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."