January 8, 2018 Gooood Morning!

I'm on early because we've got lots of stuff to do today. Mainly clean the house and make cookies and Monterrey Chicken! Super excited for that. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures last week! There's also a letter in the mail about some fun stuff I've done during my first transfer. Oh yeah, and.....

I've officially completed my second transfer (6-week period) of the mission and my first one in the field!! This morning has been absolutely crazy getting calls from literally everyone in my district. I haven't seen the full list yet, but I know that everyone in our house is staying, and that the leader of our neighboring district is now our district leader. So really not that different for me, although President made a lot of changes in leadership and opened up some new crazy far away areas for sisters!

This week has been crazy crazy hot as usual. And I've heard it's going to get worse, since it's only January right now. But don't worry, we're staying sunscreened and hydrated, and everyone's been making sure we're taken care of.

One day we were leaving Almoço and heading out to start working and just dying of thirst, and we remembered that there's this one friend of ours who isn't interested at all in what we have to teach, but really respects our work and always talks to us as we walk by and offers us water and stuff so we decided to stop and ask. It turns out that one of her friends that hangs out there with her is a member of the church who hasn't been in years, but wants to come back. She said she's seen us walk by her house twice (she lives on our street, but way way on the other side) and twice by her friend's store, and all four times she felt like she should call out to us, but didn't. She was super happy to talk to us and share her story, and wants us to come visit her and help her start going back to church! And we wouldn't have found her if we weren't dying of thirst (haha). Heavenly Father answers prayers, but often not in the way we expect!

We also got a crazy surprise from Rita this week. She was taught by the other sisters, and then we've been working with her for a while, but we stopped visiting her this week because she told she wasn't interested. Well, one night we got a call from a brother in the ward saying he had been there to visit them and that she said something about getting ready for her baptism! We were totally late for a dinner with another sister in the ward, on the complete opposite side of the neighborhood, but we practically ran there to see what was up. I'm not sure what changed during the week, but the atmosphere in the house was COMPLETELY different. Almost like there was more light, more warmth, more something. Super cool! And, she wants to be baptized this weekend! It's amazing how strong the difference in people's lives is when they decide to follow Jesus Christ.

Regina is the other Senhora we've been working with lately. Goodness, she is adorable! She has some very strong thoughts about religion, and has just been thrilled to find everything she's looking for. We taught her the Word of Wisdom (revelation to the prophet Joseph Smith regarding foods/substances that are good for our bodies) and ohmygoodness she absolutely loved it. Not the response we usually get! And we also took her to church yesterday, and she loved that even more! It was fast and testimony meeting (one week of each month where no prepared messages are planned, but the members are encouraged to share their testimonies or brief spiritual experiences at an open mic) and every time someone got up to talk she was nodding and crying, and just soooo in agreement with everything. She said she's been before, and I'm not sure why she isn't already a member, because it's honestly everything she wants in life.

Everyone else kind of comes and goes pretty quickly, but I know they'll be found again someday, just like we found Rita and Regina.

I'm just about out of time, but I love you all and I'm wishing you all an ótima semana! :)

-Sister Kirkham

Happy 2018 - January 1, 2018

First of all, thank you soo much for the basket!! I picked it up from the office on Saturday, and I haven't had a chance to eat it yet, cause it was all melted by the time we got home (haha), but I'm super excited!! And really, it was the best present just to know that I was thought of and loved :)

Also, New Year's Eve sounded really fun! Much more fun than Christmas Eve. I'm jealous you all got to see Cameron!

This week has been hotter than hot, and more humid than I can describe, but there was a crazy storm last night, so the humidity has dropped a bit because of that. Thank heavens. Last night was absolutely insane. Brazilians have an unhealthy obsession with holidays! And celebrating holidays with fireworks! It was beautiful, and deafening, and crazy, and I only watched for a few minutes because I was dead tired. But happy 2018!

As far as the work, I can only say that it's going. We might have the record in the district, if not the mission, for planned baptisms that fall through at the last minute. It's really sad to me to see people make changes in their lives, and really come to love and accept the gospel, but then decide not to get baptized because of the decisions of other people. But all we can do is respect their agency, and hope that they'll choose differently one day.

We're almost done with the transfer! Nothing is gonna change in our house cause we're all in the middle of training, but still, a transfer is a transfer! 1 down, and I'm not gonna count how many more I have to go (haha).

Love you all! Have a great week!!!

-Sister Kirkham

December 18, 2017

It has been a crazy up and down kind of week! Let's hope I get through all of this. First of all, I'm sending a massive letter this week that won't make it in time for Christmas, unfortunately, but I hope it gets there eventually. Can't wait to see you all next week!! It's gonna be 9:00-9:45am on Monday, if I did the math right (haha). Suuuuuper excited!!

So this week I did splits for the first time, up in Vitória. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew that meant it was going to be a great experience, cause that's how it always works! I'm very grateful that Cobilândia doesn't have mountains like Vitória! We climbed a lot of stairs. But also ate a lot of chocolate, and talked to a lot of people. It was cool to see how other missionaries work, and to find a new companionship dynamic. Can't wait till we have more established relationships in the area!

This week was also cool because I feel like I can mostly understand people! Or at least I'm starting to see improvement. I don't understand everything, but when people in the streets are talking about their life or giving directions, I no longer have a blank stare. Also, we did a training on Tuesday about inviting people to be baptized the first time we talk to them, and it was awesome. I always thought that was super weird, and like the hardest thing in the world, but it's actually not! We've been inviting the entire world to be baptized this week (haha). It really gets people thinking about what they really want in life, and makes it easy to tell if people are actually willing to learn more or not--and a lot of them are!

Which brings me to people. Right now we're working a lot with Thais, who is the 20-year-old daughter of two members who haven't been to church pretty much her whole life. She really believes in everything we've taught, but unfortunately, her parents aren't very supportive, so she's struggling a lot with that. We're focusing on helping her make friends in the ward right now. Rita is the mother of a recent convert, and she is just the sweetest person ever. She really loves the missionaries, and she's working on giving up drinking coffee (everyone here is addicted. I thought California girls were bad...) so she can be baptized. Pedro is another one of the people we visit almost every day. He LOVES TO TALK and I CANNOT understand him (hahaha). He's come to church twice now! and is praying about whether he should be baptized.

This week we ran into Rosangela, who is a sweet elderly lady that lives alone and is looking for God in her life. We (and all of her neighbors) weren't able to find her when we went looking, and she hasn't answered her phone, so I hope she's ok...

And then Pedro introduced us to Lucia and her daughter Luana. Lucia isn't quite as interested as Luana (she's 13 years old and adorable) but she told us she prayed for God to show her a church to join, so I hope we can be an answer to her prayer! Luana has never really been involved in any religion, but she, too, is searching, and she really really loved everything we taught her, even though she couldn't come to church. Her mom has a pretty busy schedule, and won't let us teach Luana or bring her to church without her, so it's been a little difficult, but I'm sure we'll work something out.

So the main struggle this week (or at least the longest one) is that I've been sneezing and blowing my nose like crazy. The first day was good, because it meant my inflamed sinuses were draining, but it's getting pretty old. Really old. Like I-used-up-all-of-my-tissues-and-need-to-buy-more-asap kind of old (haha).

The biggest challenge this week I can't actually share, but I will say that I've been fasting and praying and thinking a lot about the story of Esther. You should all go read it--it's in the book of Esther, in case you weren't sure. Most of the time it's a lot easier to say "well it's not my country, or my culture, or my language, and there's a heirarchy that I'm not a part of, and really I don't have any consequence at all" or however that applies to you, but it's important to remember that God is greater than all, and if He is with you, you cannot fall (like it says in Helaman 5:12).

I hope you all have an awesome Christmas! If you haven't already, go look up the #LighttheWorld campaign, and remember what Christmas is really about! And also email me!  But really, enjoy time with family and God, cause they're most important :)

Much love! -Sister Kirkham

December 11, 2017

No crazy rain this week! I mean, it rained a few times, but mostly it was hot. Got my first sunburn (haha). But afterwards I dug out my sunscreen and have been using it Always, don't worry.

And we had someone come to church yesterday! We had 9 committed and confirmed by the middle of the week, but it dwindled down to 4 Saturday night, and only 1 came. But one is better than none!

I had a couple cool experiences this week that I want to share, and then I'll work on pictures. Yes, there is a big chocolate factory here, but it's not in my area.  It is, however, right across the street from the chapel where we hold district meetings, and we're allowed to tour it on p-days. 

Experience #1: Always study the scriptures with a question! I'm pretty sure I've been told this several times throughout my life, but I never really applied it until my mission. But it's AMAZING! And I'm not talking about searching the topical guide or the gospel library app for answers to questions, or even flipping open to a random page and expecting to see the answer. That's cool too, but it doesn't have to be a big process. I'm working on finishing the book of Mormon again in English (I was almost done before my mission, and then almost done in the CTM, but now I'm really almost done haha) so I'm really just reading in order, but every single time, I write down a question before I start (with a prayer, of course) and I ALWAYS find an answer. Sometimes it's super obvious (like one day when my question was about helping people develop a desire to be baptized and then discovering that Moroni 6 (i think) is all about baptism) and sometimes it takes some creative interpretation (Moroni 7 is about infant baptism, but I still found amazing answers about hope), but it's Always there, I promise! Try it, and then write me about how it went :)

Experience #2: Pedro and the power of prayer...

So Pedro is our investigator that came to church this Sunday. We were having a pretty unfruitful day, and we stopped to do some studying (your spirit needs nutrition just as much as your body, it's just not as demanding), and when I prayed to close our study session, I prayed for Heavenly Father to place in our path someone who wanted to listen. And then quite literally right after I said Amen, this man came up and asked us if we were missionaries! Heavenly Father REALLY likes blessing His children, He just needs us to put down our spiritual umbrellas! ("Living the Gospel Joyful" by Dieter F Uchtdorf. Look it up, it's Worth it!)

Experience #3: "All who Wander are not lost" -JRR Tolkein, and also the cover of my journal

My companion commented on how cool my journal is, and I tried to translate the quote for her, but they don't have a word for "wander" (or I just don't know it) so it kinda didn't work out (haha). But anyways, one of the other quotes in it is "It feels good to be lost in the right direction." Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but my companion and I are generally lost most of the day. We think we've been all over the whole area, but we never remember what streets connect to what. (As we were walking to church yesterday, Pedro informed us that the route we usually take is pretty much a very big oval :P) It can be really frustrating at times, but usually it results in us finding people that we never could've found otherwise! Like Conceção. We were trying to visit someone else, but this someone lives on this one street that we've found at least twice, but Always through a different route, and with a lot of frustration. But anyways, we were looking for it once again, when we saw a woman sitting outside her house alone. Turns out her daughter was baptized about 20 or so years ago, and she's had a lot of contact with the church, but not in the past 10-ish years. And she wants to learn more! We didn't ask her to get up, just sat on the ground in front of her house and taught her about the gospel, and oh, it was amazing!

Experience #4: The bus terminal. I won't try to describe the horror and anxiety that this activity prompted, because that's really besides the point (even if it was hilarious), but one morning this week all of the missionaries in our zone went to a different bus station and basically spent 3 hours talking to EVERYBODY. It's really difficult to teach lessons in a crowded noisy bus station, when the person you're talking to might leave at any second, and also when they most likely don't live in your area, but it was a great learning experience! Between the 4 of us that live together, we passed out over a hundred Light the World cards! Not something I want to repeat, but it was fun :)

Ok that's it for now! Have an awesome week!

-Sister Kirkham

I'm Here! December 4, 2017

I'm here! Said goodbye to my MTC district monday night (a week ago) and got up WAY too early Tuesday to take a bus to the airport. I was practically a zombie all day that day, but it was still good. Descending into Vitória was an absolute dream! We were over this awesome gorgeous cloud cover the whole time, and then all of a sudden there were rolling amazingly green hills on one side, and ocean on the other. For those who haven't googled it, Vitória itself is on an island in a little bay, with bridges and peninsulas all around, and it is GORGEOUS. The mission home (where we spent the first half of the day) has the most breathtaking ocean view! I'm serving in Cobilândia, which is just across the bridges, so close to everything, but flat and not surrounded by water. I'm glad we get to visit the island, and get our mail and whatever we need from the office, as well as be close to other missionaries, but goodness there are some crazy hills that I would NOT want to climb every day! Walking a mile for lunch and half-swimming to visit people still beats  almost-vertical staircases! I'll explain more about that later if I have time.

Sister Kirkham with her Training Companion, Sister Farias

My companion is Sister Farias. She's lived all over Brasil, but is most recently from São Paulo, zona leste. (Elder Clawson's mission). She's only been out for 3 months, but she is AWESOME! She'll talk to literally anybody (I think sometimes she gets lost on purpose just so she can ask for directions haha) and she's amazing at catching people's attention and figuring out what they need in their life. She doesn't speak any English, but she's super easy to understand, and has an amazing balance between making me feel comfortable and helping me grow and stretch. She's seriously perfect. Every day I'm more and more grateful to Heavenly Father for knowing me so well, and preparing the perfect place and person for me!

L-R:  Sister Lima, Sister Farias, Sister Kirkham, Sister Creswell

Back Row L-R:  Elder Xavier, Elder Puyen, Elder Lever, Elder G Santos, Elder Nunez, Elder Pedro 
Front Row L-R:  Sister Kirkham, Sister Farias, Sister Lima, Sister Creswell

We live with another companionship who's also working within the same ward. Sister Creswell is from Bountiful, Utah, has been out only about 4 months, and is training Sister Lima, who arrived with me from the CTM.  We have tons of fun. My district is also super fun, although I don't know their names yet. And because we're so close, we have a decent amount of interaction with the other missionaries in our zone. Right now we have choir practice every Sunday, in preparation for our Christmas concert, and oh my it is a party. A very diligent, conservative, and hard working party! :P

Probably the craziest thing this week is that it rained nonstop! We've backtracked and gone in wide loops and climbed over things, but in the end we're always wet haha. All the world's a river! was my catchprase one day, but then the next day we decided it had to be an ocean! The storm is supposed to continue for 2 more weeks, but it was dry yesterday, rained last night, and is dry again today, so lets hope that sort of pattern continues!

And now the people. Nobody that we invited (which was 80-100 people) came to church yesterday, but we have high hopes that next week at least the families we're teaching will come! Not that we taught them all that much this week, since we couldn't get to any of their houses without REALLY swimming. But we meet new people every day! Nearly everybody is a strong member of some church or another (there's at least one on every corner, and 2 in the middle) but everybody will still talk to you. These people really love God (or at least like to talk about loving God) and will talk your ear off about their family and their church and whatnot. We've had one guy tell us exactly how long every old testament prophet lived, and another quoted to us how many chapters, verses, words, and letters are in whatever version of the bible he reads. But hey, if that's how you grow your faith, then so be it!

Just one last thought. My mission president is really strict (that's why I will never have enough email time) and at first I was kind of struggling with a couple of the rules. Like we can't study language and companion inside the house. That one was really strange at first, but, without fail, everytime we study in the park, someone comes up and wants to talk to us. One man was selling sweets, but ended up talking to us about how his wife died and he's looking for God and comfort in his life. Obedience brings blessings, and exact obedience brings miracles! Look for a way you can be more obedient this week, and then write me about it :)

Love and miss you all! Until next week

-Sister Kirkham

PS:  I can always read stuff throughout the week, but I probably won't have time to respond (only to family). But I can write as many paper letters as I want, so send me your address if you want one! Oh, and if you have a burning question that you want answered, please highlight it! Otherwise I probably won't see it.