Week 4 MTC

The more I've been here the more I feel like it is a privilege that I got to be here. This is such sacred work, to be a missionary. You get to experience a piece of what Christ did. Just like being a mother is sacred, so is being a missionary. You get to have the power of God behind you to bring people Salvation, and ultimate happiness with their families forever!!  Such a joyous beautiful thing.

The language is coming slowly but surely. We only speak Italian in class now, which is hard, but it pushes us to think more in Italian. Before we could answer in English or ask questions in English but now only Italian. Its hard and scary. I am so excited for Christmas in ROME. I can't even believe it!!! AHHh. I'm sooo excited to leave but also scared. But I think it will be nice because I think time will pass quicker and I'll get to see the fruits of why I'm here more.

I leave for Rome in 2 weeks. I get my travel plans I think this Friday. 

Something cool…I started doing this thing with some of the other sisters in the zone and the anziani (elders)...We have this track we run around and 10 laps is a mile. So you have a partner and then you have another set of partners and you run a lap and then while the other pair is running you are doing sit-ups or wall sits or planking while the others are running the lap so its like a relay and you’re sprinting around the track. I did that 2x this week and we did 16 running laps!! it was so hard but it was soooooo good.:) 

This week was a lot of Studying!!  Nothing too crazy to report. I did join the Choir though!! We got to sing for Dallin H. Oaks because he came and spoke to us on Tuesday! So that was super cool! Then we get to be in the choir for thanksgiving and were singing Come Thou Fount and we think there’s gonna be a REALLY big speaker coming in because they’re making a super big deal about it. 

Something coool that I've been thinking about stemmed from a scripture that my companion shared with me from Mosiah 20:11

11 And it came to pass that the people of Limhi began to drive the Lamanites before them; yet they were not half so numerous as the Lamanites. But they fought for their lives, and for their wives, and for their children; therefore they exerted themselves and like dragons did they fight.

This scripture was seriously just so empowering!! Its just like missionaries. We are not as numerous as the opposing team but we are fighting for the lives of those we love (because I already love those people in Italy) and we’re fighting for people’s families and for truth and righteousness and with the Lord on our team we can fight like DRAGONS. Booo- yaaaa. 

The lord really does help us become real life superheroes. We are small and just individuals who have a desire to do good and then we get the power of the Lord behind us and we can do ANYTHING. It's like when Spiderman is almost going to get killled by the green goblin or Superman is encased in kryptonite. They always use their last bit of strength to come through. When we’re in life and we are fighting are hardest and we are at our lowest and we don't know if we can keep going the Lord will give us our extra bit of strength to push through. He is our superpower and we are the justice league of missionaries. :)

Anyway... sorry nothing too exciting this week! 

Love you, 

Sorella Kennedy. 

Hey! So we had a pretty awesome day today! let me tell you why....So we had this thing called TRC, which is where we teach real life members of the church that are italian that have come to the MTC as volunteers.  I was so nervous cuz these people actually speak italian and we didn't know anything about them, we just had to prepare a 20 minute  lesson and teach  So I kept thinking that  we needed to teach about how we can find answers to questions we have in the scriptures. So I told Sorella Reber and she was like "sure"! So we planned and prepared for that and we went in and this guy was speaking Italian so fast I think I understood 1 of every 30 words he said. He was telling us this whole schpeal, I had very little idea what it was about, but i felt like I needed to share with him that before the MTC I hadn't really studied the Book of Mormon and hadn't really felt like could connect to it.  But since being here I could testify that  you can find answers to the questions you have when you  read them[scriptures] and that they[scriptures] are truly the words of the prophets of God.  The spirit was so strong and then we challenged him to read with a question in his heart and faith to receive an answer  and he was like I will! So then when we got out, Sorella Reber who understands more than me, said that he had been wondering if he should serve a mission and he knew the church was true but wasn't really all that excited about it.  That was my story too!!  Ahhh!.....It was all the spirit! so so cool.

The second spiritual moment of the day was we were going into teach our investigator Keyla (aka one of our teachers) and we had planned to teach her the plano disalvezzi (aka the plan of salvation) We literally had been planning this lesson for like 3 days and we walked in and started talking to her and she was like "does God answer prayers and does God help us know what to do with big decisions?" and immediately I knew we were not supposed to teach the plan of salvation, we needed to testify of the Book of Mormon and that God answers prayers! So we taught the first lesson about joseph Smith and how he received an answer from his prayer and we can do the same! The spirit was Multo Forte (very powerful). Sorella Reber and I were just so in sync. I asked about the B of M and Sorella new exactly where the lesson needed to go.  It was awesome.  Our investigator started crying! It was a beautiful thing.  Other fun note....we taught another teacher today at the TRC and he saw our last investigator later after we had taught her and she said our lesson really touched her and that we were so prepared and she was so happy we taught her b/c what we had to say really touched her - So pretty much today was a spiritually giant day.  The Lord was hard at work.  

Another note.....it started snowing in utah today WHOA!!! It's so pretty but so cold.  

Heyyyyy!!! 

So some stories from this week. 

We have an investigator named keyla... she's 17 yyears old and we've been teaching her for about a week. For one of our lessons I was in charge of teaching about how the gospel blesses families, joseph smith became a prophet, and the apsotasy. this was alot for me and i was really nervous but i wrote out all that i was going to say and then when i got in there i remembered all of it!!! it was like 8-10 sentences of correct grammar and everything! wooooO!!! i even was able to add some more things in there. total miracle and blessing. the spirit was so strong. then at the end of that lesson, i had been memorizing the invitation to be baptized and sorella reber and i had talked about asking her at the end.. so when we were almost done i asked her and she said yes!!!!!! WOWOWOW!! she's not even a real investigator and sorella and i were so happy!!! imagine what it will be like when they are real people. ahh amazing. 

We heard a cool quote this week from elder bednar.. it went something like this " you have been called to serve in the language that you can best testify in." haha i was like oh boy... okay. idk it gave me some confidence to know that. 

We do this thing on sunday where before relief society we watch this broadcast from the mo tab thats like a message and then just 30 minutes of singing which is awesome because by the time sunday comes i feel so music deprived i just wanna scream. So anyways Kennedy family will appreciate this because i sure as heck did. the whole message was on how introverts are important to the work of the church!!! HOLLLLAAAAAA. Literally they spent 10 minutes talking about how introverts have important things to offer and even though they may not meet a million people and talk to hundreds they work deeply and steadly person by person and they are critical to this work. WOOOOOO. 

I gotta go on a testimony rant real quick. Since I've been here the importance of the book of mormon has blown my mind. THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE. When you sit down and pray and then read the scriptures.. you WILL find answers to the questions of you're heart. The scriptures are written for each of us. You find comfort, love, inspiration, guidance, and peace when you read the words of the prophets. It is such a blessing. If you are alone or scared or need to remember that someone loves you or that we are a gospel of christ read the book of mormon. You're questions will be answered and you're hearts will be full of peace. 

Something else i've really felt this week is the honor and blessing it is to be a missionary. It really and truly is a privilege. I look at myself, this small, young, insignificant person in the world, and the lord has entrusted me with his most important work. We have the opportunity to be like unto christ, to be doing what he would be doing on this earth right now if he was here, teaching, loving, and serving. What a honor. We heard this cool thing from Elder Holland about work of missionaries and it just made it feel like we have such a beautiful opprotunity to share an experience with christ. we get to bring people unto our father in heaven, make them feel loved, help them realize they can be forgiven and free of guilt and pain. So amazing!!!!! 

last story.. this was pretty freaking cool. So we were talking again to our investigator Keyla. We were talking about repentence because she said she had cheated on a test this week and felt bad about it. So i kept feeling the whole time sister reber was going off in italian that i needed to talk about how repentence is a two step process... both repenting to god and repenting to the people we've wronged. so i quickly looked up in our magic book of vocab how to say this one thing and then i started talking and i can't even tell you what exactly i said but she understood all of it and you could see in her face and feel in the room that that was the last piece of the puzzle she needed. she responded and understood everything i said. then when we finished sister reber said she didn't even understand anything i said!!! whoa. the language of the spirit was working hard. it is crazy how much can be communicated just through the holy ghost. pretty amazing. 

Side note: I run 2 miles every day!!!!! how crazy is that. i actually love it tho because we literally sit for 9 hours a day and then we can't listen to music when we work out so the least boring thing to do is run,. 

Love you a million 

hailey 

week 2 MTC

This week I did not get a traditional letter from Hailey.  We basically just tried to type to one another during her hour on the internet.  It was eventful for her.  She got to call me twice which was nice.  She went to the ER with abdominal pain but was ok. We were all happy cuz she got a phone call out of it and a follow up phone call after her dr. appointment.  Tender mercy right there.   She is feeling a lot better and stronger this week.  She has had some great experiences with her companion as well.  Sorry there is not more but this is a little snippet of things we talked about.  
From hailey:

"I started forming sentences yesterday!! that was super cool! there probably only 60% correct but hey... its better than before. Also i can usually translate things but cant form them fast enough in my head or say them.. latin has ruined me.. hahaha

I feel much happier this week... like everything is alright and i feel good in this work. i just felt like hailey... if you don't start finding some joy you're just gonna be sad and this is gonna be really hard... harder than it already is. but when i walked into the celestial room there was this picture of the savior with his arms opened wide like he was welcoming you into a hug and i heard this voice in my head say."You are not alone." over and over. just whispering it to me. i could feel frau, i could feel james, and i could feel you and dad and noah there too. it was pretty incredible. it's what got me through this last week."

Week 1 Missionary Training Center, Provo

And so it begins!!

Hermana Huiskin from back home

Elder Calhoun (the tall one) an friend who used to live in irvine

My first companion Sorella Reber!!

Ciao!!!
So The MTC is CRAZY town. I pretty much feel overwhelmed (soprafrato) all the time. But let me give you the run down of the week.
In general:
My companions name is Sorella Reber!! This is the girl i met at the airport! what are the odds. She is super funny. She got there the first day and was all "Ive been waiting months for this moment and this is the best place in the world and everything" and i'm all "uh... i hope i can finish the day... haha" But shes good. It's also hard because she came in having taken 2 years of italian at BYU! ahhhh. so i'm soooooo behind her and she came in the first day speaking full sentences and everything. So i pretty much constantly feel behind and inadequate compared to her because she is always speaking in italian and i can barely say a full sentence. In our district there are 4 companionships. 2 sets of girls and 2 sets of boy. The boys are all babies... haha fresh out of high school. but they are very sweet and have such good hearts. the other girls are AWESOME. it is interesting to see how we all work together at the district. ONe of the other girls is from Mexico! she is so awesome and sweet. I love her. she hugs me everyday which is nice because sometimes i just need that. The other girl is from utah and is so sweet and bright and is like sunshine. Its already freezing here... welcome to Utah. lol. and then the food has been okay so far - we get to go to the gym twice a day! so thats been great.

Day 1
me and sister reber got lost. which was pretty hilarious... we were like wandering around hopelesss. I realized there is no hope for me without the Lord. Seriously.... i was so scared and felt so lost. Our teacher ONLY speaks in italian. like it took me 3 days to even kind of understand what he was saying.

Day 2 First full day
we have 3 3 hour blocks of study time. Normally the first one is with our teacher Fratello Knutson, then we have 1 where we study and teach our investigator, then another one of just study. ill tell more about our investigator later. Literally the teaching style here is like let me throw you into this and hope you catch 3% of what im teaching. My companion got made a sister training leader. classic. I knew she would.
There is so much new information i literally just sit and am pretty quiet because my brain is just on hyperoverload. seriously. like theres so much gospel information and then youre learning an entire new language and your jsut like this is BONKERS.

Day 3
highlight is we taught our first investigator today.
that was sooooo scary. luckily sorella reber speaks full sentences but we went in with no notes, and so i just bore a very simple testimony, consisting of about 3 sentences that had almost all the same words in them. However the spirit really is the teacher!! the spirit was so strong in the room and the investigators like whole countence changed while i was speaking. also she kept saying this word dolor over and over and i knew it because of LATIN. and sorella reber had no idea what it meant so that was pretty awesome.

Okay i'm just going to go through highlights now because i want to talk to you guys.
we taught for an hour the next time we taught our investigator that was crazy!!!
The letters that you wrote me and stuck in my suitcase, i open one every mnight and they have been seriously inspired. every doubt i had was answered in those letters. they're like treasure.
I'm very serious about studying because theres so much to learn and my district is always laughing. it drives me crazy.... but i just chuckle and keep studying
Sunday we had testimony meeting and it was AWESOME. i bore my testimony on this analogy i thought of about why heavenly father loves his missionaries. I'll send it in a sec.

I get so frustrated all the time because when we're speaking to the investigators i have all of these thoughts and feelings that I want to say but i literally can't say them. its the most infuriating thing. I feel so small and inadequate all the time. but i can also feel the lord helping me and guiding me. there were many times where i thought... if days are this long and hard.. the mission is never going to end, i don't know how to do this. but when i picture being anywhere else but here i know that is not the right answer. I love this gospel and i love the lord.

I love your dear elders. please keep sending them to me. every day they make me so happy.
anyways. i miss you guys all the time everyday. i have a constant stream of things i'm telling you going in my head.

also you can't listen to music in the MTC and that is pretty much the worst thing ever ever ever ever. like my heart aches to listen to music all the time. 

my companion is so funny. she told me today her life dream is to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. i was like oh boy.. 

shes good for me though because i often sit in like this place of quiet anxiety and im not the bubbly bouncing off the walls missionary like she is so we balance each other out. but we both have good things to say and she appreciates me so we support each other. 

i miss you guys so much. seriously. like on a spirit to spirit level. my spirit aches to feel your spirit. i love you guys so much. 

the cool part about this place, although it is bone crazy and there is so much that is scary, the spirit is strong. I've learned to get answers in the scriptures and i can already pray and say a little of my testimony in Italian. i read the scriptures every mornign and i pray probably 1000 times a day. but its good because i need the strength and the lord is here for me.