Preparing to be eternal families

Dear my wonderful family

so I am very happy to say that because of many prayers and the fasting of our investigators and us, and because of MIRACLES

the baptism of Janaina and Hemilly (on the same day) was simply a miracle, what happened is honestly just a miracle.

So with Hemily- OUr bishop gave us a list of people that had members of the family that werent members, and when looking at the list (with a ton of names) had the name of Luan Batista. And Luan is the name of my recent convert in my other area and i felt that this person (13 yrs old) should be the first person we visited. So we went to visit and no one was home. And we were leaving and passed a lady on the street and we continued walking.

And then the thought entered my mind- She is a part of the family that we are looking for.

And so I stopped and turned around and went to look at what house she was enterring and SHE entered the house!!!!! And so we quickly went to talk to her ad introduced ourselves, her name is Nina and is an older lady (maybe 60 years old) and had a hard time hearing what we were trying to say but said we could pass by that next week.

Well that next week we had things with the world cup and werent able to pass by their house. But then we passed her on the street!! And so we planned to visit them

We passed one day and talked with teh father Luciano and his son Pedro (8 yrs old) and invited them to an activity, and basically were just friendly and got to know them. Next time we passed we talked to Hemilly (14) and her brother lucas (18- who was baptized) and we talked about the importance of families and gave a pamphlet about strengthening families.

Then the next time we passed Irma Nina said that we could come in, and so we came in and started talking to her and we asked a few times if anyone was home, and she wasnt really understanding then I asked

Is Hemilly home? and she was not really hearing what we were saying but said that she was probably sleeping.

And I just decided I would just call up the stairs (I dont know if this statement makes sense in english) but i just called her name and invited her to come down stairs

and she came and it was a good lesson and we passed by a few more times and everything which was nice but she said she was already baptized, but we thought either way its good for them to be active and everything 

so we invted them to church, they said they would come, and they walked to church with members- Irma Aria and her grand daughter Nicoli

and so she liked church alot

and then people started telling us that they thought Emily wasnt actually baptized including bishop Demetrius

and then Bishop asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said Sure

and then when we visited she said she loved church and wanted to go to the activies and when invited to be baptized she said Of course!

And so that was all wonderful and then we got to meet Luan and his mom Ana Maria said that Luan had been asking why he hadnt been baptized (and so he will be baptized next week)

and their ENTIRE family went to the wards family night!!! (except lucas) but it was 6 people!!!

And so now we are getting a lot more support from the leaders because this is a Family being active again

AND miracles of all is that Emily's dad got to baptize her!!!!!!!!!!

That was an unexpected miracle.

and her mom said how she actually never entered in the temple and so now we are trying to help their younger kids be baptized so they can prepare to enter the temple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we will visit the temple this saturday to take pictures so they know what their goal is :)!!

So that is beyond wonderful

and also with Janaina was a miracle as well because her dad wasnt supporting her being baptized because he is Very protective and things like that

and then Janaina AND her mom did a fast and then her brother (RM) came to visit and invited her dad to come to church and then he was supporting her being baptized (when we had thought maybe we would postpone her baptism) but anyways HER brother actually served a mission with some of the ward members and bishop demetrius already knew him

and then so on the day of the baptism we had

Janaina, hemily, victor, adalberto, viviani (they are janainas family ) and her brother and wife, her non member friend jose, and her boyfriend who is a Member preparing to serve a mission Davi, Emily, Her parents who returned to the church for the first time in 7 years, and her brother Luan who will be baptized next week

WOW- families is where the miracles happen!

So that was incredible and their testimonies after the baptism were SO powerful and then her dad (not a member)said

"Janaina YOU are who is special!!!! seriously a blessing since you were born," and then they hugged and wow it was amazing because he was so happy and proud of her.

ALSO this was on the day of Sister Delgados 20th birthday

so we made 2 chocolate cakes for the baptism (sister moreira did most of it) and they were Incredible, and we bought a white cake for sister delgados birthday

and so all of us are 20 yrs old- so its pretty funny when people ask our ages

BUt ya its been wonderful and Im seeing manyblessings

I LOVE YOU ALL-

Sister Kimball

Focusing on families and temples!

Dear my wonderful lovely family :)

Thank you so much for your emails I loved them

So this has just been some of the most wonderful new experiences I am SO excited to talk about the new things that are happening!!!

So firstly something that is wonderful is our new mission President, wow wowowowowowowow I just cant explain HOW MUCH I LOVE MY MISSION PRESIDENT Im so serious I almost cried many times just out of pure gratitude for having him as a mission president.

Its really interesting I have been SO blessed with mission presidents during my mission they hgave been perfect for the specific time I had on my mission. 

For example President Pinho WAS beyond wonderful at being a mision president during the more intense time of my mission. Very hard working very motivating very very good. This was absolutely wonderful and I was very grateful for the things I learned and the miracles that happened during that time of my mission because we had Many things to do and realized our dire neccisidade to receive help from the Lord and things were wonderful because my testimony was strengthened immensly.

And I beyond Loved my first mission president who was exactly what I needed at the time AND miracles of miracle my new mission president Pres. Dalton is Exactly Like him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WAS SOOOO happy I am so happy I just can hardly stand it

From the very first email that he sent it was obvious that his desire is to help others through Our Love and Testimonies to help our brothers and sisters.

He is Very happy very excited, very funny, but very loving of the gospel and of us, not only do I know that he knows who I am but he cares about how each and every single one of us our doing. And this is really important to me.

I dont know exactly how to give an explanation so I will send a picture. Also his wife sister Dalton is very sweet and loving.

So thats been really great 

OH I remembered

HE is focusing on the importance of us teaching about

FAMILIES

and TEMPLES

so that families can be together

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haha This is what Ive been Trying to do all my mission!!!!!!

And now to have our new mission president have Everything focused on this Im just like RE- SUPER EXCITED about EVERYTHING

and we are Seeing these miracles happening again.

I am just so happy about this and I know it will transform our mission

Like I am super excited to see you all

but if you were all here and everything like that SERIOUSLY Id want to serve another year and a half Im just so happy and loving this work.

We started visiting a family and Miracles are happening they were less active for three years and the first sunday the daughter Hemilly (Emily) and her grandma went to church with our member friends and they LOVED it they remembered the people that were there and everyone in the ward was super excited to see them again, especially Bispo (our bishop)

and what was so cool was that we were teaching Emily (who is 14)

and we were teaching about families and entering the temple and I asked her

"Emily is it your desire to enter in the temple with your family?"

And she said Of Course it is!!

And we explained that baptism was the first step (I love this focusing on Temples and enternal families, with baptism being just a step to get there, I know this will help families truly)

And so I asked again

Is it your desire to follow Jesus Christ's example being baptized

and she said

OF course it is!! This is what Ive been waiting and hoping for, and now with the support Im receiving I know I can.

WAHOOOO :) And what is wonderful is that her family is Excited for her

I know with all my heart that they will all return and be sealed in the temple,l they are the Perfect example of a member family who honestly just needed someone to reach out there hand. 

And Im so grateful that my companions and I are being so blessed to be a part of this wonderful change in their lives.

So this was really wonderful.

The OTHER Wonderful thing is that I received aNOTHER COMPANION :)!!! We are in a TRIO !!!!! Wahoo!!! Seriously it is so wonderful I love her (Sister Delgado) and my other companion Sister Moreira

and its been SOOO good :)

From the first lesson we had I felt the spirit really strong and we all shared our testimonies and taught together and its just a miracle.

I know with all my heart that the Lord is guiding this work. I know that the time is running short but he sure is blessing the time that I do have

AND we moved from our house to the house next door which is GORGEOUS and what a blessing that Sister Delgado arrived Just in the nic of time to help out with moving haha

but really its so wonderful.

And whats really neat is that as we are working to help families and the ward is super happy and that is really good because then they are willing to help.

Also Ive been praying for Carols husband and other husbands of members AND he talked with a member and now he is willing to listen to our messages so I will definitely be praying and fasting because this is really important.

So I super love you all and Im super happy about whats been happening!!!

I love you all!

Love sister Kimball

and Im excited to see you all and spend christmas with you guys :)!!!!!!!!!!!!

The blessings of the temple

Dear my Lovely family :)

So this week we were told that we would be going to the temple and so I was excitedly studying about the temple to teach our recent convert Carol. And wow if this talk was in english I would definitely try to send it to you all, but anyways I just felt the spirit so strong while reading the Ensign/Liahona about the temple that really my testimony was strengthened in the sacredness of temples. I sure was excited to go and visit but now we were told that it will be in about a month, but Im really grateful that I thought that we would be going to the temple because I had time to be able to read and ponder about the temple. Really I just really enjoyed it. The temple is a sacred place that is literally the house of the Lord where we can go to be far from the things of the world and where we can received responses for our prayers and feel the Lord very close to us. I am so grateful to be able to be recognizing the miracle of having a temple so close to our home, it is a great privelege and also a great responsibility to be able to visit the temple to strengthen our faith and give nourishment for our spirits while being in a place so sacred to be able to be feeling the presence of God with us, and to also be able to help other people make sacred covenants to be able to be sealed as families and to be able to do baptisms.

I remember always loving and appreciating the times we were able to visit the temple as a youth group because I always felt joy fill my heart as I was able to help others through being baptized and confirmed for them. Especially in confirmations I could honestly feel that the people I was doing the work for were rejoicing because I felt their happiness.

Temple work is Absolutely a form of missionary work, 

Also these weeks we are doing our best to help families, that are less active in which not all people are members. The things I love about this is that I feel like this is a purpose and a great service we can do throughout our lives to help people be strengthened by the gospel. Something that has brought great joy in my mission is seeing people be able to complete their families. I am so grateful for our family and the blessings we have because of the gospel. It is so clear to me how much we need the gospel, as night and day, because without the Gospel our family wouldnt have the strength From God that we need to be protected against the temptations of the world. I am so grateful for the gospel and the many blessings I have received in my life.

I sure love you all, and Im loving your letters :)

Love, Sister Kimball

Working to bless families :)

I love you all, this week was amazing

I wrote everyone letters this week which I will send off,

Sorry this will probably be my shortest letter of the mission

but this has been an Amazing week, new miracles are happening, next week I will send off pictures of the baptism of Carol who is absolutely wonderful

Im deciding that in the last 2 months of my mission the most important ting I can do is do my best to help complete families so they can enter the temple together,

this is what I will be focusing on

Im so grateful for the Gospel and how it is moving my life.

My health is very good, I love my companion and enjoy teaching with her, and laughing while walking on the streets with her

Ive got everything I need in ways of things to finish my mission (shoes, medecine, clothes, etc etc)

I love the Gospel

I have a wonderful ward

will get a new mission president in 3 days-President Dalton

Yesterday was pday but we stand in the house to be safe because of the world cup

but americans are very safe so nothing to worry about- everyone likes us

no REALLY everyone likes us

so thats great

And I love you all

Sincerely

Sister Kelsey C. Kimball

and I will send your letters to hawaii

and for cody and veronica for utah

Importance of being a good friend

A quick notice before I forget- next week we will email on tuesday (because on days when brazil is playing in the world cup we stay in the house)

SO!! Our friend Carol was baptized yesterday!!! It was really wonderful because we have been teaching her with our member friend Tais and they because of it have an amazing friendship and really was a miracle how it all worked out. But they are SUCH good friends now that everyone believes that Tais was already friends with her and then brought her to church and things like that which IS SUPER GOOD :)!!!!!! Because we as missionaries come and go and so knowing that she is firmly supported by the members of the ward and has such a good friend (Tais) we know that she will continue strong.

The miracles we will be working for these next weeks is to be teaching the non-member husbands of the wonderful ladies in the ward

starting with Carol. To be able to help them have eternal families :)

Also for the world cup we had to stay in the house all day

we did our weekly planning and yep haha

It was a blessing because I was getting over a cold and so I slept and so it was really good and helped a lot

it was funny because almost every 5 minutes it sounded like the game ended and Brazil won!! (The amount of cheering that everyone did, in all of brazil haha) I recorded a short video to show to you guys after.

So tomorrow will be our pday and so today we will be able to send this email but have a normal day

Its really crazy how fast time is going

So this week what we did was honestly talk with EVERYONE

on sunday there usually isnt a lot of time left of the day and we usually teach a couple lessons but the day goes by really fast and we dont have many "contacts" on the street

but on sunday we talked to 51 people! Wow. It was a blessing.

ALSO we have an amazing lady called Maria Olivia that we started teaching

I really am super loving her

so what happened is she went to church 3 times completely on her own!!!! And it was always sundays that we had done our ABSOLUTE best to help people come to church and we thought no One showed up (not counting carol who comes with Tais, and Camila that went with her sister Liliane- because we knew they were for sure coming with the member and we didnt need to worry) but the people that WE were trying to pass by there houses before church were sleeping or not at home, and so we showed up at church and Maria Olivia was already there!!!! It was awesome and then another member brought her niece whose not a member and a couple other people as well and so its really cool.

And so Maria Olivia is incredible, we just need to plan a day to visit her husband who isnt supporting her being baptized, and we know that with the Lords help everything will work out in his time.

Also our ward had a party and SO many members brought friends to visit the church it was awesome!!

Also a less active member we have been trying to teach brought his cousin so thats really good, but they (Julio and filipe) will have to find a job that gives them the day off on sunday.

Also every single time an airplane goes by my companion says- 

"Sister Kimball!!!! 3 months!!!" hahaha

Well I sure love you all

I hope you have a wonderful week and that moving goes well

LOVE sister Kimball

and Im so glad Dads back with you all :)

Loveeeeee ya

-sister Kelsey Kimball 

Being a missionary is a sacred privilege

Dearest family 

wow, time flies by so fast

this past week i thought Id be transferred, and then I started to meet a bunch of new people and I was hoping to not be transferred because I felt that there was Still a work for me to do here.

Something that is life changing is meeting people on your mission that you can FEEL that you were meant to meet them.

I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve, missions are such blessings

Really a time to strengthen our selves

I heard this quote yesterday about a missionary that finished their mission

Missions are the training centers (MTC ) for life

Its so true. 

This is the time we have to strengthen our testimonies

trust in the Lord

persevere during all things 

and learn to love life regardless of the situations

really there will always be hardships, we cant change that

but what we CAN change is how we will react

we can choose to be happy :)

Happiness is the key- and true happiness comes through following the savior

We were shown by our mission president a video called Ephraims rescue

a pioneer movie

what I realized is that EVERYONE was on this journey

that Was difficult (there is no denying that)

BUT the difference in the people WAS their act of faith and choosing to be positive

I strongly encourage watching this movie :) It teaches alot :)

I love everything about my mission

To be able to be a missionary is a sacred privilege

and what God requires is a willing heart.

If we have desires to serve we are called to he work :)

I love you all!!!

Also I did my ecclesistical endorsement (honorcode and requesting the endorsement) and so I will have my interview july 3rd I believe with my new mission president that will arrive that week(earliest time available)

Families can be together for ever!

Wow so I am just so happy. I just had some incredible moments this week that really didn't have anything huge happen or anything they were just 100% good experiences. For example when we went to church on sunday our friends that were visiting in the church that day (investigators) were brought to church by members and it just made me feel so good because my goal is to help them be firm and be sealed in the temple and for me knowing that they have a friend strong in the gospel is just so rewarding for me. Honestly having Tais as a friend for Carol is just a miracle beyond our own merit its just been such a blessing I just know because of this she will be very firm in the church.

Something that I'm loving so much is just feeling really that I'm doing my very best and working really hard there is just a satisfaction undeniable.

I loved the examples mom gave of having a testimony and about the holy ghost because something Im just loving so much is how Im being able to follow the spirit in decisions Im making and to really be courageous in doing things. I feel like m,y mission has certainly changed me and helped me be more strong in the gospel and in knowing how to make a decision after pondering and making plans, praying, and then making a choice and receiving confirmation.

I am just so happy.

I was sitting the other day before we have the first hour of studies in the morning and I read an article in the Ensign(liahona) and it was about someone who had desires to serve a mission and the spirit hit me so strong, and I just sat and was so FILLED with immense gratitude for the blessing and miracle I was given from my loving Heavenly Father to be able to serve a mission and to be finishing off faithfully and healthily and I just never imagined that a mission would be like this. Ive never felt so grateful in my life for the Gospel, for the love of the Savior. For how the gospel TRULY blesses families and that we have a LIVING prophet on the earth HOW incredible, what a great and marvelous trust the Lord has placed in us. To be able to be preparing the Lords kingdom for when he is returning.

Something else I have just cherished is the blessing Ive been able to be given to really study about the gospel, its so interesting being able to Really understand new things about the plan that God has for us. He is really incredible, what a blessing to be able to have the peace that the gospel brings.

I just can hardly believe that we are SO lucky to know that we can Truly be a family for ETERNITY!!

We talked with people who Really thought that they would Not remember their families after this life! What a terribly sad and awful fate that would be! And to be able to know that is NOT what happens that there is a LOVING heavenly Father who created a Perfect plan for us to return to live with him in a state of Such immense happiness and complete joy with the people we love with all our hearts. It is truly incredible.

I love the gospel it is SO pure and it is so true.

There Indeed was a critical and serious need for a restoration, there is not a single person in the whole world that could walk down the street here seeing 3 or 4 different religions yelling and shouting their prayers and teaching doctrines SO DIFFERENT and not admit that there truly is confusion caused by the people of the earth.

I am so grateful to truly have been able to see how beautiful and precious the gospel is and I will defend it all my life, and I will continue sharing it with joy and thanksgiving in my heart.

I love my Savior, I love you all my wonderful family.

And I would like to say that families are the most important people on earth, we must cherish love and protect them, and they will be our greatest joys. Im so grateful for your support and love. I love you all.

Also missionary work is a blessing.

To be able to serve a mission is an IRREPLACEABLE opportunity. Do all you Possibly can to be worthy and ready to serve a mission and I promise you that it will change your life, you will feel more peace and joy then you possibly could imagine and your love for people with fill your heart so much because of the people you meet that you will KNOW that your life wouldn't have been complete without the mission.

I love you all, stand up for what is right, because its worth it.

LOVEEEEEEEE YOU ALL

Love Sister Kelsey C. Kimball