Hermana Kennedy and a Chance to Re-Lax

Okie doke, fam.  Here's my letter to President Murphy:

Buenas tardes, President Murphy,

Well, Rene is well on his way to the tenth!  Turns out, last Sunday, he got a call early in the morning about something, and he had to go to Guayllabamba. But when we saw him Monday night, he assured us that he hadn't had any relapses or anything, and he introduced us to his son this week.  His name is William, and he has listened to the missionaries before, but this time he asked his dad if he could me with us because he wants to change his life.  We got off to a rocky start.  They didn't realize that we had opened the chapel and were waiting inside for them, so they were outside waiting for twenty five minutes.  William was feeling a little impatient when he came in. He seemed interested when we were introducing ourselves and getting to know him, but once we started talking about the gospel, he started yawning and seemed kind of disinterested.  So we plan to bring a member of JAs to our lesson tomorrow to help us with him.  But Rene is so ready for his baptism.  His interview is this Saturday.

Adela also came to church this past Sunday, and the ward is so good about helping her with her twins.  However, she's going through some rough stuff right now. She is home alone all day with her girls, and when her husband is home, he doesn't help or act at all interested in them.  So as she was leaving on Sunday, she said that she's not really sure what's going to happen. She says that she needs help, and the only people willing to help her are back in Otavalo, so it's possible that she and her husband will separate, and he will stay here and she will go there.  It's horribly sad, and we really hope that doesn't happen.  We have an appointment with her on Wednesday with a member who has had a lot of personal trials as well, so we hope that she can help.

We had a really great week of finding people.  We were contacting on Monday, and this woman let us in way late at night.  On Wednesday, we were contacting, and this woman and her daughter came up and asked if we can come in and talk to them!  Turns out, she is an antigua from a while back, and she wants to learn more.  We were able to teach William, and yesterday we contacted a house and a woman answered who said we could come back on Friday.  But after walking to the next house, she came back out and waved at us to come in and teach her!  It was amazing!  I love seeing how God works miracles in this work.  I know that He is aware of everything.

I love Hermana Knapp.  She works so hard despite all her health problems, and I am so grateful for that.  She makes me want to be a better missionary.  She's so generous and kind and loving, and her desires to share the Gospel are so great.  Thank you for allowing us to be here.

As far as nursing goes, we are turning over everything tomorrow to the Joneses.  We pray for them each day that they'll be okay.  I think Elder Jones doesn't have much confidence in itself, but he knows exactly what he's doing of course.  We are meeting with them tomorrow to hand over PETTY and the smartphone and all the info and to show them a few last things, and they will be good to go.

I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to be the nurse, even for just a little while.  I loved getting to know the missionaries and seeing how God works miracles for us, and being able to learn a little bit more about what I want to study in the future.  I have learned to sympathize with people more and just trust in God that everything will work out. Thank you for that opportunity.

Thank you for being here and for your counsel and help in this work.  I love being a missionary.

Have a great week,
Hermana Kennedy

Okay, so my time as a mission nurse has come to an end.  It's sad because I loved it, but it's also nice that now I won't have to worry about being a missionary AND a nurse.  I can just focus on the sector, because this sector needs some TLC.  We really had a great week here. I'm going to be like the secondary nurse, just taking phone calls when missionaries can't get ahold of Elder Jones, or if they don't know to call him.  It's a happy thing that now I can just focus on my calling.  But I will miss it.  It was so fun.

So, life with Hermana Knapp is so fun!  We laugh a lot AND we go running in the morning!  It's AWESOME!  Of course, we have to climb a freaking giant hill to get to a court where it's flat so we can run, and usually by the time we get up the hill, we are like, "So, that's exercise for the day, right?"  Also, Hermana Knapp loves healthy things including banana and chocolate protein shakes in the morning, and I totes jumped on that boat.  Her protein is SOOOOO good.  However, she has also struggled with constipation her whole mission because of colon problems, so due to that, we don't have mamitas which isn't too sad because now we can eat whatever and whenever and however much we want!  YAAAAAAAAASSSSSS!!!  It also means that her family sends her all kinds of possible meds and stuff including, this week a laxative tea.  Well that intrigued me.  I was like, "No, that won't work."  Well let me tell you, my friends, it most certainly does....  Yesterday, I felt my innards moving, and it CLEANED ME OUT!  I will never be doing THAT again!  And gosh our stomachs hurt for a long while.

Also, I am happy to say that since being back on the mission, I have lost 11 pounds.  After a few weeks with Hermana Caceres, I was topping out at the highest weight I've ever weighed (which I totally freaked out about), but since then, I'm losing again.  I feel much better, and with Hermana Knapp, I think it's all going to be okay ;-)

Also, she put makeup on me.  I have become her doll.  First off, what bastardo (as Daddy would say) invented an eyelash curler?  That thing is like a torture device!  Second, eyeliner.  How do women put it on themselves and keep their eyes open?  Anyway, Hermana Knapp loved dolling me up and said she's going to buy me some makeup and teach me how to use it.  Oh my.

Back row:  Me, Hermana Giles, Hermana Caceres (with Hermana Bustos
tucked in in front of her).  Three generations! <3

Zone conference was super fun, because I got to see my best friend, Hermana Giles!  You know, after I finished my training with her, I so hoped that sometime on our missions, we would be in the same district or at least zone, but NOPE!  I saw her there only because it was a tri-zone conference.  And now she's in her last 12 weeks.  Oh well.  I sure love her.

Also, the RA selection committee from BYU contacted me and set up a phone interview for this Friday, so wish me luck with that.  Pray that I can find somewhere with good cell service, because having to say, "What? What?" all the time doesn't make a very good impression.  Also, I haven't had a job interview in a while, so I'm hoping that I can be chill.

And I got my Valentines package!  Oh my gosh, I love my derpy plastic camera and my angel Pusheen!!  He sits on my desk and makes me smile every day!  And I have been devouring that reading material ;-). Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!

Okay, that's about it for this week.  I love you all a lot!  Be kind and good, and tell each other that you love each other!  Have a fabulous week!

Love,
Hermana Kennedy

Hermana Kennedy and Strong Words

Hi fam!  Here's my letter to President:

Hi President Murphy,

Thank you for coming to our ward yesterday.  I'm sorry that Rene wasn't there.  We called later, and his mom told us that early in the morning he received a call and had to go to Guayllabamba, so tonight we are going to go by and hope that he's home so that we can make sure everything is okay.

However, we are very excited for Adela.  When we showed up at her house, it seemed like she was getting ready to tell us that she couldn't come because her husband wasn't there, and her babies weren't dressed, and we were worried, but turns out she was just telling us why she was running late.  So, our member, Patricia Puatate, went in and helped her get them ready and dressed so that they could come to church!  We are really thankful that the members were really good with her and with helping, and I love being able to teach an Otavalan again!  They are so good and humble, and we are excited to see how she can progress.  We haven't been able to meet her husband yet because he works every day, all day, so we hope we can get to know him.  It's sad because Adela has to be inside all day with her babies.  Because there are two, it's too hard to leave the house, and so she's alone all day, but we hope that the church can become her second home where she has friends and people will visit her.  We are hoping to set a baptismal date with her this week.

Too, we plan this week on training the Joneses in everything so that next week we can officially pass everything to them, and if they have questions I can help, but we will be able to focus on our sector.  I know that Santa Anita has so much potential and this is the time for this sector.  I know that Heavenly Father leads this work, and He will help everyone here, including Rene.

I'm excited to work with Hermana Knapp.  She's so excited and happy, and that's what this sector needs.

Thank you for your example and hard work.  Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Kennedy

Okay, first off, transfers.  I'm staying in Santa Anita!!!  And, I received Hermana Knapp!  She's from my group at the MTC so we've been in this together from the beginning!  She's from Malibu, California, she also loves cats and elephants, she's not as tall as Hermana Pincay, and she's super friendly!  She's also very much the opposite of me.  Like, she loves makeup and clothes, and shopping, and fashion, and as you all know, I do not.  But she accepts that she might have a few too many things in her suitcase, so we are going through some of her stuff this week to help her weed out what she does and doesn't need ;-). She's really is a doll, and I'm so excited!

So, funny things from this week.  First off, last Tuesday, we received a call from an elder who had jumped while exercising that morning and when he landed, he heard a pop, his foot swelled and was bruised, and he couldn't put weight on it.  Sound familiar?  Anyways, he broke the bone in his pinkie toe.  But the funny part?  While I was in the emergency room, Hermana Pincay was outside with his companion and she I have a running joke about all the Latino elders being scared of me, so she asked him, "Elder, are you scared of my companion?"  He said, "Yes, but only because she's so buff!  I told my companion this morning that Hermana Kennedy would be the one to carry him into the hospital today!"  

I busted out laughing when I heard that!  I'm glad to know that my arm fat is actually seen as muscle among Latinos ;-)

And then in our lesson with Rene this week, he just randomly asked us if we knew our nickname.  We were like, "What nickname?  We have a nickname?"

"Your nickname around Santa Anita."

I jokingly guessed "Las Altas" (the tall ones).

Hermana Pincay guessed "Las Torres Gemelas" (the Twin Towers)

Rene tells us "Las Tres Pisos" (the Three Floors, as in we're three stories tall)

Yep, that's what the people of the small town of Santa Anita call us hermanas as we walk around town.  We now have plans to make shirts with "Las Tres Pisos" on it because we love it so much.  He also told us that people talk about us all the time, and one time he was talking to someone, and they said "Man, one time they came and stood next to me, and I looked at the white one and just thought, "Que miedo!" (which translated means "How scary!")

We laughed at that one too!

And then the slightly scary moment of my week.  The one side of Ecuadorian culture that I still find hard to love is how much alcohol people consume at all hours of the day.  On Saturday, we got on a bus, and we saw that up front there was a very drunk man.  Of course, once I sat down, he started looking at me, and I just thought, "Oh boy...."  After a few minutes, he comes back and sits in the seats across from us and starts trying to get my attention, saying "Gringa", but of course all slurred.  Then, he stands up and lunges across Hermana Pincay trying to touch either my name tag, or something else (please let it be my name tag and NOT the something else), because he was asking to what organization I belong, and Hermana Pincay says that what happened next was pretty intense.  I smacked his hand away and said, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" in English.  She said I had an incredibly intimidating face.  I admit, I was rather freaked out that he lunged at me, and he tried to continue asking about me, and I just told him, "It doesn't matter.  Leave me alone."  Thankfully, a whole bunch of other passengers stood up for me, telling the money collector to get him off the bus because he was harassing me.  The rest of the day, Hermana Pincay told me that she was going to practice looking intimidating, because she thought it was awesome.  She would occasionally turn to me and say, "Don't touch me!" in Spanish, and then in English which of course made us both laugh.

I have to say, I miss Hermana Pincay.  She was so good for a laugh, and we had such fun times together, and she was just so openly herself.  It was sad to say goodbye to her this morning when we dropped her off at the offices, but I'm excited for a new transfer too.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!!  I'm glad that Glo will be there to celebrate with you since, uh, I obviously can't be :-). Thanks for being born, because if you hadn't been born, maybe I wouldn't be born.  Or maybe I would be born but to a really evil family.  Or to Lex Luthor and I would be evil. I love you!

And I heard that BB2 could be anything now, girl or boy!  That's fun!  It'll be a surprise for all of us now, I guess ;-)

Okay, I love you all so much.  I hope you have a great week, and that you're kind to each other.  Thanks for your emails and words of encouragement!

With so much love,

Hermana Kennedy

Hermana Kennedy and Pulling a Daddy

Hi family!  Phew, what a week!  Here's my letter to President:

Buenas tardes, Presidente Murphy,

It was a good week.  Rene is progressing so well.  All week, because of Carnival and family visits, he has received a lot of opposition, but he is staying strong.  We pray for him each day that he can make it.  He knows that from this point on, there are no mistakes with drinking.  He has 25 days without drinking so far, and one more month until his baptism.  Thankfully, he is also receiving good things from people too.  This last week, his cousin told him that she notices a difference in him, and she says that it is a very good thing.  Too, he is fellowshipping our other investigator, Franklin.  They went to a bakery course together this past week.  Too, Rene introduced us to a friend of his, Adela.  She's great.  She's from Otavalo, is married and has two baby girls.  We know that the Gospel could really bless her, and she already has strong faith in God, but she isn't part of any church because she never liked some of the recitations and things.  However, she has always passed the Santa Anita chapel and wanted to go inside, but never knew how or when, so this coming Sunday, we hope she can come.  She has felt very alone in her life, and she believes that her twin daughters are gifts from God to help her feel like He cares and that she is important to Him.  We are excited to see what happens with her.

Too, we had a really great contact this week.  Her name is Elena, and she too has noticed the Santa Anita chapel, and when we told her who we are, she told us that she's super interested and that she won't be able to come to church this Sunday, but that she would love to have us come visit, and she's planning on coming to church the next week!

The Joneses are great.  It's nice when we don't know something to be able to ask Elder Jones, and he helps us know exactly what to do.  I'm excited to see how they will help the mission, and I hope they can progress rapidly.

Thank you for all of your work and your example, and thank you for filling out the Ecclesiastical Endorsement for me.  I really, really appreciate it.

Have a wonderful week,
Hermana Kennedy

Okay, so it's CARNEVAL!!!  That means that yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we can only leave the house for sure for appointments with people, because everyone is throwing water, shaving cream and paint off of their roofs, from trucks, or even from busses.  We didn't leave yesterday except for church and some other stuff, but today, obviously, we had to come to the internet place, and I was so nervous.  I actually wouldn't mind having water thrown at me, but it's still a little scary.  Our neighbors are savage and have been out all day, throwing water at people, so in the minute that they were distracted, we sneaked out of our apartment.  However, as we were walking, a truck full of adults passed by, and we tried to go down another road, but they followed us and sure enough, soaked us.  It was fun for me, but Hermana Pincay hates Carneval....like with a burning passion....so that dampened the mood a bit.  It's only because her dad is like super gung-ho about Carneval, and all week is running around, soaking her and her siblings, so she doesn't like it very much, but I'm grateful for the experience :-)  It's fun to watch it all.

Also, I was robbed.  Again.  Yep.  I don't know if it's because I'm white, so everyone thinks I'm loaded with cash in my bag or what, but they took my planner this time.  Like, c'mon man, really?  That had all of our contacts in it, and all of my patient contact hours logged.  As of when it was stolen, I had 70 PCH, but after going through Hermana Pincay's planner, I now have 110, so something isn't quite accurate for one of us.  Not sure who, but WHO CARES?  THIS COULD CHANGE MY ENTIRE LIFE!

Really?

No.

Moving on.

Us, waiting at the hospital

So, exciting thing happened Monday night.  It's been a whole week, but I haven't talked to you since then ;-)  Anyway, it was 10 p.m., a half hour before we are required to go to bed when we got a call on the nurse phone.  It's an hermana, demanding that we take her companion to the hospital, because she has pain in her body.  So we head to the hospital.  Hermana Pincay was already in bed, so she had to get dressed again.  We arrived, and the hermana and I go back into Emergency where she's admitted.  We then waited on and off with doctors until finally, at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, they tell her that she's fine and can go home and needs an appointment with a GI doctor (which she already has).  Anyway, it was super cool, because I felt like Daddy, running out at all hours of the night to be in the hospital.  The patient was so apologetic, telling us that she was sorry about everything.  I didn't mind--I thought it was cool to have an "emergency"!

We also had a funny thing happen with another hermana, and I only share it because I won't mention her name, and because she's a good friend of mine.  She had to have a stool sample taken to see if she has parasites (yep, it really happens down here), so we headed to the lab, and she went into the bathroom.  Like I said, she's one of my good friends, and after a little while, she pokes her head out of the bathroom and motions for me to come over.  I go into the bathroom and she blurts out, "I HAVE NO POOP!!!"  I just start laughing while she starts doing exercises to try and get her GI tract moving, all the while saying that she had nothing inside of her and hasn't pooped since lunch.  She really hates hospitals, and she didn't want to come back another day, so I sat in the bathroom for an hour, talking to her while she tried to ... you know .... find the poop.  In the end, she couldn't, and came back the next morning, came out of the bathroom, held out the container, and said, "With all the effort in my body, here you go!"  She was so funny and goofy about it all.

And....drum roll please....I celebrated my year mark on Thursday.  I did it with peanut butter and my bag of Wegman's chocolate chips.  I have been waiting since Christmas to eat them, and knew that my year mark was a good way to use them, so I may have done a little photo sesh with the best two foods in the world (aside from hamburgers and cheesecake). They were so delicious, and yes, this very morning, I finished off my peanut butter.  It was horribly sad, but such is life.



It's Hermana Pincay's last week in the mission  She goes home on the 20th, and I'm very nervous for my next companion.  I have no idea who it will be.  I love Hermana Pincay, and I'm so sad that she's leaving.  She's been a good companion.

Anyway, that's about it.  I love you all, and thank you so much for your emails!  Next week I'll have a new companion, but President said I'm staying in Santa Anita which is awesome.  Say a prayer for me.  I love you!!

Love,
Hermana Kennedy

Hermana Kennedy and a Bat's Point of View

Hi family,

Okay, my keyboard is much better this week.  President Murphy actually wrote this to me from my email last week:

Gracias Hermana Kennedy! I had to pull out my Urim and Thummim to read your email!  Bad keyboards, I know.  

That made me laugh.  Anyway, here's my email this week:

Hi President Murphy,

Well, it was a very good week here in Santa Anita.  We found time to work in our sector, and we are really grateful to the hermanas lideres for helping us find some new investigators in our sector.  Having two companionships in the sector was great.  We were able to go to some new places to find new people, and we are really hoping that some of them can progress.

We set a baptismal date with Rene this week.  We asked him to pray for his own goal, and he wants to be baptized on March 10.  He is working so hard to achieve his goal.  This past week, his family members were at his house to celebrate some birthdays, and they kept trying to make him drink.  They were actually shoving glasses in his face and telling him to just drink a little, and he told us that he remembered that he couldn't be baptized for just a little bit last time, and so he resisted all weekend and came out better than ever. Too, two members are meeting with him a couple of times a week to go through the steps of the Addiction Recovery program, and with his date for March 10, he can keep meeting with them after he is baptized.  He is also still accompanying us to lessons, and we are meeting with him twice a week.  He has such righteous desires, and we are praying that he can make it this time.  We are so hopeful.  

Hermana Pincay turned over all nurse duties to me today.  She will of course still be here for two weeks to help me, but I'm now in charge of everything, and I'm hoping it all goes well!  I promise that I will do my very best to keep all of the missionaries healthy, and thank you again for giving me this opportunity.  We met with the Jones, and we are going with them to some appointments this week so that they can see how everything works.  They are so nice and will take great care of the mission.

We are trying more to live la manera a bautizar a miles by focusing more on the needs of the investigators and really getting to know them so as to teach them that which they need.  Too, we are trying new ways of contacting and teaching that is a little different for everyone.  And we are trying to teach and be led by the Spirit and not just say the same thing each and every time.

Thank you for your example and your hard work.  Have a great week.
Hermana Kennedy

Well let's see.  What happened this week.

We were in the hospital a lot which was awesome--I mean, not awesome for anyone who needs to go in the hospital, but kinda awesome for experience points for me :-)  Hermana Pincay gave me all the nurse stuff today including the smartphone.  Yep, yours truly is now in possession of 21st century technology.  Oh my.  But that's kind of cool.  It's also scary, because, you know, robbery and all, but it's fine. Pray for me.

So I will be the nurse for another transfer.  Here's the dealio.  Back in like November, we heard that the couple who was coming to serve in the Quito and Quito North missions are the medical people.  The elder is actually a retired Physicians' Assistant so that's awesome.  They were supposed to arrive on December 19, but because of visas, they didn't get here until just recently.  We met with them this past week, and they are so nice.  Like, one of those cute older couples, but bless their hearts, they don't speak much Spanish.  It's a little tricky without an MTC, but they are working on it.  So President told us that we would be the nurses until the end of the transfer unless the Jones needed my help for another transfer, in which case, I would stay on as the nurse.  Today, Hermana Pincay received an email saying that I would indeed be staying on for another transfer!  WOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!  Man, am I excited, but also freaked out, because I suddenly feel like I don't know what I'm doing, but it'll be fine.  Thankfully, if there's anything I don't know, I can call Elder Jones, and he can help me.

Okay, exciting thing.  So yesterday, we got a call on the nurse phone (o yeah, I have another phone in addition to the smartphone and the sector phone) saying that an hermana had had an emergency and was just admitted to the hospital!  Our first emergency!  So we rushed there, and turns out she had a viral infection in her chest, but the coolest part was that I got to stay with her and go in with her while they did an echocardiogram of her heart.  I think "eco" is an ultrasound.  Anyway, it was so cool to see her actual heart, beating and everything, and to see how the guy did everything, and every time I hear someone say that a missionary needs an "eco", I think of bats and echolocation.  I know this is very different, but I still think of it every time (and it goes along quite nicely with my vampire post from last week) :-). Seriously, medical stuff is so cool.  Like, I ask you, where else are you going to see a beating human heart?  Anyway, I'm super excited to be the nurse for another transfer and learn more medical stuff and still get to be a missionary!  We are working hard here in Santa Anita, and we are so excited for Rene.  Pray lots for him, because he needs strength especially with his friends and family.

Okay, that's all the fun stuff from this past week.
I love you all, and I hope you're all happy, and healthy, and okay.

Have a wonderful week, and happy Carneval!  It starts on Sunday, and it's a holiday where people throw paint and water balloons and car oil, and we aren't allowed to leave the house unless it's in a taxi.  I'M SO EXCITED!  I wish we could go up on our roof and throw balloons, but unfortunately, no.  But people here are already starting, and we keep having to look up as we walk around so as not to get hit ourselves, but I'm so excited to watch from our window on the actual days and see people get soaked and stuff! I love Ecuador!

Also, happy birthday, Ethan.  I've had it written in my notebook for two weeks to tell you, and I know it's very late, but I had it written in my planner and everything.  #sisterlove

And Christmas cards from the Mechams and from Buddy and Melanie actually made it here this week!  It's a Christmas miracle!

Okay,
Love,
Hermana Kennedy