Email from Kaitlyn to Mom: Monday, May 17, 2021

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
To: Mom
Subject: Transfers, birthdays, and bees

Hey hey hey! Okay so I tried to time this out to get to you at not the worst time ever but I want to send this before my weekly so you're still the first to know. I know you're probably asleep though so sorry!  So many things this week! For one we got transfer news! I'm so sad to have Sister Pearson leaves me but I'm also super excited to be comps with Sister Parrish. I don't really know anything about her except that she's from Utah haha! It's sad though because I just love Sister Pearson. Now before I get into your email, I have some comments on your texts throughout the week :) 

First, hose rings were gorgeous! I think I'm leaning more towards an oval though, heck I don't really know haha! All I do know is that I like the big shiny things;) Second, the trees at the cabin look so good! Annie is just gonna need to get over it ;) Third, seriously thank you so sobmuch for sending soap haha! It's sad just how happy something like thay can make me. But seriously thank you, you really didn't need to :) Fourth, this kinda goes with the email, but that hike looked AFREAKINGMAZING! Like holy cow! When I get home we should just take a trip there so we can do that hike ;) Okay on that note, onto your email! 

- Hopefully you still love Kauai! It sounds like you did a few new things ;) And sorry about Jaime, she's just that way I guess 

- That cabin you stayed in looked a little sketchy not gonna lie...

- Hopefully this week hasn't been too long! The weather here has been so nice but Hawaii rain is wayyyy prettier than Utah rain ;) 

- I hope that things here start going back to normal. We don't have much change in the mission as a whole, remind me to explain when I call ;) but I'm glad it's changing for the kids! That's gotta be nice for them 

- Our friends are doing good! We actually had a good lesson with our friend Clarindo that you'll read about ;) Exchanges were so so good and I was so happy to do them in person! I can't even begin to tell you! We've been giving Elba a break to hopefully let the Spirit work on her a little bit and she actually messaged us and told us that she missed us, so maybe things will start to turn around? We haven't had another call with our 12 year old again. It's hard because she's literally 12 but she's the cutest and I hope we can get in touch soon :) 

- I love that Brooklyn is hanging out all the time! Maybe as time goes she'll gain some new friends too (fingers crossed!) And at least she likes boys haha! I'll have to ask her to get me in the loop ;) 

- I seriously have been praying hard for Christian haha! I'm glad that he's making changes and that he's happy:) that just makes my whole heart happy! I'll have to ask how his dinner/dance went, I wonder how they do it with masks and all that. 

- I feel like this school year had just flown by! It's still crazy to me that Christian is graduating and leaving. Also Brooklyn is not old enough to be in 8th grade yet! 

- Brooklyn told me that she gets why grandma comes but that she would rather have me there or just be by herself haha! 

- Maybe we'll just have to travel the world to find a new favorite vacation spot ;) That's what you can do for retirement haha! 

- I did get stickers and we've already exchanged them :) 

Now onto my week! 

 MONDAY 

I don't have much to report to ya for tonight haha!  Nothing too crazy happened tonight, actually it totally flew by. Before I even knew it, it was 9pm. We had a lesson with our friend Annie tonight and man do I love her! Haha! She's crazy smart and has faith like no other. She was telling us about how much she knows God loves her. In the middle of her going off about this in Português, she stops and goes, "God doesn't just love me, He's crazy about me! I know that for a fact!" (In English btw haha!) And then went right back into it. She's got a pretty solid point there :) It made Sister Pearson and I chuckle. Nothing too eventful to wrap up this pday though! I hope that you had the best rest of your day and that your shopping trip was successful ;) I always love getting to talk to you and see what's up! Thanks for being my number one fan! I love you!  

TUESDAY 

Hey hey hey! Just another day in the life of Sister Garcia put here in Pawtucket :) Today had a lot of potential but nothing really came of it unfortunately. That's okay though, there's always tomorrow and we tried out best. We had a solid lesson with our friend Ivan today, he's slowly coming around to the idea of the church though so we gotta take it slow and steady with him. Today was such a nice day, a little brisk with the wind, but a nice day nonetheless. Sister Pearson and I decided to go for a little walk and see what we could find. Pawtucket actually has a fee hidden gems! It was a nice brain break from Facebook and messaging too:) We found a really nasty water feature too and a few little houses thay used to be cotton mills, kinda cool.  We had such a solid lesson with our friend Any! She's so so close! I can feel it and you can see that she wants it but something is still holding her back we just don't know what. She does want our help with English though so maybe her meeting with us more will help her a little bit. We were supposed to meet a gray dot at a park tonight! I was so pumped to get to meet people in person and possibly leave em with a scripture ya know? Well we got to this super rad park, definitely Google Roger Williams Park, it's super rad! Anyways, we get there and  this chicka was no where to be found. We called her and we waited but seriously nothing happened so we just ended up leaving. Kinda sad but we called and left her a message so hopefully she'll get back to us:) We then filled the night with Facebook finding and calls, nothing new haha! We did talk a little bit about transfers and I realized just how nervous I am to lead the area. I feel like I can do it, but it's still nerve wrecking.  Anyways it was a pretty slow night until the DL'S called haha! We've evolved the bunny gang into the bunny band because Sister Pearson bought a ukulele for her birthday and Biesinger has one too. I've claimed the triangle and Sode is just there for moral support I think haha! They did show us Sode's sewing machine that he acquired at service haha! He's gonna be sewing some ties here in a little bit I guess Anyways, that's pretty much it for today! We have some exciting calls tomorrow and exchanges coming this week too :) I'm super excited for this week and the opportunity that it holds! I love you! ps. Thanks for the shampoo and body wash! It seriously is sad just how much it made my day haha! 

WEDNESDAY 

Ola! Como você esta hoje? I feel like that's all I say right now haha! How was your day?! I wanna hear all about it! How are you feeling about Hawaii? Today felt like it flew by but also it felt like it drug on a little bit. Sabe? We started off the morning with a meeting for that standards committee thing I mentioned last week. I'm learning just how opinionated some missionaries are haha! It was a good meeting though so it wasn't too bad. We did a lot of contacting today as well. One of our friends wants help with English, but only specific things so we've been working with her to to see what she really needs our help with. We decided today too that we wanted to write some letters to the irmãs that give us food every week. They're seriously the sweetest ladies and deserve some love. I got to decorate the envelopes and Sister Pearson wrote out the little letters. I think we're gonna go hand em out on Saturday too! Today was full of just member love honestly haha! We called a couple of our members to check in with them and honestly I'm glad that we did. Some of them are going through some hard stuff and we had no idea. I've made it a goal for myself to be a better ward member when I get home haha! The members are so so important and missionary work can not be done without them. We even found a new friend today through a member! She's awesome amor! I'm so so excited to get to teach her and know her better :) That's pretty much it for today though! We had a little ukulele lesson with Biesinger in the hallway tonight but that's about it haha! I love and miss you lots!

THURSDAY 

Whatta a freaking day mom! Today was jam packed and full of sunshine! It honestly made my heart so beyond happy :) I love the sunshine! Okay so for starters we had a mission wide breakfast coming situation. We did this once before but it was for dinner so this one had to even it out and was for breakfast. We made some solid Orange Julius and some pancakes. I've decided though that I miss pancakes with treager bacon We! Haha! We even skipped put of running this morning because we had to be on the zoom. Let me just put it out there that I still won't really love running, but my days are better when we do get outside in the morning and just move. It's okay though because we made up for it at service haha! Our service place is super cool and helps people get back on their feet by donating furniture and home goods type of stuff. Today we had 2 pretty good sized orders that we had to land into a U-haul. I don't mind lifting things, but dang moving furniture is a task! Haha! Sister Pearson and I might as well have been the moving elders! I forgot to mention too! We leave pur apartment at 8:30am to get to service and we had to pack bags today because we had in person exchanges. Just keep that in mind okay? After service we hopped in the car and had to 1) find something to eat and 2) drive about 30 minutes to get to the chapel for exchanges. Also! I'm now driving everywhere so that I really know where I'm going when Sister Pearson leaves me here soon. We made a quick pitstop at Chick-fil-A and then started towards the chapel. I love exchanges actually :) I got to go with Sister Potter, I actually was in her district last transfer and we got pretty close. Last night I had a lot on my mind and poured it all out in a prayer and today talking to Sister Potter I got a lot of answers. It's moments like that, that make me wonder how people don't belive there's a God. She had no idea about my prayer or the fact that she literally made me feel so much better, but the Lord knew I needed her. She even told me that when she was getting ready this morning she had this impression that she needed to go with me today. I seriously love her so so much and I loved getting to go on an exchange with her :) Something really cool we talked about is the Light of Christ and how people always say you can see it in their eyes, I don't know if I've ever really believed that. However, since being out here, I know exactly what people are talking about. It was a super cool topic to talk about and now I want to have the Light of Christ in my eyes :) It was also a gorgeous day outside so we got to sit outside and just enjoy the weather. Something else she brought up was just living in the now. Again, she's a total answer to my prayers haha! I could go on so if you want I can tell you more but in all it was a really great exchange.  We kinda had to book it back after exchanged though so we could get to our lessons. Right now sisters are only allowed to do exchanges in the afternoons for 3 hours. When we got back (at 5pm by the way), all the elders were playing basketball so we ended up watching that for a minute before heading upstairs to get ready for our lessons. We had a lot of our lessons actually fall through tonight which is a bummer but hopefully we can set up another time to talk to them this coming week :) Sister Pearson and I did have a nice talk tonight though. She has some medical stuff going on and may have to go home this transfer. She's a lot like me and just pushes things aside but I know it's bothering her and she's nervous. We had a nice chat just about life and I tried to make her feel better. I hope I did haha! I'm not very wise and I don't really have some groundbreaking advice but I hope I was able to make her feel better :) I hate not being able to help people and fix things! Anyways, we wrapped up our night with our favorite, Alessandro! He just likes to talk to us honestly haha! We do too so it works out perfect. His lesson actually ended wayyyyy later than we thought or planned...yikes, but it's okay. I told you, a lot happened today! I mean it doesn't really sound like it but I promise it was a lot because I feel totally beat haha! I also hit 4 months today what the heck?! I loved seeing your message today! :) It does not feel like 4 months at all! How was your flight? How are you feeling about it all? What are the COVID rules? I hope that everything is going good and that you're able to soak in some sun! I love you forever and for always! Have the best trip! ️

FRIDAY 

Holy cow whatta day! First off it was almost 80 degrees here today?! What?! Okay not really I think it was because the car was in the sun haha!! But still! I love the sun so so much! Today we had our last district counsel before transfers. Our district is gonna be gutted too so it was kinda sad. It was also a little bit of a celebration because Sister Pearson's birthday is tomorrow and Elder Sode is low key a chef haha! He made a really yummy carrot cake for her and we got to eat it together (because that's allowed now!) This district has been awesome, definitely not as close as my last but we sill got super close. It's also mind blowing to me just how fast 6 weeks goes by. Mission time is just weird in General. Anywho, because it was such a nice day out we decided to head to a park for a little weekly planning. Get this though, while we're sitting there this bee comes up and starts crawling on the blanket. I didn't mind him being there as long as he didn't stink me. Haha! He came into the shade of my PMG and then all of a sudden it looks like he's tweaking or something because he started to seize! He then fell over on his back and then just stopped moving. Sister Pearson and I literally witnessed a bee die today! He didn't have a stinger though so we think he stung someone (not very nice of him) and then found our blanket to die on. It was wild! That was honestly the most exciting thing that happened today haha! We did go and watch the elders play basketball for a minute while we waited for Irmã Fatima to call us. Elders are so stupid and that's all i have to say about that! Haha! Also, I would definitely rather watch baseball than basketball. The only thing in my head too was High School Musical haha! We did an English class for a few of our friends and went and grabbed some food from Irmã Fatima. She always makes a cake too but this week she didn't have time so she gave us her birthday cake. How sweet is that?! We shared with the Elders but we kept the happy birthday part for tomorrow ;) Also everything is starting to get real about me leading the area and I've decided that I need to work harder on my português otherwise I'm gonna be screwed haha! That's my random though for the day :) Your hike looked BEAUTIFUL! You'll have to tell me about it when we talk :) I love you and I hope you're enjoying the beach!

SATURDAY 

Another warm day! Ahhhh I love it! :) we of course had to take advantage of it again! You can't just let the sun pass you by ;) I had some really good studies this morning too, if you don't mind I'd like to share em ;) Okay so I was in PMG and something I found in the Finding People chapter was that it says to start with the Rwstoartion right as you meet people. Obviously that's what sets us apart from other churches but it's just interesting because it says to share that unique message. It just goes to show that the people we talk too are truly prepared by the Lord to either find that message intriguing or not. That was something cool I found today :) Also! IT'S SISTER PEARSON'S BIRTHDAY! I stayed up super late last night and did a little decorating (not much because our floors are so freaking loud!) For her to wake up to. She's just the cutest! Because the weather was super nice though we went and got some lunch from the taco truck that Sister Pearson has always wanted to try and headed to a park. Guess what I freaking got!?! Not chile fruit sadly, but I did get elote!! Oh my gosh was it so good! It was so freaking nice to just sit outside and eat lunch and do our contacts/finding! I even tried to work on my tan a little bit but I don't know how well thay effort went over. I've also decided thay I don't know what happened to me because I don't get tan like the rest of you guys... only a little frustrating ;) While we were sitting there though it started to sprinkle and then it really started to rain so we had to leave. It was a nice warm rain though so I could've stayed but we decided to leave instead. Today was just full of soaking in the sun a little bit and finding people on Facebook. I actually had a few people accept my requests it just talking to em that it gets tricky haha! We did need a brain break for a minute though so I did a little bit of painting. I'm no artist but it doesn't look terrible. Who knows maybe I'll give it away or something haha! Sister Pearson got to call her family for her birthday so I really worked on it while she talked and got caught up on my journal writing, I've been a little behind because we've had a few late nights. We did have some stuff go down in the mission though regarding transfer info so that was fun to be apart of I guess. Basically someone leaked transfer information about who was going where and it spread like wildfire. President Mav got involved and then told us that T texts were not going out tonight. It takes one person and a dumb idea to affect a lot of people. They eventually got to the end of it though because 3 elders ended up sending in apologies to our mission chat. Crazy mom! it seriously felt like I was back in High School. On a more missionary note haha! We had 2 really great lessons tonight with some of our newer friends. We got to teach the Restoration to one of them and he even accepted a livro! We're gonna go drop one off to him tomorrow after church so I'm super excited about that :) In-between a few things tonight though, President Mavromatis called Sister Pearson to wish her a happy birthday and it was the cutest thing ever! I just love that man. I told her too that he would 100% send out T texts tonight with no warning. Sure enough guess what happened?? We were just chilling eating some cake to celebrate Sister Pearson's birthday and they came in. I'm staying, but we already new that haha! Sister Pearson is headed to Brockton, MA and Sister Parrish is coming here. I don't know her very well but I'm excited to get to know her better :) She low key seems like a typical Utah girl though so I'm a little apprehensive about that but I'm looking on the brightside ;) I'm also super sad thay Sister Pearson is leaving me! I seriously love her so so much! Transfers stink! Also guess what?! Tanner Mons (Elder Mons) that I went to High School with, is gonna be my DL, how crazy is that!? Anyways, it was a good day and I think Sister Pearson had a good birthday :) How was your day? I got your email as I was soaking up the sun finding on Facebook and it made my day! I hope that you had a good day and got to soak up some of the sun too ;) I love and miss you!

SUNDAY 

Sunday Sunday Sunday! Ironic because we had no sun today haha! It was still warm, we just didn't get to see the sunshine. Guess what mom?! We had the best turn out at sacrament meeting today since I've been here :) Ahhh! They must've known it was Sister Pearson's last Sunday so everyone showed up. We had really great talks today too! Overall it was such a good Sunday and such a great way for Sister Pearson to say goodbye. After church we got to go drop off a Book of Mormon to our friend Clarindo! We had a really great lesson with him and he accepted a copy of the livro so we went and dropped that off for him :) Other than that, we had a few meetings and Sunday School, nothing to crazy. Haha! How was your Sunday on the beach?? Still jealous that you're there;) Prime pros was just full of contacts and telling members that we missed them at church. We did have a good turnout but there were still a few that weren't there. We did get to write in Transfer journals though for Biesinger, not gonna lie it was kinda nice to write in everyone's because I'm staying haha! Anyways, I can't wait to talk to you! I LOVE YOU!