Family!                                                     July 14, 2014

Another super busy week has gone by. We had three exchanges last week so I feel like I haven't seen my own companion, Sister Thompson at all!!! haha! We saw some neat tender mercies of the Lord this week. I want to share two of them with you! 

1. Last Monday night, President Wood, the 1st counselor of the Mission Presidency, invited us over for dinner at his home. They had invited a recent convert over… but they didn't realize until 5 minutes before we got there that the recent convert had also invited a nonmember friend! Those things happen every once in awhile so it wasn't a big deal... :) His name is Silas. He is a super cool guy from Jamaica! He is super in-tune with the spirit. He is one of those people that knew that he needed to find a church so he got in his car one morning and found himself at the Silver Star chapel, (the building that I attended when I was in Winter Garden). The Silver Star chapel is super hard to find... even for members because it is in a very secluded area and is hiding behind trees!!! He was definitely led by the spirit to that church.  He began to take lessons from the missionaries last fall but wasn't ready to get baptized although he has a pretty solid testimony that this church is true. Anyway, just from the conversations over dinner we assumed from what we heard that he was still meeting with the missionaries and that he was going to President Wood's ward so we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and to continue meeting with the missionaries.... well.... President Wood called us later that night and said that he realized after we had left that Silas isn't even in their ward boundaries.... he's in our ward!!!! ... and not only our ward... but in OUR area!!!! What are the chances that God would place Silas in our paths? He was like.... “Well this will be easy! The sisters are going over for dinner on Monday at the Woods... so I'll just have him meet them there!” hahahaha so crazy! I love how God truly is in the details of our lives and his plan is perfect! 

Silas also told us a crazy, cool story that he had about following the spirit when he was down in Haiti. He was driving down a street in Haiti, literally just a couple days before the earthquake in Haiti was going to hit. As he was driving down this street he could see a great view of this mountain in front of him and all of a sudden he had this vision of the mountain crumbling to the ground.... The next day, he was driving down the same street and when he got to the same exact spot on the street, he had that same vision again of the mountain coming down and he knew that something really big was going to happen in Haiti soon. He got the first plane ticket that he could to Orlando and flew out 2 days before the earthquake hit. Crazy right? He is super in tune with the spirit. 

2. Two weeks ago we were talking with a member family, the Kite's (p.s. Brother and Sister Kite both played at BYU and Brother Kite has a couple national championships from playing with the Celtics! cool huh?).. anyway... he is a home teacher for a less active family. We have been working with their son but have not been able to get in touch with the daughters. We made a plan to try and meet the other sisters and help them get back to church so that their 7-year old son could get baptized next year. We went by last week for an appointment with the son and one of the daughters happened to be there! She didn't know that we were going to be there but she joined us and LOVED it. We changed our lesson last second to help her and I know that the Spirit totally led Sister Thompson and I to know what to say. We talked about the spirit... what it is, why we need it, how to recognize it, and how to invite it into our lives. She was crying and told us that she felt the spirit!! We are going back to see her again this week :) It doesn't matter whether we help nonmembers or returning members... the joy that you feel when you see the power of the atonement working in someone's life is the same. I love having this time to be a missionary to see those miraculous moments. 

I'm out of time and wish that I had more time to write... but I know that as we have the courage to do follow God's will through His spirit that we will be guided to where we need to be. God's will and plan is PERFECT. As we put our trust in Him, and work our very hardest, we can know that He will help us :) 

I love you all!!!! 

Love, 

Sister Kirkham