and zone leaders; I really think I got myself a nice set up in Iquique.
Another reason I don’t want to leave is because I think Rodriguez isn’t so hard
on me and sometimes gives me a break or first dibs because he’s seen me go out
of my way to do a lot for the zone. In some cases it’s not what you know but
who you know. Other than that, we’re planning and expecting two baptisms this Saturday and so begins another very hectic week in the mission field. I told Castro that I think I need to run hard tomorrow morning, even if I’m tired...because I’m tired of feeling like a schlump, and yeah I think I just made that up but I hope you get the picture.
Con mucho besitos,
Hermana Kennedy
God Be With You Till We Meet Again
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
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