Sister Kirkpatrick: An Instrument in the Lord's Hands: Crazy week! 😂🙌🏽

It has been an interesting week! We've gotten to meet a lot of people!

So first, on Monday night we met two men who don't believe in God. The first was the man you see in his car on FaceTime haha, we stopped to talk to him in his car, and he is very familiar with missionaries, so he thought it was funny we were stopping to talk to him and he wanted to FaceTime his friend who goes to church haha! He doesn't live in our area but we had a good conversation with him!

The second guy, Troy, we've been able to see a few times this week. When we met him he told us on the door step he wasn't interested, but after we talked a little he invited us in and told us how he doesn't believe in God, and as we shared our testimonies with Him, and how much having a relationship with Jesus Christ has blessed our lives, he kept asking us how it's helped us, and we would tell him, and he would say how else has it helped you? He is searching for God! He doesn't realize it but he is! It was a huge blessing for me to have that experience because it made me think, and it strengthened my faith as I thought back on all the ways I've truly seen God working in my life!

We also met a crazy guy! Haha someone told us he wanted a Book of Mormon, so we went to give him one and brought someone from church with us to meet with him. He told us he had just moved here because he got a job promotion, so we asked where he worked and he said "do you know Ralph Lauren?" And we said yeah, and he said (with other word choice) "I'm a butt model." So matter of factly! The girl that was with us said you're a what? And he repeated himself and I just started busting out laughing! I couldn't take him seriously haha I didn't believe him, so he laughed too and told us he works for UPS!

anyways we went on to have the lesson and it went really well he seemed to be really seeking truth, but at the end of the lesson, idk what happened, but it was like a flip switched and he went nuts! He was yelling all kinds of crazy stuff and then he was like "I'm gonna read the Book, it's not true, but I'm gonna read it, but I don't think we should talk anymore..." haha we weren't sure what to do so we told him what time church started in case he wanted to come, and asked if we could leave with a prayer, and he said no! So we just awkwardly got up and put our coats on and told him it was nice to meet him and left!

We met some other people this week who were pretty cool too! I'll save their stories for once we get to know them a little more!

I went on exchanges with sister McCarter this week, it was cool because we came out the same time but we have never served around each other, we hit our 1 year mark this week!

This Sunday was one of the best!! First of all, Dakota got his patriarchal blessing, so exciting!!! I got to see him at a mission fireside last night, Brad Wilcox came to speak on grace, and it was so good!!! Here are a few quick highlights from my notes! ⬇️ also, Elder Ballard, one of the twelve apostles came to speak to us in church for the YSA stake conference, it was so good! He is very down to earth, it felt like a grandpa talking to his grandkids, he is so funny! One of the things he told us is when we have questions, to make sure we're going to the right source for answers (God) he said we've become to dependent on google, like we're trying to google our way to the celestial kingdom

Grace

How we are invited to engage with God
enables us to grow & change our character
Grace can be evident in our lives, even when tender mercies and answers to prayers aren't
It's the Power that allows the atonement to have a continuous impact on our lives
Our flaws or inadequacies turn us to the Lord, help us rely on Him
Changes our focus to be more Christ centered(and we are so much HAPPIER when our focus is on Jesus)