Hey everyone! Happy Saint Patrick's day, I had completely forgotten
until today because mom reminded me that it was today. You all know how much I
love green and know that as usual I am using a green tie. I forgot to put on my
green suspenders that uncle Ryan got me though haha. Well this week seemed to go
by quick. It was a good week that was full of triumphs for our zone, but in me
and Elder B Souzas area we experienced many disappointments. we are still stuck
in a hole here with almost no people to teach. There are plenty of wonderful
members in our area but just no investigators. I think I have already explained
much about our area, it is very small and half of this small area is just stores
and shops, the other half is the where the richest people in the city live.
Which makes it almost impossible to get inside any ones house and teach it. Our
area is newly opened because before no one ever wanted to work in it, and now I
can see why. It has been hard to try and keep the faith and move on in the work.
We had our investigator Israel but this week he gave alot of excuses and it
sounds like his mom has been putting alot of thoughts into his mind. He didn't go
to church yesterday and every time we brought up the subject of church or baptism
he tried changing the subject. That kinda bummed us out cause he is our only
hope for a baptism this transfer, this is elder B souzas second transfer in the
area and his second without a baptism, that's tough for him because before he was
serving in São Paulo where they baptize alot, the church is like in Utah there
and they baptize almost every week there, so it has been teaching us both
patience and reminding us that we need to rely on the Lord and that we need to
do what He want and not always what we want. That's hard to accept sometimes,
maybe our purpose here is to strengthen our zone and help them to baptize, but
maybe at this time its not our turn to be the ones baptizing. I don't know all I
know is that this area has been one of the greatest challenges for me and Elder
B Souza. But there has to be something we can do to find the Lords Elect, we got
a reference from a member yesterday so hopefully that will work out. This week
we had a regular divisions again, this time it was my turn to leave the area,
Wednesday though the assistants came and did a division with us, I went with
Elder Hancock who is a great friend of mine, I lived with him for 2 months when
I was in Campo Grande but the last time I did a split with him I was in Sorriso
over 6 months ago. We had a good day we just tried to find new people to teach,
we made some contacts and there was a few people that said we could come back,
we went back later in the week though and they weren't home. Thursday I went and
did a split with Elder De Melo, they had an eternal investigator that in the
last division Elder souza went there and got her excited for baptism and did
here baptismal interview and they marked her date for the 15th, during that week
this investigator who is a young woman that's 15 years old had one of her old
young womens leader from the Catholic church come and told her and her mom that
if she was baptized her family would be cursed and that nothing would go good in
their lives and that it was the worst decision they could ever make, and a load
of other junk she told them, this scared the girl alot and it sounds like she
was very shaken and didn't know what she wanted to do. This happened on a
Tuesday, I went there with Elder De Melo on Thursday and we talked a bunch and
we showed them a video called I am a son of God that is on the Mormon channel
that shows when Moses went to the mount and had a great vision from the Lord and
saw Him and talked to Him, and then after this great revelation and
manifestation of the Spirit, Satan came and tried to show his power and say that
he was God. But Moses wasn't deceived and cast Satan out. The point of the lesson
and the video was that many times after we receive an answer or revelation from
the Lord Satan comes in many times to try and scare us or negate what just
happened. After we showed the video the Spirit was super strong and her mom said
now I understand, we had them explain their feelings and they felt that it
really was Satan that had tried to scare them and dissuade her from being
baptized. We then asked that Saturday at 6 o'clock would be what, and the girl
said my baptism and smiled. And indeed she was baptized on Saturday along with 3
other people in other wards. That made us happy and the divisions have helped
the elders to have these baptisms. Now we just need to baptize in our area,
please pray so that we can come in contact with the elect in our area, pray that
the Lord can provide away so that we can meet them and teach them. Friday was
cool I went and did a division with my first son Elder Payne! that was cool his
area is super humble and has wonderful humble people, they just live super far
from the church and have no means of transportation. We visited some good
people, they have a lady named Martina that wants to be baptized but she just
has to stop smoking first, we talked with her and set some goals. Hopefully she
will do her part and also rely on the Lord. Saturday and Sunday were uneventful
we visited with some members and tried to visit with investigators. We did our
weekly planning on Saturday and this week we plan on trying some new things,
there is a part of our ward that is technically the area of the other
missionaries and they said we could work there, it just a few streets but we
plan on trying to knock on every door and make a contact with everyone. I hope
that goes well and I again ask for your prayers so that we kind find success.
Supposedly we will also be going to a school and giving a 40 minute presentation
on health or something like that, I'm still not sure exactly what we will be
doing but I hope it goes fine. So funny things this week Elder B Souza told me
that I talk in my sleep and that I talk in Portuguese, and also his bed broke
haha, but we got it fixed but we had to sleep on the ground for about a week. I
also decided this week that I am addicted to ice cream and cake. But both of
these things are expensive here. But yeah so that's about it not much this week.
I was excited to here that Cassidy Jarman got her visa, sounds like she will get
to Brazil 1 year to the day after I got the Brazil, also I was excited to here
of aunt Sids call, I hope all is well with her and that she can get recuperated
quickly. Looks like you guys had a good week and I was happy to see that stake
conference must have been great. I love my family and I love my friends, the
mission is the best and hardest thing that I have ever experienced, there are
many ups and downs many good times and hard times. It teaches us many things and
there are many hard lessons to be learned, I need to be better, I need to apply
myself and dedicate myself more to the work of the Lord, but I am grateful for
the opportunity to learn and grow and to be better everyday. I hope you all have
a great week and take good care! com amor
-Elder Kennington
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