with love, elli: fasting works!!!

Oh my goodness. my beloved brothers and sisters. I wish I could put into words the MIRACLES of this last week. I am brought to tears as I try and express the love I have felt for the INCREDIBLE people of Kingstowne, member and nonmember alike. I am so so so so obsessed with missionary work, I am so in love with Virginia, and I cant even imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't made the decision to serve a mission. SO MANY MIRACLES!!! I am sure some of you are quite tired of me using that word, but there is no other way to put it.

First off, last week I had said that I read in Jacob that I need to WAIT before dropping our investigators, to "spare them a little longer". WELL this week we decided that we needed to get on our investigators who aren't progressing and figure out what is up. So we did. Cynthia is an investigator of ours that the elder passed to us. We have not been able to meet with her for weeks, so finally this week, we went by A ZILLION times until we caught her. It was actually SUPER cool. We knocked on her door and like usual, she wasn't home. I was a little frustrated to say the least and as we turned around to start walking down the stairs SOMEHOW I caught a glimpse of the backend of her dog across the street. yeah. #miracle. So we literally SPRINTED (and I am not using that word lightly) down the stairs and across the parking lot to catch her. She was so excited to see us and told us that she had finally found a job!! she has been out of work for a year due to a really bad car accident that left her with some brain damage and some issues with her memory. BUT she found a job. She said, " thank you so much for coming into my life. It has since brought me so many blessings. I want to praise God because of all that you have done for me!" what a darling. SUCH a miracles, and now we have another progressing investigator!!!

THEN! our investigator Jenny who has not gotten back to us in a few weeks told us she wants to still be taught!!!! #HOLLER. SUCH good news and she almost came to the Christmas devotional which would have been a huge step... it didn't happen, but hey. it was close.

Also this week! we were able to go with the youth and our recent converts to the temple for baptisms! WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!! To see people that were led to the gospel because God prepared them enter into the waters of baptism is incredible. But then to so them perform an ordinance that they have just performed for themselves for someone else IS A MIRACLE. I wish I could express to you the amount of love that was in that room and the JOY that was shared and felt. so miraculous.

AND NOW FOR THE BIGGEST MIRACLE!!! This Sunday was fast Sunday and I have been really really really worried that we are not finding enough people to teach. Our finding efforts just haven't been sufficient and nothing we are doing seems to be helping. So I fasted that we would FIND people to teach. It was an incredible experience for me spiritually to feel the holy ghost come over me and tell me that I am doing all that I can and that we will find people SOON. I was SO excited. We had decided, after we broke our fast, to go tracting.. The only woman who opened the door was very sweet and prayed with us. She blessed us with safety on our journey and thanked us for our service. She wasn't super pumped to hear our message, but she was darling. We had to get to another appointment with a recent convert so we left after that door. While we were driving I just kept thinking, why didn't we have success? why didn't we get a new investigator? All these things were troubling me and as we got to the home of the recent convert I remembered that there was a referral we received that lived in that same neighborhood that never got back to us. I had a SUPER strong impression to go by there first... Brothers and Sisters, we knocked on that door and she opened the door SO excited that we had finally come back!!! she had lost our number and didn't know how else to get ahold of us. She had been waiting for us to come by again. I have NEVER IN MY LIFE seen someone so prepared for this message. She told us that she saw "Meet the Mormons" and that she sobbed her way through it. She told us that she went to our church with her friend last month and that she felt like she was finally home. She told us that she just wants us to come and teach her more and more because she wants to get baptized so bad! We were about to JUMP out of our seats!!!! our fasting WORKED!!! We gave her a pass along card with all of our information on it and she told us that just earlier this week she had had a dream that there were two sister missionaries on her couch who gave her a picture of Christ with their number on it and the church address on it. She said that the pass along card we handed her was even the same HANDWRITING that she had seen in her dream. She just kept telling us that she KNEW we were sent from God and that we were supposed to teach her right then, that day, for a reason.

IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE!!!!!

Brothers and Sisters HAVE FAITH TO SEE MIRACLES!!!! THEY WILL COME!!! Do what you have to do and then HAND IT OFF to the Lord!! He wants to help us!! let him!!! I know without one doubt in my mind that this is the most joyful work ON EARTH. I know that miracles come when we TRULY do try as hard as we can and as we work every available moment. I am so so so eternally grateful for missionary work and for this true, restored church.

The mission is a miracle, it changes our eternities. I so testify of these things, in the name of Jesus Christ. amen

Keep it real and keep the faith

sister kennedy