October 14, 2013

Hola mi Familia y amgios! :D

 

That's random I know, but I just got my Spanish MTC words and phrases booklet, so I can practice gospel terms and such... so far, my reading of the Book of Mormon in Spanish is a little choppy, but we'll see where it goes ;]

 

ANYWAYS, So this has by far been the strangest transfer of my life. My first week was spent in Chilawack... without doing a single day of proselyting!! My poor comp had tore two tendons in her ankle, and was unable to walk anywhere! And of course it was her right ankle, so she couldn't drive! And because of my issues with the DMV, I literally have an absolute zero chance of being able to get A BC license... so there will be no more driving for ME on my mission! Oh well, I'm not really all that bummed about it to be honest haha. But i'm so grateful for all of the many wonderful blessings the Lord has seen fit to bestow upon me this week!

 

First, I'M SO SORRY I HAVEN'T EMAILED IN TWO WEEKS. Obviously, things have been a little nuts, and considering, I'm surprised I'm even getting things written here today... SO BUSY! But its fantastic! I'll share one of my favorite talks from conference with you, and then tell you about one of the Miracles that occurred here in Abbottsford just a few days ago.

 

Russel M. Ballard

 

Put your Trust in the Lord

 

"My message this afternoon is that the Lord is hastening His work. In our day this can be done only when every member of the Church reaches out with love to share the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to work together in partnership with our 80,000 missionaries now serving. Information about this great work, especially the assignments for the stake and ward council leaders, is clearly outlined on the LDS.org website entitled “Hastening the Work of Salvation.”
We know from our research that most active members of the Church want the blessings of the gospel to be part of the lives of others whom they love, even those whom they have never met. But we also know that many members hesitate to do missionary work and share the gospel for two basic reasons.

1. •The first one is fear. Many members do not even pray for opportunities to share the gospel, fearing that they might receive divine promptings to do something they think they are not capable of doing.
2. •The second reason is misunderstanding of what missionary work is.

We know that when someone gets up to give a talk in sacrament meeting and says, “Today I’ll be talking about missionary work,” or perhaps even when Elder Ballard gets up in general conference and says the same thing, some of you listening may think, “Oh no, not again; we have heard this before.”
Now, we know that no one likes feeling guilty. Perhaps you feel you may be asked to do unrealistic things in your relationships with friends or neighbors. With the help of the Lord, let me remove any fear you or any of our full-time missionaries may have in sharing the gospel with others.
Make the decision to do what Jesus Christ has asked us to do. The Savior has said:
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
“For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
“Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
“If ye … know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:7–11).
Brothers and sisters, fear will be replaced with faith and confidence when members and the full-time missionaries kneel in prayer and ask the Lord to bless them with missionary opportunities. Then, we must demonstrate our faith and watch for opportunities to introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to our Heavenly Father’s children, and surely those opportunities will come. These opportunities will never require a forced or a contrived response. They will flow as a natural result of our love for our brothers and sisters. Just be positive, and those whom you speak with will feel your love. They will never forget that feeling, though the timing may not be right for them to embrace the gospel. That too may change in the future when their circumstances change."

Everyone, how happy has the Gospel of Jesus Christ made you?! PLEASE, I emplore you to take Elder Ballard's challenge, and have someone in your home by Christmas! We will never be able to repay the Savior for what he has sacrificed for us, But I know, that we CAN give him a wonderful gift for his celebrated birthday! "How great will be our joy if we bring, save one soul unto Christ?!"
And as for the Miracle we saw, we were walking in downtown Abby, and walked past what Sister Bowman and Facer call the Miracle bench. We talked to a woman named Lorrie who had been wandering from Alberta. Her family are members, and she had been taking the missionary discussions years ago! She had wanted to get baptised, but she fell victim to the all too common allure of Alocohol, and couldn't escape her weakness. To start over, she moved to BC to stay with a Friend, and was at that time searching for a job when we ran into her," I always wanted to see the missionaries and go to church again, You three made my day!" And then she started to cry. We set a baptisimal date with her, right there on the street, and have plans to begin teaching her here soon. What miracles!

 

Abbottsford is SO beautiful, and I'm SO grateful to be here with these two wonderful sisters! I love you all, and I hope things are going well.

And guess waht.... I have piiicctuuurees! Love you!! <3

<3 Sister Kennedy

 

September 30th 2013

 Hi Everyone!! :D Hope you haven't all forgotten that I'm still alive!
;] Another week in White Rock, and honestly, the BEST we've ever seen,
especially as far as results go! President Tilleman has issued a
challenge to all of us, and that's to baptize one person per
companionship for the month of October. There's around 125
companionships in this mission!!! The challenge was issued as a gift
to President Monson, to show him that our mission has truly responded
to the call to "Hasten the work!" The past two months have been record
setting for us! Little less than ten years ago, the average baptism
was around 15-20 baptisms a month, and those were GOOD months, The
past two months we've had over forty both months!!!! Now, as we are in
the last day of September, the work to find those who are prepared by
the hand of the Lord has increased immensely! And i'll tell you what,
the pressure has been ridiculous!

I'm a district leader, and with only one other companionship(a very
successful companionship mind you) , in our area, the pressure to have
a solid baptismal date for October was looming over Sister Smigel and
I. We've worked ourselves to the BONE this past week, and I can say
with quite a bit of confidence that I've never walked so much in my
life! We've talked to dozens of people each day, and didn't manage to
find a single person who would become a soild investigator! Our only
real investigator, is a woman named Rene, who's incredibly sweet, but
extremely fearful. We've met her three times now, and FINALLY she
allowed us to share the Book of Mormon with her. In fact, one of the
most powerful witnesses that I've receieved from the Holy Ghost, was
from that particular lesson. Sister Smigel and I were worried that
we'd have to reflect Rene, ( like we've had to do with four other
people in the past two to three weeks). However, as soon as we sat
down, and began to discuss with Rene about some of the Concerns she
had with her family, she started to cry, and softened quite a bit. We
started off with reading the story of the Savior's baptism in Mathew 3
with her, and she listened closely. Then, we gave a brief introduction
to how 2 nephi 31 would explain it better. Then we asked her about her
feelings towards the fact that we read from the Book of Mormon. She
was polite, but said that she had little to no interest in reading it
because of the Revelations scripture that explains no further
scripture. ( This is one of the oldest concerns in the book! -_- )
However, instead of going ahead with our original plan about teaching
the full restoration, I instead began to bare my testimony about the
love of God, and began to explain my feelings as to why Heavenly
Father gave us the Book of Mormon. Heavenly Father loves ALL of his
children, equally! Why in the world would he allow half of the world
to dwindle in unbelief, without prophets, or without the knowledge of
the Savior?? Noah's flood indicates pretty well how much he cares
about the state of the entire world's wellbeing. Better his children
perish physically and recieve the chance to learn the gospel in the
after life, then dwindle in unbelief for their entire life, and sin in
ignorance because of the general populace.

As I began to say this, I was overcome with emotion, and a powerful,
confirming witness ( one that I've recieved serval times before,
although not nearly as powerfully) warmed my heart, and I watched
Rene. Her face seemed to be one of skeptisism, but she was LISTENING.
And by the end of the conversation, she accepted the Book of Mormon,
though a little hesitantly, and invited us back next week to help her
paint. I can't tell you about every single one of the numerous
miracles that I've seen on my mission, but I CAN tell you about the
ones that impact me the most. This was most certainly one I'll carry
with me for the rest of my days.

The days following were still extremely difficult. Sister Smigel, from
an old basketball injury, has to go into the mission doctor this week
because she's been over exherting her left knee from all the walking
we've been doing. And last Saturday, we spent almost every single hour
possible attempting to get that baptisimal date. Our absolutely Golden
investigator by the name of Jill, was going to England for a month,
and would not be home until Oct 24, and there was NO way she'd be able
to recieve all of the lessons by then.
By 8 o clock, we were walking down the major street close to our home,
and I had reached the end of the rope. I despaired because I felt for
a few moments, that the Lord had seen us unfit for the blessings of a
Baptism in October, and that we had failed. Moments after praying in
my heart for relief from the Sorrow, of all things to happen, some
stupid teenager through an Egg right at us! It didn't hit either one
of us directly, but I most certainly felt the brush of it on my hand.
Sister Smigel and I had to laugh, but it was really a testimony to our
Day Lol!

The day closed, and we went home satisfied with the Work we had
done... but still sad we couldn't find that baptisimal date.... until
nine o clock that night when our Zone Leaders Called us. Elder Pierson
and Elder marshall, though our zone leaders, are also the other
english missionaries we have in White Rock. They called us to tell us
that not only were they handing over an investigator to us ( A Recent
Converts daughter by the name of Emma Kwanning, from Guam.), but that
Emma was ready to be baptised at ANY time as soon as they recieved
permission from her father! She would certainly count as our October
baptism.

So here's a long winded, but solid testimony. God DOES answer prayers!
He knows every single one of us individually, and loves us, and knows
our hearts better than even WE do! I am so grateful to be apart of
this mission, and to see the miracles that the Lord blesses these
great people with. Canada Vancouver is most CERTAINLY the greatest
mission on earth, and I can't wait to share more of my miracles with
you!!

Hope everything is going on great back home, and across the world
wherever you are! :D I loveee you all! Transfers are this week, so I
won't find out tonight if Sister Smigel and I are going to be in White
Rock still, or if we'll move on. But I'm grateful to the Lord for
everything I've learned here. Though its been hard, its been my
refiner's fire!

Y'all better write back! I love you ! :D

Love Sister Kennedy