Hope all is well!

Hey, how are you guys? I'm sure you are all fine and working hard. I hope the fires have died down. Praying for some serious rain. 

This week consisted of hard work, sun, and business as usual. I forgot to say last week that the police here in Pernambuco went on strike for 2 days!  Seriously. So we didn't go out much and some stores got robbed. Anyway we are safe and sound. I got Aunt Jeanine's package! Thanks so much! I haven't gotten the one mom and Renee sent yet. But I should get it tomorrow during our District Meeting. 

Hmmm what else? This week was awesome especially when we went to Pirituba. It's a tiny town in our area that is super far and up in the hills. We take this "bus" which is a pickup and sit in the back of it loaded with about 9 people. Super funny but not really. Anyway, the view going up is so nice. There are so many banana farms and green hillsides. We went there to visit a recent convert Rodrigo and his sister Karina who is now an investigator. She totally felt the spirit our first lesson with her and started crying with joy. She wants to join the church and she has a bakery (where we teach her) and she will try to close it on Sunday's! So awesome! Please pray for her so that she can start going to church and be baptized!! 

I love you all so much and I am so thankful to be here serving the Lord and his people. The mission is seriously the best experience I could ever have imagined and there will always be struggles and exhaustion but I have learned that when we focus on the the good motives to do something, it makes the world of difference.  

<3 Elder Kennedy

Craziness in SD

Well, I hope you guys are all right and the fires are dying down. That is super scary. I really hope it wasn't arsonist's that started this madness. 

Anyway, yeah so my companion is super cool from Brasilia. He has one year left on the mission and I saw him be "born" on the mission. He was in my first district. We are good buddies and ready to do work here in Maués! We are trying to work with a few investigators that have a ton of potential. Please pray for Leninha and Fernanda!!! We are going all out trying to work with the members and have regular meetings with the Branch President. 

This week was hard. I had to remember where all the investigators and members lived and had deal with the hot hot sun. It was a gnarly week but we are being super blessed with success and great investigators. It was super awesome to Skype you all and i'm working my butt off to get those blessings when I come home and spend time with the family. 

There is a recent convert here, Antonio; he is hilarious I think he has some social disorder. Anyway we were helping him gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He has been a bit depressed because he wants to have a good solid job and he wants a wife haha, so we were reading some parts in the Book of Mormon for him to be corajoso courageous? We read Ether 12:27 and Alma 17 & 18, with Amon slaying the flocks and gaining the King's confidence. Everything he did was to the amazement of King Lamoni. Anyway, Antonio loved it and blurted out some complimentary bad words. We are working on that ;-) But he reads the Book of Mormon everyday and says it's helping him be more confident and find a good job.

I love you all so much! The Lord is truly hastening his work and it's so awesome to hear the stories of missionary work in our home stake.

Love you, 

Elder Kennedy

Get to see you soon!

All right family. So here is the problem: I don't know what time i'll be able to skype or even where my companion and I are going to skype from (both of us are super new in the area). But, I will skype you guys on Mothers day if it's the last thing I do. It's also complicated because all of you guys have different things going on at different times. I'll probably have to skype like muito tarde, late afternoonish. But it'll work out.

Maués - Yeah my branch is super sick! And this area is totally ripe for the plucking! We have some amazing investigators and I am stoked to continue teaching them the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray for Sergio, Erika, Bete, Eurildes, Betánia, and Luana. Gente boa!

So this week I am getting to know my area better, it's been a tad bit hard because of all the rain. It seriously rained 5/6 days that i've been here. But i'm digging the cold weather. This week we went to a nice rodígio grill, ate some dank meat! The city here is pretty well organized, especially the center. It is super old and pleasant. You can tell where the city started and then kept expanding leaving the center. The only thing that stinks is everything is super far from our house. We have to walk 45 min to get to the church building, and about the same to get to our almoço. Anyway, so stoked I get to talk to everyone on Mothers day and I hope you guys have a great week. Awesome that Joe's mom is there and that she had a nice b-day.

Keep up the good missionary work, I know the Lord will ALWAYS bless us with missionary opportunities. We just have to open our eyes!

Love ya,

Elder Kennedy