December 17, 2018 - It's HOT this week!

This week was HOT, in case you were wondering. It's back to the days when you take a cold shower every morning, right when you get home, and in the middle of the night when you can't sleep because of the heat. The few days that we spent actually in our area were pretty tough. Right now I'm very very grateful that the mission office is air conditioned!

Anyways, this week I did a super cool training/activity at District meeting, all about preach my gospel. We played a game where they had to answer questions like "what do you do about this?" "who said this quote?" and "where you find this?" all without looking. They were pretty mad at me when I made them write down all 10 of the bulleted suggestions in "How to Begin Teaching". Tuesday night we had dinner with the branch president, and at the end we sang a special rendition of "Away in a Manger" (Pres. Paulo took a video), and then I gave a cool on-the-spot Christmas message about the "condescension of God" (1 Nephi 15, I think). And then they gave us each a pair of earrings, and we took pictures in front of the tree! It was super sweet :)

That night we left for Bahia for exchanges. I love Teixeira de Freitas! It's my dream to serve there one day. We forgot that Bahia doesn't do daylight savings time, and Espírito Santo does, so we were pretty late for Almoço when we came back on Wednesday. But Wendesday was also a miraculously productive day, and the Irmã let us eat anyway, so I can't complain.

Friday we did exchanges again, except here in Linhares. At night we made french bread pizza. Saturday was the worst day, heat-wise. Friday night we almost couldn't sleep, and everyone was feeling pretty awful that morning. But we had Almoço with one of our favorite families, and we all sat on the floor on the enclosed patio :)

Sunday I gave a talk! I'll send a picture. We also visited a couple of less actives, and "ministered" a family that didn't go to church that day. I joked that we should read Moroni 6, to show them that it's important to go to church, but we ended up actually reading it, and it was really spiritual.

And today I'm in Vitória! There was a ton of confusion about our bus, but we got here. And it rained this morning in Linhares so maaaayyyybee it'll cool down just a little? Maybe not haha.

This week we only saw Joyce once. The AP's are keeping in contact with her, but even they can't talk to her when she's at work. But her baptismal date is still marked for this Saturday! And she was pretty excited when I talked to her :) So lot's of prayers for Joyce, please!!

Family: what time are you all going to be able to talk next week?? I'll be at a member's house for Almoço. I have 15 more mins if someone can respond right now?

Love you all! Tchau

-Sister Kirkham