February 9, 2015
Wow, I was waiting for the photos of Kylie coming home all week, and they finally came! What a strange thing haha you never expect these things to actually happen...I noticed the darkness in the KC Airport haha oh terrible winters....I wake up every morning and peer out the WINDOW because it´s the perfect climate around 630 7 o clock here- I love it.
  This week was a little crazy- a whirlwind to tell you the truth but it was awesome. I was sick most of the week but it was more good than bad because of 3 things (that Ill include here)
 1) Our ward has a reputation of being pretty divided and difficult to work with. We dont like this stereotype, and decided to plan a family home evening with our entire ward. We planned with another Irma in our ward. We made invites, passed them out at church, and had a party with a third of our ward who came to this Irma´s house on Saturday. It was a perfect scene- a really humble house jam packed with members of our ward sitting on the floor, standing in the back, listening to spiritual messages that we and bispo gave, then everyone united in a really FUN GAME that we planned. We put everyone into 2 teams, and made little competitions for the teams to play. For example, we had a competition of who could write all the names of the states in Brazil in 2 minutes. NEither team could write all of them haha it was pretty funny. We also did a spelling bee, which was the cause of quite the disputation because my companion pronounced one of the words incorrectly haha but I dont think Ive ever seen people more competitive in my life haha it was great and the teams chose the names of ´´House of Abraham´´ and ´´group of Iron´´ haha gotta love the creativity of Brazilians. But the ACTIVITY was a lot more than just fun- everyone in the ward will get a lot closer to each other because of these simple things. Everyone loved it, and we´ll being doing another family night soon! Ive come to love everybody in this ward like a family, seriously.
 2) WE´re having some difficulty with Cicera, who is trying to stop smoking to get baptized. She smoked about 20 cigarrettes every day, and she decided to try to stop all at once. She got really sick, and called her doctor, who said it´s really bad for her to stop all at once, especially because she´s taking other medicine also. But she wants to stop so bad that she didnt want to listen to the doctor, who said she should smoke 7 cigarrettes a day for a while to help her body adjust. Cicera decided to smoke just 2 a day because she wants to stop so bad. Its not a good thing to ignore your doctor, but at least it was a lesson for me of sacrifice. It would be a lot easier to just accept the fact that smoking has her hooked and she cant stop because her doctor even advised against it. But she´s so strong and determined and filled with faith to stop smoking, and to rely in God and the stgrength He is giving her. Cicera has smoked for more than 30 years, and this struggle for her is real. But I love the sacrifice she is making to ENTER the waters of baptism to a new life- a new beginning. Her baptism later this month with be pretty special.
3) We are working with an ex bishop who is returning to activity in the church right now. He and his wife brought their son Cleber to church. Cleber is 23 years old, and quite the miracle. He was more than involved and interested in everything that went on at church, and ended up asking us about baptism and the temple and everything else. He left church with a stack of books that he got there, and is really excited to get baptized. It will be so great to see this family be united again in the church of Jesus Christ. It was a tender mercy for us because we´re working with a lot of other families who aren´t putting forth much effort to come to church or make time for visits during the week. I know that we´re always guided in the work of the Lord day after day after day. Even if it seems like things arent going our way, we will be guided to the goldens with faith if we do the simple things we´re supposed to do.
  This week was pretty awesome, and Im sure next week will be just as good ;)

Love,
Elder Hirschi
ps good luck with the transition Kylie, Im praying for YOUR transition every night haha