October 15, 2018 - Epic Week and More to Come

Sorry I'm on so late today! And sorry if there's a couple of Portuguese words that don't make sense haha. I'm at the library in Vitória, today, which uses Portuguese auto-correct. :)

This week was seriously crazy! Don't ask me how much I slept this week, cause it isn't much. But since I last talked to you all, I have taken 7 long-distance bus trips, and I still have the return trip tonight, and then another to/from tomorrow. BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO BAHIA! I don't even know why Bahia is so exciting, but it's an area that was in a another mission, that is now part of ours, which means it's new, and also in a different state, so that makes it awesome!

Tuesday was Leadership Council, at the mission home in Vitória. Also, a doctors appt because my companion was under the weather. But don't worry, modern medicine is awesome, and she's doing great now! And, in case you missed it, Leadership Council was in the mission  home!!! It was a coincidence at first because an old sister in the local Ward passed away, so they were using the chapel for her funeral, but I think it's going to be officially there from now on! Soooo much more comfortable! I mean the chapel is great, but I'll take the couch and the ocean view any day. AND I think that means that the next time, we'll be eating Sister Mazzagardi's cooking ;) Oh, but the meeting was really good too. My favorite part(s) was(were) the special musical number (If the Savior Stood Beside Me, in Portuguese), the fact that our training went well (don't tell anybody, but the AP's called us at like 8 pm the night before asked us to prepare it), and this super awesome all-encompassing practice, where we literally practiced everything, and all of the records (for the area book) and everything, from contacting on up. Super cool.

Wednesday we worked in our area, but not for very long, because we had to take a bus to another city, where we worked a little bit, and then spent the night.

Thursday we woke up early to take two more buses to yet another city, and then walk a mile in our best clothes to Zone conference! Which was also awesome. We did the same exact practice, but it was still just as fun. Also, we watched more epic talks that all you normal people don't have access to, and talked about how awesome General Conference was. Um, and Sister Mazzagardi gave a really awesome training about something that I don't remember because I don't have my notes with me (haha). And then it was interviews, and 2 more buses back home.

Friday, I don't really remember, but Saturday and Sunday were awesome, mostly because of a great Branch Council meeting, and Isaque. So, Isaque is a 23-year-old that we met a couple weeks ago, when we got lost really really close to our house.  :)  It was a pretty funny contact, but we could tell even then that he had tons of potential. Only problem is that he didn't know his address, because he had recently moved. Last week we managed to talk to him over the phone, and we marked an appointment for Saturday night. (He's a little shy/antisocial, but he's also in the midst of getting his life back together after a failed long-term relationship, and a couple weeks of trying to drink it off, so we won't hold it against him. Anti social people are easier to teach anyways - haha). And wow, is he prepared to learn about the gospel! We spent about 2 hours Saturday night explaining the Plan of Salvation (he has LOTS of questions, but they're really really good ones), and then he went to church with us the next morning, stayed all 3 hours, and even made friends with a couple of people! We brought a young RM named Felipe with us Sunday night and taught him the Restoration, and it was PERFECT. Seriously, so awesome. So now he's happily Reading the Book of Mormon, and we will be back to teach him as soon as we're done in the Bahia.

Today was just buses, and hanging out in the mission office, chatting with everyone. Not too exciting, but I love Vitória, so coming here is Always fun :)

Aaaaand...  the exciting News I already told you all.  I'm going to hit one year this Wednesday! (Had to think really hard about what day that was in English haha). And we will be doing splits with not one but 2 of my old companions that day, so it should be awesome :) And I'm planning on having strawberries involved.

I think that's it for this week! Love you all tons and tons! Until next week :)

-Sister Kirkham

October 8, 2018 - "Doze Freaking Templos!!!" - Sister Parente

Well Hi, family! It's been another great week here in Espírito Santo. Actually, it's been a little crazy, what with the rain, and the election (no, we have no idea who won, but my comp's been going a little crazy) and getting ready to travel a TON this week. We spent waaaaaayyy too much time stressing about bus passes and timing and all that. But, none of this travelling actually happened yet, so I'll fill you all in on the details next week.

So last Monday, we did what we'd been wanting to do for like forever, which was make muffins/cupcakes, and go around our little apartment building giving them out to and meeting our neighbors! It was really cool, and we met two really awesome women (and their families) that we hope to be able to teach! Haven't made any more progress on that yet though. But I have lots of other people to talk about today!

So right now we're teaching 3 families: Isadora and her parents, Uanderson and Fabrícia, and William and Vanessa.

So Isadora is a 14-year-old that we met on the street, and marked down to visit her and her friend. Her friend wasn't able to make it, but we taught her and her dad, and it was really cool.

Uanderson and Fabrícia we have been teaching for a couple weeks now. They're recently married, even though they've been together for a long long time, and super receptive. The only problem is that they both work a lot. Fabrícia works night shifts, and then also works day shifts more or less 1 out of every 3 days, And Uanderson works all day long every other day. So you all can imagine that math that goes in to figuring out when we can teach them, and when they can come to church!

I think I talked about William last week, but I'm not sure. He and  his wife Vanessa were a reference from some members of the branch, because they recently lost their son to cancer. We taught William last week, and then came back and taught Vanessa, because William had to work last minute. It was an awesome, but crazy stressful lesson. She most definitely felt the spirit, but has some pretty strong religious beliefs that she's scared to let go of. She literally told us "if you only believed in this one small difference, I would definitely join  your church!" without us even mentioning anything about baptism! She told us flat out that she wont ask God to see what's right, but that she will read the Book of Mormon, so we'll see how that goes.

We had a zone fast this week, and saw some amazing miracles! Including finding another legally married couple that accepted a baptismal date! Their names are Danilo and Milena. I wrote them all out in my journal and then I forgot to take a picture! But I'll try to remember and send it next week, because I don't have much time.

We worked so so so hard this week, inviting people to general conference, and we had so many people interested! We spent all of our free time before and during the sessions calling everyone reminding and asking if we could walk them there, and everyone said they were coming, and then didn't show up... So that was pretty disappointing, especially because there was a talk that was especially for each one of them.

Disappointments aside, general conference was 'freaking awesome!' as my brazillian (yes, she really does say 'freaking') companion would say. Seriously. Mind blowing. And 12 temples!! One of which will be in Brazil!!!! And it will be sooooooo good for Minas!!!! (A bit random, but I swear I saw Emily Blanchard in the MTC Choir. Is she in the MTC?!) I don't want to spend tooooo much time, so I'm going to write you all a letter about the stuff I thought was cool and what not, and send it to you next week!

Oh hey, and just a random news flash: Our mission added a new area this week! Our 4th state. :) We are now responsible for a little bit of Bahia! (the state where the new temple will be built). And we are going to do splits there in about 2 weeks :)

Ok,  I think that's all the exciting stuff. My companion and I think we ate a bad piece of pork this week, so the past 2 days have been a little rough, but not too bad. And it was general conference, so at least we weren't on the street.

But anyways, love you all! Have an awesome week!

-Riah :)

October 1, 2018 - More of Linhares...

We discovered a lot more of Linhares this week, including a bunch of mysteriously dead vultures, lakes that aren't full of plants, LOTS of cool wildlife (herons, storks, seagulls, weird duck/bird combinations, and maybe a very large rat), and lots of people of other religions that usually don't like us, but that we ended up teaching. For example, Friday night we knocked on the door of a Seventh-day Adventist family, and they let us in, and we shared a short message. The old grandmother went off in a hilarious rant about the sabbath being on Saturday and people not reading the bible when we were in the middle of explaining Jesus's baptism, which was a little confusing, and then she made her granddaughter change into a skirt before saying the closing prayer, which was a little funny, but then in the middle of her prayer we were like "OH! Their sabbath starts Friday at sundown!" So then it all made a little more sense. We were pretty embarrassed to not have recognized, but at least I don't think we were interrupting or anything. And then that same night, we were sharing a message with a woman that's a member of this other popular church that was created here in ES and her (drunk) catholic husband comes over and starts very slowly and calmly ranting quite extensively about how most Christians don't accept his baptism but he doesn't need another one. And then he compared all the different christian denominations to types of beer 😂😂 We laughed about that one for quite a while.

Ok, in serious news, we are teaching this really cool 19-year-old named Breno. He's progressing really well, and is friends with a girl in the ward, so that's going to be a huge help. (Also, they would make a really cute couple, just saying...). He's super smart and understands everything really well, but he wasn't feeling so well yesterday so he didn't go to church. But he will!! Everyone please pray that he can recognize the spirit answering his prayer, and that he will accept a baptismal date! (We invite him every time and he says "yes I will definitely be baptized, but not right this minute").

Also, pray that we can manage to find and teach Lorena. She's also really awesome, but work as a nanny and doesn't have a cell phone, so it makes it really hard to contact her!

We honestly didn't have all that productive of a week, since we were focusing on taking care of the sisters that we're responsible for, but this week should be much better! Love you all!

-Sister Kirkham