Email from Kaitlyn to Mom: Monday, April 26, 2021

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
To: Mom
Subject: I Have A Word Limit?!

Hey hey mom! How are you?! How was your week? This week was slow but we saw a lot of miracles!:)) God is too good sometimes! Also! I had no idea that I had a word limit on my Google Keep Notes until just this very moment. What the heck is up with that?! Anyways, thank you for the Brittnay pick me up as well;) I loved that! Guess what else?! Next time you get one of these, I'll have a baptism! Ahhhh!!! I'm so so excited! This whole process though has got me thinking what the missionaries thought with me and Christian haha! Okay, this email is already long I guess according to my notes so I'm just gonna get into it :) 

- That oil meal is Cachupa! I told you about it last week I think but I forgot about the video until now haha! 

- I love that the landscaper was good! The backyard has been quite the project so I'm glad it's coming to a close on a good note :) 

- A real graduation?! That's so so exciting! Even though we're close, our lives have drastically been different this past year. You'll have to send me his pictures too! I can't wait to see them! 

- Lagoon sounds like it wasn't even worth it at that point! Whatta disaster! 

- How was the pool? It sounds like it's already being used quite a bit :) Who did Christian invite? 

- Ahhh I hope the weather will stay nice! I just want spring honestly! Good for you for texting Julie though, I know she's a little odd (well a lot haha!) You'll have to keep me updated 

- Wow Brendyn stopped by? How was that? Sister Pearson and I were actually talking this week about just how expensive life is and how ridiculously things are priced 

- One last thing! We have district Pday (I think at least) so I don't know when I'll get to call for sure but I'll keep you posted on messenger ;) 

A REQUEST! Well actually a lot of requests... sorry! I was wondering if you could do me a huge solid and help me out with a couple things. Okay first off, Sister Pearson's birthday is on May 15th and I have no idea what to do for her! We always have to be together so I'm at a loss, any ideas would be greatly appreciated :) Second if you have a minute and are feeling extra generous, could you pretty please send me my mission pants, my black Nikes, some of my no show socks, and my apple headphones? My pants and shoes should be in that gray bin in my room. My socks are in the tall dresser in one of two top drawers and my headphones should be in front of my records in the green bin. If you don't wanna send them, you don't have to at all! Okay now for real, onto my week! ;) 

MONDAY 

Hey hey hey! How was the rest of your night? The balloons looked super duper rad! Nothing too crazy happened tonight haha! We did learn though that the Light in our living room fan is out and we don't know how to fix it....so that'll be interesting haha! Today was a good day though! I got to enjoy the sunshine, I found yellow flowers, I got to chat with you a little bit, and I got to spend one more day as a missionary! Woot woot!! I seriously love this work so so much I can't even explain! It's definitely hard, especially when we have nights like tonight that just fall through, but there's always something to do and someone to message :) I hope you had a good night and you were able to get some sleep and hopefully get things back to normal. I love you!

TUESDAY 

Hello hello! I'm just gonna start this off by saying today was probably the slowest say ever haha! It felt so long but also so short, kinda weird I know. Today was such a nice day outside! It was a little windy, but it was a warmer wind today so it was nice. The sun was shining and the trees are so so pretty! We have these little benches outside that we went and sat on to do our contacts and make some phone calls. That's something I need to get better at for sure! I always think I can do it, but then the person will answer or the voice-mail will beep and I just freak out. It's okay though, I'm practicing and practice makes perfect right? We tried to have a few lessons tonight but I'm learning that people just don't follow through. It's so frustrating! Especially brasileiros and capo verdians. We also were supposed to have an English class tonight with a lady (I've never met her before) and when we texted her to confirm she basically broke up with us. She told us she didn't have the time right now and she knows that other people need us. Sad day! I won't lie to you, it's honestly hard to want to keep going when all we're getting met with is nothing. We can only do so much Facebook finding too. I still have a good attitude and I'm trying to think of new ways to find people but it's getting harder so I have to be real creative. I did find some new people though that I'm talking to so hopefully something will come out of it. Fingers crossed! Also, I got to talk to Christian today! I don't know if he told you but I got to call and wish him a happy birthday. He was at work so I didn't have a lot of time to talk to him but I did get to. Sorry I didn't call for you or Tyler, I coulsve but honestly I felt so fresh out still and I knew that if I called I would just be sad and end up crying haha! I promise by your next birthday though I'll be able to call and wish you a happy birthday ;) We had a huge Sister call tonight too. It honestly just validated that I hate girls though. They all were screaming and just freaking out over nothing. Sister Pearson and i just sat there and looked at eachother because we were both over it. Thankfully though Biesinger and Sode called us and we just left the call. I've never been so happy to leave a call in my whole life. Girls are too much about 90% of the time. I'm just glad Sister Pearson is cool haha! That's about all I have! I hope you had a good day! I love you!

WEDNESDAY 

Today was actually such a fun day! Okay I'm just gonna jump right into it. We have this lady that calls us pretty regularly named Sandra, she's really sweet but we had to stop teaching her like my first week here because she's just not open to hear anything honestly. However, she still calls us like almost every night to pray with her. Long story short we needed to drop off an English Bible for her son. We got her address last night which is a huge deal because I guess when the other sisters tried to give her a Book or Mormon she said she wanted to meet at the local library. Let's just say she's a little sketchy, but also really open. Like she won't tell us her last name but will tell us all her problems like we're her therapists. Haha! Anyways, we got up this morning to go take her a Bible but the address she gave us literally does not exist. We walked around for 20 minutes and the house number is totally fake! What the heck Sandra?! On our way our of the neighborhood though we passed the Hasbro company and got to snag a picture with Mr. Potato Head. Kinda fun haha! We also made a slight pit stop at chick fil a for lunch so it all ended up working out if you ask me ;) We had another slow night tonight too. People just do not answer their phones and it's so frustrating! How am I supposed to find new people to teach and just teach in general when no one picks up?! It's okay though because we had a lesson with sweet Elba tonight! Going into the lesson Sister Pearson and I were honestly really worried because we haven't been in contact with her for a minute and she didn't go to church. We were both nervous that her family (that's super catholic btw) maybe said something to her and she was getting nervous or just cold feet. We've seriously been praying so hard for her to just be okay.  Good news!! She just had some things come up and everything is totally fine! She's still so excited for her baptism but just wants to be prepared more. Good thing that's exactly our job! Mom I can't even begin to tell you how good that made me feel :) She's just amazing too! Her spirit and desire is so strong and I just love her! Right after our really good lesson with her we had a call with our friend Bina. He's a little all over the place so we haven't had much contact with him either, so it was a miracle he even answered!  He actually has a ton of potential if he's really willing to listen and just answer our calls. If he really does I could see him getting baptized here really quick too. It was such a good night! Just those two calls made up for all the slow nights we've been having honestly. I will say though that it's been awesome to see Elba progress in just the 2 short weeks that I've been here. She's amazing! I couldn't be more excited for her! 

THURSDAY 

Hey hey hey! I'm so glad you got your letter! I know it's kinda lame and probably not anything g super crazy but because I told you about it when I started I figured you'd wanna know the rest haha! I'm also learning just how fast the postal service is! You guys get my letters so quick! Now onto my day! Today was simultaneously the fastest but also the slowest day. It felt like we did so much and that so much happened but on the same not it felt like we didn't really do much. Do you ever have those kinds of days? Today was service day! I actually like the service we do here with the furniture bank. Today when we got there it was just Sister Pearson and me and the lady in charge told us that there were two dressers that needed to have the metal hardware taken out so they can scrap the whole thing. When I tell you this dresser was industrial I'm not even exaggerating. Okay so let me back up a minute. We had to take the tracks off but the drawers didn't come out of this dresser, so we asked if we could basically just destroy the drawers to get to the screws that we couldn't see. On a side note, I have no idea how these people made this dresser and why there were literally 300 screws in it. Anyways, she said yes and this is when I learned that my body weight is not enough to break drawers or even really do much. I was kinda looking like spider man because I was climbing on things to get leverage or something to help me out. Haha! We got it all figured our and taken apart but it was actually really fun :) Today was also weekly planning day! I don't really love weekly planning but I do because of the organization part;) We had to stop teaching a few people this past week but we still have a lot thag we are teaching. It was really productive and actually went by really fast. We had 30 minutes left of our weekly planning time but we didn't really have anything left to do so Sister Pearson suggested that we take a meditation moment like it says in the adjusting to mission life handbook thingy. Really all that means is we took a quick 30 minute power nap. Jokes on me though because I couldn't fall asleep but it did feel nice to just lay there for a minute. Haha! ;) We had some good lessons today too! We even had a miracle! Okay so there's this guy that I called like week 1 of the transfer but he didn't answer so I left a message. He was a gray dot so it's pretty typical, wellllll he called us back! He's been calling us every now and then because he works a lot but when he called today he talked about wanting to come to our church! He did tell us that he works but he said if he has the time and he isn't working that he would be there. Woot woot! I'll take it! At this point in the day it's almost 5pm which is dinner time right? Well Sister Pearson and I had the idea that we wanted to make cookies for DC tomorrow. In the middle of making cookies one of our super sweet members, Irmã Fatima called us. She said that she had made dinner for us and cake and that we needed to come and get it. I kid you not, this woman made food to feed an army! We already have so much food and this just added to it. You know the big tin foil dish things that are super deep you can buy at smiths?? We normally put crack in it if we take it somewhere? She made one of those just full of rice. Rice! And to top it all off she made the same about for the elders too. It was super sweet of her though and I love her with my whole heart:) After we got that all situated it was time to get into prime pros. We also tried to contact our friend Bina, but when we called he said he wasn't home and that he would call us when he got home...he didn't but that's okay. We had an English class with our super cute friend Alessandro tonight! His classes are normally about 30 minutes but tonight it was closer to an hour. Yikes! It was good though! He wanted to talk about American slang and music and movies and just about anything haha! We talked with him about that stuff and then we got into the class. He also had a few questions about the Book of Mormon that we were able to answer for him too. It honestly was such a good note to end on :) We finished up making our cookies and just cleaned up the kitchen honestly it was a mess from just throwing everything there when we walked in the door from Irmã Fatima's. It was a good day and to top it all off, I think I found someone promising on Facebook! I'm so so pumped about it! On another side note, I just love Sister Pearson so much! We've seriously gotten so close and we joke around all the time. She also spilled like a million secrets tonight too so I feel like that's a solid sign of friendship haha! Okay I'm gonna wrap this one up because I feel like it's so long;) I hope you had the best day! I love you!  

FRIDAY 

Just like that, it's Friday! How does time even work on a mission honestly? I feel like it was just Friday, but also today doesn't really feel like Friday at all either. I don't know what I ate yesterday but whatever I did totally wrecked me and I was up all night last night not feeling good. So needless to say, I was a bit sleepy today buttttt I put on my orange dress to make me feel better. I don't know if it really did but sometimes you just gotta wear an orange dress to pretend to feel better ;) We had district counsel today too woot woot! We talked a lot about bullfighters and their job to protection the bull rider at all costs. It was a super cool analogy for missionary work and how we have so many bullfighters in our corners protecting us all the time. Our cookies were also a huge hit so we stayed up to make them for a good cause  haha! Today was kind of a slow day too, it was a lot of Facebook finding and contacts on Facebook. We did call a few members too including our home boy Paulo to see if he would be willing to baptize Elba! He's seriously the best! We told him that it's scheduled for 10am and told him if we needed to change the time that we could but he was like, 'No! I can make that work! Anything for you sisters' What a sweetheart! :) Speaking of Elba, we got her all scheduled for baptism on May 1 at 10am! Woot woot!! Somebody get out the ice cream to celebrate! She's set to have her interview on the 29th I think, it could be the 28th I'm not positive at the moment. It makes an early morning for us I guess, but 100000% without a doubt worth it! She's really excited for it too! Before I was feeling like I was stealing her baptism honestly. I still feel like I kind of am but I feel like I've also taught her, which I have haha! We had to finishing teaching her the commandments and all that good stuff. She's just so awesome and takes everything and adds it to her testimony. I'm so beyond excited for her! I can't wait! :) My Facebook guy that looked promising hasn't responded to me (yet!) So fingers crossed that he actually will at some point. Tonight was pretty low key actually. Well, until Sandra called us haha! I think I've already mentioned Sandra but basically all she does is read us the Bible and then we pray with her. I put a nice video in the drive of how our conversations with her normally go. Haha! We love her but man sometimes! Wanna know what song I had stuck in my head like all day today? Songs from Hercules! Specifically 'Zero to Hero' Of course too, right as president says no Disney music that's what gets stuck in my head all day! It's okay though because I quickly changed it to yet another song that I can't listen to! Ahhhhh! Music is by far the hardest part mom! I knew it was gonna be hard, but man there are sobmany times thag I just wanna turn on the radio or stay in the store a little longer to listen to the song. How was planting day today?! The pictures you sent me look amazing! I can't wait to see what it looks like next summer! The trees you guys picked are awesome too! You'll have to tell me how long it took them and how it all rolled out. Also! Afton is engaged?! I saw it on Facebook and was like, 'wait what?!' How does Sara feel about all that?? I feel like all I see right now everywhere is people getting engaged or married. I'm sure it's totally normal but now that I spend so much time on Facebook I think I'm just noticing it more. Haha! I was gonna ask you too, how are you feeling? Better than last week I hope? You'll have to let me know :) I hope you had the best day! I love and miss you so so much!  

SATURDAY 

Today I seriously felt like THE most unproductive missionary on the face of the planet. Like honestly I felt like I didn't even deserve to wear my badge. I just feel like I should be doing more but I don't even know how or what I could ve doing to make me feel better. We had nothing today other than Facebook finding and messaging. It's hard because a lot of the people we're teaching work so we can only contact them at night but then when we try they don't pick up. Anyways, today was a little rough but the Atonement is real and there is always tomorrow ;) We had to make a few videos today for Instagram and boy was that a challenge! Haha! Everytime I went to go and say something I wanted to laugh because Sister Pearson was sitting there watching me. Do you know how hard it is to try and talk when someone is just sitting there looking at you?! We finally got the videos we needed but it took a minute haha! We did a ton of work on Facebook and my super promising guy hasn't responded. I'm a little sad about it and I wanna just send another text but obviously I can't because that'll just drive him away. It was such a nice day today though that when Sister Pearson and I started to feel fried we took a nice walk outside. It felt so nice just to get out of the apartment and move honestly. The sunshine felt so good on my face! It's the little things in life like the really bad smell of those white flowers on the trees that sometimes bring the most joy ;) We did get a few weird looks too haha! It's funny just how much people will stop and look at you when you're wearing a skirt on a Saturday afternoon haha! It's actually entertaining to look at other people's faces as you walk. We got to talk to our friend Francisco today too! We've only ever called him but man does he have faith! He always talks so fast too, it's hard to understand everything that he says. He legit started to pray and we had no idea until he said amen at the end what was even going on! Haha! We love him though. Tonight Sister Pearson and I both decided too that we're cutting back on sugar and watching what we're eating. Our members are the sweetest but they always bring cookies or some kind of sugary treat with meals and when you sent peachy-o's and cinnamon bears I learned that it's very easy to just snack all day. Let's just say it's been a tough eating week for apartment 310 haha! But we made a game plan to start being more mindful and to start going on runs in the morning. I'm a little nervous for that because well, I don't run and never really have haha! I did learn though that one of Sister Pearsons weaknesses is self control with food. I love her but she seriously ate two bags of Cinnamon bears all by herself. I think I got like 2 of them is all. I'm happy to help her out though and I really need to be more mindful of what I'm eating too, especially because we're just inside all day. Welp, thanks for coming to my TED talk haha! I hope you had the best day and that you found something to smile about! The flowers look so good, even if they are fake ;) I'm so excited to see how it's all gonna look next summer! It's crazy to think that I'll be there to see the tailed of summer honestly:) Anyways, that was my day! I love and miss you so so much!

SUNDAY 

Mom guess what!?! We had 2 of our friends com to church in person today!! I've never been so happy in my entire life to see people haha! Church was actually so good today! I do feel like I'm a hitting a hit of a wall with the language though. I'm still understanding it but I don't know it's a weird feeling. We did get to meet with our friend CiCi after church today though! She's the sweetest and kindest person I've ever met too. She has quite the interesting situation too. For one she's not married to her boyfriend that she lives with but also he's not a member and goes to another church. However, she's had all the discussions and really wants to be baptized but she feels like she's being selfish. Seriously, the most big hearted human I've ever met! We also had real life Relief Society today too woot woot! Not gonna lie, I'd much rather go to RS here than at home haha! We talked about President Nelsons talk from Conference that I loved by the way! ;) And just how our faith carries us through everything. We saw some real miracles today too! We had a totally open night and by the end of the night we actually had 2 lessons and got everything planned out for Elba's baptism on Saturday! All I really have to say is thay God is so so good! And the power of prayer is real! :) This next week is gonna be a busy one too so I hope you're ready haha! I love you so so much and I can't wait to talk to you today! :)