I am loving my life!

WOW WOW WOW!!!! what an incredible week of miracles, hardships, and love.  I wish I could explain the amount of CRAZY things that have been happening in my brain and in real life.  haha first off, I just realized that I haven't told anyone like anything about my RAD comps.  SO. Sister Schooley is 21 and from Kaysville UT :) she has been INACTIVE HER WHOLE LIFE. yeah. real talk. her first time going to all 3 hours of church was in the MTC!!!! can you even take it? So sometimes when I feel like I cant do this anymore, I just imagine what it must have been like for her when she first got here.  She could not believe that she actually came out on her mission and that she is almost done!  She felt like it was the right thing for her to do, and she DID IT.  WOW. she is SUCH A GEM.  She has an incredible way of loving people and she can make anyone feel comfortable.  She is so funny and has the best laugh EVER (second only to the one and only Courtney Poulsen, who I SO HOPE is reading these blog posts!!).  she is just a darling and she is so fun, ALWAYS trying to have fun and make the most of EVERY situation. She goes home in November! how crazy is that!?  Sister Taylor is also 21 and from Sacramento CA!  she is a darling. She has been out for 13 months and MAN. THIS GIRL KNOWS HOW TO WORK.  she literally CHASES after people in the streets to give them books of Mormon because she has such a strong testimony of how it can change their lives. And when I say chase, I mean CHASE. like full on sprint in a skirt.  shes so stinking rad. She loves loves loves being a missionary and is an incredible teacher.  She knows her doctrine and she knows her Savior.  What a blessing it has been for me to learn from both of them.  SERIOUSLY.  They are such good examples to me and them help me learn and grow EVERY DAY. 

As for me, I have learned to LOVE Virginia more and more every day.  the people, the culture, the humidity, EVERYTHING.  When you are driving on the highway, you feel trapped because the trees are SO THICK.  But its super cool because you feel like you are in a jungle.   AHHHH I LOVE IT! as for the people, I LOVE EM.  like I said, ZERO WHITE PEOPLE. and when I say that, I mean that.  EVERY person we talk to on the street is not from America and English is their second language.  Our mission office has copies of the Book of Mormon in 172 languages!!! that's how diverse this area is.  IT IS SO RAD.  Yesterday for example, we were knocking on doors and taught a woman from Erithrea.  WHAT. like who the heck knows what that is? not me. It was REALLY hard to understand her, but she was the MOST LOVING woman on the planet.  She just kept hugging me and kissing my cheeks.  Her name is Seegah... yeah try pronouncing that one ;) My companions were like whoa sister kennedy! youre like a hot commodity hahaha. we also met a man form Bulgaria, some people from Columbia, India, TONS from the middle east, and always a lot from Mexico.  ITS SO DIVERSE.

But now, heres a crazy story... hahaha so we were knocking doors one day and sister Schooley felt like we needed to go talk to this big group of Ghanaian men.  (SO MANY GHANAIANS HERE. like more Ghanaians that anything else I would say).  So we go over to where they are, they are having a party, and they are all very heavily under the influence.  Sister Schooley being her cute self just starts testifying of Jesus Christ.  hahaha me and sister Taylor were just sitting there like uhhhh.... who are these creepy men?  finally we left because they wouldn't listen to us, but it was pretty funny. 

now for THE MIRACLE.  So it is really common for people in this mission to go home without any baptisms.  like zero.  and we are teaching 7 people that have committed to  baptism!!! WHAT!? Now, let us not forget that most likely they will not ALL be baptized, but that is still pretty dang cool! So lets give you some background on these peeps.

The first family is a family from Ghana.Cesi, Tal, Elin, and Eminos.  That is a father and his three kids.  They are SO SWEET.  they were found on the street, sister schooley found them before me and sister taylor got here.  They have committed to be baptized on September 27th! (but not Eminos because she is 6).  They come to church every week and they love learning more about the Lord's gospel.

The second family is a true miracle.  One day we were going to check up on a man named Oku (another Ghanaian).  While we were walking there we were going up and talking to everyone who came in our path, because that's just what we do ;) everyone was telling us that we were wrong and blah blah blah and I was getting pretty frustrated.  But! as we were walking up to Oku's door, there was a woman in the distance who looked at me and had this HUGE smile come across her face.  I kept looking at her thinking, we need to teach her.  We knocked on Okus door, and there was no answer.  I looked back and the woman was still smiling at me, so we went over and talked to her. She explained to us in broken English that she has been searching for a church and that when she saw us she knew she needed to talk to us! We went back to teach her last night with her three children who HAVE ALL COMMITTED TO BE BAPTIZED. This family is truly a miracle and a gift from God.  We taught them all about Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon and they told us that as we taught them they felt peace and that it was good.  They want to be baptized and we couldn't be happier!!!! they are from india and are just precious people.

We also have an investigator named allen who is scheduled to be baptized on October 11th! he is so great and he feels like God has put this gospel in his path because it is true and the right thing for him to do.

WELL!! my time is almost up, but I want each and every one of you to know that this Gospel of Jesus Christ is truly the happiest message on earth and it can change our eternities!!!

I love you all so much, especially my perfect family that I miss more than I can say.

keep it real and keep the faith

sister kennedy

PS all the new missionaries had a meeting with President Riggs, and he took me and sister Williams aside and told us "Sisters, I want you to know how excited I am for you two to be in this mission. You are already doing so well and helping this work progress so much. You both need to know that I will be putting you in leadership positions Very quickly"

AHHHH!!! SO SCARY!
AND GUESS WHAT! we are going into DC today to the library of congress!!! YAY!!!

Here are some fun pics with my companions and people I've met so far... Also some of our apartment!