I love my nametag, I love chocolate on toast, I love the gospel, I love the Holy Ghost, I love the whole world, and all it's little things

Positivity!  It's fun when you make it fun.  That works for everything.

Training is fun!  My companion is a very willing missionary.  If asked, she would probably tell you that my favorite phrase is "Do it."  I sound like a dumb jock egging his friends on, I think.  "Hey, go contact that person."  "What?  No!"  "Come on, do it!  Doooooo iiiiiittt."  And then she does it.  In Spanish, my favorite phrase is "No me importa" -  I don't care.  It's raining?  Whatever!  Keep moving forward.

We're hoping to drop a couple baptismal dates this week, so keep your fingers crossed!

This has been an update from your favorite (or at least second favorite) Puerto Rican missionary,

Hermana Kirkland

Transfer gossip: Hermana Partridge is going to Bayamón, and Hermana Pinto is going to San Germán, and we're getting two new sisters who are whitewashing the area (and training!).  I'm still here, shocker, finishing training.

Here is a good story:

The experience of the week(!) was with Gynoshka, whom we contacted literally four months ago and this was the first lesson with her. She's recently married (she told us that she insisted they get married instead of live together) and her husband is also interested but has the madrugada shift so was asleep during that visit. Even though we haven't been able to visit they've stayed on our radar because they live next to less actives and Ive had a good feeling about them. We re-contacted her and her friend last week with the restoration and she asked, "is that the pamphlet I have?" It wasn't because we had given her 4 months ago the plan of salvation. So we gave that to her friend too and said, "this answers three questions," and she said, "It really does, I don't like reading but I read that entire thing more than once." So we had our first visit on Saturday. We got to know her for a while. It's really easy to relate to her because she's close in age. She said that she will keep visiting churches until she finds the one that "me llena." Then we taught the restoration, and it was gold. Here were some of her questions: "Why are there so many churches?" "Why didn't Christ come to the Americas?" My companion did the first vision and it was spot on. Then when we taught the Book of Mormon we turned to 3 Nefi 11:1-10 (because it is never a bad time to read from the Book of Mormon) and she was all, "wow," and then we said, "well do you know what there is a way to know if this is true," and we turned to Moroni 10:3-5 and she read it and the Spirit was SO STRONG and my companion asked, "how do you feel about this promise?" and she said, "I have this feeling in my heart... I don't have any words" and then she was crying and I was crying and Hermana Wilkinson was going, "This is the best day of my life!." She accepted the invitation to be baptized but not a date yet (that's okay because her husband needs a date), and she texted us afterwards and said, "Gracias por la visita... Espero que se repita la visita cuando mi esposo esta despierto." We have an appointment Wednesday.

We learned this week with Elder Cornish that it isn't necessarily obedient missionaries that baptize.  It's missionaries who expect to baptize.  To be fair, if you expect to baptize you might just baptize anyone so that you can get them, but it is possible to baptize people who are actually ready and still have a lot.  Just gotta have faith.

Love you!

Hermana Kirkland

Thank you all for the birthday wishes.  I can't believe I hit twenty already!  That happened fast.  That's probably how I'll feel at the end of my mission.  Actually it's how I feel now.

We had a good week.  We got a lot of new investigators which was nice, and a record three new references, all of whom we contacted.  Give out references, people!  It's so much better!

I love you all,

Hermana Kirkland

This week the missionary from San Sebastian finished her mission and came home from Saint George, and we met her at the Mother's Day dinner on Friday!  It was hilarious.  She is super cute, and she is definitely still in mission-awkward zone.  When the bishop gave her a hug she did this funny little flinch thing, and she said to us, "I'm going to go get water in the church... ALONE!"  Poor thing.  That will be me before I know it.  But she really wants to go out with us, which is something every missionary wants.

I am enjoying training.  We're starting week 5 tomorrow, which I can't believe.  Where did April go??  I don't know!  We had something interesting happen this week when we found this really prepared investigator, gave him a date, and then he told us the next day that he's leaving for Florida for a while because of a family emergency.  So fun.  He said he'll call us when he gets back.  Peggy still has a date but is still having a hard time getting to church, so she could use some prayers, probably.  Her husband, Vicente the recent convert, turns 81 today!  You wouldn't know he's 81.  That's a common thing in Puerto Rico, they all look younger than they are.

I'm having a great time.  Hope you all feel the same.

Hermana Kirkland