Well the last few weeks have been a blur. Morgan Park has definitely lived up to its reputation. It's been so much fun, so crazy, so stressful, and so exhausting but I love it!! The majority of my time has been spent by doing stop bys for Bible referrals. We get quite a few of those. The sisters before us we covering 2 wards so they had their hands full! They didn't get around to doing many of the referrals. When I got here there were a little more than 80 to do so that's been really fun for us. All of these lessons are practically already set up for us, as long as they keep their appointments. We've got to meet a lot of sweet people and lots of amazing people with some crazy life experience. We've gone to some sketchy areas and almost been eaten by some scary dogs. We get lost about 10 times a day and we turn down at least 2 one way streets a day!! It has been so much fun!! My favorite part though is driving down the street in some of the neighborhoods with the windows rolled down waving. Everyone takes a double take! They never thought they'd see a couple of girls like us rolling down their street! It is honesty the best!! Ok enough about the craziness of this area and on to some of the amazing people I've been able to meet here.
Ok so Luis is a member that we meet with each week, and we were going over the restoration with him this week and as we got to the Joseph Smith story, he was like “girls I know this part”, so we told him that it was his turn to teach us. This is in his words (in the most sincere tone), “my friend Joseph went and he twas readin, looking for some of those churches to join and he knew they wasn't right. So he's like…. go to talk with God. God and Christ came to him and God said something ...oh ya ... Joseph hear him out”. It was perfect after we got in the car though I couldn't stop laughing welcome to the south side. Luis is a good guy and this past lesson we had was on the Articles of Faith. He's going to try to memorize them.
While doing some Bible referrals, we found a woman named Tracy. She had requested that missionaries come by. As we were teaching her, it was blowing my mind. She through her own personal studies throughout the years has developed beliefs and faith that are so similar to ours. It's crazy! I kept asking her, “so you've never meet missionaries before and you don't know anyone who is a member of the church”? It was funny, one of the last things she said in our first lesson was I'm glad to know someone else believes in this because I was going crazy thinking I was going to have to go and start a church to share these truths. I responded “no, no, no need for that, the church has already been established”. She's a hoot and she loves to talk about God and Jesus. She loves learning about the gospel.
Next up is Nazaret. Okay so a little background to her. She is 14 years old and this is her story. A little bit ago some missionaries knocked on her friend’s door and he was telling her about these crazy people that came by. She asked if they had left anything and he gave her a pamphlet they had left. Long story short she jumped on Mormon.org and started looking at the website and started chatting with missionaries. The next Sunday she showed up to church. That was about 7 weeks ago. The cool thing is that she comes by herself. None of her family comes. She's amazing!! She signed herself up for seminary and is eating up the gospel. She's so involved. Her the biggest challenge is that we haven't been allowed to teach her due to her mom and her step dad but this week her mom is allowing us to come to the house to share a message with Nazaret. I'm so excited!! So Nazaret also has a bit of anxiety and she was super super nervous for school to start last week. I asked her if she would like a blessing. It was the coolest experience! I'm excited to report back on her. It's crazy to me that she is so young yet she is seeking out this incredible gospel and that she is choosing to do this for herself. It has taken Joseph Smith’s story to a whole new level for me.
Last week I attended my last new missionary training. It is so bitter sweet! It's crazy for me to look back on my mission life and to think back to when I was there. It's honestly so crazy to me!! Amongst many things President showed a video that I've seen about 26 times but man it hit hard! I can attach the link and encourage you to watch it and think about the questions that are asked. Replace the word mission with life I hope that your able to feel the same spirit. Man this upcoming week is going to be bomb. We have a lot happening and I'm excited to share it all with you! I hope all is well! I'll talk to you next week!!
Love Sister Kendrick
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