Skype Call from Kaitlin

From Kaitlin's Mom: We were able to talk to Kaitlin on Christmas Day. The video I tried to make of our conversation failed, but I did get most of the audio. Here are some highlights:

   

• We met her companion Her. Brunel and the elders she is serving with
• She requested a "talent show", specifically Ruth's debate presentation and Jared to play the ukulele. 
• She was super happy and said they had had a very good day.  They had eaten with a Brazilian member and she got to visit with some old companions. 
• This year she focused on making it a great Christmas for her companion. She surprised her today with gifts and a chocolate pancakes. 
• She visited the doctor Christmas morning to get her abscess repacked.  The hospital is clean and her doctor is really nice.  She said he is the most renowned doctor in the city.
• Very few people in Paraguay can play the piano and the congregations have a hard time singing in tune and they sing super slow.  Kaitlin filled in for the normal conductor a few weeks ago and tried to speed the congregation up with her singing and conducting but they all just looked at her funny and continued singing at their own pace. 

• She gets along well with her companion.  This is only the second companion she's had her whole mission that is younger than her.  
• Another missionary gave her an agenda as a gift that was covered with pictures of couples getting married in the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  The mission president's wife was there when Kaitlin opened the gift, and it accidentally fell to the floor,  The president's wife picked it up and saw what it was and asked Kaitlin "What is this?"  and Kaitlin answered sheepishly "my agenda."   Kaitlin said that there is a rumor going around her mission that she is going to get married a week after she gets home. 
• She quoted Matthew 6:34 to us in spanish, and she said it has helped her focus on each individual day and not worry too much about the future,
• She is reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese, everyone at church speaks Guarani, she speaks Spanish all day while proselyting, and her companion is from southern California, so finding the right words can be difficult.  She spoke some Guarani for us.  She hopes to learn to speak French and  Chinese in the future. 
• Oi!  means "hi" in Portuguese and is a very common greeting there. 
• Mbaé'chepa?  is "how are you" in  Guarani.

• She is afraid of coming home to the cold. Currently in Paraguay it's very hot, though she is at a higher elevation there so it is cooler there than in other places in the country. She was hoping to do some swimming and hiking when she got home but forgot that it's winter. 
• The worst thing she's eaten there is cow ears.  Imagine the worst texture imaginable for meat: a little too soft with a furry texture.  The only thing that competed with that was once she had polenta with fish sauce.  When she gets home she wants casserole and frostys and fries at Wendy's. She misses green vegetables. 
• When she gets home she is most excited to tell us about all the little weird things she's experienced on her mission. She wants us all to tell her that she's so "boss" for having endured all these weird and hard things. 
• Alfredo, who was just baptized, was so happy.  He just decided after two years of taking lessons to be baptized. She wishes that everyone in Paraguay would just decide to be baptized.
• Kaitlin wants to give two homecoming talks. One of the number one she's learned from Paraguay is that it doesn't matter at all what you look like.  The only person it matter to is you if you give it importance.  The other topic she'd like to talk about is how God is always there for you and doesn't leave you by yourself.
• She's read the book of mormon in spanish five times while on her mission.
• She shared a scripture: Matthew 11:2-5  of this scripture she said: "[Jesus] said look at what I've done and prove who I am to yourself.   I love this because I am the blind.  I am the deaf. I am the lame. I am the dead that was resurrected.  I am these people. [Jesus] healed people, but he's talking about me, you know?  He's talking about all of us, how we were all healed through Jesus Christ. It's so cool that Jesus is the ultimate judge, and the ultimate healer, and the ultimate teacher; he did everything for us. And we are so imperfect, and so stupid, and so blind, and so deaf, and so lame, He tells us to do things and we can't do them. But He says that he's healed all of it; he's healed all of our weaknesses. Not only our physical weaknesses but our spiritual weaknesses, and our emotional weaknesses. He's healed us all already, and it's just dependent on us if we are going to [take advantage of] it or not.  Why are we so stupid? Why can't we just do what He says? (garbled audio section - a few sentences here missed)  ....So just think about that.  When we talk about the miracle of Jesus Christ - we are the miracle of Jesus Christ. It wasn't other people. It's us. We've been healed."

It Will Heal

Oh my gossshhhh family soooo much crap happened this weeeeeeekkkk and Im so lazy I just want to tell you all at the same time. So FIRST we were going to have a baptism of Yolanda on wednesday..... welll long story short she cancelled 2 hours before the baptism and did not get baptized... there were a couple of problems there but they are not worth writing here.. We were pretty sad. And we had a full font. So what do we do? We have a ward baptism of a kid who is 9 years old! wooohoo! so 50 people came for the baptism of this little 9 year old kid and it was stressful but great!

THEN on thursday my boil that Ive had for 15 days-- did I mention that? It was like the size of an egg and sits nice and pretty below my armpit on my upper rib cage. Well it burst finally and so they sent me to the hospital to get it ¨cleaned properly¨ well yeah cleaned properly transfers to the doctor cuts it open with scissors and squeezes all your blood out. It was literally awful hahahah Hermana Brunelle watched it all and held my hand but I just laid on the table and cried like a child. The doctors were SO wonderful and it was the cleanest hospital Ive seen here so it was actually okay. I started dripping blood a few hours later so we had to go get the gauze changed a few times. They packed it with gauze and I got that changed this morning and I think I have to go back just one more time. Whew.

And so apart from that on Saturday we had a baptism for real this time! It was Alfredos baptism and he was SO happy. He just grinned the whole time. It was awesome. The Spirit was so strong. His whole family came out to support him and he was just wonderful. It was literally one of the most beautiful baptisms that Ive had. He only speaks guarani and I dont know how he was feeling but he was smiling and that counts.

His family came again to church on sunday for his confirmation. All in all it worked out quite well. We had the christmas conference and we made little blankets for children in the mission and we ate pizza and christmas icecream-- it was nice. And we have a live nativity that I am planning and directing on wednesday and we´ll talk on Sunday so WHOOOHOOO im excited!

This week when I was in a lot of pain and just decaida, the holy ghost was so kind. I just had a thought, ¨It will all heal.¨ And Ive been thinking on that, with Christmas and all. It will all heal. All of it. Emotional pain, physical pain, whatever kind of pain that we have, it will all heal. It will all finish someday. Thats the peace we have in the gospel of Christ. I loved what it says in Lucas 4: 18,19 about the reasons why Jesus Christ came to earth. I love that Christ says, this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears! Its been done! Christ came, He saved us, and all thats left for us is to repent and love Him with all our hearts.

I love Him so much. I know that through Him, it will all heal.

I LOVE BEING MORMON
And merry Christmas this week, family. I said I`ll be on at 5 our time so thats 12 your time, but I am going after everyone else so I`ll probably be on like 1 your time or even later.... sorry. just wait for meee hahahah I love you all so much thanks for writing a lot

Random Photos

So like this week miracles happened and also great tragedies, but mostly miracles!!!

First miracle! I was so lonely and so I prayed that God would send me a friend and the hermana leaders called us for divisions! WOOHOO! I got to hang out with Hermana Santos from Texas. Shes really cool. We testified hardcore to some lady who tried to bible bash us, it was awesome.

Second thing is that we might be having four baptisms this week! Yolanda is getting baptized on wednesday, Alfredo on Saturday, and then two other little kids whos mom is not an active member. It kind of happened all of the sudden! Yolanda suddenly declared she wanted to be baptized this week and we were like, ok great! And then Alfredo who is an eternal investigator decided this week that hs not afraid of being baptized anymore and wants to get baptized on Saturday. Well cool! We´ll take that! So now we are scrambling a bit but thats great! Also we have the zone christmas conference on saturday so basically the whole week we are just going to be in the church haha. We are excited but also stressed hahahah baptisms are crazy.

And soooo thats basically it. Weve found some awesome people and we´ve also had a lot of really crushing lessons where people flat out rejected us after about a month of investigating but whatever! the lord knows what he does.

Ive been reading in the book of Ether and I am just amazed by how much faith Jared and his family had to just get in some boat and hope that God would take them to the promised land. Im trying to figure out how to get that kind of faith. I think it comes by obedience.

ALSO COOL THING I FORGOT we met this cute little paraguayan lady who spoke only guarani and I remembered enough guarani to teach her a scripture it was SO COOL it was the gift of tongues for real!! But then she threw us out but it doesnt matter!!!! :D

So thanks for everything I love you have a good week.

The stairs to my apartment

Some plants I liked

us eating chikue brazilian icecream

us eating regular paraguayan icecream

You Are Not Yet as Job

This week was cool. We worked with some cool new people, even last night we found a new family and their neighbor who all accepted to get baptized. Our investigators are reading the book of mormon A LOT more than they have been, theyve been praying to know the book of Mormon is true and now its all in Gods hands. I have felt a LOT of prayers this week, and I have felt a lot of comfort knowin that there are a lot of people out there who are thinking about me.

And this week we´ve had a lot of little tender mercies. Somebody gave us dessert unexpectedly, the HOT WATER FINALLY GOT FIXED oh my gosh family this morning I took my first hot shower in two weeks!!! It was the bessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst I think I was in there for like half an hour. We had mission correlation, a bunch of stuff.

We are working really hard with our investigator Arnaldo. Hes been studying the church for years, and he believes the doctrines are true but he doesnt want to be baptized. There are a few problems there, but we are trying to focus on reading and praying because thats really all we can do. But hes been a really good friend for me here because we can go into deep doctrine and stuff. Reminds me of home hahah

The funniest moment this week was when I was shampooing my hair and I had a sinking realization that the water was out. Soooo had shampooey hair all that day. hahah then hermana brunelle fell in the mud and I slammed my finger in somebodys old chair and it bled a lot..... we cried. It was such a hard day but now that Im thinking about it soooooooooooo funny like it should be tv show or something hahahaahha

so anyhow thats me this week. Pluggin along. Lots of investigators, I have faith. hahah I was reading the scriptures that same crappy day and I felt like I should read Job. I found a lot of comfort in the book of Job. I feel like.. a kinship with him. He had boils, I have boils.... boils bond people. But it worked out for Job. He got 42 chapters in the bible. Thats a sweet deal.

I love all of you guys. Thanks for the prayers. I feel them, I really do. Sorry about no pictures. This computer is SLOWER than SLOW but anyways I love you. Next week.

:D
Hermana Scott

I Didn't Think of a Funny Title This Week

Happy day from us in PJC. I can officially say Ive seen Brazil-- its cool. Its a pretty nice climate here-warm in the day and then it cools off and rains in the night.

Im starting to understand more guarani. I can say a few things. We have 2 investigators that are guarani only investigators, but they have family members who help with the translation. We have one investigator, Yolanda, who is brasileira but she speaks and reads spanish so no worries. I get all my languages mixed in my mind and so its kind of a fruit salad of phrases whenever I teach haha but whatever its fun.

We are fighting a lot in Spirit. We have seven investigators here that can be baptized whenever they decide to make the choice. Its been a long week of prayer and trying to follow the Spirit to get them to find answers to their prayers and doubts and motivate them to make the decision to get baptized. Ive been doing the best I can but this week nobody has progressed. Little by little. I have a lot of faith.

A cool experience this week I had is that I got to give a talk in sacrament meeting. I prayed a lot for the Spirit and when I was speaking I knew I had the Spirit with me because I was able to express myself perfectly in Spanish. It just rolled out of my mouth without annyyyy effort and I remembered all my words. So whoohoo Spirit!!!! It was a great experience, I was really grateful that the Lord could do that for me.

What else what else... uhmmmm took my pants to the modista to get them smaller, we had consejo de rama, we had ward night...

OH we met this SICK family this week. And the dad was like, yeah come by another day so we did. The dad speaks spanish but the mom and the kids only speak portuguese and it was way great because we taught the lesson and the spirit was SO Strong so I invited them to get baptized, and the dad was like, whooa, this is all really fast, and then his wife turned on him and was like, Well if you know its true wouldnt you get baptized?? And he said, well we just met them... and she was like but they said that when we find its true, and if I find its true I will get baptized!! And the dad was like oh yeah I guess I will too. hahahah pray for them. Familia Loreiro. They are awesome.

Me and Hermana Brunelle get along fine. She is really trying her hardest to be a good missionary and so its easy for us to work really hard. Thats nice.

Another thing is that we LOVEEEE the new christmas video! It makes me cry every time!!! SO watch it every day for me and plssssss invite everyone to see it because its awesome.

I know that the Lord loves us and that He knows who we are. One thing I love about the mission is that we can feel the great love and worry of the Lord. If we trust in Him, He will carry us.

Best food I ate this week? A donut type thing full of cream. Most interesting moment? When I went to use the bathroom in one of our investigators house, and when I flushed, a frog hopped out of the toilet bowl.

#awkward

Funniest thing that happened to me? uh hermana brunelle scooted her chair a little wrong and totally fell in the middle of a lesson. The investigator was a young man who picked her up like a baby and sat her back down. Looool I died.

Have a good week yall
Hermana Scott

Bom dia, baeshapa?

So familiakuera I wrote this huuuuge long email about all my week and then my computer suddenly turned off and when I got it booted back up, my draft wasnt saved so that should explain to you about how its been here in Pedro Juan.

The most important thing thats happened is that I got to go to the conference with Elder Rasband, saw some kids from the CCM there and Im really grateful Im not in the Asuncion South mission because they look like they have a lot less fun there, side bags and all. But whatever it was cool because we all got to shake Elder Rasband´s hand and he talked about how we have a great work to perform here, and he read the dedicatory prayer of Paraguay that talked about the expansion of missionary work and just a lot of cool things. He quoted president Hinckley when he said ¨all you need to do is do your best¨ and then he added, ¨but you need to do your VERY best.¨ And he asked us to find out how we could do our VERY best. Be more bold, more challenging, ask everyone to be baptized, study preach my gospel. It was good. I walked out of there feeling like I had been called to Pedro Juan for a reason and that we were going to see miracles in our area.

I hope one of those miracles is the gift of tongues because once again every single meeting at church is held in guarani. And the other half of the congregation speaks portuguese. And soooo Im going to do a lot of studying.

I am going to work like a crazy person in the next six weeks. There is A LOT like A LOT of work to do here and with the Spirit and an apostles blessing I have no doubt we are going to see a lot of success.

Thanks for writing me. Enjoy your holidays. We cut out like four snowflakes and put up a dinky charlie brown christmas tree, but its better than last year.

Love
Hermana Scott

Icecream Drowns the Tears of Changes

Dear fambam,

This week we found out the incredibly sad news: I have changes. And Hermana Granados had changes. And so Im leaving Asuncion and Im going to Pedro Juan Caballero with Hermana Brunelle on Saturday. We have a big conference with both of the missions in Paraguay tomorrow to hear from Elder Rasband so we are not leaving to go far away until after the conference. And then I will have a regular pday again, starting on monday. (bonus woohoo) Elder Rasband´s staying at the Sheraton thats in our area so we were just like, maybe we should just stroll over there to contact... hahah #perksofasuncion

Pedro Juan is right on the border of Brazil. Im half stoked to finally FINALLY get my portuguese all polished up but really sad too because I dont want a new compaaaniiioooon but its okay. I only have two more changes and I can handle two more changes.

But sin embargo this week was full of a lot of tender mercies that were just like, wait, whaaat is this real life??

Number 1. President Evans and his family invited us to dinner unexpectedly and it was marvelous. We had sticky sweet rice. Its delicious.

Number 2. Hermana Alexander is also going to pedro juan so we get to go up there together!!!!

Number 3. We got to see the primary program on Sunday. It was the most spiritual sacrament meeting Ive been to in a long time.

Number 4. I got to say goodbye to the Cranneys before they went to the airport. I didnt even know but we came by at the perfect time to see them off. It was really nice to hug them and they promised to come to my wedding hahahahahahah

Number 5. I found almond milk at the super seis and YAY because I feel so much better. I didnt even know I felt bad until now when I feel better!!!

Also we found these two AWESOME totally prepared investigators which is great. They are both really needing the gospel and its nice when we have people with needs because it gives them animo to go to church!!1

ALSO number 6. Our investigator Noelia went to a noche de hogar with one of the best families in the ward and she brought all her kids. I got prompted to invite her and even though she came 30 minutes late she came!!! And it was so great for them to all share together.

number 7. We had breakfast for dinner with the Craners and their less active kid ate dinner with us for the first time ever!!! Also real bacon!!!! YAY

Number 8. There was something else cool that happened with investigators this week but I forgot it.

So anyways its been really good, like, this has been the best change of my entire mission and probably one of the best experiences of my life. And Hermana C and Hermana G are like my Amy and Lisa or my Sam and Freddie or like my Ron and Hermione. Well really Im more like the Ron of the group hahhaha but still. But theres a great quote that Hermana C always has up that says ¨There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.¨

OH I remembered. Number 8. A less active lady came to our ward night and taught zumba. It was really great for all the girls but for the missionaries a little less fun. ;)

All in all life´s good. Thanks for writing me. I´ll be writing again on Monday because my pday is changing again, so you wont miss me too much. ;)

Love,

Hermana Scott

Bautismo!

Dear yall

I get a lot of complaints that I dont write enough about the mission. Well... luckilly families are eternal! Theres enough time to hear aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll the mission stories. Nah Im joking. I am sorry, I will be better.* (*Phrases I learned on the mission.)

This week I had some of the COOLEST most SPIRITUAL experiences of my entire life.

The first thing was the awesome opportunity that we had to go see the familia Salas get sealed. Hermana Granados has been working with them for about 3 months, and we got special permission to go and support them on their special day. It was the first time EVER in my LIFE that I go to see a sealing. And so Im like the little slowpoke meme, like, guys, did you know that sealings are awesome??? Oh wait, yes you did. It was the most beautiful thing I have EVER SEEN EVER and I laughed, I cried, it moved me, Bob. Im not even joking I swear that is the most marvelous thing I have ever seen.

And I walked out of that thing, like, why did nobody tell me how great this is??? And then I was like... oh... Why did nobody tell me that? That is is exactly why I am on the mission!!! It was like a little lightbulb like DING here´s why you decided to serve and you didnt even know. I feel like Im doing this whole mission thing backwards. I work and work and work and work and after one year of working Im like, oh, I think I get why we share the gospel! I always tease Ben that he´s really slow to pick up on things and here I am like it only took me 20 years of my life to figure out what ¨families are forever¨ means, gosh. But whatever! Better late than never! Literally THE BEST. God is AWESOME.

Other things that happened that day is that Valeria got baptized!! All her family are members so it was really cool. Her cousin came to baptize her and I think we had a good 45 people in attendance-- like about the size of Sacrament meeting here-- of just her family members and friends. It was awesome. She was awesome, gave a great testimony, she got confirmed, and shes going to the temple this weekend so there you are!!! Set!

Its been just great. We have seen some awesome miracles. Noelia and her family accepted a baptismal fecha again, Rafael accepted a fecha, Jose our friend is significantly happier and warmly welcomes us to his house, he also accepted to get baptized. Its awesome!!! Also I had another lightbulb moment when I was studying preach my gospel and I realized that all missionary work really is is sharing your testimony with random people all day every day. That made me feel really good too. So wow. Three months left to work with the knowledge I should have had since day one! Wooohooooooo

Also hermana Christiansen said something really profound this week. ¨Eficiency is not a requisite to get into the kingdom of God, but patience is.¨ Theres your deep thought for the week.

God lives. He loves us. He has a dang good plan and we are like way blessed to live in the last dispensation and be able to participate in ALL the ordinances that have been revealed. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, dangit, and the Book of Mormon is the Lord´s tool to prepare us for His second coming. Work hard.

Love and hugs.

Hermana Scott

This week we had a great family night with the family Fariña. I think I wrote Ruth about that. We are also prepping for Valerias baptism which is tomorrow!!! She is so great. She has such a light of Christ in her eyes and she, more than anyone, is really ready to take on the baptismal covenant.

Our English class is going great. Im learning a lot about being a good teacher. Its probably better to start now in a free english class of the church than make the same mistakes in a real classroom hahah. Its actually been really successful, we have had a lot of investigators coming and we almost always can go visit them in their houses after the class. Its good because it gets them to feel comfortable in the Church. Also this week we taught them to pray in English, we teach sentences like I am a child of God and stuff like that. And then afterwards we had a great ward night, we all played volleyball and had popcorn. It was great. Actives, less actives, investigators, recent converts, and we had SO much fun. It was really the best.

And what else.... uhhh we are still teaching Jose. He is good. He doesnt feel prepared to get baptized and I dont know why but I hope and pray that he will!!!

Me and the pph [my companions] are doing awesome. They are so wonderful Im pretty sure they are going to get lifted up like the City of Enoch because they are both perfect.

Im gonna send pictures.

Today we are going out to eat at a fancy restaurant and dye my hair again! And then I think we are going to get to go to a sealing for a family.. That will be cool too! We are celebrating because its hermana Christiansens one year on the mission.

***

with valeria and my friend raquel-- she came with me on divisions

us with the flia fariña with noche de hogar

our activity was how to build a happy and successful family. it was really fun! you had to get this little piece of paper and pass it person to person in a funny way, like from your ear to the next persons elbow, or from the foot to the head of the next person.. well in the end all the papers had little things that we can do to have a successful family!

Sooo heres me in English class... me at lunch.. and some other random things if you were interested

This week in the mission things were aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssooooooooooooome because Im still killing it with the Hermanas Power Puff. I am serious we get along freakishly well and we all kind of balance each other out. I literally feel like Im on missionary vacation because I wake up so happy every day. All my prayers are just like, thanks, God, for giving me every single thing that I could possibly want. I think the key to it all is humility. We are all more interested in the other two than ourselves, so in a way we all get what we want.

We keep on working with Valeria and Gabi, and Valeria is progressing really well towards her baptism this coming week, and we think her dad is going to be worthy to baptize her, and her cousin wants to confirm her and we are STOKED for that.

Francisco also is progressing really well. We taught him the law of chastity this week, and he actually said that he wants to keep the law of chastity but like everyone, the whole marriage thing freaks them out. We´re like, you´ve lived with her for four years, whats the difference in being married? So pray for him that he will have the desire and the means to get married.

And we met a guy named Jose last week in our English class and we sacar-ed a cita and visited him and his (very Catholic) family! And it was a great lesson. He has suffered from depression for a long time and the powerpuff girls know about depression! So we have been able to help him understand the principles of the gospel and he is reading everything we give him like a thanksgiving feast.

So its been good, our english class was good. I still love teaching but its hard when you have limited access to teaching materials. English is a really hard language and it doesnt make any sense either. So Im going to study a little bit more about it and try to make some more organized lesson plans. We are also working with a lot of different levels of understanding and that adds a whole nother dimension of complicated. My portuguese continues advancing. :D

Andddddddddddddddd what else. Oh we had some really great conferences this week, one was a zone conference and interviews with the President, and the other was a special conference with Elder Bragg of the Seventy and his wife. I was loving it until out of the blue Hermana Evans asked me from the pulpit if I would come translate for her for the conference. Ha! She had to give a fifteen minute talk and so I translated for her in front of everyone. She uses a LOT of slang phrases and metaphors and I was really confused on how to translate that hahah but everyone said I did okay so *shrug* whatever hahah

One thing Ive been thinking about a lot lately is service. Somebody told me once that the first thing they did every day was think about the people around them that were in need of something, and then made plans in the day to serve them. Thats a darn good way to live. Because you feel so grateful when you realize others dont have what you have. And you feel great when you help someone else to feel better or to have a good day. Its really humbling, and it makes you happy. And its nice to not think about yourself every once in awhile. ;)

favorite food this week: icecream from Dona Angelas

Funny moment: when we wore pants for the first time in the Office, President saw us and goggled and took our picture "for the history books of the mission." The elders are also jealous and want to wear kilts.

Favorite teaching moment: When we were teaching our recent convert Gina this week and we asked her how she had changed since she has been a member. She shared a lot of really beautiful stuff. I dont remember it all now but it was a really sincere testimony and she shared how grateful she was to have been blessed to know the gospel.

So theres your update from me. Love you allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

hermana Blossom