Still training.  Stay the course.  Keep moving forward.

Love you!

Hermana Kirkland

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  I love training!  It's also terrifying.  The trainer's meeting is where President figuratively grabs you by the head, stares deep in to your soul, and says, "TRAINING IS SO IMPORTANT.  IT IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE MISSION.  YOU ARE THE GOOD MISSIONARIES THAT I TRUST BUT DON'T MESS IT UP."  It's a lot of fun.  My companion is Hermana Wilkinson from Seattle, which is where Hermana Partridge is from!  They know a lot of the same people.  She's training Hermana Pinto from Brazil.  It's cool because she's so innocent and ready to work, not super jaded like the old missionaries (wait... that's me now.  Oops).

I'm running out of time but I will try and talk more next week!  Faith always points forward!  Prayer makes miracles!  I love you!

Hermana Kirkland

Well, all good things must end.  Except families.  And the Atonement.  Well, there are some good things that don't end.  But the best trio of all time had to end, and we knew it was going to be this transfer.  Hermana Stevens is going to Aguas Buenas, and Hermana Partridge and I are both training in San Sebastian!!!!  Hoooooo boy.  I'm really excited.  There's no way it could be worst than last time. right?  Don't answer that.

How awesome was conference?  It was very awesome.  I am especially stoked for three new temples, and one of them in my area!  (The Carribean, not San Sebastian).  I loved loved loved Sister Burton's talk Saturday morning, and President Uchtdorf's talk yesterday morning.  I got a lot of answers I needed.

So I'm in my own area again, which I'm basically reopening, except I already know where everything is and all the ward members.  But no dates, no progressing investigators, hardly any investigators.  This will be interesting.  But miracles happen in training.  I'm excited.

And we might have a wedding this week!  I'll send pictures if/when it happens.

Love you!

Hermana Kirkland

We did some cool stuff this week, like we went to another town that's part of our area to try and find all the less actives that live there.  It's straight campo, with roads like tangled Christmas lights, plus it was raining.  Really pretty.  We hope we can go again just to figure out who still lives there.

Something really cool we did this week was we went to San German for a zone activity which the stake president and the mission president coordinated.  San German has a legendary ward, so much member support, and all the missionaries spent the morning inviting all the less actives to come to church the next day.  Hermana Partridge was super excited because she actually had her training there with my last companion, Hermana Ponce, as her trainer.  And so we got the the numbers - there were 175 people in sacrament meeting, with 25 less actives and 40 investigators.  San German WORKS.

Here's something fun from my personal study this week: Alma 31-35, where Alma [the bishop] feels sad that the Zoramites have apostatized [that he has less actives] (31:2), decides to share the gospel (31:5, actually the scripture on my missionary plaque), gets some missionary companions [ward members] (31:6), and goes to visit them.  Yes, they are definitely in apostasy (31:8-11), and some of them have joined another church and forgotten their testimony (31:23, the name for that here is "domingueros").  So he prays (31:26-35), strengthens his companions [ward] (31:36), and goes to teach (Alma 32-34, where we have the perfect example of how two companions teach together).  Then some of the Zoramites [less actives] come back (35:2-4).

I'm doing really well.  I love missionary work and I love the gospel.  And I love all of you :)

Hermana Kirkland