it's gr8 to be 8...May 30, 2017...week 34

hey yall!!

so much has happened! first off i hit my 8 month mark! yay. actually didnt even realize it was my 8 months until about half way through church but 8 is like a fan favorite number throughout the church, you know the age kids can get dunked, so this month should be a good one. 

had zone conference this week and that was fun! still trying to get to know the missionaries in this zone since both sis durbin and i have never served around this part of the mission so wish us luck! it was a great zc with good insight and there was actually a whole thing about using family history to help people learn about the church. its only the thing ive been doing for the last 10 yrs of ma life. jk but glad to start putting all of it to use so yay! sister sainsbury was all like "they can't shut you down with this approach, that would be like dissin on their own ancestors!" hahah so we tried it the next day and the chick dissed on her own ancestors and didnt want to do family history. oh well her loss! just kidding but the next lady we asked was super into it so all in all i think its a winner! 

sister durbin, sister stewart (cute lady from our ward), and we planned the best graduation party EVER. it took us like 4 hours but we got it all set up and even had a chance to eat the delicious food all before the guests arrived. talk about some fun service!! we loved it

sister stewart gave us a ton of food, some of them being jalapenos and so we ate those one day and i chopped them up and THEN TOUCHED MY EYES. i legit thought i was gonna die. i think i even saw dead people in the process. oh wait nope that's just everyone else here in anniston. legit met more people who claim to see dead people, some of them being members..... anyways

so were kind of teaching this lady who, bless her, has like dead mice on her front porch and so there are just flies and bugs everywhere and guess where we teach her. her. front. porch. so sister durbin and i are struggling because we have too many bug bites to count and its like the ones where you wake up in the middle of the night cause they itch so bad. but we do it because we love the people!!! thats our motivational talk we give ourselves before we walk up to her porch "we do it because we love her!!!" and she is just so sweet. she wants to get baptized so badly but doesn't understand what the priesthood is so were just trying to make it through! well get there!

drove through one of the craziest storms of my life to zone conference. there was just a point where all 4 of us in the car were screaming and i may or may not have had my hands in the air, and i was the one driving, like a legit Jesus take the wheel moment...anyways after wards i just kept hearing the lyrics, "im still alive but im barely breathin" could not be more true. alabama rain storms are somethin else

we threw away 84 eggs this week that we found in our fridge. like what even elders?? how do you even get that much??

had some dude we were teaching go "dont be freaked out" as he proceeds to smell my hair... oh alabama 

last night we found 4 cockroaches throughout our house, like big ones, and we only were able to kill one. so safe to say we didnt sleep very well last night and convinced ourselves that if the lights were on the bugs wouldn't come out so we slept with all the lights on all. night. long. with our beds in the middle of the room so bugs didnt get on us. logical i know

yall!! guess who i had lunch with the other day! THE GLENNS!!!!! they came up to anniston for the day and we were able to meet up and have some really good mexican food! yall they made my week! love them!!

well since i hit my 8 months i'll leave some of my favorite verses showing God's character and explaining why we believe children don't need to be baptized until the age of accountability which is 8 so here ya go!

Moroni 8:

8 Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them...

12 But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!

13 Wherefore, if little children could not be saved without baptism, these must have gone to an endless hell...

17 And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation.

Well i hope yall have a blessed week!

love always,

sister kennedy

yall fireflies are real...may 22, 2017...week 33

hello people of the outside world!

so this week i had to say goodbye to my homie sister winter because i was transferred to anniston alabama. but we were able to have an awesome last couple of days!! we got to do some gymnastics with the cutest girl ever sarah and i even busted out a couple back flips and fulls on the trampoline which was fun! we then got to see the martineaus one last time and that was a sad goodbye. man i love that family!! jennifer was the cutest thing of my life and bought us lunch and a cake for my last day! it was so cute and my heart broke leaving that cute little courthouse but i will be back one day and that makes me feel better!

well we went to transfers met up with my cute new companion, sister durbin, and we were off! we took over an elders apartment and can i just say, ew. its literally like they have never cleaned in the past 20 years of elders living there i swear! it was just dark and dreary and ew. so sister durbin and i went to target got the necessities, like cute hanging lights and stuff like that, and turned that house upside down, i kid you not. i wish we would've taken a before picture because i think what we did was nothing short of a miracle. God is good people. its cute and livable and ya i must say pretty proud of us!

well anniston is the most prepared place ever! we already have 2 people who are progressing and reading the BOM everyday and one on dat for a baptism! it is awesome! but with that comes some weirdos along with it! but gotta love them too thats what makes this mission thing fun!

we met someone who:

• told us they talk with dead people
• told us to not be deceived by false powers and put down the book of mormon just for a week to see if our minds would clear up lol
• did some serious power poses as sister durbin called them as this old man kept lifting up his shirt and leaning trying to show off? idk i dont even want to know hahah
• told us how good God was when he helped her get rid of the 35 guns she was riding around with in her car
• slowed down our car in the middle of a sketchy place and when we wouldn't give him a ride got super upset and started to yell so we just drove away
• told us they didn't grow up in ireland but had an irish accent that would go in and out throughout our whole conversation. sister durbin and i was trying SO hard not to laugh whenever they would jumped back into the fake accent after realizing they had forgotten they were doing one haahah

i mean just the funnest things have happened and it's only been 5 days. not even a week yall!

miracle of the week:

our first day in anniston we went to lunch at this random pizza spot and out of nowhere this dude talks to us saying how we took him and his wife's normal spot and just messing around with us. he then told us how he's a less active member of the church and was just the nicest guy so sister durbin asked if him and his wife would ever have us over and he was like no im good, but yall keep doing good! well the next day we went to find a bible referral and she wasn't home so we started knocking doors and the 2nd door we knocked on, Alex opened the door, the same dude as before. that was no coincidence at all! we then talked to him for 40 min and he accepted a new book of mormon and reading a chapter out of it and were going back this friday to follow up! it was crazy cool and we were just so led by the Spirit to go to that referral. like there were too many things leading up to that encounter that it was NO coincidence. God is good yall!

 sister durbin and i legit had a 10 min standoff with a pit bull before making a break to our car. it didnt get us so i would say thats a win for us.what is up with pit bulls and missionaries yall?? i just dont get it??

did yall know fireflies are actually real?!?!? because i didn't and this week i gained some knowledge! we ate at the stewarts (this cute member family) for dinner and at dusk fireflies started lighting up throughout the whole street! it was the prettiest thing of my life! so we spent the next 20 min catching them and putting them in glasses! it was legit magical! yall i love the south and will never get over how picturesque this place truly is.

alrighty well i love yall and hope that you have a blessed week! remember one of my fav scriptures form the bible John 16:33 "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

love,

sister kennedy

10 things i love about columbiana...May 22, 2017...extra surprise letter

here's a surprise post to post all pictures i wanted to be posted that weren't AND my top 10 things that ill miss about that cute little town!

1. biking on HIGHWAY 70. yup that's right a real highway with no bike lane. makes things interesting that's for sure.
2. the way the courthouse randomly creaks and groans when you walk upstairs and you feel like you could just fall through the floor any second.
3. the bees that like to live right outside our door of our apartment and like to try to hit us as we leave every morning.
4. davis drug store and their cute little grill we would go and eat at every now and then!
5. the creepy feeling you get when you see hand prints going up the wall in the back room of the courthouse. #haunted
6. getting banana pudding from tin top bc it's 10x better when someone else makes it when it's from tin top
7. Clem calling 10 million times a day. im gonna miss those calls!
8. biking along the back road by the senior living center at dusk. i swear yall its the little things that are the most beautiful at times.
9. that wretched bike ride we would have to endure going up the stupid hill on egg and butter rd. up to our church building
10. jennifer always yelling "hey ladies!" as we would walk into the courthouse every morning. gonna miss her!

well there you have it. hope yall enjoy!

love 

sis ken

"yall need to tease your hair or somethin"...May 15, 2017...week 32

hey yall!! its been a crazy week especially the past 3 days!! one of the reasons being that it was mother's day which means we got to SKYPE HOME!!! best day ever!!! and since i did that yesterday this one is gonna be a short one today, i promise this time!!

friday night was the yw fundraiser for girls camp which included a spaghetti dinner and a silent action of baked goods and live auction of free service opportunities. and so we missionaries put all our funds together and outbid the ward on this awesome cake that were saving for district meeting tomorrow. pretty pricey cake if i do say so myself but i bet you its gonna be the best money spent out here hahah. also this lady runs a gym and was actioning off 7 days of personal training and we wanted to buy it, cause southern squish is real yall, but we didnt have anymore money, cause we just blew it all on the cake, and so this nice lady bought it for us!! how cute is that! our first day of working out is later this afternoon. heres to dying! but its worth it. ill let you know how it goes!

saturday we had all the senior missionaries and President and Sister Sainsbury come experience a tour of the courthouse and the project we are running and it was so fun! im so grateful for all their service and time they put into helping us out! it was a nice afternoon.

but also realize that night was transfers calls and so we were freaking out after the court house because lets be real you can only knock so doors before you go crazy especially when you are checking the clock every 2 seconds. but thats okay we made it through. all thanks to a little store contacting and little ceasars. blessed. oh and we bribed our zone leaders to call us first with the news and told them if they did we would bring them a cake to our district meeting on tuesday. little did they know we were doing that anyways but oh well they called us first and we got the news and...drumroll please...... im being transferred. sad day. i just got comfortable here but thats okay! im going to companions with sister durbin, a cute girl in my zone and we weill be white washing a town called Anniston! fun day!

sunday was mothers day was awesome and i loved it and just ahhh so good! loved talking to the fam it was much needed! we spent the rest of the day with our Bishop and his family had foil dinners and strawberry shortcake and it was just awesome! i love that family!! hard to say goodbye to all these awesome families out here but oh well heres to a new adventure!!

all right yall well i guess it wasnt too short but i guess youll live! oh funny moment of the week. this lady at the yw fundraiser pulled us aside and told us that if we are to wear our hairs in buns that we need to tease a little bit because we were lookin a little pentecostal. i mean sister winter and i were feelin pretty good so i mean if thats what pentecostal looks like well then they be lookin fly! hahaha oh how i love the south!!

yall its the moment you all have been waiting for! i finally chose my scripture to go on my missionary plaque! i know i know i was suppose to do it 10 years ago but oh well better late than never!! i have chosen one of my all time favorite scriptures and it is... drumroll........

Alma 26:36 Now if this is ^aboasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a ^bbranch of the tree of Israel, and has been ^clost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, ^dwanderers in a strange land.

i hope yall had a blessed mother's day and have a blessed week! 

love yall!

sister kennedy