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

December 10, 2018 - It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas!

So right when I think I'm gonna have time to email you all, I get bombarded with 8 mission emails! So now I'm low on time as usual. But honestly, not much happened this week. I already mentioned the craziness that was transfers on Monday, and then Tuesday we went to Vitória for Leadership Council on Wednesday. There were burgers again :P And this time we got back from my eye appointment in time to be in the picture! (Yes, I got that figured out, and I am currently using antibacterial eye drops. She said it started with an allergic reaction that got infected, probably because I have dry skin around my eyelashes. Apparently it's a common thing. But anyway, it was already tons better by the time I went to the appointment, and now it's totally fine!) We got back on Thursday, and worked like normal, and then Friday we had travel again for district meeting, and then Saturday was the branch Christmas dinner! It was amazing and there were tons of people, and I am super excited for Christmas now!

While I'm on that topic, Christmas eve we're allowed to have a district p-day (and we're not allowed to work at night because of the possible danger--que pena), Christmas day we get to talk to our families! (what time will be best for you all?? I have no idea where I'll be yet) and then New Year's Eve we also can't go out at night, so it will basically be all day p-day! whooooo!

This has nothing to do with anything, but yesterday they out of the blue switched up just about all the presidencies of all the organizations in the branch except for the Elder's Quorum, so we should have some exciting new things going on pretty soon! Also, Isaac was called to work with the Young Men!! SUPER proud and excited for him!

This week got a little crazy on Friday and Saturday because we almost had a baptism. Genivaldo finally came back from Vitória! I was honestly SUPER surprised to find out that he had taken his BoM with him (explains why his family couldn't find it haha) and had read at least a little, remembered all of the lessons, and hadn't broken any of the commandments while he was gone! So we scheduled his baptism for the following day (Saturday) and ran around everywhere getting stuff ready (which was made quite a bit easier because there was already going to be a branch baptism that day) and then he decided not to follow through. We were disappointed, of course, but it was also obvious to us that he just doesn't have sufficient maturity or commitment-level.

BUT guess who also appeared! Remember Joyce? Friend of a girl in the branch that we were teaching, but didn't want to accept a baptismal date? Pretty sure I talked about her already. It's really hard to contact her, or to find her at home, so we didn't see her for over a week. But she showed up at church yesterday, and we left early to teach her today, even though it's p-day. We felt like it was a worthy sacrifice, and it paid off! She promised to keep the word of wisdom, and the law of chastity, (she was a little non committal when we taught WoW the last time) and accepted a baptismal date for December 22nd!! Pray for her please!!!!! She's super awesome, and has a super sweet hilarious little sister that she wants to bring to church. AND, when we asked her what she learned at church yesterday, she said she learned that she can feed the missionaries 😂. So anyway, it's been a good day :)

Ok I'm just about out of time, but I love you all! Have an awesome week!

-Sister Kirkham

December 3, 2018 - Cool Zone Conference and a Blister on my Eye!

First of all, happy birthday Mom!! I spent the whole day "hey, it's my mom's birthday today!" Hope you had a birthday dinner or something!

Also, I'm sending you all a funny video, but it's in Portuguese. (Mostly). Spencer said he could translate it, but I think you'll all get the point anyways. And I was going to send you my journal pages with a couple of cool things that happened towards the beginning of the week, but with all the crazy stuff going on, I ended up forgetting to take pictures!

This week was zone conference! So at the moment, my release date is April 9th, but the transfer schedule isn't set in stone yet. Other than that, we talked a ton about Armageddon, the coligation of Israel, and the millenium. Cool stuff!  Ummm and we had some cool trainings about being missionaries too.

The biggest thing that happened this week work-wise (besides the stuff in my journal pages) is that Leiliane came to church! Everyone else cancelled last-minute, unfortunately, but she came and she loved it! And she's also adorable. So young and innocent, but has a strong personality, and it was fun to see her come out of her shell a bit! Genivaldo should have gotten home last night, so we'll see.

Because mission life can't ever be simple, I woke up on Saturday with basically a little blister on my left pupil. Weird, and also super painful. We walked around downtown that morning, trying to get help without going to the hospital/urgent care, and with lots of prayers, the blister went away all on its own! My eye kept on bothering me the rest of the day, especially in the sun (will probably buy sunglasses today) so I had to spend the day inside (until about 5pm when I gave up and left anyway. Didn't go over so well) and then ended up in the hospital anyway, except he said it didn't look infected, so he didn't do anything. Buuuut yeah, now it's looking infected. But I'll be in Vitória again this week, so we'll get it figured out.

And I am super out of time, but the last thing is transfers! I will be staying in Linhares, with Sister Nascimento, and minha querida companheira (eu queria tanto ficar com ela para Natal!) is going off to the Bahia to finish her mission in peace.

Ok that's it for now! Love you all! Até mais :)

Sister Kirkham

November 26, 2018 - Thanksgiving Dinner & Pumpkin Pie!

Ok I have a TON to talk about this week, but I think I have time today.

So first of all, we traveled quite a bit this week. Last Monday we were in Vitória, Tuesday we had district meeting in São Mateus, like always, and then Thursday we were in Aracruz for exchanges. I spent the day with Sister Pagassini, from São Paulo, who is still in her second month on the mission, but who is absolutely awesome! She reminds me SO MUCH of Sister Rodrigues (the sister I trained), probably because she's from São Paulo, but also a little bit of me. We had a super awesome fun productive day, and then at night we did a little Thanksgiving Dinner! Mostly because there was another Americana in the house. We made homemade mashed potatoes, bought lunch meat turkey, and I made improvised gravy with boullion (still don't know how you spell that) flour, and mineral water. I have absolutely no idea how you actually make gravy, but hey it was good! And anyways, we put it all on bread and ate it like those thanksgiving leftover sandwiches that used to be part of dinner group. (Except without stuffing cause nobody likes it anyway). Everyone loved it!!

And then as you'll see in the video, a super nice amazing neighbor that's familiar with the US made pumpkin pie for me!!!!!! THAT made my day!! and also Sister Riquelme's, because it was her birthday. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera to Aracruz, and the birthday surprise pictures are on someone else's camera, but yeah Friday night we ordered pizza, bought guaraná soda, watermelon, and balloons, and were given açaí, which we ate with the leftover pie (the first half was our breakfast) so it was a pretty awesome night!

Oh, and that was the third fancy dinner in a row, cause Wednesday night we were invited to a last-minute birthday party for Vanessa (we brought cookies and she LOVED them!) so we ate about a ton of farofa and churrasco.

Ok I promise we worked a lot too (haha). On the days that we were here in Linhares, we found a TON of awesome people to teach. Here's a quick summary:

Geiciele, with her two kids Maria Clara and José. Didn't make it to church yesterday, but are super awesome, and preparing to be baptized.

Douglas, 15-year-old with a special needs sister that plays with us as we teach, and also a girlfriend in the hospital, and needs a little bit of God's love in his life.

Joyce, friend of a member that already went to church twice. It seems like she's had a rough life, but she (and her parents) are in the midst of getting it all put together. She also has an adorable little sister, and absolutely loved the first lesson. She participates in everything, and just has this thirst to learn. Hasn't accepted a baptismal date yet, but I'm sure she will :)

And then there's Maria das Neves, and her family. We were knocking doors (ok,  clapping is more accurate) and this old lady with a cigarette in hand comes to the window. I honestly didn't think she's be at all receptive, but it's a really good thing that I have an awesome companion!! Because seriously, I've never met anyone so so ready to hear about the Restoration. Basically, we found her on Friday, and by Saturday she had already prayed, gotten an answer, accepted (very firmly) a baptismal date, and is crazy excited about the goals we made with her to quit smoking and drinking coffee! And we're also teaching her granddaughter and great-granddaughter, who are also awesome.

Just to let you all know, Genivaldo was not baptized (yet) because he ran off to Vitória to visit his girlfriend. He gets back today, so next week, I hope to have happier news!

But anyways, in summary, the Lord has blessed us SO SO much, and I hope to be able to be a part of His work in these awesome people's lives for just a little bit longer!!

This week is zone conference and then next week is transfers, and then we start all of the christmas stuff, so the next month should be awesome too!

-Sister Kirkham, with love

November 19, 2018 - Just Plain HOT

This week was pretty full! We're working tons with this one Family, and doing splits and travelling as usual. Sorry I'm on late again! I'm in Vitória for yet another doctors appointment. Funny stuff happens on the mission, especially to my companion (haha). But this week was just a follow-up/check-up for this crazy eye infection she had like a month ago. But anyways! this week it decided to be summer. Just plain HOT. My comp and I were reminded of the old days when we came home every day drenched in sweat, and then woke up that way too, no matter how many showers we took or fans that we plugged in. It's just hot! But anyways, we're using plenty of sunscreen and drinking lots of water, so we'll survive.

Just a funny/cool experience from this week: my comp and I were studying this really cool talk one day (in Subway, prepping for splits the next day and enjoying a little bit of american food) that honestly didn't have anything to do with this, but we decided we wanted to help people come back to church. 5 minutes after we made and wrote down our goal, this Young man comes up to us saying that he's a member, but doesn't go all that often. Weird, right? Well that was the first of 5 that day! All you have to do is express a righteous desire (in the spirit of prayer) and the Lord makes it possible! Reminds me of Nephi, in the book of Helaman (I think), whom the Lord promised that whatever he asked of the Lord would happen.
This week we focused a lot on this Family that we're teaching, including some really creative lessons, and a Family night or two. Their names are Daniela (the mom, who is not legally married and has a complicated situation with her boyfriend that she doesn't even like), Genivaldo (15, is progressing toward baptism), Elizabete (13) Carlos Daniel (11) and Ellison (2) who finally started to like us this week!

Things in the branch are a little difficult, but things at "home" are awesome. We spent the whole week eating the leftover açaí from last week, plus 2 potes of ice cream that someone gave us. And planning really creative activities and what not.
This week we did splits here in Linhares with Sister Parente and Sister Olsen. Sister Olsen and Sister Farias had an amazingly productive day in the neighborhood where we usually work, and Sister Parente and I went after some really awesome people in a other neighborhood (a little farther away) that we found when we were together (like over a month ago) but that we hadn't managed to come back and teach.

Ok I'm really out of time, sorry! Hope and pray that next week will be better! Love you all tons!!!
-Sister Kirkham

November 12, 2018 - Sorry, no time to write today...

Ok I love you all, but I don't have time to write an email today. I'm on late because of our super p-day today, and then I spent 45 mins writing a letter to Pres because we had 2 exchanges this week, and one of them was a bit complicated. And then I had to fill out and send a form, and now I have a survey to do, and only 15 mins to do it.

But anyways, this week was pretty full, with 2 exchanges, like I said, one here and one in Bahia, some awesome people/families that we're teaching (some of which came to church! and members brought friends!), organizing everything for the activity today, and just the general day to day stuff. Oh, and it rained a LOT. I've decided I'm going to buy galoshes. (No idea how to spell that).

If you could all pray for Genivaldo (he's progressing toward baptism this week) that would be awesome. Talk to you all more later!

-Sister Kirkham