This week has been pretty darn good! First off, our surprise from last week was a trip to Monserrate in Bogota! It's this huge Catholic church at the top of one of the nearby mountains, and it was so beautiful up there. The air was a little thin but still, it was beautiful. I could see everything, and it was so cool to see how suddenly the city ended and the mountains began! 
This country is amazing, and I imagine Ecuador is even better! Then, we got to go into town and eat at this place called Crepes and Waffles, and they had the most delicious crepes I've ever had! Ugh! Too, it was so cool to walk around Bogota with our tags on! I felt like a real missionary, and I'm so excited to go to Ecuador in JUST TWO STINKING WEEKS!!!! On one hand, I'm so dang excited, but on the other, I still feel completely unprepared.
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| I found this friend on the streets of Bogota. He is very much fake, but since I couldn't get a picture with the REAL LIFE LLAMA I SAW EARLIER THAT DAY, I figured he was an acceptable replacement. |
Also, today is my one month mark! SHHHHHH!!! Only 17 months to go! :-) I actually already know that I'll be coming home on August 6, 2018. Crazy huh?
We got a whole new crew of Latinos and North Americans last Tuesday. Turns out, no sisters from North America came, so we Nortes are the only white girls here. But with those Latinos came the Venezuelans, and I seriously think that the country of Venezuela is breeding artists, because boy, can they play the piano! I'm not talking being able to sight-read a few hymns here or there. I'm talking, Presidente came up to me on Thursday and said, "Hey, we have a devotional this afternoon, and we need a musical number. Can you get something together with your district?" and thank goodness we have a pianist who can literally play anything. So, I chose I am a Child of God (Soy Unhijo de Dios), and practiced with my district, and then the pianist, Elder Hernandez came in, I told him the hymn, and he made up his own perfect, beautiful, out-of-this-world, fall-in-love-with arrangement with nothing but the hymnal in front of him. Seriously, I almost died. And as it turns out, there's another Venezuelan who can do the exact same thing. I think this must be what heaven feels like.
I have become known as "the musician" (surprise, surprise), and it's really fun. I've become the human playlist in the showers at night. Everyone will be showering, and suddenly I'll hear, "Hermana Kennedy, sing something!" I've had to be very creative, because no one wants to hear hymns, or anything from the Children's Songbook, or anything religious, so non-church songs that are still missionary appropriate have become my best friends. Thank goodness for all those hours of listening to The Kings Singers! :-)
Bless these Latinos hearts though. Whenever they ask where I'm from, I respond with "Pennsylvania". Try saying it with a Spanish accent. Sound like something else? Every single one of them then tells me all the movies they've seen there of vampires :-) #Transylvania :-) Not exactly right, but at least Pennsylvania is known for something exciting!
So, the hidden talents. As it turns out, I'm not horrible at sports. We've taken to playing soccer and basketball during gym times, and I'm known as The Wall, because I can stop a soccer ball, even against Latinos! The only problems is, I don't know what to do then. So, maybe it's really just a hidden talent that I need to work on, but it still makes me feel pretty good about myself. And I have a pretty good free throw in basketball for never having played. Today, I made it in the basket four times in a row. Guess that whole tall thing comes in handy :-)
I did have a little bit of a breakdown this week though. I guess the stress kind of got to me, because we eleven Nortes became one district this week, and it was a horrible transition. We were used to totally different ways of learning, and I was losing it. We all were. We were snapping at each other, and it didn't help that I've been feeling kind of abandoned by God lately. Stupid, I know, but I just don't feel like I'm improving in Spanish the way I want to. Presidente has actually called my Spanish a miracle, considering how well I speak having never learned any Spanish before, but I was still feeling lost, and overwhelmed, and when my companion stayed behind at the end of the day for her own blessing, Elder Lopez came up to me and asked me how I was. Darn that elder, because it was just the wrong time. I broke down. I told him how left alone I felt, and honestly, no one has really asked me how I am since coming here, and I think the stress of the week had just gotten to me. I've been feeling inadequate, and I feel like I have so little to offer to the Lord, and I felt like I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing, and I went on like this for about ten minutes. I really hate crying. It stinks. My eyes get puffy, my nose runs, and I get a headache. So he asked me, "Hermana Kennedy, would you like a blessing?" It was beautiful. He blessed me with feelings of comfort and peace to know that God was listening to my prayers, and that He hadn't forgotten me. I was to remember how much I had improved, and that I would feel and see my own progression the way that God did. It was seriously amazing. The next morning, I woke up and sort of silent cried through personal study, because I was reading in the scriptures about the Savior. He endured so much, and like Alma 7: 11-13 states, He endured every kind of rejection and pain, so as to better understand mine, and He knows my afflictions. He knows my struggles, and He loves me, which is why He atoned in the Garden of Gethsemane for me. He was the perfect missionary, and He too was rejected, and went through trials, so why shouldn't I, as an imperfect missionary, endure a fraction of what He did? But since that blessing, I've been feeling more at peace. I've put my shoulder to the wheel, and I've been working harder. I've been striving to be completely obedient, waking up exactly and getting out of bed at 6:30, and not singing any songs that don't bring the Spirit, and I've been noticing a change. It's as though a weight has been lifted, and I haven't been as stressed. I'm so grateful for the blessing of the priesthood.
Also, I'm so grateful to be like Nephi. I'm grateful to have been born of goodly parents who have taught me and raised me in the ways of righteousness. This week, I've encountered a lot of people here who are so lost in their lives, and a trend I'm noticing is that they say that their parents never believed in forcing them to do anything in the Gospel. They would skip seminary, they would go to parties, and a lot of people decided earlier that they wouldn't serve a mission, because they never felt any need to. It makes me so grateful to you, Mommy and Daddy, for forcing us when we were younger to obey the commandments so that we could better obey them on our own when we are older. There was never any thought to not serving a mission for Ethan and Mark, because you taught them that it was right, and they were going to do it. You taught us the importance of keeping the commandments, and so there was never any thought to breaking the law of chastity. And I'm so grateful for that. And I'm so grateful for Allison, because even though she didn't grow up in the church, she has made righteous and good decisions in her life. The Gospel blesses lives, and it especially blesses families. I thank God every day and night for my family, because you are such a huge blessing in my life. You have been my rock through everything, and I love you guys. Thank you for being my friends and my family, but really being my parents and my siblings when I needed you to be those too. I love you all so much.
Also, I am SO JEALOUS that you got to hold OWLS! That is like the stinking coolest thing ever, and please convert Liam, the falconer, because from what I saw of him in one picture, hmmmmm--that is a good looking Irish man! Thank you for your emails. They make me so happy, and I love hearing from you all!
Mucho amor,
Hermana Kennedy
Give Hootie and Chief some loves for me, and Kitten, Jake, and the other pups too. I love you all!
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