Week 10 - Battipaglia, 2/16/15

(In response to mom's questions.....)

For my birthday....we had district meeting so the anziani got me a present and then we had ice cream sundays! :) then sorella argyle put 20 reasons she loves me around the house on sticky notes so that was super cool. and we got pizza that night :) it was a good birthday. I could feel heavenly father holding me together so that i didn't miss you guys too much though. that was a big blessing. 

Okay so they do have valentines day except they also have this thing called Carnivale, which is like a happier version of Halloween. Pretty much for the last like 2 weeks and this week too, little kids will come to the center of the city dressed up as princes and princesses, super-heros, and such and then you can buy bags of confetti and silly string and they spray it everywhere and throw it everywhere so the ground is littered with confetti and silly string and then they have special cookies and stuff for Carnivale and ya. Its super cool to see! haha but ya that's been the biggest things that's been going on. Also if you were ever looking to feel comfortable displaying public affection, Italy would be the place to come. haha Valentines day/this weekend we saw a lot of people very comfortably displaying their physical feelings toward each other... haha it was funny. 

(I mentioned we had a lesson on happiness at church and Hailey was sharing her thoughts about happiness.....)

I totally agree with you. I think part of finding happiness in this life is figuring out what brings you joy and finding the Savior in it. Like idk if that makes sense but seeing the beauty in reading harry potter... or in dancing.. or in being at the beach.. or going to the gym and feeling good.. or listening to music and feeling infinite at a concert or whatever it is. I think that Heavnley Father created this world for us to enjoy it and that being happy in it is something that we have to strive for but it is a worthy and beautiful goal and one the Lord will help you with. 

So nothing super crazy happened this week. We got canceled on alot... which was a super big bummer. But one really fun thing we did was we went to this brother and sister less actives who are super old and super sweet and she taught us how to make zeppele which are kind of like doughnuts! but italian style. It was so so fun and we taught her a gospel principles lesson while the dough rose! it was also really funny because the lights went out during the baking process so we finished them by candle light... haha it was an adventure. 

Then you know the woman i told you about who watched joy to the world and who we gave a book of mormon to? well we went to say hello to her and she just started talking to us like we were good friends and then told us that she had been reading the book and that she liked it and she would keep reading and write down questions and that we needed to come back to answer them. she said its important to look for the truth and so thats why im reading it. AHH. how awesome is that!! we are super hoping that she continues to read and lets us come give her an actual lesson one day. We really like her. 

Well those are what happneed this week. 

LOVE YOUR GUTS. 

:) 

Learning to make zeppele!!! (italian donuts)

Week 9 - Battipaglia, 2/9/15

Heres the haps for the week: 

1. We spent 2.5 hours getting lost and taking the wrong buses in salerno to try and find the ex-simp only to miss our appointment with her. So we were discouraged.. to say the least.. but we went down to the pier to do some finding and met this couple who were interested in our message about living prophets and want to meet with us again. Sometimes you get lost for a reason.. :) 

2. Sorella Argyle and I made a goal this week to be better about setting fixed appointments. The people love to say oh ya well get in touch.. or hear from you later.. then we never hear from them.. so this week we worked really hard to do that. Anddd.. it worked! We had alot more appointments! Some people didn't show up to them but the theory behind them is still applicable. It was great. Also we set a super high goal for the amount of less actives we wanted to see and because of this we saw 5 less actives! This was awesome. Our area has alot of less actives because a branch was shut down. So its really great to get to see some of them and we have a few we see every week that we are hoping will start wanting to come back to church. 

3. One of our female investigators came to church! This was AMAZING because this last month or so she just hasn't been able to make it and we really wanted her there! AHH. it was AWESOME to see her walk through those doors. 

4. Its been raining for 3 weeks straight. :O and today it snowed... in Battipaglia.. literally snow. This has been.. an adventure because people already don't really want to stop and talk to us let alone stop and talk to us in the pouring rain.. also one of our members who is crazy is convinced that the rain is the foreshawding of the 2nd coming... so watch out. 

5. You will laugh at this but i think my pre mish self and my mish life have officially collided because i had a dream that one of the general authorities got turned into a zombie and i had to save him. lol

ALSO......Tomorrow i turn 20! What???? This is nuts. 

ALSO......(for those of you who are Friday Night Lights fans)...........
I translated clear eyes full hearts can't loose into italian for you. 
occhii chiari, cuori pieni, no puoi perdere. :) 
phonetically you say it like:
occhee kearee.. quoree peeaanee, non puoee perderay

Week 8 - Battipaglia, 2/2/2015

Well this week was a week of adventure. Awesome things of the week are:

1. We went to Rome for Capi (leader) conference because Sorella Argyle is the Sister Training Leader for the Napoli Zone (yes... she is amazing) and so she had training so I got hang out with Sorella Reber from the MTC because her companion is the sister trainng leader for Rome! 

2. We went to visit this woman who owns a bakery in Battipaglia who since we've got here we wanted to be friends with. So for christmas we gave her a copy of Joy to the World which is like a 30 minute DVD of the nativity with the Mo Tab singing in the backround. So then we didn't really think to much of it but we felt like we should visit her the other day and so we came in to say hi and she and her husband were the only ones in the store and so we started taking and she was like "Oh ya we watched that video you gave us, it was beautiful thank you!" and we were like... Wait you actually watched it?!... haha so then we got talking about the church more and ended up talking about the BOM and the family and they were super interested so we gave them a copy of the BOM and a Proclamation to the family. and thennnnn they gave us the most DELICIOUS dessert i have eaten here in Italy and maybe ever in my life for FREE! We fed them spiritually and they fed us physically and it was fantastic:)

3. Sooo.. we got locked out of our apartment...

We had come home for the day and were grabbing our trash to take downstairs for the garbage man the next day. So our door locks automatically when you close it and usually i have my keys in my pocket.  So we leave and come back and i realize that i do not have my keys and neither does Sorella Argyle... So after the initial panic set in and we said alot of prayers and kicked and wiggled our door as much as possible we realized we were stuck. So then we left to go get assitance from this family we know and so we asked for a screwdriver and tried to take the lock off.. this didn't work. Meanwhile this sweet mom of this family started talking to another one of the neighbors and they're trying to calll our land lord who is out of town. So nothings working so we call the anziani who come over and are trying to jimmy the door open with pamphlets and credit cards and thats not working so then they go upstairs and ask the man who lives above us if they can scale down from his balcony on to ours and hes like... no. (he was being responsible... he told us later haha) but then he comes to help us and then the fire department shows up because the mom downstairs had called the son of our land lord who apprently is part of the fire department. So he comes and the FD spends probably 5-7 minutes trying to open our door with this special paper and there like banging our door till it is like almost breaking and then finally we made it in... AND THEN they leave and we go to check our keys in the door and realize that the lock on the outside is BROKEN. so we are now locked from the inside out of our house because the door locks automatically when you close it. hahaha so we spent the next day locked inside of our house until this hero member from our branch came and replaced our lock

4. We taught our lady investigator the plan of salvation and she said she wanted to believe that families could be together forewever and she could see that we knew/believed it 100%. We promised her that she had the ability to know for herself. This is a beautiful thing about being a missionary and have a testimony of this gospel. You have the power to promise people that they can gain a testimony for themselves of eternal truths and peace bringing principles that this gospel has to offer. 

5. Spiritual Food for Thought:

1 nephi 21:16 

1 nephi 22:25 

Over and over again in the scriptures this week I read about how important we are to the lord. Vs. 16 says we are engraved in his hands. Through the atonement we became a part of him, our stories, our joys, our pains are written on his hands. I love vs. 25 because it just says that he numbers his sheep. I mean you think of things that are important enough to you that you've numbered and kept track of and you are one of those for the lord. He always knows where you are and when you are missing he notices to. He always wants to find you again and bring you back to his pasture. I love this image of finding pasture too because when you think of a pasture you just think tranquil and sunny and prefectly green grass and everything is just peaceful and safe and that's what the Savior's fold/arms has to offer you and thats where he wants you to be. Its just soo comforting and amazing. Love YOu all

Sorella Kennedy :)  

Lots of rain in Battipaglia!

Sister Argyle and I hiding from the rain....she is awesome!!

UMMM.....Ya!  There is some decent food here!

What can i say......sometimes we just get tired.......or locked out;)

We could not have the sign for the church so dirty........

Week 7 - Battipaglia, 1/26/2015

Well we saw some small but pretty cool miracles this week here in Battipaglia. 

1. We were following up on our english course students challenge to answer the questions of the soul while reading the Book of Mormon and we asked who had read the chapter we assigned after and this little kid in our class who is 11 years old shoots his hand up and says, "i did....and proceeds to summarize the beginning of the book of mormon with 

Lehi and his sons." :))))) Then after Anziano (Elder) Trejo went up to him and was like so do you like the Book of Mormon and he was like ya I read a page every day... (this was not the assignment) then Anz. was like well do your parents know that you read it? and he was like ya. and Anz was like well what do they think about it (because most people here do not want their

kids reading the Book of Mormon) and he was like "oh my parents are okay with it we read it together"....(WHAT??). and anz. is like trying not to die of excitement and he's like Oh well what do your paretns think about it? and he was like oh they like it alot to. AHHHH!!! How cool is that?? A whole family is just reading the book of mormon together! So cool! 

2. One of our less actives that we visit is AWESOME. She's just super funny and always makes us laugh. This week she really did make us laugh and maybe cry a little to because as we were talking to her we told her "we want you to read the book of mormon and come to church because we love you" (side note: in italian there are different ways to express love, ti vogliamo bene is like love like for a friend. Amore is romantic love.) okay so we were like la vogliamo bene and then she was like, you americans don't understand that phrase, you don't love me and i don't love you. If you left tomorrow I wouldn't be sad, and went on about this for about 10 minutes. and im sitting there like... are my translation skills really faulty or did something go completly amiss here... haha but then she ended up giving us chocolate and asking us to come back and telling us that the president and our branch mission leader annoy her when they ask her to do things but then she asked us to come back and talk about the book or mormon. SOO. she does love us... even though she won't say it. 

3. I had the most AMAZING hot chocolate ever!! it was litterally like liquid chocolate. wow. that was a miracle of deliciousness. 

4. We ran to the train station at 5:40 in the morning because we had to catch a train to Napoli to help with transfers. So this was just an experience Sorella Argyle and I will never forget of running to the station with our coats on, in skirts, in the dark to the train in battipaglia. We got on and were sweating... haha. it was awesome. kind of ;)

5. We taught the restoration over a bar counter at a restaurant. haha. We were stuck in a town for pranzo so we went to this bar, restaurant to have some pasta and were just casually eating and like you know not even really saying much and then we get up to leave and this woman who is working there is like who are you.. and so we tell her and then we walk over to the bar and she tells us you've caused a bit of chaos here, people keep asking us who you are. so then we like taught a brief restoration lesson over the counter of this bar and gave her a mormon.org card. haha its interesting that people noticed us just by our tags and just our presence. That was awesome. 

6. We had 3 less actives come to church!!! Just of their own free will! We had been working with them in other ways like the Book of Mormon, but then they just showed up to church!! AHHH. One of them was the woman who told us she didn't love us... haha. :) We were seriously so blown away and so grateful to the Lord for helping them come to church. 

Thats it for this week!

Ti Vogliamo Bene :)

Sorella Kennedy 

Week 6 - Battipaglia, 1/19/2015

Well this week consisted of alot of finding! We also went to Pozzuoli to do exchanges with the other Sorelle (sisters) in the Napoli zone! That was super neat. Pozzuoli is BEAUTIFUL. 

Highlights:

Most cities in our mission of an English course where for free the missionaries will teach English. So here in Battipaglia we are known for having a very small class who has been coming for 4\5 years; all of them. They know all about the church and have been taught the lessons. We have been trying to find some new people and this week our prayers were answered. On Tuesday like 10 new people showed up including a whole family and then like 6 Young Single Adults. It was awesome and they are so nice. 

Side note. (it is amazing to see how the Lord blesses us in ways we do not expect but that help Him fulfill his purposes. Sorella Argyle and I are doing alot of finding and so we've been pryaing to be more bold. When I started praying for this I imagined that it would just be help in being braver talking to people on the streets or speaking more italian, but that is not quite what the Lord had in mind for our increase in courage:) !

Okay so in English Class we give spiritual thoughts and Thursday we were in charge so we wanted to do something super cool because we have so many new people and we just felt like we should really do something more than just share a scripture. Soo... in Preach My Gospel there is this section that talks about how the BOM answers questions of the soul and then it lists all these questions with corresponding scriptures.  So we decided, being a new year and a new EC that we would give an introduction to the BOM and then help them answer one of these questions to the soul every week. Ahh. Okay so we made snickerdoodles to soften their hearts a little bit :) and brought a bunch of copies of the BOM for them. So 1st we wrote on the board "is there a God" and then I started and said what the BOM was and then Sorella Argyle talked about how it has the power to answer questions of the soul such as the one on the board. Then we invited them to take a copy of the BOM and look to see the answer or wait until next class when we would answer the question with the book. Then we each testified of the BOM and its truthfulness and its power. The spirit was so strong. So afterwards we had 5 people come up and take a BOM! 3 of them asked specifically where to read to find the answers and one of them said he wanted to come to church. 

The Lord answered our pleas to be more bold but in a different time and setting then we had anticipated. It was scary to be so straight forward with so many people. Would they not come back? Would it be to much? But the Lord gave us the courage to be bold and helped us testify with the spirit so these people could feel that there really are answers in the BOM. 

We had some pretty neat experiences during finding this week. Its hard to explain but I truly can testify that the Lord knows his children and knows where they are. We ran into this woman and after talking to her it was just purely the power of God that brought us together at that moment and in that time. She needed the message of the peace and comfort of the Plan of Salvation and that God loves her and knows her. It was crazy to hear her story and see the pain and ache in her eyes and know that we have the power to help her come unto Christ and to know him and to be healed by his Atonement. AHH. The knowledge of this gospel is SUCH a blessing. TRULY. 

Hope all is well!

Love

Sorella Kennedy 

 haha! okay so that sign in the photo said that the people downstairs should close the door so that unwanted visitors did not come door to door... aka us and the jehovas witnesses... but we were doing it anyways... haha it made us laugh. 

Passalong card on the railroad track :/ 

These pictures of the coast are the view from the church in Pozzuoli. it is INCREDIBLE! 

Week 5 - Battipaglia, 1/12/2015

We had some pretty cool experiences this week!! Here are some highlights. 

The time our branch sang in a Catholic Church

So there is this man who comes to our little branch here in Battipaglia just to play the organ. He is very catholic but heard that Brigham Young let some catholics who were opening a mission in Salt Lake use a room in the Mormon tabernacle while they had nowhere else to go and so to show his gratitude for this act he plays the organ in sacrament meeting every week. Then once a year he invites us to come sing with him in his church. So ya that was super cool! He is a really neat man. We (the branch) went and sang our little hearts out with an organist, a guitarist and a piccolo player in a catholic church. Our investigator came with us to and we got to eat dessert and mingle with all the catholic choir people and it was super cool to see our branch and this church be good friends and you could see that it really meant a lot to him that we all came. 

We learned the amazing impact of preparation. 

So we were walking to a town nearby called Belizzi to try and find some less actives in our branch but didn't realize how far away it was and so we walked really far and then had to turn around because we had another appointment. But the whole time Sorella Argyle and I were roleplaying the restoration because we were going to teach it to our new investigator that night and then later when we went to teach it I was able to actually teach some of the doctrines of the lesson and able to bear part of my testimony because we had been practicing all day. It was a super powerful lesson and the most i'd ever spoken during a lesson. In the end she even agreed to be baptized if she received an answer that it was true. WOO. She also came to church again this week. She is a really neat, kind, loving woman. But anyway....it was amazing to feel the difference practicing so much had made even though it was tedious. I was able to listen to the spirit more because I wasn't worrying so much about what I was trying to say. 

Funny Story of the week:

We stopped (held up) a train!!! So we were getting off this train and none of the doors were opening and we had to get off because we were going to teach a family and so I hop through this door at the last minute and Sorella Argyle is still on and the door closes!! So i'm like pulling on the door and shes pulling on the door and we can't open it. So i'm like standing there and then the conductor's yelling at me to move so the train can leave and i'm trying to explain to him in Italian that she's my companion and then he's starts motioning me to have her come through his door (which is the only one that is still open) and so she's running through the cabins and I'm running on the outside and people are just staring at us and then finally we reached the open door and all was well. But moral of the story was we held up an entire train. But also talk about blessings that we had a nice conductor because otherwise we would have been seperated and that would have been a disaster....haha

So ya those are the highlights of the week! These next couple of weeks are going to consist of ALOT of finding. We have exhausted our area book and we just need new people. We are praying for strength and courage in speech to find those that the lord has prepared to hear us. 

Thanks for everything! 

Also shoutout to the Westpark ward for my wonderful package!! Seriously you guys ROCK!!! It was exactly what i needed. 

Love,
Sorella Kennedy 

SPONGEBOB!!!!!

So happy to receive all of these Christmas cards!! You guys are awesome!!  

Week 4 Battipaglia, 1/5/2015

So this week was seriously a week of miracles. Day after day we saw so many blessings from the Lord. 

1. Last monday we had been finding in Salerno and could not talk to anyone... seriously what a pain. So then on our way back there was this woman sitting on a bench smoking and I was like im going to go talk to her... So we went up and I was like "hey we're missionaries and we want to share a message about Christ and the restored gospel and then she was like oh okay tell me more...and i was literally so stunned I didn't know what else to say because that hadn't ever happened and then Sorella Argyle took over and taught like a brief 1 minute summary of the restoration. IT WAS AWESOME! 

2. On New Year's we did deep cleaning. After we were done our power went out... and then we thought it was the whole building and we couldnt get it to come back on so we waited for like 1.5 hour and then it still wasn't on so then we went over to our land lord, who is crazy, and realized that the power was out in just our apartment... (strange) and so then she helped us fix it and then she invited us (forced us) in to eat cake. So we go inside and then her son and his family are there and his wife started asking questions about the church and we taught a whole restoration lesson right there!! Like totally crazy and she said she wanted a Book of Mormon and then we were like okay we'll go get one right now... and then she said she wanted to meet with us again sometime!! THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. So were pretty sure our power went out so that we could go and meet her. :) 

3. January 2nd was a whole day of miracles. 

A while ago we called this old simpatizzante in the area book and asked if she was interested anymore. She said she was but was busy at the moment. Then early this week she texted us and was like hey can I pick you up on friday and you can come teach me? and we're like ya! So then this morning she texted us and was like could you come at like 3, I want my husband to be home so that you can teach him too. And we were like uh ya!..... we'll be there whenever you want! Then she texted us again like an hour later and was like "oh ya.. my moms going to be there too".. and i quote "we are really excited to listen to you". Ya.... just let that sink in for a moment.. WHAT?!!! We were freaking out. So we went over there and the husband ended up being busy but we talked to her and the mom and then the mom had to leave so we talked to her and she was just amazing. She LOVES Christ. Seriously loves him and was super interested in the church. She said that she would read the Book of Mormon and then ...... Sorella Argyle asked her if she received an answer if this church was true if she would be baptized and she said...YES. AHHHHHHH. So we are meeting with her again when she gets back from a trip she is going on to Milan to take a test for school. 

4. We have been working really hard on a ward mission plan to help get the members excited about referrals and so we went to present it to the ward mission leader and he said it was awesome!!!! We were stoked because he is kind of intimidating and he liked it!! :)

5. Saturday night we did this thing called Jesso with the Anziani where someone draws something in the plazza like the plan of salvation or tree of life and then while people are gathered around it we talk to them about the gospel. So we did this and I was sooooo scared because I knew I was going to have to talk to people on my own... in italian... about the church. yikes. But i had started my fast for sunday for help with the language and I had prayed alot. So we went and the first person I tried to talk had been watching us for like 10 minutes, but when I starteed talking she didn't understand a lick of what i was saying.. lol. So then I invited Anizano Tingey to come talk more and she ended up giving him her address so she could meet with them!! Then after that the more I talked too, the better it got. I ended up talking to this father of a family and he and his wife seemed interested and then he gave me their  number so we could call them and meet with them. WHAT. That was soooooo coool. I ended up having full conversations with 8 people, which was Huge and SUCH a blessing... actually more of a miracle. ;) 

6. Alright last miracle... but its the craziest. So we are going about our chruch business as usual and then 2nd hour this lady just showed up and was like I wanted to come to church today, I live across the street. :O (thats a gasping emoji) So we ended up teaching a whole gospel principles class because the anziani had 2 investigators at church and we had 1... Whoa! Then she went through sacrament meeting which was really nice and then we asked if we could come meet with her later this week and she was like yes, how about today? and we were like uhhh... yes. of course. So we went over at 6 and talked to her and she is just a super neat lady. She is a beautiful painter. She said that she had been wanting to come to our church for years and this morning she just plucked up the courage and went. She said that she just feels as though something has been missing in her life and she wants to find it. We ended up teaching her how to pray and then about the book of mormon and she agreed to pray and read the introduction and we asked if we could meet with her again later this week and she said YES! and shes coming to our branch activity tomorrow!! WOOOOOO. what a blessing. 

Other lesser but still miraculous events:

It snowed in battipaglia... THIS NEVER HAPPENS. In fact when we got here all of our english course students said that it never does. False. There was snow. 

We were doing tracting one day and we felt like we should try using geneology as an approach.. so we rang one door bell and said we had a message about geneology and it worked!! She said we could come back at least.. then we found a woman on the street who wanted our number for geneology!! 

We called 38 people one night. 8 of them answered. you can judge which part of this was a miracle. 

We have reorganized the area book because it was a mess. But we have been reading scedas (information of old simps less actives, etc.) and it is amazing the love that I feel for these people I don't even know!! Heavenly father and Christ loves them SOO much. I just want to contact them all and tell them. It is such a privilage to get to feel a piece of gods love for his children because it truly is infinite!! 

Anyways that was the week. 

Lots of Love,

Sorella Kennedy 

Christmas Letter for the family (cousins) 12/29/2014

Hello Family!

Ciao! I just wanted to take a minute and send a special Christmas letter. I want you all to know how much I love you. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family in my life. I really appreciate everyones emails and updates. Its super great for me to hear everything and to still feel important. haha

To all my cousins:

I love you guys! i hope you are having an awesome break outside of school and that school is going well. You are all so amazing and I sure missed seeing you this christmas! 

Spiritual Thought for the day:

Alma 43:19,20 

The lamanites and Nephites are going into battle. The lamanites come in thinking they are so brave and strong and there are so many of them that this battle is going to be a piece of cake. Then Moroni and the Nephites march over the hill small but decked out head to toe in armor and they win the battle. This is very similar to how we as LDS need to be. We wake up every morning and must put on our armor! We cannot be naive like the lamanites who thought they could do it by their own strength alone! NO! Would a wise soldier ever go into battle without his armor? NO! and neither should we. We must learn to rely on the lord and take the steps necessary to put on our armor. Pray, Read our scriptures, be nice to our siblings and our parents, ask the lord for help in whatever you are doing. Part of you armor is your family! Never forget it. Moroni (the greatest captain, the strongest dude) asks the prophet for military help! He doesn't pull a "lamanite" and think he can do it alone, but turns to someone who knows alot, is wise, and intune with the spirit. Don't think you have to fight the battle without armor. You've got your family, your friends, the scriputres, and best of all the Lord. He won't leave you unprotected. 

I love you all so much!!! Merry Merry Christmas! 

Love,

Sorella Kennedy 

Week 3 Battipaglia, 12/29/2014

Merry Christmas!! Here are the haps of the week:

One day me and Sorella Argyle had been practicing roleplaying the restoration to one another during companionship study.. that night we were on a train and started talking to this really sweet girl and we ended up teaching her the whole restoration lesson in like 10 minutes just like we did when we practiced. I even said the 1st vision!! super cool. So crazy how the lord prepares you for people and you don't even realize it! 

There is this family in Battipaglia who has been investigating the church for a long time. One of the sisters is totally active, the father is inactive, and the 2 younger sisters, one is 21 and one is 19 come to english course and have taken the discussions but are not baptized, (yet) :) so the sister that is 19, rosela, is a dancer and she invited us to her dance recital but we couldn't come so instead we brought flowers for her for afterwards!! It was awesome. Their whole family wanted to take pictures with us and it was just super sweet and you could tell that it meant alot for her. 

We had District Meeting and the Zone leaders came and so that was super cool and just got me and Sorella Argyle all fired up to try and help our small branch grow. There is just so much to do! haha, we are really hoping we can find ways to help members grow stronger and become more unified so that if we find people that want to be baptized then they can come and feel loved and welcomed and they will stay active! We also talked about how finding is an act of obedience and faith. I had never really thought about it like this but it really changed Sorella Argyle's and my perspective on going finding and how even if we don't talk to anyone or no one listens to us we are doing what we are supposed to be doing and showing the Lord that we are putting ourselves out there so the Lord knows we are ready. 

Sorella Argyle taught me how to approach people on the streets so we went and did finding in the next door city called Belizzi and I approached 3-4 people and they took pass along cards and one even gave us her number!! WOO. That was super phenomenal. 

Christmas Eve day:

We went up to Napoli to go caroling with the rest of the zone. This was so so fun and it was just super neat to see how the spirit of the hymns stopped people on the streets. They would just stop and listen to us sing and alot of them talked to the Anziani (elders) about the church and some where taking pictures... but you could just feel this spirit of calm around the missionaries away from the hustle and bustle of the people shopping. Then... we had a secret santa exchange and one of the zone leaders gets up and says "i dont know alot about gift giving but ive been taught to just get what you would want someone to get for you, so Sister Kennedy here you go" and I'm like thinking "what in the world could this be?"... I open it and it is.....wait for it.....Nunchucks!!!!! hahahahahaha Yes!! like legitment nunchucks!....and everyone was just dying laughing...and it was just so funny.  So now i have nunchucks :) 

Christmas Day:

We made breakfast burritos!! It was delicious. Then Carrie this woman from California in our branch, invited us over for dinner but then asked us come over early to watch our 2 movies (we were given permission to watch 2 movies from the president on Christmas) with her son. So we got to go over there and watched Malificent and Frozen!! Woooo. Then we had dinner and it was just the best and we played games with her family and then walked down to the beach by her house and it was so great to feel apart of a family and to feel not so lonely on christmas away from my own family. Seriously the biggest blessing. 

Other than that the only other highlight was yesterday we made CINNAMON ROLLS. They were seriously DELICIOUS, like almost as good as my moms. AMAZING. Then we went and did casa to casa (tracting, knocking door to door) in the rain and I just felt so hard core haha like a legit missionary. 

Overall this week was just great. A huge blessing and i just feel a strong resolve to try and talk to as many people as I can. I'm not very good at talking so this is scary... but i feel very strong that the Lord just wants us to open our mouths and if people are ready they will hear the spirit. 

I miss and love everyone!!!
love,
Sorella Kennedy 

Week 2 Battipaglia, 12/22/2014

First Companion in Italy, Sister Argyle

Week two, just chilling here in the little town of Battipaglia! I actually feel much better than I expected I would. Sometimes I feel really achy in my heart because I miss you guys but I feel very peaceful, like I just know in my bones that this is where I'm supposed to be; which is a huge blessing and comfort because it keeps me grounded and not so anxious about not knowing what anyone is saying or about not being with you. 
This week was LONG. Seriously haha. There is little to no work here in Battipaglia so the days consist of a lot of walking and little to no success. My trainer said that the first few weeks feel really long and then getting blown in (this means that they are both new to the area and no previous missionaries remain) is even worse. So thats been really hard...I have missed you guys a really really lot this week. Its been hard and sad for me. But I read the letters you wrote me all the time and the ones I keep in my secret jacket pocket when I am sad.
Its pretty hard and scary sometimes. You feel very small. But I carry you guys with me everywhere I go. In fact I know that that has been something heavenly father has blessed me with because I can feel you guys with me alot of the time and whenever we travel places or go somewhere and my heart misses you guys I can feel you with me and makes the ache a little less. 
Miracle of the week was that we spent like 2 days making goodie bags for our ward and less actives because theres only like 13 active people so we figured it would be a good way to get referals, let the ward know we care and such. So we had had no success all week. No one wanted to see us. None of the old simps of the old investigators wanted to see us. nada. So we started our fast and then we set off to go deliver our first batch of treats. We went to the first woman who was active and she gave us a referal without us even asking. That was crazy. Then we went and visited and moral of the story is we got let in to 2 less active's houses and they want us to come back and we shared a spiritual thought with them. IT WAS A MIRACLE. Seriously! I prayed and prayed "thank you" to the Lord because I really needed that.

My apartment is... nice... haha the sorellae before did not clean well...like at all...so we are constantly cleaning trying to get it less yucky... but we did some serious mopping and disenfecting today and that helped ALOT. The weather is good; kinda of cold and today its thunder-storming. But its so beautiful and sick... like i love it. My companion is sweet. She's kind of quiet and introverted but is super neat when she starts talking and shes really loving and smart and just good. She's really cool. 
[asked how are the mission presidents....her response] 

The waddoups are funny, super laughing and joking and kind. They're kind of intimidating but they care alot about the work and about the missionaries which is awesome.