A Golden Week!

So many miracles this week!

Mario was baptized on Tuesday and oh my gosh it was amazing. He was so nervous but so happy. When he walked out in white, I cried. After when we were talking to him he told us he wants to be baptized again because he loved the way he felt. 

The following is from a letter Hermana Kent sent home:

"Mi Familia,

I couldn't wait  week to tell you how Mario's Baptism went.  It was AMAZING!  We had to be to the church at 5:00 to start filling up the font and the Elders' had to be there too.  So, while we waited we made cake batter cookies.  The baptism was supposed to start at 7:00 pm but Mario got "stuck in traffic" and didn't get there until 7:30 pm.  Hermana Brown and I were freaking out, but it's fine.  When I saw him walk out in white, I cried.  He looked so happy!  After, he told us how he wishes he could do it again because he loved the way he felt.  It was amazing.  He kept congratulating us and we had to keep telling him it had nothing to do with us.  We were excited for HIM.

Anyways, I love you all so much!  XOXOXO,

Hermana Kent"

Francis is our golden investigator. She was a referral from temple square. She is so excited about the church! We invited her to be baptized the first lesson and she accepted! She is working really hard to be ready for baptism on the 25th of March. If we could teach her everything in one lesson and baptize her that day she would be down. Haha. She loves this gospel so much and you can see it. I love her so much. 

So a few weeks ago at a birthday party for the 4 year old son of Patricia we met one of their friends named Ana. She felt something there and asked Patricia what it was and asked if we could come teach her. So this week we went and taught the first lesson.  She asked what she has to do to be baptized because she knows that this is what she wants. Her husband who has not been religious his entire life listened as well. He told us that what we were teaching was the truth. They believe that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. He hates religion because he sees all the false teachings. However, he truly thinks that we are teaching the truth and is actually wanting to learn more. Patricia and Douglas were shocked when we told them. They are excited to help fellowship their friends. This will be such a great way to help 

Patricia strengthen her testimony. Douglas told us that he has known Ana for 30 years and she has never expressed interested in his religion until she met us. 

It was a really good week. The Lord is blessing this area for sure! We are busy harvesting the Lords vineyard. I love this work and I love this gospel. Transfers are this week. I am staying in Windy Ridge but my mom Hermana Brown is transferring. We are both really sad. Especially because the work is going so well here. My training is now complete! Yay for greenie-break! 4 months have already passed which is insane! I can't believe how fast time goes. I love my mission!!!!! 

I love you all so much! I hope all is well. I am sending lots of sunshine your way! 

Love,

Hermana Kent 

Mario's BAPTISM! Yes, Hermana Brown and I matched on purpose.
Mario is the one in the jumpsuit.
Hermano Escobar (super tall one) is the worlds greatest Ward mission leader.

It was hot and we were sweaty, but this lake was pretty and we took a picture.

Last day of training, so we celebrated with ice-cream!

Right Place, Right Time

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day and week! I was pretty sick this week but we still had miracles!

Wednesday night EVERYTHING fell through. I had such a strong feeling that it was all for a reason because there was somewhere we needed to be. So we prayed and asked for guidance. We prayed for guidance and decided to go visit some potentials. The first potential we knocked was a man named Pedro and his family. They met missionaries two years ago and really liked them but the missionaries never came back. He's been thinking about our church a lot recently and wants to bring his family. They went a few times in Venezuela and really liked it. They are extremely receptive to everything we have taught them. They completely believe that we have a living prophet today. They are awesome. We definitely were in the right place at the right time. 

We have several other really amazing families that we are teaching. I love teaching families! Especially this week, with the anniversary of Kazen's passing, there was nothing better than teaching families that they can be together forever. 

Mario is getting baptized tomorrow! He is so excited and ready! We had to change his date so many times because he really wants his wife to be there and she only has Tuesdays off. The ward is amazing and even though it is really difficult for them to come on a weekday, they are rearranging their schedules to come and support him. He has been well fellowshipped and is quite popular among the elders. It makes my heart happy. 

We also got a freaking golden referral This lady who's husband is a member went to SLC for a trip and went to temple square. She met the missionaries, fell in love with the church, wants to be baptized and sealed in the temple. We are teaching them tonight. She came to church yesterday. 

I know this church is true. This week it has been amazing listening to Mario bear his testimony. So sweet and pure. I have loved watching the atonement change his life for the better. I am so excited to see him enter the waters of baptism and begin his journey back to our loving and merciful Heavenly Father. 

I love you all and hope things are going well! Thanks you for your support, love, and prayers. :)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Kent

This sauce is straight heaven. You can't get it here. Or if you can, it's really expensive.
Every time we eat at this members house I get super excited because they have tons of this sauce
that they bring back from Peru when they visit. They gave us each our own because they know how
much we love it. It is super spicy but incredible!

Valentine's Day and New Sunglasses!

A Little Fall of Rain

This week was really busy so it was great!

Tuesday for temple service Hermana Brown and I got to clean the fountains. It was the closest I will ever get to swimming. Haha. It felt so nice to just wade in cool water for 2 hours. 

Mario is still on date but not for the 25th. He came to a baptism on Saturday and decided he didn't want to wait until the 25th and asked if he could do it sooner!!! So we are changing everything for the 19th! I love Mario. He is so humble and has such a love for the things he has learned. Wednesday he had people over at his house but he didn't want to cancel our lesson so we taught him in the parking lot of his complex. I'm not kidding, golden investigator. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he said it would be no problem. He hates coffee (what Latino hates coffee) and he doesn't overly enjoy drinking. He said he maybe had 2 drinks in the last 4 months. He had read Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon and told us he wants to "hold to the rod" so whatever he has to do he wants to do it. Keep praying for his wife. She is completely supportive of his decision to be baptized but she doesn't want to. I have faith that one day she will. We hope that at his baptism she feels the spirit and it will spark a desire in her to learn more and to follow his footsteps. 

Thursday was insane! Normally it's a really long day with not too many appointments but we were packed all day! We taught this investigator named Esther. She is a single mom and is really really sad. We taught her about the plan of salvation and how we can find joy. I told her about Kazen and how beautiful the Plan of HAPPINESS is. It was truly amazing. I felt my angel there right next to me. That is one of the most amazing parts of Being a missionary. You can feel the angels of heaven so strongly. 

Friday we dropped a lot of people during weekly planning. Our teaching pool is Sahara desert dry. After we planned, we went Finding. We prayed and asked that we could find one person that day who was prepared and willing to listen to us. I am not kidding. The FIRST door we knocked was a family from Venezuela. They were so excited to meet us and listened so intently as we taught the restoration. We taught Auri, her mom, and her three kids. I'm not sure if there is a father. The grandma however told us that she'd met missionaries back in the 80's and had really liked them but at the time wasn't really interested. She said that now she really wanted to learn about what we had to share because she had remembered how she felt the first time and wanted to feel that again.  It was a miracle. We had prayed and asked for 1 and ended up finding 5! Heavenly Father is truly a God of miracles. His is also the reason for my subject to this email. We received a little fall of rain to our very dry desert. 

As for Patricia, she is doing great. We are trying to help her gain a testimony. She said she knows everything, she just doesn't feel anything. We are having FHE with them tonight and teaching her about the Holy Ghost. Friday was Armando's Birthday so we went to his little birthday party. He is so stinking cute. At church he kept running up to us and giving us hugs. We love them so much! Monday they told us how they are wanting to move to Utah! Hermana Brown and I were so excited because then we could be close to them after our missions! 

I finished the Book of  Mormon this week. I LOVE the Book of Mormon. Reading it everyday for an hour has been such an incredible blessing. My personal study is one of my favorite times of the day. I KNOW that the Book of Mormon is true. There is a reason it is called the keystone of our religion. I have found so many answers to my prayers by reading from it these last 3 and a half months. 

I want to wish you all a happy Valentine's Day! Thanks for everything and I hope you all have a terrific week!

Love,

Hermana Kent 

☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧☀️💧

Lucy our investigator.  She goes back to Venezuela next week, but we have everything set for her
to meet with missionaries and get baptized:)  I LOVE Lucy (yes, I know.  I love Lucy is a TV show)

The Molero family.  We helped celebrate Armando's birthday with them!

I Am Mormon

Oh my gosh this week flew! We had zone conference this week which was amazing! I got to see Elder Zollinger which was super fun! 

Tuesday we were walking down this street and contacted this man named Tiberio at a bus stop. It was a terrible contact. Hermana Brown and I failed. Haha. To end the awkwardness we just gave him a card and left. A few minutes later we both said how we felt horrible and felt like we did not do our job. Then we realized we hadn't shared anything with him and didn't get his info. So awkwardly we turned back. We started over, stating a few things that we believe and asking if we could get his information so we could visit him and his family. He was actually super interested and so glad we came back. Friday we were able to go teach him and his family. It was amazing! The spirit was so strong in that lesson! They sat there and listened so intently to our message of the restoration. Like I said, super spiritual lesson. I have gotten to the point in my Spanish where I can fully contribute in teaching the restoration. I don't even have to think about it anymore which is fantastic! 

Mario is on date for baptism!!!! We have him scheduled for the 25th of February. That is right before transfers so we are praying really hard that it will all work out so Hermana Brown and I can baptize him before one of us gets transferred. 

I just want to bear my testimony about the Book of Mormon. 

This week in my Book of Mormon reading I read Mormon. I admire him so much. I love reading and trying to find his little inserts in the various books. He is an amazing hero. His story was an answer to my prayer this week. I was really discouraged wondering why it seemed everyone else (especially the Elders with whom we share the ward with) were having so much more success than us. Mormon did the same thing. He compares himself to Captain Moroni and wonders why his armies were having such a hard time being obedient and things weren't turning out as they had for Moroni. It broke my heart to see him be so hard on himself. He was in a different time and circumstances. It he still accomplished amazing things! People have their agency and it had nothing to do with him and his effort. I realized it was the same thing for me and I needed to stop comparing my success to others. There is no way I could possibly know the fruit of my labors. I need to trust the Lord and serve with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. I love Mormon and his example. He has become my new favorite scripture hero- well next to Ammon. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I can not deny its power and I will not deny its truth. 

I love you all and am so grateful for you prayers and support. I wish you all a happy and prosperous week! 

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Sending my love and lots of sunshine ,

Hermana Kent 

Orlando South Zone es Mejor

BTOWN Buddies! Elder Zollinger and I
in the great FOM

Elder Russell. He used to be in our zone but got
transferred.  We got to see him at the Zone Conference
which was a good time!

Car Selfie

Patience is a virtue #FloridianDriversAreNotPatient

Big Changes in Missionary Work

This week was one of the longest weeks of my life haha. We had zero miles this week so we biked A LOT. But hey, I'm getting in shape and we get to talk to a lot more people on the street. 

Tuesday was Hermana Brown's birthday. We did our best to make it a special day and not to get homesick. We had ice-cream for breakfast and decorated our apartment with some stuff her mom sent. Lucky for us we got to go to the temple and do service on the grounds with our zone. They brought cupcakes and ice cream for a small party afterwards. 

We went to a lesson with our investigator Lucy. I love her so much! She is this old woman from Venezuela and she is so sweet. She wants to get baptized but she wants to make sure it is for the right reason so she doesn't want to rush into it. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and each time we come she has highlighted stuff and written down questions she had while reading. She also insists on beginning with a prayer before she reads or we start talking about anything. I mean we do too, but it's amazing that she understands the importance of prayer. GOLDEN INVESTIGATOR. The only problem is she moves back to Venezuela next month so we are making arrangements for her to meet with the missionaries down there to be baptized. 

After our lesson with Lucy we had dinner with a recent convert from Brazil. He made us a Brazilian BBQ which is literally just steak. Nothing else. Just steak. Lots and lots of steak. Haha. I was in heaven. I have never had that much red meat in one sitting before. After that we went to the Farinacci's (a less active family that we love)  for another birthday party. They made Hermana Brown a cake and Bianca the oldest daughter made each of us a necklace. So pretty much it was a good thing we did a lot of biking because we had 3 servings of cake, 4 servings of ice-cream, and tons of steak. 

Ok, here is the big changes to missionary work. All of you RM's will understand why this was so crazy. Wednesday we had a world wide missionary broad cast with the board of missionary work. Thjey focused heavily on teaching repentance and baptizing converts. Honestly so many of my questions and concerns were answered and I got so pumped for missionary work. Towards the end they announced changes to the missionary schedule. Here is how the schedule used to go:

6:30 wake up, pray, exercise 

7:00 get ready for the day, breakfast 

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study

10:00 language study (for non language begin proselyting)

11:00 lunch

12:00-9:00 proselyting, with 1 hour for dinner. 

9:00-9:30 plan for the day

9:30-10:30 prepare for bed, write in Journal, pray 

10:30 lights out. 

I will attach a picture of the new schedule. I LOVE the new schedule because it allows so much flexibility. Their hope is that missionaries will learn how to use time wisely and get more out of their day and also easily adjust to life after the mission. They also changed plays to begin at 8:00 instead of 10:00 to allow more time to get things done. 

The second big change was key indicators. They used to have 9:

Baptized and Confirmed

With a Baptism  date

Attended sacrament meeting

Member present lessons

Other lessons

Progressing investigators 

Referrals received

Referrals contacted

Lessons taught to less actives and recent converts (Larcs) 

Now they only have 4:

People baptized and confirmed

Investigators with a baptismal date 

Investigators who attended church

New investigators 

Crazy stuff!!!! They are coming out with a new preach my gospel and District videos to accommodate these changes. 

Thursday we went on exchanges and I stayed and lead the Spanish area. I was terrified but with the help of the Lord I was able to say what I needed to in Spanish and lead out the area! The gift of tongues is real!

Friday while tracting a Muslim man from Morocco gave us a Quran. So yeah. We read part of it and just found it really interesting. I don't want to offend but you can tell the Book was written by Man. The Book of Mormon is where it is at! 

Saturday we taught Mario and he is ready to be baptized! We told him to pray about a date and we would too. So Tuesday when we see him again we will decide on a date for him to be baptized! He cried as he told us about the spiritual experiences he has had praying and asking God if our message is true. 

Obviously there was a lot more that happened this week. I could go on forever telling you all about the miracles and spiritual experiences this week but I think I've gone on enough. This church is true. I have no doubt in my mind. I know that Heavenly Father lives and that He is aware of His children and their needs. I love you all so much and hope you are all doing well and seeing the miracles and blessings in your own life. 

Con amor,

Hermana Kent

New schedule: we can go to bed an hour earlier now which is way nice!!!!!

Necklace from Bianca

Hermana Brown's Birthday - Brazilian BBQ

Our Quran

It's not the ocean but this lake is still beautiful