Less important stuff first:
It
is crazy hot here! Thankfully every day for the awesome breeze/blow you
off your feet wind. All the members are just like "you know it's gonna
get worse, right?" Not looking forward to February and March. But
we're well taken care of, don't worry!
I think if you added up
all my miles this week, I could've gotten halfway to California. If I
said that last week, I take it back, cause this week was worse.
Plus, we were practically running everywhere because we had soooo many
people to teach! You know the whole "too much of a good thing" concept?
We have 4 people and a family that are all preparing for baptism, plus
one that was baptized this week (hang on, I'll get to that), and we're
technically supposed to visit them all every single day. I will tell you
right now that that did not happen. We tried, but yeah...
We
met our newest "greenie" [a missionary who has just come from the MTC] in the district this week, but we still haven't
met two of the elders that got transferred here. Will see them tomorrow.
I'm
not sure how this conversation started, but one day at lunch we got
onto the topic of April Fools day. The Brazillians were like "oh yeah we
have that. Day of the Liars. I just don't believe anything anyone
says." And we were like "oh no, you have no idea. April Fools Day is SO
much more than that!" And then we spent the whole rest of Almoço
describing our favorite pranks. The Brazillian sisters were
kind of horrified, but that didn't keep sister Lima from helping Sister
Creswell wrap Sister Farias' mattress in toilet paper!
Yeah ok, I think toilet paper is a pretty good transition point. Now on to the big stuff.
-Regina:
Our sweet Senhora was supposed to be baptized on Saturday, but
something happened (we don't actually know what yet, but we're not
abandoning her) and she kind of fell off the grid.
-Raiane is a
super sweet woman in her mid-twenties with two little girls. We weren't
able to visit her more than twice this week, but she's super adorable
and super receptive.
-Ivan came to church for the 4th time
this week, and we finally managed to start teaching him. He's working on
quitting smoking this week.
-Breno. He's a part of this massive part-member family we've
visited quite a bit, and we've started teaching him, as well as helping
his inactive family members remember their love for the gospel. I really
love their family, but we didn't really know Breno all that well until
Tuesday, when we taught him seperately from his family. Turns out he
loves reading the bible, and was sharing scriptures and spiritual
experiences with us as we were teaching :) Now he just needs to come to
church! And stop smoking, and drinking coffee, and all that.
-Rita.
We've been working with Rita forever and ever, and really have seen
miracles in her life. Unfortunately, satan's pretty clever too, and a
lot of things have been getting in her way. Which is why we were SUPER
HAPPY that she chose to be baptized and confirmed this week!!! I'll
spare you all the stressful details, and just say that it was absolutely
awesome. And don't worry, we have pictures! They're just not on my
camera. But I'll get them to you at some point! At the end of the
baptismal service, the 4 of us sang "A Child's Prayer" half in English,
half in Portuguese, and it was the most beautiful thing ever. Even
though no one could understand the words (at least not during the English part) almost everyone in the room was crying, and especially
Rita. The spirit was so so so strong, and really testified that Heavenly
Father hears and answers all of our prayers, because we're all His
children. Oh, also, her son Rodrigo, gave the opening prayer, and I
almost cried during that, too. He was baptized a couple months ago, and
has wanted nothing more than to see his mom join him. He's become a
totally different person, and has been so blessed. We went over last
night and he was sooo excited to tell us that he got offered a job with a
member of the ward! Just one more way Heavenly Father is showing His
love :)
-OK this one's probably the biggest one. We got a call
last p-day from the missionaries in Salt Lake City. That, alone, is
really really weird. But anyways, they said they'd recieved an internet
request through mormon.org from a woman
living in our area, and that they'd contacted her by phone and then
taught her twice by skype, and she was ready to meet the local
missionaries and be baptized! that's not news you get more than like
once a lifetime! I could write an essay about every single visit, but
this email is already 50 pages long, so I think I'll summarize. Aliny is
32 years old, and has made a lot of wrong choices in her life. She's
struggled with smoking, coffee addiction, chastity, misuse of
internet/social media, depression, self-destruction, all of it, but
finally came to her senses and has been changing all of this all on her
own. She came across lots of ads for mormon.org
and kept feeling like she should click on them. She finally did, and
she started reading all about the church (and sharing it with her
family) and decided that this is what she wants in life. In the week
that we've known her, she's quit smoking, quit drinking coffee, read all
of the missionary pamphlets, watched the Restoration video (they
flipped out when we casually mentioned the assassination of Joseph Smith
this week and we were like "oh yeah.. they don't know that..." so we
showed them the video haha) accepted and kept every single commitment,
and started reading the Book of Mormon and doing her family history.
She's super intelligent, always has good questions, and is just so eager
to learn more. Her family is catholic, and loves religion in general,
and yet is super open minded. Her brother, Wanderley, is also studying
(not just reading) the Book of Mormon, and has been absolutely thrilled
to find out that it correlates exactly with his immense knowledge of the
Bible. Sara, their mom, absolutely adores the church's humanitarian
work, and has loved everything we've taught. I didn't think she'd be
very interested, because of her strong catholic background, but she
believes very strongly in "by their fruits ye shall know them" and said
the very first day "you know, if it's good, and I like it, then I'll
know that it's right, and that's where I'll stay." Also not something we
hear everyday! (Also, they all have a baking obsession, or maybe it's a
hospitality obsession, so we've been eating really well this week :P)
At first, Aliny wasn't sure about coming to church, because the path is a
little bit dangerous early in the morning and late at night (we only
visit in the middle of the day) but come sunday morning, in walked
Aliny, Wanderley jr, Sara, their cousin, and later, Wanderley sr! And
they stayed all 3 hours! (The cousin was only there because they were
all going to lunch afterwards, but hey, she was there haha). They
absolutely LOVED it! Aliny and Sara especially are aready making plans
to come to all of the upcoming Relief Society activities haha. Miracle
upon miracle upon miracle!
Good luck reading all of this! can't wait to update you all next week :)
-Love from Sister Kirkham
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