3 days until my year mark!

Hey All, 

We are working, and working, seeing few results, but still enjoying it. We have found a couple of people, but not too many. We found this guy named Francisco. He came up to us a few weeks ago, pretty drunk, and started talking to us and told us that he was baptized in the Church, and he is inactive. But he told us to pass by. So we went, but he was never home until earlier last week. It was while I was on divisions with Elder Despain, everything was failing, so I decided we would go see if he was home. When we arrived at his house, we found him in bad shape. He had a friend there who was also trying to help him. His wife and kids had just left him, because he has a drug problem. We prayed with him to help him feel calm. And we read some scriptures with him. He has a lot of interest in changing his life, and to fix everything he has messed up. He has now been clean for 2 weeks, and he is attending Church with us. Only thing is, we can't find his church records either. But he says he was baptized in our church. 

We also have a part member family that just moved into our sector. We have had a couple lessons with them, but they just left to go on vacation to Peru, and wont be back until the end of February. Same with our ward mission leader who left on vacation to the south of Chile. He wont be back until the first week in March. This is a pretty popular occurrence for us. Every time we meet people who have interest, the tell us to come back in March, because they our leaving on vacations. We still keep working though. 

Elder Larson's spanish is progressing very slowly. I try to give him a lot more opportunities to speak in lessons and contacts. We practice it a lot in the house too. We are still being faithful and diligent, and we know that the Lord will bless us with success in this work for that diligence. Thank you for your prayers. 

Love,

Elder Ian Kennedy

Old picture of Elder Peel and me. Taken a few months ago in San Antonio Chile. #Throwback #SanAntonio

Still working hard

Family and Friends, 

This week went by quickly. We still lack investigators It seems like every time we get a new one, they all are about to leave on vacation, and tell us to come back in March when school starts. We spend the majority of the day contacting houses, because there arent any people in the street because of the hot weather. The results are very few and far between, but I know we will be blessed with miracles for our diligence and faith. 

My companion is improving a lot. Speaking Spanish is extremely hard for him. We are working a lot with that. He seems to forget grammar rules and words almost immediately after learning it. But we are working really hard. He is improving, just very slowly haha. Im sure someday the things will just click. But i'm trying to get him to speak more in lessons. My district is doing well. I'm learning a lot from them. It's a cool experience to be able to talk to all of them every night and to see how their days went. I'm also learning to like preparing classes. I sure learn a lot from preparing them.

Thank you all for your love, prayes, and support. 

Love,

Elder Kennedy

Vacaciones

Another week has escaped. We have been working way hard here in the hot streets of Maipú. We are searching everywhere for people to teach. We spend the majority of the day here in the streets contacting everyone we see. We are keeping a solid upbeat attitude and always enjoying the work. But we are definitely feeling the wrath of the vacation months. In the months of January and February the Chileans have their summer vacaciones. So what happens is the majority of the people here in Santiago travel the the south or the coast to escape the dry heat here. So, we are left here to contact empty houses. But it's all right. The Lord still blesses us for our diligence. 

One hot day while out contacting a block of apartments and not having a lot of success there, we saw a woman outside of her apt smoking a cigarrio. We started to talk to her, and she started yelling at us saying things like "we are wrong" and "sent from the Devil" and a bunch of garbage covered in cuss words. (I was kinda glad Elder Larson didnt understand much of what she said). We stood our ground and testified our message about the restauracion, and of the Savior. I remember feeling a calm peace after we left, and I told Elder Larson we would come back for her another day. So a couple days past and we went back to her house and asked her how she's doing. After talking in her porch for a couple minutes she invited us in. She gave us ice cream and everything super awesome. This is the part about this story that made my week. When her husband came down, she looked at her husband and and said, "hey what do I think of the Mormons?" to which her husband replied and said, "you hate the mormons." She half smiled and said "I know, but I like this one," pointing at me, "Because I can tell he is a son of God." That literally made my day. After that we offered a prayer with them, and they invited us to come back another day. That was my miracle of the week. That comment actually gave us fresh energy, and I felt great. I hope that the spirit will continue to work on them, and prepare them for the gospel. I know that the Lord puts trials in our path to try our faith, but if we are diligent, we will receive blessings. 

Love, 

Elder Kennedy

P.S. I received the packages. Thank you so much! The ties are super awesome. I receive mail on Tuesdays, so i'll always receive my packages and be a week late telling you haha. 

trabajamos y trabajamos mas

The title translates to: Work, work and more work. Week one in Los Libertadores went well. We are contacting like crazy to find news. We had one investigator when I arrived, but he is traveling up to the north, and wont be back for a month or so, so our amount of investigatores dropped to Zero. We are contacting a lot. I feel like I’m doing a whitewash here in this sector, But we are enjoying the work. The members here are great, There are a few members that want to help us, but our work with them is not turning up a lot of fruit as far as references go. But Elder Larson and I have found a couple of news contacting that seem to have good potential. Elder Larson is the man. Spanish is really hard for him, but we are practicing a lot to make it better. I’ve already noticed a difference in the past week. We have simple goals, like 5 vocab words a day that he needs to learn and things like that.

As far as being a district leader, it isn’t so bad. It’s helping me grow. For example, I’ve never been to good at preparing talks, let alone classes, and now once a week I have to teach a class. That is hard. Also I’ve never been a very organized guy but I now have to organize plans like divisions, I have to keep track of all the datos of my district, and report on them in liderazgo meetings. The lord is helping me be a better teacher, and a more organized missionary/person. #Ether12:27. Oh and yeah I do have sisters in the district, they are also in my ward. This is the first time in my mish I’ve had sisters in my ward. But they work hard, so I’m happy about that.

This sector has a lot of potential, I’m glad the Lord trusts me enough to work here. I know there are people here ready to receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And we will find them. I love you all. Thanks for all your love and support. 

Love 

Elder Ian J. Kennedy