Hermana Kennedy and There is Sunshine in my Eyes Today

Hi family!  I'll start out with my letter to Presidente:

Hola Presidente Murphy,

Well, this was definitely a week of ups and downs.  Sandra received all five lessons in preparation for her baptisms, and she has been reading and praying through this whole process.  With the help of Joselyn, her fellowshipper, she is completely ready for baptism.  And this past week, we asked her daughter, Dayanna, if she wanted to be baptized with her mom.  She has been present for all of the lessons, and has attended church, and each week, she tells us how much she loves it.  At first, Sandra wasn't so sure, because Dayanna is in the middle of preparation for First Communion with the Catholic church, and it was something that her family wanted for her.  But Dayanna told us that she wants to be baptized, and when we asked if she wanted to be Catholic, she outright told us that she doesn't.  She loves going to church with us and her mom, and she wants to be baptized.  We encouraged Sandra to talk with her family, because we know that God can soften the hearts of our family when we are obedient to His commandments.  The next day, we came back, and Sandra had spoken with her family, and they were fine with it.  And Dayanna had decided, for herself, without any questions or anything from her mom, to not attend Catacismo because she had made her decision to be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!  It's amazing to me, the different reactions that we get from children and teenagers versus adults.  Younger people love to listen to us, and they always want us to come in and talk to them and teach them, but so often, their parents are the ones to turn us away or say that they don't have time.  And I know that it's because younger people are more sensitive to the Spirit.  They feel it more, and they can sense it.

Sandra was set to be baptized this upcoming Saturday, and her interview was supposed to happen yesterday.  However, when we arrived at State Conference yesterday, we couldn't find her anywhere.  Joselyn had picker her up that morning, and they had arrived at conference, but before we got there, Sandra had received a phone call from her spouse.  We don't know exactly what it was about, but Sandra had left with her three kids, and she didn't come back.  It would have been her third time at church, but since she wasn't there, we will need to wait another week for her baptism.  We were both incredibly disappointed, because we were so excited for her to be baptized, and I know that she and Dayanna were excited too, but she has been having problems with money lately, and we think it may have been something to do with finding a locale.  All that matters is that she will be baptized soon, because I know that she will receive so many blessings for her obedience and faith.  And now we have even more time to talk about Christ and repentance with her, and we can help her prepare more!

In addition, we have four other people with baptismal dates:

Hermana Agnel for the 13th of May
Hermana Mayra for the 10th of June
Roberto y Ximena Perechimba for the 17th of June.

This really is such a special area.  The people here are so receptive and willing to talk to us, and they're all so humble.  I just love being here.  I love having this opportunity to meet and learn to love these people.  They teach me so much everyday, and I feel God's love for them more and more with each person that I meet.  I cannot wait to preach this Gospel more, and see how it touches and blesses their lives!

Have a wonderful week,

Hermana Kennedy
Otavalo-San Pablo

To be totally honesty, this week was rough.  It started out at 4:00 last Monday and kept going down from there.  We were super stressed last week after coming back from Quito, because we had to do all of our P-day stuff (cleaning, grocery shopping, writing emails, etc.) in two hours, and we are both people who get stressed out rather easily about time.  Anyway, I'm so sorry about my emails last week.  I know I sounded kind of stressed and angry, and I'm really sorry.

I also got sick this past week.  Only for a day, but it was rough.  I had a seriously bad fever.  Like, I'm not sure how to describe it other than I was so hot that I was feeling the heat in my eyes, and I'm pretty sure my contacts partially melted onto my eyes.  But at the same time, I was freezing cold that day too.  All I wanted to do was go to bed, but I believe that Heavenly Father allowed Tylenol to be invented specifically for sick missionaries, because I wouldn't have made it until 9 p.m. without the help of Tylenol :-)  This work is hard, and it's only harder when we aren't feeling well, or when we are sad or frustrated, but as was stated in General Conference, if I can't walk, I can still run, and it was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other on Saturday and not complaining.

We also had the disappointment of Sandra not coming to church.  We seriously don't know what happened, and I was so sad.  I love that family so much, and I couldn't wait to see them baptized this week, but sometimes we just have to trust in Heavenly Father's plan.  And now we can use this upcoming Saturday to give tours of the chapel to all of our other investigators who are feeling uneasy about coming to church, so that's really cool!  Hermana Giles says that Week 5 of a transfer is always the hardest and the longest, and it felt like it.  I can't believe that it was only a week ago that we went to Quito, because IT FEELS LIKE EONS AGO.  In fact, we had to travel to Quito twice this week, and you know I don't like to travel.  I love being on vacation anywhere, but I don't like the part about getting there.  I hate how sweaty and gross and out of control I feel, and it was HOT this past week, so that didn't help.  If you guys could just say a prayer or two for me, I'd really appreciate it.

Hermana Giles and I in our llama sweater (courtesy of Plaze de Ponchos) which we wore in Quito :-)

President and Sister Murphy and I overlooking Quito.  Isn't it beautiful?

I love these Hermanas from the CCM.

This past week, we met a guy on the street, and he started Bible bashing on us, so Hermana Giles started trying to testify and be nice and learn more about him, but he kept cutting her off and talking about why he knows that our church isn't true.  So, I was like, okay, I can handle this.  So very nicely (probably more nicely than I've ever spoken before), I just said, "Hermano, you have such an impressive knowledge of the Bible, and I know that God loves you, but we have to go.  We are so sorry, but we have appointments with some other people in the area, so we need to go.  Have a nice day!"  And we walked away.  I thought I handled it really well, and he didn't seem offended, but Hermana Giles told me I was too blunt.  But being nice and trying to argue with him kindly wasn't working.  *sigh* I guess I still have a lot to learn about being a missionary.

Too, in case you don't remember from when we practiced it at home, but I'm not a big fan of companionship inventory.  It's really difficult to balance being critical with being kind.  Hermana Giles this past week told me that I sing super loud, and that sometimes it's hard for other people in the congregation to focus, and she wondered if my voice just naturally projects, or do I try and sing loudly on purpose.  I guess when I sing, she's seen other people look at me kind of surprised, then stop singing, and then continue singing.  You guys know, there's no such thing as indoor voices with us when we sing.  But now, I feel self-conscious singing at all.  And this after Daddy told me to always sing with our investigators, and after all of my friends at BYU told me the Latino people would love my voice.  In my mind, someone's got to carry the rhythm and melody of the music here, and it may as well be me.  It's hard though because I don't get to do many fun things as a missionary, but one thing I can still do is sing.  Goodness....

And that's why I'm so thankful for all of your supportive emails.  It's so nice to have people tell me how proud they are of me, and how well they think I'm doing.  I don't hear that very often, and it's sometimes a struggle for me to stay optimistic (especially when I'm sick).  This week, I just felt like a lousy missionary.

So, should I start sending my letters to the new address at Stonewater?  I seriously love that name!  I love that we are going from Stoney Point to Stonewater.  It feels like an homage to our home in Pennsylvania :-)  I'm so happy that you found a place you love, and I know that we can make a house a home without any problem, because I realize now, home is anywhere where you guys are.  And with fourteen acres, I can still build a house on your land someday ;-)

I really can't tell you all how much I love and need your emails.  I'm sorry again for last week, so please forgive me.  Every day, I'm so thankful to have so much family and so many friends who care about me, because I couldn't do this without you.  I've been given so many blessings in the form of people from Heavenly Father, and I'm probably the luckiest missionary in the world.  Because you're all so great, I thought I'd share a fun fact about Ecuador:

Me, with some corn that I found on the side of the road.
Because choclo is so delicious, not a piece should be wasted!

The food :-)  When I first came here, the food was a serious problem.  Not the food itself, but the sheer quantity that we receive.  They sometimes do like two course meals here, and each course is a plate or bowl filled with food.  And here, we can't leave anything on our plates, or it's offensive.  We have to eat everything.  But over time, our stomach adjusts to eating a bigger meal at lunch, and a smaller one at dinner (rather than the opposite in the States).  So at noon, even though we ate breakfast four hours earlier, we are STARVING!  And when we are handed a bowl of rice, topped with chicken, corn and beets, we can't contain our excitement!  Seriously, the rice here is so dang good!  And the chicken!  Oh the chicken!  And right now, choclo, or corn on the cob, is in season, so we have been getting a lot of that, and it's delicious!  A lot of the time, it's a toss up in meals between whether we will get choclo, or potatoes.  Both are rather popular.  And the salads are just diced vegetables with lemon juice and salt, and usually contain tomatoes.  Salted tomatoes as a salad?  Bring it on!  And I tried cuy (guinea pig) for the first time this past week!  It's a delicacy here, but I guess a lot of Nortes and even other Latinos don't like it very much, but they obviously don't have taste buds because it's very delicious!  And juice is just a fruit, water and sugar in a blender.  Real juice is way expensive.  And by "way expensive", I mean like 2 dollars.  #thatecuador life

And thanks, Mama, for the advice about wearing my shoes occasionally.  I tried to wear my boots a lot less this week, and it was great.  I actually realized that I need to wear my shoes more, because the bottom half of my legs are a lot whiter than the rest of my legs because they haven't been getting any sun!

Anyway, there you go.  Also, I'm learning how to peel pretty much every kind of vegetable with a miniature machete, so I can't wait to show off my cool peeling skills in 15.5 months!  I love you all!

Tenga un buen dia!
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Kennedy

In front of the letras grandes in Otavalo (my town!)