She has ARRIVED in Vitoria, Brazil!

Presidente Mazzagardi, Sister Mazzagardi, and Sister Kirkham

Sister Kirkham has arrived in the mission field!  She will begin her service in the Cobilandia Ward in the city of Vila Velha.

Last P-day in the MTC!

November 22, 2017


You may not hear from me for a bit after this, cause I'm leaving in about 5 days for Vitória! I'm super excited, but super sad to leave my district! At least once I get there I'll be able to send pictures, and also maybe have time to share some of the funny stories!

I went to the temple for the last time in a really long time this morning. We stayed for a second session, which is why I'm on so late (only going to get about 30 mins of free time at this point), but I also got to do initiatories, which was awesome :)

We've pretty much just been finishing up our lessons and reviewing for the past several days. Well, and splits and TRC, and "in field" trainings, which are lessons and practices with all the hispanics, brazilians, and americans combined. I think I'm at the point (and it's a very weird point to be at) where I speak better than I understand. Well, understand normal people, at least. I can understand our instructors because they talk at a reasonable pace, and use simple, proper language. But we went out proselyting again on Saturday, and it was pretty interesting. Not really better than last time (haha). Also, we ran into tons of people that were already members of the church, which was a little strange. So anyway, I think I've almost learned everything I can learn here, and I'm ready to get out in the field and really learn.

Some highlights of the week:

-Our elders were able to give our instructor a priesthood blessing last Thursday. She's been sick a lot, and honestly, she was either brave or crazy to ask a whole bunch of very newly-ordained priesthood holders to bless her, but it ended up being an amazing experience. The elder who I have the hardest time getting along with (but not that hard of a time--they're all pretty good) gave the blessing, and he'd obviously never done it before, but the second he started speaking, the holy spirit just FILLED the room, and I knew that God was with us--that He really does trust us to do His work, and to use His power (Mom Note:  Priesthood = the authority to use God's power to heal and bless others in His name). I came to really see the potential that each one of these 18 year old boys have, and I hope they see it too! To all the Melchizedek Priesthood holders I know, please look for opportunities to use it! It's such an amazing privilege!

-Got to know my new roommates a lot better this week. One of them (the one I originally didn't think I would like--have you seen a theme here? God keeps humbling and surprising me :) has a super duper cool story, that I will definitely share another time!
Also, this is unrelated, but I think I forgot to mention that I met an elder in my branch (can't remember his name or his mission, and he's gone now) who's family just moved into the Covenant Hills ward! Crazy non-coincidence! So if you hear anything like that, I probably met him.

-The weather here is absolutely ridiculous. At least half the days are hot, but sometimes it's freezing all morning and then a billion degrees, and some days it's warm and then starts absolutely storming like I've never seen (right while some of our elders were teaching outside, haha! They were SOAKED!), and some days, like today, it's just gray, with only off and on sprinkling. It's always humid, though, so at least that's constant.

I haven't really had bad headaches since I got over my cold the first week, but they've been back this week. I'm not letting it get in my way, but it's pretty annoying. My comp has a bad cold, so maybe I'm just fighting that (again). Pray for us, please!

I got Cami's letter this week! the one she sent before I left (haha). It took exactly a month to arrive, so I'm hoping they'll forward anything else that comes to my mission. Tell her I loved it!!! And so did all my friends :) I don't have much time at the moment, but I'll hopefully be able to send more mail soon!

Ok I think that's about all I have time for. Love you all! Looking forward to another great (and last) week!!

-Riah

Hello! Another Fantastic Week Down!

Another fantastic week down! Only 2 more until we're out in the field!! Aaaaaaahhhh. I'm almost feeling ready, but I also absolutely love my district family, and it's going to be so hard to leave them!

This week was such a good week for all of us! Our new elders fit in SO well, but they were also made us back up and realize that we'd gotten a little out of control. But like I said, this week was so good! This email is going to be all about progress, so sorry if I didn't ever mention how things were to begin with haha!

We have two teachers, and both of them pretend to be people that are interested in learning about the church, who we call "pesquisadors" because they're searching for understanding. One of them was really hard in the beginning, both as a teacher and as a pesquisador, but we love her now! She told us the other day that her husband, who was really unsure about her learning, had been telling her how different, and how much better their home feels since she's been talking to us. And the other one is sooo ready to follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized! He's absolutely awesome. Just amazes us with his answers. He has such a desire to do what is right, and to bring his whole family with him! He said his wife is a little scared of making such a change in her life, but then he mimed yanking her arm and was like "I'll take her with me, don't worry!" Anyways, I so wish it was real! I mean, it is, in a way, because they act out real stories of real people they taught in the past, and it gives just a glimpse of the amazing power of the gospel to change people's lives for the better, and I can't wait for it to be real! God really does want His children to be happy, and He created a way! And I get to be a part of bringing that happiness to people! I imagine it's a lot like being the ice cream man, with all the kids lighting up when you drive by. I think that would be such a self-confidence booster. (Actually, though, I just really want ice cream. The food here is good, but then we start talking about american restaurants and we get really homesick... I think what I want most is in-n-out (or maybe Islands?), but even burger king sounds so good right now!)

I've also been thinking back a lot to our first week here. We couldn't even say a prayer without using our little phrase book (pg. 105 in the small green one!) and we had a panic attack when anything changed last minute, since we couldn't teach without our preach my gospel books, phrase books, AND a written out lesson! Now we bring our scriptures, maaaaybe an outline, and our card with all the verb conjugations on it. We're getting so much better at conjugating though!

Something that helps a ton with the language is our daily "jejum de ingles" (English fast). "Fasting" from English means that we're not allowed to say anything in completely in English without asking (and you have to try to explain in portuguese first), and if you can only use English words if you don't know them in portuguese, and only 2 at a time. (We had to choose a number, cause otherwise people would say things like "Como se diz..." ("how do you say") and then like 3 sentences haha). We used to do it just once a week, and then just for a couple hours on weekdays, but now it's everyday from breakfast to dinner (except longer and Mondays and shorter on wednesdays so that it works with our schedule). Next week it's going to be all day everday, and then we're gonna leave and it will be for reals haha. I think I almost died our first English Fast, but we all love them now.  It's still mentally exhausting, but we learn so much better, and we are so much better at all of our other goals when we don't speak English! Cause we can't quote movies or songs in Portuguese, and we can't point out all the weird things other people are doing (we only do that within our district, and only because we love each other) and we can almost kind of make jokes hahaha but yeah not really. We'll get there some day :P

I think the only specific thing I want to share about was Sunday. Everyone be grateful for electricity! And always carry a flashlight with you, even to church! Cause yeah, sunday was interesting haha. The lights first went out a couple times during sacrament meeting, but it would come back on pretty quick. And then we had power for all of our second meeting, and half of our third (with a couple hiccups) and then it just kinda died haha. We usually watch a movie sunday afternoon, but there wasn't any way to play it, so we had a 2 hour district meeting instead (on top of our usual morning and night meetings. Yeah. We're THAT district hahaha). It was so good!! We all shared scriptures and quotes and conference talks we liked, and then we got into personal experiences and testimonies and what not. EVERYONE was crying by the end of it, and me the most. My district is just so awesome! We all have our different quirks and our weird habits, but we love God and we know how much He means to us, and it's amazing. Anyway, dinner was totally dark, and there were a few hopeful moments during choir practice, but we ended up dragging out the old and questionably in tune upright (we usually play on fancy electronic pianos) and singing christmas songs (cause everyone knows the tunes) by the light of our flashlights. By some miracle, we were able to get a crew to come out and fix the electricity in time for a very very late devotional, and then we were back to normal by the next day. It was totally chaotic, but really put into focus the things that are important to us--like each other--and the things we can go without--like air conditioning. You all should try it sometime!

Ok I gotta go now. Have a great week!

-Sister Kirkham

Ooooh! I'm halfway theeeerrre!

November 8, 2017
Halfway! woohooo!

This week has FLOWN by! So much has happened! I'll try to get it all down, but we'll see.

Probably the second biggest thing (I'll get to the biggest in a minute) this week was proselyting. They take a big group of missionaries out into the middle of São Paulo and drop them off on the side of the road with nothing but a pen and some slips of paper, and say go talk to people! It was our first time speaking Portuguese to people who don't work at the MTC, and it was hard! BUT we had lots of great coversations! Everyone loves americans, and many people are already familiar with who we (the missionaries) are and what we do, so that was cool. The only person who was really interested in what we had to say actually spoke English! Which was weird, but awesome. Anyway, I'm just proud of myself for talking to strangers cause that's not something I would EVER have done before I left! Whom the Lord calls, He qualifies :)

The BIGGEST thing this week is that we got new Elders in our district! There were 3 other missionaries who were supposed to come with us who went to Provo instead, since they didn't get their visas, and they all came this week! There's a sister who's going to Salvador Sul who got put in a trio with the sisters in the other district, and then two elders got added to ours. AND ONE OF THEM IS GOING TO VITÓRIA!! I finally have someone going to my mission!!!!!!! Ok I'll calm down a little. Maybe. So their names are Elder Archuleta (no, he doesn't sing, and no, he doesn't have a cousin named David) and Elder Boswell. Elder Archuleta was pretty quiet yesterday (half asleep, and I don't blame him) so we don't know too much about him except that he's from Colorado. Elder Boswell is from Missouri (which is a miserable place, sorry to anyone who likes it there) but I won't hold it against him because 1) he's going to my mission, 2) he has more siblings than me (there are 11 of them!) and 3) HE ALSO DOESN'T HAVE A TV. (Oh, and he actually does sing, and play piano, which is awesome cause there's only one Elder in my district that can hold a tune. It's terrifying...) Having "a billion" siblings and not watching TV are the two things that I get made fun of the most, but now I'm not the only one!! Take that, district! Haha, just kidding I love them. But anyway…We found out last Friday that we were getting new people, and we stressed about it all week, but they fit in really well. We watched out the window all day yesterday, and the second a bus pulled up, we ran downstairs and outside to help all the new arrivals with their suitcases, as well as meet our new additions.

I think I mentioned this last week, but I played "The Miracle" for the devotional yesterday. I was super nervous about it, but it went really well! My district is super happy it's over, because it was stuck in their heads for a whole week while I was practicing. :)  I'm just praying I don't get asked to be the main pianist for choir, cause you get about a 5 second warning on what song you're about to play, and, as my companion so eloquently says, "I'm not about that life" (haha). But if they need me, I will do it.

OOH there was a big storm this weekend!! The sky was all purple and there was lightening!!! It's probably because it's a novelty in southern California, but I absolutely adore lightening! I spent 10 straight minutes with my face against the window watching it. And I wasn't even put off when Elder Farrow told us a story about how some of his friends from HS were killed by lightening. True story. But anyway! It was a lovely storm, and I enjoyed it a lot. And no, the lightening wasn't close enough to us to even hear the thunder, let alone be killed by it, so don't worry :P

Our lessons have been going so well! We barely write out even an outline, but we're able to teach from our hearts as the spirit directs. I know I've said this a billion times, but the gift of tongues is real!! Sometimes I get frustrated because I don't understand people when they talk fast, but then I realize that I speak more Portuguese than I ever spoke Spanish, and I've only been learning for 3 weeks!

Our Brazilian roommates left yesterday! And all of our friends :( We have officially been here longer than any group except one. Also, the last few days have been super quiet, since an entire 3rd of the MTC capacity left to their missions yesterday morning. We got a little under 50 Americans yesterday afternoon, but we haven't gotten any new Brazilians yet. I hope we get new roommates! Our room is sooo quiet! But I'll always miss our first ones...

Ok, I'm off to p-day! P-day and another great week. Love you all!! Keep writing!
-Sister Kirkham :)

Hello! Hello!

November 1, 2017

This week has been even busier than the last! And all in Portuguese. They still translate during choir practice and devotionals, but all our teachers and even our roommates have started all of a sudden pretending they don't speak English anymore (haha). It's good though. Mostly it just means my comp and I have to translate for the rest of the class whenever we're given a specific instruction.

We teach 3 times a day now! With the exception of p-day, Sunday, and Tuesday, because of the devotional. We have 2 fake investigators (which we alternately call fisherman or sinners, depending on which/how many syllable(s) of the word we forget to pronounce), plus fake members (it's called TRC, and it's pretty low-key, but I have yet to see the point) and then we also do splits with Brazilians and teach other missionaries. I was most stressed about the last one, but it's awesome!! My splits comp and I get along pretty well, and I was able to understand and contribute to the lesson, which was super cool. One of our investigators is throwing us for a loop (the Elders in our district say she's not half as hard on them, so I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not), but our lessons are getting better and better. We taught 2 lessons this week without anything written out at all! And we can almost make complete sentences now too ;)
I was also sick this whole week. Elder Cowley came with a cold, which got worse throughout the first week until his eyes were red and swollen, but he got a priesthood blessing and some eye drops, so he's totally ok now. We joked a lot at first that our district goal for the week was to infect the entire zone (5 people a day--we can totally do it!) but so far the only one is me (haha). No, my eyes aren't red, I've just been sneezing and blowing my nose a lot. But it's been getting a lot better, and I'm sure I'll be over it this week.

I had a couple hard moments at the beginning of the week, mostly right before meals. So that hasn't changed. We keep getting more and more responsibilities, and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. But then our lessons and language ability and everything took a turn for the better, almost all of a sudden, and now I'm super enthusiastic again!
I listened to the Tuesday devotional in Portuguese, and still was able to take notes and everything! The only thing I didn't get was a story about a blown tire on the side of a highway. Don't know enough words about cars apparently (haha). Also listened to the temple session Portuguese too! I keep thinking I totally get it (and I do get more than before) but then people will come up and want to have an actual conversation, and I won't understand any of it. We just don't learn a lot of normal words I guess. ;)

I have tons of funny stories (I've been journaling every day, don't worry!) but no time to type them! Here's a sweet one though:
Not sure if I mentioned this, but last week Sis Bourdeau and I wrote letters to each of the elders, telling them what we appreciated about them and everything. They thanked us, but didn't really react much, so I was super surprised when I was packing my bag one morning and I found a copy of Jesus the Christ (I guess I mentioned that I wanted to read it, and one of the Elders had an extra) with notes from each of them tucked in the front cover! Not sure how I missed all the laughter and meaningful looks and hints they left, but whatever. I found them eventually!

Ooh I haven't told you about p-day! Most of last week we spent waiting in line at the post office (expect a letter for the kids in about a week or two) but we also got candy and açai bowls. You know those wafer things that dad buys every once in a while? The long thing rectangle ones that come in chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla? They have those here, too, except miniature, and about twice as much chocolate and half the wafer. (They have lots more flavors, too, but why bother when there's chocolate?) Anyways, they're called Bis, and I'm absolutely addicted! Also, Elder Conklin brought back these butter toffees that are super amazing. Can't wait to try some more stuff today! We had second session at the temple, so we won't have tons of time to explore, but we're going to go to a grocery store and get some good snacks.

Oh! I almost forgot! I got asked to accompany the choir next Tuesday. We're singing The Miracle, except in Portuguese. I'm glad the kids sang that for months on end, because otherwise I would have no idea what I'm playing! As it is, I had to re-write the accompaniment to include the melody, since it's not a super common song.
I actually don't know if I've said anything at all about Choir! We have devotionals every Tuesday and Sunday, and there's always choir before. We practice whatever musical number we're going to sing that night, and then they call up different districts to sing their favorite hymn. Generally, the district sings the first verse, and then the choir joins in for the rest, but some districts have gotten really into it, and done arrangements and stuff. We lost our paper, so we haven't sung yet, but we will.
District is still awesome, and the food is good. It's been raining off and on, but it's mostly warm. Or at least no one but me ever considers it cold.
I better go respond to some others, but I love you all!! Keep writing :) Two p-days down, 4 to go!
-Sister Kirkham