Waiting on transfer calls 🙊

And they take FOREVER!!!

Anyways, it was a good week! We had so much fun with Amy and the crew
😊 she invited us all over for an amazing dinner this week! It was the
best, I felt the spirit so strongly as everyone shared different
things going on and how they have seen God working in their lives, and
different miracles, it really did strengthen my faith in Christ! Amy
said that when we all knelt in prayer together she felt like we could
conquer the world, and I totally agree!
Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them."
It is so true!!! I know that Heavenly Father is so so so very aware of
each of us and the things that we go through. The power of prayer is
REAL! And He wants to be involved in every detail of our lives, even
the things we think don't matter to Him, they really do because we
matter to Him!

And DAKOTA SCHEDULED HIS PATRIARCHAL BLESSING!!! I'm so beyond excited
for him! It has been the coolest thing ever to be able to see him go
through such a spiritual journey in so little time! He truly has the
gift of faith! He has put in time with God, reading, praying, coming
to church.. and it shows! He told us he can feel the spirit a lot more
now! 😊 it really does strengthen my faith and I am so exited to be
able to watch his progression, he's going to make an excellent
missionary!
And we just love the Lebaron family, if I get transferred I'm really
going to miss them! They feel like family to us, we had a lot of fun
with them last night, it's really nice to have people you can just let
your guard down around!

So last night we met with JB, a man in the Samoan Ward who, when we
met him 3 weeks ago, didn't believe in Jesus Christ. He has grown so
much so quickly, it's amazing! Last night he told us that this week he
has been praying a lot and thinking about his faith and that he has
started to understand how Jesus is our savior, and that he feels like
he is starting to develop a relationship with Him!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉 best
feeling ever to hear someone say that!!! The last meeting with him I
felt the spirit so strongly, and I wasn't sure if he felt it like I
did, but this week he told us that our last lesson helped him the most
and he feels like he understands God's love more and where He's going
after this life, and it matters more to him now! Missionary work is
the biggest blessing ever! ❤ and its only because of Jesus! 🙌🏽

We had a really great lesson with Hannah Sarah, and Rachel this week
too. Maddie  wasn't there, so we just started to work on the girls
personal progress, we started on faith, and read in Hebrews together,
I felt such peace as we saw what different people have gone through
for Christ's name through out time, and we talked about how following
Christ isn't easy, but it is so worth it, and He has already overcome
death, and He will help us in all things as we lean on Him! ❤🙏🏽🙌🏽

We also got to meet with Martin this week! He's got a lot of trials
going on in his life right now, but he is such a good guy, and I can
see the light of Christ in him. He loves reading the scriptures! He
shared an experience with us where he said after he was able to stop
smoking, he decided he was going to go to church and pay a fast
offering as thanks for God's help in allowing him to overcome it, and
he said it felt like Jesus was sitting next to him in church! I
believe it!!!

We met with Jacque again this week, she is so sweet and has the cutest
kids! But They didn't make it to church :( I have hope that she will
next week though!
And we loved meeting with the Saena family again this week, they sat
with us in church, and karson, the oldest is such a good kid, he was
reading the scriptures the whole time that someone was speaking in
Samoan haha!
We finally got to sit down with Kyle this week! He says he still has
faith in Christ he just hasn't been to church since he was 17, he was
so nice!!

The best part about serving a mission is the people, I wouldn't trade
these relationships I have formed for anything! They are so special,
because Jesus is at the center of them! I know He loves us so much!!!
More than we can ever imagine, and the more time we spend with Him,
the closer we get, and the more we want to tell others about His
incredible love!

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!!

Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick

Last week of the transfer!

It's been a week with a lot of ups and downs! So I'll share the highlights 😊

We met a new Samoan/Tongan family on Monday, they were so nice! The
kids were all baptized but haven't had the after baptism lessons, so
we started to teach them those, and their mom said she would be
baptized as well! It was really exciting!

Tuesday we went to temple square with the Saena Family, who are work
to get there and be sealed as a family forever this year! 😊 they have
the cutest kids!!! And another baby on the way, but you can't tell!
Haha we had so much fun riding trax with them!!

Wednesday I went on exchanges with Sister Burgos, it was fun!

Friday I got to spend time with Sister Casagranda going to
accountability! I love and miss that girl so much! I pray we get to be
companions again before it's over, we had so much fun together!!

Saturday it dumped a foot of snow, so we spent about 6 hours walking
around and helping shovel since most of our lessons cancelled, but it
was amazing! We met a lot of new people and had amazing gospel
conversations while we shoveled! We met a couple people who weren't
sure they believed in God, while we were shoveling with another man
were teaching, and the man we are teaching piped right up and helped
testify to his neighbors, it was amazing! I learned a lot & it is my
absolute favorite thing, to have the opportunity to tell people that I
know they have a Father in Heaven who loves them very much and is so
aware of them!! 🙌🏽

Sunday Dakota got his temple recommend  and his patriarchal blessing
recommend! 🎉🎉🎉
We talked a lot about patriarchal blessings and he is so excited!!! He
is probably the most prepared person I've had the chance to know, he
is so diligent about reading and coming to church each week, he spent
3 hours at church, then an hour with us, then met with the bishop,
then stayed even longer to help shovel the sidewalks! Blows me away!

And last but not least, I love getting to see Sister Lopez at the
store!!! She goes home in a week 😥 I am so thankful for the time I
had to learn from her, she truly did shape my mission 😊

Also, Brother Masters, my Ward mission leader from West Jordan, is now
a full time missionary! We saw him at the store too! Haha

I love you all and hope you have an amazing week and know how much
Jesus Loves you, and how much Heavenly Father loves you, to send His
only begotten Son!

John 3:16-17 ❤
16 ¶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but
that the world through him might be saved.

Hello world 🙋

Its been a pretty good week! Last Monday we went hiking with Rachel 😊
it was so much fun!!
The picture below is a face mask Kiki sent me 🤗
And some polaroids from exchanges with Sister Turner and Sister Hanson
😊 apparently I missed out on the craziness in our area on exchanges,
a semi truck ran into a power line and took down 4 poles and caught a
house on fire and a lot of people were without power for the rest of
the night! I didn't even know until the next day!

Last week we didn't find anyone new to teach, so we were really
praying for a miracle, something to inspire our faith, and we met two
really sweet girls, Brickelle and Jessie! We shared the restoration of
the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and when we asked if they already
had a copy of the Book of Mormon, and the younger one(10 years old),
who was so quiet the entire time, ran to her room to get her copy and
show us, her mom told us she catches her reading it at night and she's
already read the entire thing! That blows my mind! It took me over a
year to read it the first time! She said she doesn't always understand
everything but she feels good when she reads it! That strengthens my
testimony so much of what a powerful witness it is of our Savior Jesus
Christ and how plain and precious the truths in it are! They both want
to be baptized in February! 😊❤

We got to spend some time with our favorite person Amy this week too
:) she is the sweetest! I just love her! ❤ she is so sincere and I
know that Heavenly Father loves her so much and will answer her
prayers! Heavenly Father is so aware of each and every one of us, it
is incredible! I was smiling ear to ear when she told us about her and
her daughters prayers over food this week, the scriptures are so true
when they say "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them
not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."- Matthew
19:14 and "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 18:4 I
love it! ❤

We also met and started visiting a Samoan family, the Saena's this
week, they have the cutest kids!!! They are working to get to the
temple this year and be sealed as a family! I am so excited for them!
They were both called as Sunday school teachers this week in church 😊
We are going to temple square with them Tuesday, so pictures to
come next week! 👏🏽🎉⛪️

I love missionary work, because of all of the amazing people we are
able to come to know and love so quickly, these truly are
relationships that I will cherish forever! I know God loves each one
of us so much, which is why He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the
world, so that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life! He is the good news and I am so grateful to be
able to tell people about Him every day! 🤗

I hope you all have a blessed week!
Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick

Hello everyone!

We got a lot of snow this week!

This week has been interesting. It wasn't the best missionary work
wise, but I learned a lot this week! We didn't find any new people, we
had a lot of lessons cancel, and only two investigators at church,
butttttt all of our recent converts were there! 😊 and I know we are
going to see big miracles this coming week!

So this week I learned a lot about the power of the Book of Mormon as
a Testament of our savior Jesus Christ. We just finished reading the
New Testament as a mission and are starting to read the Book of Mormon
together. This week in MLC, sister Lansing gave a training on the Book
of Mormon and she read the verse before and after the verse that I
read for the first time and felt the spirit so strongly, and for the
first time believed the Book of Mormon could be true. As she helped us
to understand a little more about the chapter, I read my verse (1
Nephi 10:18) and as I did I was taken back to the place and memory of
the first time I read it, and I felt the same overpowering feeling of
God's love and truth!! It was amazing. This week as we studied it
together, it wasn't the best companionship study, I was discouraged to
be honest and just gave up, we just read through the Book of Mormon
quickly, and i was upset, because that's not how I like to do it, but
as we got to that verse it was my turn to read out loud and I just
cried as I read it. I learned so much, I realized that as someone
reads the Book of Mormon, their heart softens, whether they want it to
or not, and I felt the spirit so strongly, I was surprised! I know
that God loves all of His children everywhere, and the Book of Mormon
is simply another record of God's interaction with His children,
another group of people waiting on their savior Jesus Christ, it
fulfills prophecy in the Bible, they are the other sheep! The Book of
Mormon and Bible go hand in hand to witness of the reality of our
savior's life and ministry, and ultimately bring us closer to Him!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sorry it's short this time, we are about to go hiking with Rachel, our
favorite person :)

Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick

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It feels like P-day was yesterday!

We had another baptism Saturday!! Colton was baptized on New
Year's Eve and given the Holy Ghost on New Year's Day!! He is one of
the coolest kids I know! He was nervous for his baptism the day of,
but he has been so excited for it since the day we met him!! His uncle
came down from Idaho to baptize him, and his dad came to his baptism
with the rest of the family!!! We haven't really had the chance to
know his dad, but last week he said his baptism was near this big of a
deal when he was a kid, but at the baptism he said " I see why you
make such a big deal of this, I appreciate what you do, thank you!" It
was really nice :) I hope we get to know him more as we teach the
after baptism lessons! His whole family is great! We were teaching his
sister Sierra last night and invited her to pray about being baptized
and Colton said, "you can practice by saying the closing prayer!" Haha
he's the best! He was excited to volunteer himself to say the opening
prayer and he has been reading like 5 chapters a day of the New
Testament!

We had two lessons with the most amazing woman ever this week! Her
name is Amy, and she has neighbors and close friends who are LDS and
she has recently started coming to church with them. She told us she
isn't sure If she believes in God, but she wants to believe!! She said
she hopes that Jesus Christ is our savior and she started to cry as
she was talking about Him! She is so SINCERE!!!! I love her more than
she will ever know, after our first lesson, we left and I told my
companion, I think she is going to be the highlight of my mission! She
is just taking everything in and she has a desire to know God, so I
know she will receive her answer from Him, I just can't wait to see
how her journey unfolds! She said the closing prayer the second time
and it really just sounded like she knew someone was listening, she
said something along the lines of: "The question I would like to ask
you right now, is if you are there, and if this is the path you would have
me take?" I loved it so much!!!

We also had our first lesson with Peta, a Tongan woman who goes to the
Samoan Ward, she shared her experiences growing up in another faith
and how much her parents mean so to her for teaching her about God, she
is so sweet! I shared the first vision, when Jospeh smith saw God the
Father and Jesus Christ, with her, and when I asked how she felt she
said " I needed that" with tears in her eyes, the spirit was so
strong!!! I did not want to leave, but we had to, we almost missed
Coltons confirmation!!! He was so happy!!! 😊

This week I went on exchanges with Sister Hanson, she is so great!!! I
felt like we'd been companions for a long time, even though it was
only a day. She was only baptized a few months before I was! We met a
lot of new people while we were together and were able to share the
restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ with them, it was exciting!!

On Sunday, Kelsey Cox came home from her mission and spoke in church.
As she was speaking and telling different stories of seeing people
come to Christ, I realized that telling people about Jesus is my
absolute favorite thing to do!!  Sure it's hard sometimes, and people
aren't always the nicest, but I wouldn't rather be doing anything
else! I am making the most of every single second I have to tell
people about Jesus Christ, 24/7!

I love you all!
& hope you have a happy new year!

Sister Kirkpatrick

Best. Weekend. Ever!!!!

So many pictures!!!

So a lot happened this weekend.

We had 4 baptisms, I turned 22, I got to skype home, and spend the
holidays with so many people I love!!!

So the baptisms... Dakotas was at 10am, and it was so good! I counted
128 people there, the chapel was packed! Tons of friends from high
school came to support, as well as his family and the Ward! His friend
Tyler was Able to baptize him! The service was so good, Brother
Lebaron gave a really good talk on the Holy Ghost, and his wife sang
the most beautiful song! During the baptism, Dakotas face said it all,
he looked very serious and focused and I could tell that he knew what
an important thing he was doing, making a promise to follow Jesus
Christ to the best of his ability for the rest of his life, and I know
he will!!! His mom cried the whole service, she is so sweet and it was
so good to meet her! After the confirmation on Sunday I asked if she
goes to church in Vegas, and she said "no, but that's going to change,
the spirit I felt when I walked in here this morning was incredible!"
I am sooo happy!!! I know Dakota is excited too, he has set such a
good example for his entire family, he has a heart of gold!

After his baptism we went to the Lebarons house to celebrate and all
of a sudden everyone started singing happy birthday and they brought
out two cup cakes with candles for me! It was so sweet! I don't think
I've ever been surprised that good!

Then Maddie Sarah and Hannah had their baptism! It was so sweet! They
all looked so beautiful in their white dresses, and they are always
sweet, but that day they just seemed so pure!!! They are all willingly
doing what they can to follow their savior more closely and it was so
amazing seeing the whole family together to support them! We thought
there was no way there would be as many people at their baptism as
there was for Dakota, but there was! The chapel was packed full again,
the 9th Ward is amazing! President and Sister Lansing also came! 🎉 I
am so so so grateful for the Gill family in my life! Their example of
faith, strength and courage has changed me, it has strengthen my own
testimony, and I can't thank Heavenly Father enough for these eternal
friendships!

We spent Christmas Eve and day with a lot of different families, and
as you can see, they spoiled us... Christmas exploded in our home! It
was so good getting to skype home too! I have the best family ever and
I love them so much! It is always hard to hang up, but this call was
different than the first one in a good way, no one was as anxious for
it, i think it is good because we are all more comfortable and time is
flying by! It is good to be present and find the joy in the journey!

I love you all and hope you had a merry Christmas!!!