family (sized tator tots) can be together forever...June 26, 2017...week 38

hello hello hello!!

this week was a fun one! we laughed so much! man i have just loved serving with sister durbin. sadly we got the call on saturday night telling us that she will be leaving. ughhhhh but that's okay because she will be headed to my one of my favorite spots EVER alex city!!!! (glenns take care of her for me!!) i KNOW she is going to love serving there! i got the news that instead of having a new companion i will be getting 2! so i will now be a trio! im super excited and feel like it'll just be a party the whole time! still dont know how were going to fit 3 beds in our "house" so we will see. praying our housing coordinator is just like "okay ill move yall"... a girl can dream.

we have had so many solid investigators just appear from out of nowhere and we have really been able to see how God truly does prepare people. literally had 4 different people come up to us and say i want you to teach me! 3 of them are 9 yr olds and the other an adult form a part member family! we are SO excited to start teaching them!! literally  miracle after miracle i swear.

at a member meal and ask the little kids if they've seen spongebob and the family goes not we dont watch this show. so me being the smart person i am goes "really? not even the movie?? you know the one that goes (and proceeds to sing) *im a goofy goober ya you're a goofy...goo...ber??..." DEAD SILENCE YALL the mom just looked at the grandma the grandma just looked at the mom and i swear you could hear a pin drop. thank goodness sis durbin broke the ice just cracking up which got everyone to start laughing cause it was just so dang awkward. moral of the story dont sing spongebob songs at member meals.

currently have 5 dead cockroaches just laying around our house cause were too lazy to clean them up after all the effort we put into killing them. i know were gross. sue us. 

got to bring Olivia, our cute little investigator to a fireside last night in Birmingham which Brother Holmes, the General Young Men President over all the church spoke at! it was so cool and super inspiring! his whole discussion was about asking God questions and how to receive answers! like perfect for someone who is praying to ask God if the church is true! he saw that us a s missionaries were there and came right up to us after wards and said, "where is the person you are with here tonight? i want to meet them" He then went out of his way to meet olivia and talk to her and she was just awe-struck! she just kept saying "this person just shook m hand and he talks to the prophet face to face!!!" shes a cutie!!

also since it was a fireside I got to see some of my favorite families form columbiana there!! got to say hi to the sadlers and the thompsons! oh how ive missed those people! yall you literally leave a little piece of your heart in every place you serve. sounds cheesy but its true so oh well.

saturday night a cockroach flew into my bed and after jumping into sister durbins bed it flew onto her covers. after we got enough courage to run out we chased that flying demon around our room for 20 min before we killed it. its guts are still over our carpet as a sign to all the other ones to not mess with us. were so over this. im even over talking about them every week and yet the fear is still so real ughhh. that night we only ended getting 3 1/2 hours of sleep before we had to get up and go speak in church. we were zombies! but our talks went well so i say thats a success for us!

blew all what was left of our money this week of roach spray and family sized tator tots from sonic so i would say money well spent. 

sister durbin showed me this video this week and i absolutely LOVE it. it's sad but the faith she truly has in her Savior is the most beautiful thing.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zmIibuu22c

have a blessed week!

love sister kennedy

when lightening strikes...June 19, 2017...week 37

hey yall!

sorry for no weekly last week. we went hiking and afterwards tried to e-mail but the computer we were using stopped working :( so here is a quick recap of what i was going to send last week:

jasmine a cute teen in our ward went out with us to go teach some people and it was SO MUCH FUN! she is so cute and has an awesome testimony and is preparing to go on a mission after high school so it was fun to kind of show her the ropes a bit!

got to spend a lot of time with members this week whether it was on team ups or dinner appt and i just loved it! i love this ward they are all so cute and nice and amazing! we were talking with this dude whose been a member for the last 10 years so kind of recent and my favorite line of the night was when he said, " oh no you have to quit drinking tea. you only get eternal life in return. you poor thing." hahah

found the biggest cockroach yet in our bathroom and then we LOST IT. so we pent the next 30 min getting decked out with the essentials and went back into the trap until we found it and killed it. i will say we are getting pretty good at this roach thing. gross

there was a cloud that looked like a floating mountain so of course i took a picture of it

found a cute sign on a  tree so of course we had a photo shoot with it

there was a pretty sunset last night

i needed a change so i chopped off my hair. oh well it'll grow back

had interviews with president yesterday. man this transfer went by fast.

looked our keys in the car in a sketch part of town at night. props to sis ken. but by some miracle the front door that had been totally locked, magically opened and we were saved. God is good yall.

lately idk yall but i can't talk for junk! i trip over my words and just can't say what i'm thinking and it's kind of frustrating when the one thing you do all day everyday is talk to people. sis durbin thinks i need to start doing language study every morning. for english. lol. oh well i just keep thinking in my head, "Exodus4:10 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent... but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." which helps me to laugh it off and just keep trying to not say made up words. pray for me.

so i guess that wasn't that short of a recap oh well! well here's what happened this week:

so like i said we went hiking with our district and sister anderson up in cheaha, a really cool hiking spot here in alabama! and we went up to this super old chapel in the middle of the forest which was pretty cool! well off in the distance we heard thunder and after seeing the church we were all hanging around outside it when we were joking about "what if we got struck by lightning blah blah blah" and all that dumb stuff just making up scenarios with each other. After that conversation got done with, an Elder pulled an Uncle Rico and said "watch how far i can throw this rock!" so he throws it and i kid you not when the rock hit the ground, 25 ft. away LIGHTNING STRUCK! it was the loudest thing of our entire lives and lasted for what seemed like forever. we just all ran around not knowing where to run to and just kind of in a shock just not knowing what to do. after we stopped running around like maniacs we all just went back into the church and sat there for like 5 minutes in silence. we then decided that we should leave so we said a prayer and headed on out. nothing much happened after that but man still crazy to think about. the fact that it didnt hit one of us or a tree that would've splintered off is a miracle for sure. God is good yall.

the Book of Mormon play is coming to Birmingham next transfer so that's gonna make for some fun stuff... if you couldn't tell that was the most sarcastic thing of my entire life. ughh.

on thursday night we stopped by the church to enter some missionary info and went back outside to our car and realized i left the keys inside the church, inside the family history library. ugh. so we went to go call someone and realized sister durbin left the phone in the car. which was locked. so it's dark now and we went all around the church trying to find an open window, but man they lock these places up good. so we proceeded to go tracting, door to door, until we found someone who would let us use their phone! thankfully it didn't take too long but man what a day.

oh and did i mention i got a huge chunk of bird poop on my hand while trying to open a window? no? okay just thought i should make it known.

had a man in his talk during sacrament tell the ward how this mormon dude on the radio who probably had a better testimony that the missionaries *as he gestures to us* like what?? hahah

well it might not be better than the dude on the radio but it's my own testimony and that's what matters. i know this church is true. i know that Christ lives and is at the head of His church. The book of Mormon is the word of God, alongside the Bible. Never does one replace the other and i know that is the way God intended it to be. I feel it deep within me that this is what is right and I'm grateful to be out here helping others find this out for themselves. If you'd ever be interested to know for yourself, just ask a member or a missionary. i promise you that if you ask God for yourself, He will make it known to you. and that is not i promise i make lightly. *james 1:5-6*

okay well i hope yall have a blessed week and stay safe! try not to get stuck by lightning!

love always

sister kennedy

yall i did somethin crazy...June 12, 2017...week 36

we're not safe anywhere...June 5, 2017...week 35

hello hello! that seems to be my new phrase with everyone i meet and im not quite sure where it came from but i like and am gonna stick with it!

today we had a zone activity in birmingham, which was super fun! we had a fun talent show and played gatorball so you could say it was a good day! my district and i did a fun skit to the sound of music but replaced it with all things bama and missionary wise! it was a good one! shout out to sister winter for helping coming up with the idea!!

cockroaches are still alive and well in our apartment. sister durbin and i haven't slept very well/ or at all this past week but its alright i guess. we sleep with the lights on in our kitchen, "hallway" and bathroom because we've convinced ourselves that cockroaches are scared if the dark lol it brings a little peace to our souls. one morning after studies, i had barely gotten any sleep the night before and was just praying to Heavenly Father that if He didn't take them away from our house to at least help me to be okay with them crawling everywhere, or to kill them all, you know whatever works best for Him. and i kid you not when i said amen and got up off my knees, there right behind me a huge dead cockroach. i still don't know what to think about it but im leaning towards it being a miracle. isn't God good??

a grasshopper jumped up my dress this week tracting. literally one of my fears while being out here and it happened. man i jumped around like crazy trying to get it out. never really saw it leave but i guess that's what faith is for right?

my mind is fried from the lack of sleep and while shopping called tortilla chips, salsa chips and thought it was completely normal and i just would like to have a record of that so i never forget how weird missions make you.

had a couple member meals this week and they were SO much fun!! we had one with the Anderson family. They're from Idaho and the cutest family ever!! they invited some people over whose daughter wants to become a member of the church. she just got back from going to girls camp and LOVED it! but i mean who wouldn't?? it's girls camp! her name's olivia and just the cutest girl ever! sweetest heart and earnest desire to know more about this gospel and if it's true! 

we went to another member's home who are actually a foster family and have some adopted children  and i felt right at home! they had a cute little girl staying with them and the funniest thing she said was, "i have 12 talents and one of them is sometimes i can make these people believe that im a cat." in all seriousness. sister durbin and i were dying!!

went to find a referral of someone who ordered a free bible and it literally led us to a tent with someone just living in the forest. when we heard movement sister durbin and i BOOKED it out of there. that person will now be receiving a bible from the elders.

got to go to gadsen for a fun "first friday" downtown street fair to do some contacting. we met a lot of nice people and even ran into the andersons when we were down there! they had super sweet old cars lined all the way down main street and it was just awesome! 

was sitting in Sacrament meeting and saw a cockroach run along the pew into some dudes hair down his shoulder down his leg and off to the next victim. AND THIS DUDE HAD NO IDEA. i dont think the phrase "sister durbin and i. were. dying." even begins to cover it. and it all started when sister durbin leaned over to me and said"we're not safe anywhere" as she points out the cockroach running on the pew. ew. but i love this place and love this people and it makes all the roaches in the world worth it.

met a baptist preacher and after telling us how there are no such things as "latter-day saints' (like what does that even mean? like yes there are im right here) he gave us a coke and some candy. man i love the south!

made fried green tomatoes with Sister Stewart! best things of my life!!

i invite all of yall to watch this video about the Book of Mormon and a living Apostle's testimony about it. it's truly amazing!

hope yall have a blessed week!

love always

sister kennedy