Hello....Kenna's letter from February 2

¡HOLA! I LOVE YOU ALL A TON. Thank you all so much for your lovely, lovely letters! I love hearing from you! I honestly wish you could all spend just one day with me down here in good ol' Chile, so you could live my letters instead of just read them. I'm having a blast, but sometimes I feel like the letters just don't do Chile the justice it deserves. This place is awesome.

First of all, I'm going to do that cop-out I seem to have been doing the past couple weeks...it has something to do with my journal...and how I didn't do very good at keeping up with it this week...again...HEY BUT WAIT. There's more this time...here's the deal. I've been keeping my journal more like a...list. At the end of the day, I write some funny or spiritual experiences that I've had since the last time I wrote...in a list form. I've been justifying myself because I've thought, "my letters home every week pretty much are my journal entries." 

Well...President Eyring told me off the other day. Face to face, an apostle told me off. (Just kidding. It was through a magazine.) JUST as I shrugged off writing in my journal to read some articles in the "Liahona" (a church magazine,) I came across a message by Henry B. Eyring, in which he talks about how important it is to keep a journal. To top it off, he quoted a prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, who said this: "Those who keep a book of remembrance [a journal] are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives. Journals are a way of counting our blessings and of leaving an inventory of these blessings for our posterity." I thought about that, then opened my journal to read an entry I wrote back in the MTC, in which I talked primarily about KFC Chicken and catching a mouse in a garbage can. My posterity's gonna love that.............so, yeah. I'm re-thinking my journal, here.

 

 

So. What's new here? I've been tired! But that means I'm working hard. (No, Mom, don't worry. It's not "I'm dying of tuberculosis" tired.) We've come home every night absolutely wiped out. We had a few rough days this week...just contacting, contacting, contacting...this isn't too out of the ordinary. The only difference this week was that NO ONE. NO. ONE. Opened their doors for us. I don't know what was going on. And when they did, they closed them on us, or took a card and left before we could explain it, which means we couldn't technically count it as a contact...so that's been a little frustrating! But that's just a reality of the mission sometimes. People don't want to listen. Sometimes we talk to people who straight out tell us that they never discuss religion with other people....ISN'T THAT SO SCARY? What if you're wrong!?! (You are wrong, by the way, but) WHAT IF you're wrong? 

BUT. This week has also had some really great moments, too! For example, the other day our convert, Maria Elizabeth, told us that she's been talking to everyone--EVERYONE--about the gospel. She told us that she made a friend in a pharmacy who's about 30 years old, who was separated from her husband and had all these problems, etc, etc...anyway, Maria Elizabeth told her to stop smoking and to work things out with her husband so that she can have an eternal family, and that God would bless her. I guess that they met up a week later, and this lady is trying to follow her advice! Oh man, Maria Elizabeth is the greatest person in the world. She keeps talking about investigators like we're alligator wrestling...she says, "who was that investigator in church?" We say, "oh, that's Maria." And she says, "oh! Who conquered her??" (Like, which of the missionary companion-ships is teaching this person. "Conquering.") She keeps saying, "I'm going to conquer someone, too!"

So, yeah. Conquering in Chile.

We are also teaching a girl who is thirteen...we found her while we were contacting last week, and it turns out that all the members of her family are baptized members of the church except for her. Her parents went inactive because they moved from their original ward, so we are working on helping her mom and dad get back to church...the only problem is that her mom is being...very stubborn. When we ask the daughter if she'd like to be baptized, she always nods yes very confidently, but she tries to hide it from her mom...and her mom always answers for her, and says "well...we'll need to see." Every time. But, little by little, we are seeing progress there.

Hey, Dad, you're gonna love this...you just sent me a picture of you and one of your old college friends, which reminded me that when I skyped you guys on Christmas, the member family was sitting on the couch next to me, talking to my companion and occasionally looking at the screen...anyway, after I hung up with you, I switched with Hermana Kenney so that she could skype her family, and as soon as I sat down, the mom of the family said to me, "hey, what movie has your dad been in?" I told her none, but she was convinced, and started looking up possibilities on IMDB of movies that she's seen YOU in. Not an actor that looks like you...YOU. So. Don't let your head get too big, there. Chileans also call me "Barbie" when I'm sliming through the streets without having showered that morning.

We also had interviews with the president this week. Mine went really good, I felt the spirit so strong and he helped me with a lot of concerns I've been having personally. There were questions that he asked me during my interview that he could not have known were absolutely perfect, since I've only really expressed these concerns in my prayers. It was another testimony-building experience, where I really felt that the Lord is aware of me, and this is His work, and His hand is in every detail...even my interview with the president! I'm really grateful for President Warne, and all of our leaders in the mission. We're all just one big team, working to help our fellow brothers and sisters grow closer to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary.

¡Les extraño y amo muchisimo! Pienso en ustedes cada dia, y siempre estan en mis oraciones. ¡Espero que todo este bien y que esten leyendo sus escrituras, orando cada mañana y noche, y haciendo lo bueno en cada momento! 

HELLO HERMANA KENNEY'S MOM. (Hermana Kenney just asked for my blogspot address.)

I LOVE YOU ALL. KEEP DOING ALL THOSE THINGS I'VE BEEN SAYING BECAUSE THEY ARE IMPORTANT I KNOW THEY WILL BLESS YOUR LIVES. IIIIIIIIII LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU AAAAAAAAAAALL.

Con muchooooo amor, Hermana Thomas

yeahhhhhhh......

HOLA MI FAMILIA Y AMIGOS. LES EXTRAÑO MUCHO. YA PO.

I LOVE YOU GUYS. Thanks for the emails!!! I love love love them!!! ALSO I'd like to make a public statement to my favorite Cambodian, Sistaa Davee--Chloe, you can use lines from Nacho Libre whenever you want. 

SO. This week. Let's start with the fact that I hit FIVE MONTHS in Chile!! (Well...okay...technically tomorrow. But five months ago today I boarded the plane and left Mexican soil.) That is crazy. Missionaries talk about how their missions fly, but I never bought it...well. Here I am. Living it. I know my mom will never say that the time passed in the blink of an eye, but you would not believe how little time feels when you're doing something you love...and also doing the thing that has challenged you more than anything else in your entire life! 

I'm loving being companions with Hermana Kenney. We laugh all the time...BUT, may I just repeat that we work really hard, too. I truly am enjoying the mission! Something that I really love about our companionship is that we are always trying to change things up. If we're not having success one day, we just turn to each other and figure out what we're going to change in that moment, then we change it! And it's a pattern of changing, changing, changing...

The best change we've made has been in...our exercise habits. (Hear me out.) 

As missionaries, we have thirty minutes of exercise every morning, right as soon as we get out of bed. We have gone running a few times (twice,) we've done some lifting (chocolate into our mouths,) and we've stretched a lot (laid on our backs and stared at the ceiling.) (I call these my "guilty-conscience-parenthesis.") Anyway, one day I put on a skirt that's always bothered me because it sags...and guess what? It fit me just right. That was the moment we decided that something must be changed about our exercise habits. 

We were contemplating what to do while we were proselyting, and Hermana Kenney asked me what motivates me. I told her chocolate. 

Wednesday morning, we started from the thirteenth floor down the stairs to the first, and on every floor we left two fun-sized snickers bars. We then made the ascent to our room by the stairs, gathering the snickers as we climbed. The end result? We made it. WE MADE IT. THIS IS MY LIFE PEOPLE. I RAN UP THIRTEEN FLIGHTS OF STAIRS WITH AN ARMFUL OF SNICKERS. THIS WORKED. 

(Hey, Mom.)

Speaking of chocolate, there is this cupcake thing here that is a crappy mimic of hostess cupcakes (yes, I just said a crappy mimick of hostess cupcakes...like hostess cupcakes aren't crappy to begin with...) They're called "penguinos." Anyway, one day we were starving, so Hermana Kenney and I bought snacks. I chose penguinos, and she bought this chocolate bar that we thought was going to be good, but it actually tasted like 90-year-old bubble gum. Anyway, there were two penguinos, and I had already eaten one, so I offered her the other. She said she didn't want to take my food, but I insisted, and she finally took it. Then we took a few steps more, and I sarcastically said, "...hey wait have you seen my other penguino...?" 

There was a little struggle, but in the end she managed to smash this penguino cupcake on my face. Very thoroughly. I guess I deserved it. I'm a punk.

Sister Kenney and Sister Thomas.

As for the people we've taught, we've had a few break-throughs. One of our conversos recientes opened up to us about some problems she's been having with the Word of Wisdom, and we were so happy that she chose to confide in us. She reminds me a lot of my little sisters! We're going to work with her on that. It was a really cool experience, because it was my turn to share the scripture, and while I was flipping through my Libro de Mormón, the scripture about "men are free to act for themselves, and not to be acted upon" came to my mind. I haven't read that scripture in a really long time, but I'd marked it near the beginning of my mission for some reason...if I hadn't done that, I don't think I would have been able to find it in spanish! But after we shared that scripture, the spirit moved her to share with us this challenge she's been having. She even asked us if we'd planned that scripture to share. When we told her no, she said that it was exactly what she needed to hear. I know that the Lord is working through me--and every other missionary in the world--to help his children on the earth through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I had another experience this week that I absolutely loved--Hermana Kenney and I randomly decided to put a whole day aside during the week to just contact and find new people to teach. We chose Friday, and we decided not to plan any citas fijas on that day if we could help it. Before Friday came, however, we found ourselves with seven new people to teach already! That's a pretty good number to have by that time of the week. Anyway, as soon as we started out Friday morning, we got a call from Hermana Jett (the mission nurse) asking if we could hurry to the hospital and stay with an hermana who was going in for surgery later that day. She didn't have a companion, and also didn't want to be alone for the hours leading up to her operation...she was nervous! So Hermana Kenney and I went over to the hospital to be her companions. We spent about four hours with her while she was a little drugged in her hospital bed, just talking with her and singing hymns. I think she really liked us by the end, because she turned to us, and in her druggy-state, said, "you guys are fun." (In Spanish.) In these few hours with this hermana that I'd never met before, I really developed a love for her. When we had to leave at night, we each took her hands and gave them big squeezes and assured her that everything would be fine, that she didn't have to worry. She said thank you about a million times. I learned how just serving and being there for someone is the best way that we can feel Christ-like love for even strangers. I loved that day so much. As we were walking back to our sector, my companion and I were talking about how amazing it is that we just happened to have this whole day wide open, and how the Lord had already blessed us with new people to teach the days before. I know He prepared us to have the time and ability to give this service to one of His other valiant missionaries.

The Lord is in every aspect of the work! I know it. In these six months I have seen so many miracles and I've seen His hand in every one of them. I wish I could put exactly what I want to say in this email, but words can't express how grateful I am to be an instrument in the Lord's hands, and to share this happiness I feel with the people here in Chile.

I feel like this was one of my less-eloquently-written letters...sorry about that! I'm a little tired. BUT HEY. ARE YOU ALL READING THE BOOK OF MORMON? I'm not just talking to my family...I'm talking to everyone reading this letter! Mormon or not! Go read it. Why not? Try it out. I promise your life will be blessed, and you can have a little taste of the happiness I have felt every single day for the last...six months and ten days! 

I LOVE YOU ALL WITH ALL MY HEART. Keep reading and praying and going to church and being AWESOME and also emailing me please!

LOVE, Hermana Thomas!