Weekly Update

Hey Everyone,

There are a lot of good things going on here in Eagar AZ. Not anything to interesting is happening right now. My companion is going home next week and in interviews President was saying that I may be training a new missionary this upcoming transfer. Super scary but super exciting.

We also heard that Elder Neil L. Andersen is coming to the mission September 20th, 2014. That is going to be super amazing. I am super excited for that!

I dont have anything else to report on. I read a super good talk in last months ensign called "Becoming Perfect in Christ". https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/07/young-adults/becoming-perfect-in-christ?lang=eng

This talk is perfect for any who are to hard on themselves. It talks about how through Jesus we can overcome those tendencies.

Well hope everyone is doing well. Love to hear from all of you.

Love,

Elder Kennedy

Weekly update

Hey everyone, 

This was an awesome week and a not so awesome week. The reason why it was not so awesome was our recent convert who just got baptized in June almost died Monday. He was working at the senior center up here and was putting up some posters and had a Tac in his mouth. He accidentally swallowed it and it punctured his throat and lungs about 20 times. He was air lifted down to phoenix and was given a 20% chance of living. He coded about 4 times on the way down to Phoenix. They had to put him in a coma because he was causing to much damage to himself. Something amazing happened. They were about to crack open his chest to get it out when a 3rd year med student pushed the doctors out of the got a suction straw type thing and put it down his throat. She was able to suck the Tac out with out any further injury or having to do surgery. Now Chris is doing good but just has Pneumonia to deal with. While Chris was in a coma he had a NDE (Near Death Experience). He said that he saw our Heavenly Father and our Bishop here, Bishop Poche. He said that Heavenly Father told him that his time was not up. That he had to come to the earth and again and go to the temple. That he still had work to do. That was definitely a interesting experience to hear. He definitely now has a solid testimony of this Gospel.

Now why it was an awesome week. I tried to be more bold this week and just work. As we did my anxiety was definitely lessen. In the mornings I would be pretty anxious, but as we got out and worked I definitely gained more confidence in myself. There were a couple really amazing experiences that we had. It seemed that this week we were always at the right place at the right time. On Wednesday we went to this one house to talk to him about one of our Potential Investigators Nate. This PI father got made at one of our members and just really freaked out when asked if it would be alright if his son took the lessons. We know and Nate has expressed that he wants to take the lessons but his Dad is holding him back. Well as we were going to this house guess who is there. Nate. We haven't talked to him in a couple weeks. That was a really amazing thing to see how Lord inspires us to go places at certain times and those that we need to see are placed in our path.

Another time we were going to eat at a members house and another potential investigator of ours Austin Vigil was there as well. We were able to just get to know him better and really just become his friend. We try to play basketball a couple times a week and he shows up then as well.

One person that we just started teaching this week was a Foreign Exchange student from a couple years. He was living with the Poches and came back to visit. The thing that we are struggling with him is that he doesn't really believe in God. So we spent about two or three lessons this week talking about faith, prayer, watching finding faith in Christ, and just really trying to help him get his own personal witness. He is a very logical thinker and is kinda hard to teach because he keeps saying that the gospel is to good to be true. He leaves this upcoming week.

Hope everyone else is doing well

Love,

Elder Kennedy

Weekly Update

Hey everyone,

The Monsoons (huge rain storms) are here! It has rained every single day this past week. We have been to snowflake twice this week ( about an hour drive ) for an zone activity and another time so Elder Clark could go to the temple to see his recent convert get endowed and sealed. Its has just been a busy week. A lot going on and a lot of progress.

We went on exchanges with the zone leaders Tuesday and went on exchanges with Elder Greenhalgh and Orr.

We had to give talks this week on Hastening the work. 

The 3 things I Said that we as missionaries could do to help further the work is to 

1. Become converted yourself - focused on making the temple a priority so that your can be spiritually prepared to find those that are searching for the Gospel. 

2. Set a specific date to find someone for the missionaries to teach - almost like making a coventant with God that you will talk to everyone you meet about hearing about the restored gospel and God will promise to put someone in your path that is prepared to hear it. 

3. Become a ward that God can trust - Centered this around Love. when we have love then those who are new or less active will feel that love and want to come back. 

I shared a lot of stories from the book The Power of Everyday Missionaries. This book really did change my view on missionary work and what we can do as members to fulfill our role. The members are full time finders the missionaries are full time teachers.

Hope everyone is doing alright. Hope to hear from yall soon! 

Love,

Elder Kennedy

Weekly Update

Hey Everybody,

Happy 4th of July week!

We got to enjoy all the festivities here in Round Valley on the 4th. It started off with a pretty awesome parade for a such a small town ( about 5000 in eagar and 2000 in springerville). This place has a lot of Mormon folk ( about 50% of the population is Mormon) so during the parade almost every other float there would be people that would see us missionaries sitting on the side watching and they would scream "hey missionaries" or "look its the missionaries". That was funny to see. We felt like "Super Stars".

Then we got to go to a BBQ that the scouts were putting on and there were a lot of members there so we just stayed there and talked to a lot of people. At night we got to go to a members house and watch fireworks. What was cool was that a family (the Llamas) that we are working with showed up to the fireworks too. So we were able to talk with them and introduce them to some more members.

Something cool that we got to go see on Saturday was cowboy poetry. There is a member her who's name is Chris Isaac and he is a world recognized cowboy poet. He was doing a show outside of his house and did a freaking awesome job! I love cowboy poetry because it just brings out all of your emotions. It can be funny then make ya tear up. There was a man (Bruce Proctor) not of our faith there that we are trying to start to work with. He built a house up here for his wife about a year ago and then his wife died ( really sad ). So we are trying to get his neighbors who are all Mormon to fellowship him and they are doing a fantastic job. We hope to be able to go in there and share with him the plan of salvation and let him know that he can be with his wife again.

Well hopefully things can start to pick up here. We got an email today saying that we may be getting Ipads for our mission in the fall. We would have to pay for them. I believe that they will be an amazing resource in hastening the work of salvation and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well I hope y'all are doing well.

Would yall maybe mind praying for some of the people we are working with.

Investigators -

Austin Vigil (18 year old young man coming to church. Considering taking the lessons)

Nate Guiteriez ( Young man whose dad is completely against the church and was angry when asked if his son could take the lessons. Pray that he may soften his heart because Nate really wants to take the lessons and be baptized but his dad is a completely butt.)
Jesse Smith ( Young man who knows the church is true and has a testimony of Jesus Christ but is hesitant about taking the lessons.)

Jeff and Jennifer Cramer ( A catholic couple that said they would not consider switching to LDS but is reading from the book of mormon and doing all we ask of him. Pray for the spirit to touch him and his wife.)

Nancy Ward ( was challenged by her grandson ( who is on a mission) to take the lessons. Pray that she may feel the spirit and know of the truthfullness of what we teach.)

Robert Denault ( 9 year old child who gets bored when we teach him. Pray that we may find a way to interest him and help him come closer to jesus christ.)

Recent Convert -

Lea McNeil (89 year old women who loves church and is super glad she was baptized. Pray that the ward may find someone to befriend her and keep her company and that she may continue to learn and grow in the gospel)

Chris Isaac (Baptized 2 weeks ago. Mother was put in the ICU and he is down there taking care of her. Bless that she may heal and soften her heart towards the churhc. Pray that he may continue to feel the spirit as he reads, prays and goes to church. Pray that he may have a desire to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead.

Thanks so much everyone.

Love Elder Kennedy