More Miracles

We saw so many miracles in our week that it is hard to pick a
few! We had a few people come to church for the first time this Sunday with us! We have been meeting with a man named Randy (pictured in the
back), who has not been to church in 15 years, for about a month now.
We have invited him to church each week but he didn't come for one
reason or another. This Saturday we went to remind him but he wasn't
home, so we left a sticky note saying we would be back in the morning
to walk with him to church. He was surprised when we actually showed
up, but he got ready and came with us, and stayed the whole time!
Later that day when we had our lesson with him we asked him how it was
and he said that He saw God's hand so much in his life that day! He
said he went to sleep really late, but he set an alarm anyways,
thinking he might sleep through it; it never even went off but he said
he was wide awake before it was even supposed to. He said that even
then he thought that he might not go, but when we showed up he said he
couldn't say no. Then when we got to church he ran into the stake
president and was so warmly welcomed and made an instant connection!
The Sunday school teacher introduced himself to him after sacrament
meeting and led him to his class! Then in the next class, elders
quorum, he found out that the men had a special fast for that Sunday that more men would come into the ward, whether they would be new or
returning! He was overwhelmed by God's love! It was one miracle after
another! I have learned that a miracle is something that happens with
divine intervention that otherwise would not happen! God is so great!
     Also, Cassius and his mom came, they are pictured below! He
brought his Bible that we gave him with him and has been tabbing it!
He really like it and begged his mom to let him stay for Sunday school
even though they were only supposed to stay one hour, and she let him!
He is so sweet! When we met with him this week, we finished our lesson
and he said is it okay if I ask a question off topic? And we said
sure! And he said so what time do you wake up? What time do you go to
work? How much does a mission cost? We told him, and he said I wanna
go on a mission! Haha his mom told him to start saving! She is such a
good supportive mom!
     We are adjusting to life as a trio... Our new sister is really
nice! She's from Texas!
     I appreciate hearing from you all in your emails! I love and
miss you, time is flying though! 😊


Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick

Hello everyone!

     The greatest joy in my work this week came from seeing how God
provides opportunities for His children to grow! Angel was supposed to
be baptized this past Saturday, but moved it to next Saturday because
she wanted the bishop to be able to be there. She is still being so
strong in not smoking, we are so proud of her! Her social anxiety
seems to have gone away as well; when we invited her to an activity at
church about a month ago she didn't know if she could because there
would be a lot of people there. This week we went to the chapel and
found her and her husband helping clean up after an event and talking
to all sorts of new people. We have seen such a change in both of
them! The bishop was there as well, so we asked him if he could do the
baptism. He thought about it for a moment then asked another man who
was there helping as well if he would like to do it. It was so
perfect, the man he asked was recently baptized a few years ago
himself, and has never been able to perform a baptism! He looked
nervous but excited and said he couldn't wait to tell his wife! That
strengthened my testimony that we are here to learn and grow and God
gives us so many opportunities to do just that in His gospel! God
entrusts us with responsibility to serve each other for our benefit! I
have learned that as long as we are seeking to follow God, and are
willing to follow where He asks us to go, He will guide, and show us
the way!
      This mission truly is helping me to grow closer to Jesus Christ
in so many ways. I am learning more about Him and the things he taught
during His ministry, and the church He established, as well as His
characteristics. I realize that I do not naturally possess those
characteristics, such as charity, virtue, knowledge, patience, and
humility; but I can pray for them! And with Christ's help I can start
to develop them. I will never be perfect, but I can strive each day to
be the daughter of God He knows I can be. We are studying and working
on a different attribute each week, this week I am working on virtue!
I need it 😊


     Sister Lopez turned 21 on Tuesday! Her stake president from
Mexico had a cake sent to her! 😊 it was so sweet! Then we had non
alcoholic Pima coladas to celebrate!

    This weekend was a cold rainy one! We were happy to get into our
warm dry beds on Saturday night!

   Hope you are all doing well and feeling my prayers for you! ❤️

Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick

Crazy news!!!

      Sister Lopez and I just got some crazy news!!! It is transfers
week! So every 6 weeks we will get a phone call to tell us weather or
not one or both of us will be going to new areas. She is training me
for the first twelve weeks so we assumed and hoped with everything in
us that we would stay together! We just got a phone call saying that
we will both be staying, but we will be getting a new sister! So we
will be in a trio instead of a companionship for at least 6 weeks! So
sister Lopez will be training 2 people and I  guess I will be a
trainer and a trainee! This adds a whole new dimension. On the one
hand, idk where we are going to put all of our things, and someone
will be on an air mattress, but on the other hand we will be
invincible! Haha we will be able to go into any home even if there is
only a single man home because there will be three of us! The Lord
knows exactly what He is doing, so I know it will be great!! 🙈😀
     Sister Lopez and I have had another great week! We have had so
many great lessons centered on the atonement of Jesus Christ! We have
been teaching Angel for awhile now, who has been trying to stop
smoking. We have done our best to center every principle we teach on
Christ and His atonement, but having a lesson with her solely on the
Atonement impacted her so much! I was able to share a quote by
president Hinckley from the talk "The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope" by
James E. Faust, with her, and I think it really struck a cord and
helped her understand what Christ has done for us, by taking our place
and paying for our sins. The next day we went back to see how she was
doing with not smoking, and she told us she was drawing the line. She
was really going to stop this time because she really wanted to take
the sacrament and    show Christ how much she cared about what He did
for her and be baptized! I have always known that you must be built on
a firm foundation of Christ, and how powerful the atonement is, but I
am continuing to learn that more and more on my mission. It is so
amazing to see the atonement working in the lives of others! She was
absolutely glowing when she showed up to church and told us not only
had she not smoked, but she had been around someone smoking and not
asked for one, and even been offered a cigarette and declined! There
is so much strength in the atonement!
     We had our next lesson with Cassius, the boy that I wrote to
you about last week. We were so excited because his mom told us that
he cried after we left last time because he felt the spirit so
strongly when he prayed. When we sat down for the lesson however, his
father told us we could teach him but he did not want us to talk about
the Book of Mormon. We were able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ
still, but it strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon as
another testament of Jesus Christ, because for the first time I wasn't
allowed to share verses from it to testify of Christ, or give him a
copy to help him draw nearer to Christ. I love the Bible with all of
my heart, but I am also so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the
further light it sheds on the Savior and all that He has done for us.
The two are one in God's hand!


                          Our terrible cake we made for my two year anniversary being baptized!

 

The amazing quote on the atonement I shared with Angel!

 

  Katie Stewart who has been awesome in coming to our lessons with us!



 

 

Porky pine!

 

 And I had dinner with Elder Bishops cousin!!! It was so neat running
into her!!!

Love you all!
Sister Kirkpatrick

Update through pictures :)

   Sister Lopez and I have had a wonderful week! We have been busy,
which is good. This week we asked a sister who just came back from her
mission to go to a lesson with us, and it ended up falling through. We
went to our back up plan, and she agreed to go with us to see if they
were home. We knocked on the door of a woman who was raised in the
gospel but no longer attends church, who is married to a Muslim man.
She said they have always given their children the choice of how they
want to worship God, and have just tried to teach them correct
principles. She has another son who is studying to be a Protestant
minister! It is amazing to see so much love, tolerance, and acceptance
in one family. She told us she would talk to her younger son and see
if he was interested in talking to us, so we went to follow up. She
said he was sick and wasn't sure he was ready to meet with us, but he
came to the door, and agreed to watch our Easter video! After showing
it, seeing what he thought about it, and sharing some of our own
thoughts, he said a closing prayer, and we asked him if we could come
back and meet with him again, or if he wanted more time to think about
it like his mom had mentioned. Without hesitation he said, "I want you
to come back!", it was so sweet! We are excited to meet with him next
week!
      This week I learned that we can develop faith in a particular
principle, by first believing in Christ strongly enough to obey His
commandments. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." -John
7:17.
      As President Uchtdorf said, "As we increase in faith, we must
also increase in faithfulness." We won't be perfect, but we must do
our best by choosing each day to follow our Savior.
      Today marks two years since I was baptized. It is one of the
best decisions I have ever made, because it has drawn me closer to my
Savior and allowed me to have the constant companionship of the Holy
Ghost, and learn so much more from God!




These are the Tippets! My dad sent a new bike for me and Brother
Tippets (one of the ward mission leaders) assembled it! I am blessed
beyond belief! They are such amazing people, it is truly a sign of
God's love that they are in my first area, they do so much for us! We
got to watch the second session of general conference with them, and
they made fruit and cracker trays for us to snack on! Also they make
amazing malts! 😊

 

 

Other news...for the real MVP's :)

Mike is continuing to do good! His heart is softening, he is reading scriptures again, and he said he thinks he finally understands who God is!

 

This past Friday night, we went on a "tract out" with the Spanish branch, where all the missionaries in the area split from our companion and went with someone in the ward to cover more ground, and knocked on every door in the 3 apartment complexes in the area. There are a lot of Hispanic people there so that's why we went with the Spanish branch. So I was paired up with Sister Rodriguez... she is so amazing!!!!!! I found out that she was a convert to, but get this... she was serving a mission as a Jehovah's Witness, when she knocked on the door of LDS missionaries!!! How crazy is that!? She said she just heard this voice in her head telling her to keep going back and knocking on this certain door, and eventually she caught them home and it was LDS missionaries. She said the first time she met with them, she tried to convert them, but the second lesson she started listening to them. She ended up joining the church and serving an LDS mission! She said her parents were both baptist, but she started doing her own searching, and JW seemed the closest, she hadn't heard of the LDS church before. She said what did it for her was having dinner at a members home one night, she asked why we did temple work, baptisms, and when the man told her and showed her where it was in the bible, 1 Corinthians 15:29. She said it was like a blind fold was lifted, and she could just see light and remembered this truth she was hearing. She also said she knew the LDS or JW church had to be true because they are the only ones taking the gospel to all the world, Matthew 24:14. It was pretty exciting to hear her story!

We met a lot of people and invited them to church! No one I met came though. :(

 

Also, Sister Lopez ran into a telephone pole with her bike this week, it was pretty hilarious. We laughed about it for the rest of the day.

 

I met this awesome lady in the ward! She is a liscensed massage therapist, but she does cranial sacral therapy. She has this amazing gift where she can see whats going on inside of you, it sounds crazy but its so amazing! Basically, I need to start taking chlorophyll, because I dont eat enough greens, no surprise there lol, and she said either my kidney or liver I think, is only working 30% as a result! So I'm getting some at the health foods store!

 

Okay last thing, I don't want to alarm you with this story, but it's pretty funny.

So when I first got here, Sister Lopez pointed out a boarded up house where a girl had been kid napped. We dont go there to knock.

The other day we were riding out bikes and saw a man outside in the yard raking sticks. She stopped and asked him if he needed help. I followed her lead. He said no but thank you and told us how he loved the Lord. We talked a little, then invited him to church and told him it was great to meet him. Before we left I told him to let us know if we could ever come back and help (Sister lopez usually offers to do service, and lets people know we are allowed to put pants on instead of our skirts to do service), so he said oh really thank you so much, and I said "yeah, we can take our skirts off and put pants on insteasd to help if we need to!" Not only does that mix up of words sounds terrible, to start with... But we rode away and she said "Sister, YOU can take your skirt off, I'm not going back, that's where the girl got kid napped..." I had no idea that was the house!! I didnt recognize it... man oh man did I really put my foot in my mouth that time... were not going back!!

 

Okay sorry for the long email, I won't get to write much indivually now, maybe later this evening!

Love,

Sister Kirkpatrick

Happy Late Easter!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! :)

 

      We had a very good Easter! We attended three different ward sacrament meetings! We were filled all day with uplifting messages about our Savior and all that He has done for us! I know that it is only because of Him that there is any life at all. He lived a perfect, sinless life, and payed the price for our sins in the garden of gethsemane, and died on the cross for us. But he rose three days later, and He lives! Because He lives, we will all live again! I know that if we choose to follow Him and live for Him as our Savior, we can live with Him forever! I am so so so grateful for His unconditional love and guidance!

 

      My favorite part of church was in the last service that we went to. The choir sang Easter songs, and people from the choir stood up and said things between songs. One man's story spoke to me the most, he said:

      "I had a friend growing up, who was making poor choices. He knew better, he had been taught better, and lots of people tried to help him get back on the right path, but he continued to make poor choices. One day he called me and asked me to give him a priesthood blessing, and I am ashamed to say, that my first thought was, 'finally, this is perfect, now I can tell him what he's doing wrong, and he will listen, becasue it's a blessing' manipulative, I know. But when I layed my hands on his head to give him the blessing, all I felt was love for him. I knew that it was Heavenly Father's love for him! The feelings I had previously were washed away, and all I could tell him was how much God loved him. I was truly humbled."

     I love that story!!!! Heavenly Father loves us so much and so unconditonally! We are imperfect, and fallen people, but because of Jesus Christ, the Father can look upon us with so much love and compassion no matter what we have done! We are never too far gone, He is always standing with arms wide open.

      So this week we had another baptism. Tiffany Jr. decided to be baptized as well! Her mom and sister were baptized a few weeks ago! She is so awesome! She didn't feel ready to be baptized when they were, but I am so glad she took the time to prepare and do this for herself and for God. We have seen her grow so much, there is a new light in her eyes :) I'll send a picture in another email!

 

      I wish I could tell you about all of the amazing people we are teaching, and the miracles that continue to happen! There is just so much! I hope that something here can uplift you and draw you closer to your Savior! :)

 

     If you have not already, you should check out the 2 minute Easter videos about the Savior at FollowHim.mormon.org

 

Love,

Sister Kirkpatrick

 

 

Also, this was a surprise baptism! Her mom thought it was a birthday
party because her birthday was the next day, and when she saw her
daughter in white she just started crying she was so happy with the
choice she had made to be baptized 😊 it was so sweet!!!

 

Another Week of Miracles

This has been an amazing week! The first couple days were cold and
miserable and we didn't see many people, but the next day the sun came
out and the miracles started raining down!

  Some of the most wonderful experiences this week have been with
Clara, a ten year old girl preparing for baptism. The first time we
met with her, we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon to read, and
asked her to do so a little each day. We went back this week to read
with her, and found out she had finished all of first Nephi! We told
her how impressed with her we were, and she bashfully said, "I've
been staying up reading more than one chapter at night". She is so
amazing, her mom was impressed as well. I am so thankful that we are
able to meet with their whole family. Tonight we shared the plan of
salvation with them, and her mom was moved to tears. She was so
grateful to know that we will all be made whole because of Christ's
atonement, and all of the pain and suffering in this life will be taken
away! I could feel the spirit so strongly! I am also so grateful for
the knowledge of my Savior, that because he paid the price, and died
for our sins, we will all be resurrected and have the opportunity to
stand before God to be judged. I am so grateful that we won't have to
stand alone, that we can have Jesus Christ as our advocate standing
next to us! Our Heavenly Father and Savior love us so much!!! Believe
that!

We had a great lesson this week with 5  "rowdy", as sister Lopez says
:) teenage boys! We have been meeting with them for a few weeks now,
but when we met with them last they asked if we could just have a
question and answer session next time. So we did some studying on a
few things they asked us to and then cam and answered questions. It
was great because they participated so much in the lesson and were
really insterested in what we were saying. They appreciated it and I
think we built a lot of trust, so we hope they are just as engaged in
the rest of the lessons! They really are good people seeking for
truth! They have come to church the past two sundays so we are
excited!

We had another baptism this past Saturday! It was a 10 year old boy
named Braiden! His family was the first lesson I went to the night I
got to the mission field! I have enjoyed teaching them so much! My
favorite part of the baptism was seeing Braiden's face looking up so
innocently and intently at the man baptizing him.
 Mark 10:14-15 "But when Jesus saw it,‍ he was much displeased, and
said unto them, Suffer the little children‍ to come unto me, and
forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto
you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,
he shall not enter therein." is so true, unless we are as little
children, we cannot enter into God's Kingdom!

It is so neat to see how the Spirit can guide you and you don't
recognize it until you get to where you're being led sometimes. Twice
this week we had something fall through and them felt like we should
go somewhere specific or knock doors on a certain street, and both
times we meet two different women who told us they knew God had sent
us because they really needed the lift and to feel the Spirit! Those
are such amazing times, and make it all worth it! I know God knows us
all so individually, and He is listening and cares!

This week during personal scripture study, I learned from
Mark 11:22-24 "And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith‍ in
God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall
not doubt‍ in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he
saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore
I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe‍
that ye receive them,‍ and ye shall have them.",
that if we have faith in God, and do not doubt, anything is possible;
those verses outline the simple steps involved: desire, pray, believe,
and receive! I know that God hears our prayers and answers them
according to our faith, and He wants to bless us more than we can
imagine.

I am praying for you! Let me know if there is anything specific I can
remember in my prayers :)

Love,
Sister Kirkpatrick