Email from Kaitlyn to Mom: Monday, May 3, 2021

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
To: Mom
Subject: Whatta week...

Hello hello! Alright this week was a little crazy but I explain all of it in my run downs ;) I'm just gonna get straight into your email and then you can get into mine ;) 

- The only thing I really felt with my shot was groggy for the first part of the day and sleepy for the rest. After that though, I'm totally fine, not even a sore arm 

- There isn't really much to do other than let the Spirit work now. It does happen a lot but I think a lot of it is her family unfortunately 

- I'm sure his pictures turned out good! You'll have to send em to me when you get them ;) 

- Brittan leaves so Tyler needs a new fishing buddy? ;) JUST KIDDING! Haha! I haven't heard Charles name in a while 

- Jaime will always be Jaime but Andrea is being super weird lately I will say 

- You're hanging out with Julie and Chad a lot haha! Heck I'm gonna come back and you guys are gonna way closer than when I left 

- I'm so proud of you for being the bigger person ;) even if that means chip bags all over the backyard 

- Primary President would be a HARD calling especially in our ward too

- I'm ready for some consistent weather too! It keeps jumping all over the place and I'm over it 

- I actually sent Brynlee a letter this past week so hopefully that gets to her! 

- I did get my package! You're seriously THE BEST! Brooklyn's letter made my heart smile too :) I love and miss her so so much 

- I'm thinking I'm gonna need to just do a mission reunion honestly! Sister Hull and Sister Farnsworth made my whole entire day! But I seriously love Sister Pearson so much too, it might just be a think one of these days 

Okay now onto my crazy week! And hopefully the pictures in the drive make sense after this email haha! 

MONDAY 

Hey hey hey! I just wanted to say a quick thank you for everything! You're seriously the best and I don't know if I could ever say thank you enough :) Tonight was pretty low key honestly. We got to meet our new friend Annie! She seriously looks about 25 but she's not! She told us that she's a grandma and has 3 grandkids. I need to figure out whatever it is she's doing because I wanna look like that haha! Other than her lesson though everything else fell through. It worked out okay though because we had to find a jumpsuit for Elba. Get this, we don't have keys to that door and the only person that has keys doesn't live close I guess, I don't really know. The DL'S told us that we just have to do the little card trick to try to break into this room. Welllll we sure tried but it didn't work! We tried everything mom and nothing worked. We ended up getting a metal cake slicer thing and not even that worked! At least you know your daughter couldn't break into anything even if i want to haha! We gave up and came back to the apartment so we could call our friend Sandra. Luckliy though, the DL'S are better than us I guess and got into the room and snagged a jumpsuit. The only proble. is, we don't know if it's gonna fit her sooooo on Wednesday for Zone Conference we may have to steal some from that chapel. Haha! That's really all I have for today! I love you!

TUESDAY 

Another day, another run! I'm seriously so outta shape haha! And not to mention my shins freaking hurt! It's all good though because I'm gonna run and it's gonna be good;) It was a little chiller this morning so that wasn't the best but today I did better than yesterday so I'll call that a win! Today we had a huge milagre! Ahh okay so get this! Sister Pearson has been talking to this guy on Facebook and he said that we could call him today, so obviously we did. We ended up teaching almost the entire Restoration to him and answered questions that he had. We went in there only thinking that we were gonna just get to know him! He was really receptive and we even set up a time to meet later this week mom! How rad is that?! The afternoon was a little slow with some solid facebook finding and my freaking creepy dude! Ahh I didn't tell you about him! Okay so I found this guy that is just a little flirty fruitsnack and told me to sleep with angels and then said he wants to get to know my better and all this is being said to me after he knows that I'm a missionary. What the actual heck?! THEN this man continues to tell me thag he wants to meet me in person, not on a video call. 2 things here buddy! 1. Absolutely the Frick not and 2. We're in a global pandemic and New England is still shut down. Anyways, we may or may not be meeting with homeboy this week who knows. And to top if all off, he has his Facebook set to say he's in a relationship! I hate people! Also today took a slight turn for the worst... We had an in person lesson with Elba! Woot woot! I was so so pumped for it! I actually felt like a legit missionary :) We met her at this park that was actually really fun and the weather was so nice. We got to sit at chat with her about her baptism. You probably could have guessed this, but we had to move her date. We went over a few of the questions and she just kept telling us that she doesn't feel ready. She also said that she wants to be more prepared. We told her that we want her to feel as comfortable as she can before she does anything. She said she wants to talk to her husband and her parents too before she does anything, she even said she has a lot of doubts but when we asked her she wouldn't say anything. We wrapped up our lesson and told her that we'd see her on Sunday and she was like 'I'd rather just stay home'. Let's just say that Sister Pearson and I feel a little sad right now. It's so hard because she has the faith but we're worried now that her family may something to her about us and she'll stop meeting with us. I don't know how to feel honestly. The bad thing is that on the way to the lesson as I was driving I got this feeling that it wasn't gonna happen. I didn't say anything to Sister Pearson and I tried to push it aside. I thought maybe it was just the nerves and all that stuff and I didn't wanna be a huge downer about it all. I don't know I feel a little defeated. But there's no time to he sad, we're gonna keep pressing on and help her in any way that we can. We did have a little tender mercy though! We got to talk with our friend Any, her whole family goes to church and are members except her. Her hold up us that she doesn't come to church but she watches on the zoom. I don't know why, I just live here haha! We got to have an awesome lesson with her and even got her on the books as a reoccurring meeting so that's progress! We had to cancel things for Elba's baptism tonight too :/ We were getting a little down about things but we remembered that we had a lesson with our favorite friend Alessandro! He's just a sweetheart and always puts us in a good mood :) It was much needed honestly, yet another tender mercy! In conclusion to this novel of a day, things happen everyday and I may never know the answer as to why, but that's okay. In the moment life can seem like it totally blows, but Gordon B. Hinckley said to put a smile on your face and not be gloomy (well something like that!) Because you become what you surround yourself with. Yes, life has it's moments but I know who's in charge and I wouldn't want anyone else ;) His plan is amazing and I just have to trust in His timing. That's all I have for today folks haha! I love you mom!

WEDNESDAY 

Shot shot shot shot everybody!!! Haha! I don't know if you really know that song :) I think I'm gonna call today the day spent in the car haha! We had to drive back to Bridgeport which u

is about 2 hours from here for me to get my vaccine. We started early with another run, well today was a walk because both mine and Sister Pearson's shins hurt and were sore haha! It was still nice to get out of the apartment and move though. We had our studies and it was out the door by 10:50am to make my 1pm appointment. I was nervous about that long of a drive I'm not gonna lie haha! Yesterday coming back from zone conference had its silent moments and it was a little weird. Luckily today was better! We talked and listened to all kinds of music and even listened to a really great talk by Hank Smith that Sister Pearson has. It was actually a really good talk and he's honestly a really good story teller.  When we finally got to Bridgeport I got to see so many other sisters! Including Sister Hull and Sister Farnsworth:) To top it all off, it's Sister Hulls birthday so I got to sing to her and see her! Tiny blessings, tiny blessings. Before I was really ready it was time to get back in the car and head back to Rhode Island. We did make a short little pit stop at Chipotle though because 1. We were starting and 2. It was right there and I've never been. It was pretty good not gonna lie, but the burrito was freaking massive! We then started our 2 hour road trip back to Rhode Island. Sister Pearson was a total champ too and drove the whole time. She gets car sick so she wanted to drive but still, that's a long time! Especially with a TIWI. Oh my gosh mom guess what?! On Tuesday I was driving and I was going a little slow because there was a huge pothole on the road. I go over the pothole and freaking TIWI goes, "Aggressive Driving" What the heck?! Sister Pearson thought it was so funny but I did not! Anyways, we had a pretty slow night and no one really picked up our calls. We did have a little success calling a few members but that's really it. I have some promising Facebook people so I hope it stays that way. Sister Pearson and I are trying to think of some fun ways to spice up our Facebook finding because we're both pretty over it not gonna lie. If you have any ideas, I'd gladly take em! I'll have to keep you updated on my arm too! As of right now I feel pretty good, my arm feels like the first time I got the shot but nothing too bad. The weather looked so nice today too! I wish the sun would shine like that here ;) I hope you had a good day! I love you!

FRIDAY 

Another day another road trip! This time I was the driver though! And you'd be happy to hear that TIWI only yelled at me twice for my speed because I went 1 over. I don't think I've ever been so conscious of my speed than I am now. I honestly have no clue how missionaries get pulled over with a TIWI. Today we had to drive into Boston for a doctors appointment for Sister Pearson. She's been having this pain in her lower back and there's a pretty good size lump too. I always feel bad too because you can tell that it hurts pretty bad most days. We had DC today and when I looked over she was just pushing on it trying to relieve some pressure. We were originally supposed to leave right after DC but the mission nurse called and said they rescheduled us for 3pm instead of 1pm. That meant that we had time to weekly plan! Normally we do it on Thursday but because we drove to Bridgeport, that obviously didn't happen. It was good though, I think we probably got it done in record time. Pretty soon after we got done planning we headed to the car. This road trip was only an hour instead of the 2 that it was yesterday so that was nice. I have learned though that these people are worse than Utah drivers! They don't blinker ever, they slam their brakes all the freaking time and you can see the car just jerk, and they don't let you in the lane hardly ever. How rude! We listened to another solid Hank Smith talk on the way to the appointment. When we got there they said because of COVID that they wouldn't let me in, sooooo I just hangout in the car. Honestly about 10 minutes in, I was so bored. I just looked outside and watched all these other go in and out of these other doors. I thought about taking a nap but then I thought that could be a bad idea because I'll be driving back. What was my solution you may be asking yourself? Well amor I'll tell you! I did a lot of DuoLingo haha! About and hour and half later Sister Pearson came back out and boy was I happy to see her! I genuinely missed her and I didn't know what to do without a comp. Haha! The doctor told her it's a Benin tumor but thay she needs to get it surgically removed. We're counting the blessings that it's not cancer, but we don't know what Salt Lake will do for the surgery. She has to find a surgeon and get everything set up before our mission nurse can even call Salt Lake, the catch is that everything is closed until Monday. We tried calling places on the drive back but everything closes at 5pm and we were calling at like 4:55pm. We made it back just in the nick of time to grab something to eat and then start in on prime pros. It was actually a good thing that we didn't have too much tonight because Sister Pearson was stressed about finding a surgeon but I also was sleepy. COVID UPDATE! Okay so my arm doesn't feel sore at all anymore, I can hardly tell I even got a shot. I felt a little groggy this morning but we went on a run and I was good. I just felt a little sluggish honestly. After DC though I was totally normal, the only thing was that I felt really tired. Other than feeling a little sleepy, I'm totally normal! Okay now back to my day, we had a nice long chat with Irmã Fatima tonight. I love that woman! We just called to check up on her and see if there's anything we can do for her and she proceeded to talk for about 35 minutes about how she wants to cook for us and eat with us. She's the cutest! We also were in charge of the English class tonight so we got it all ready but not one person showed up. How rude is that?! We sat there for about 10-15 minutes and nothing even happened. That just meant that we had to go back to Facebook finding. The dreaded Facebook finding! We decided to make it a little more interesting though. We played hangman and what ever letter we did get for the phrase we had to find 2 people that's names started with that letter. So if I got the letter 'h' I had to find two people with 'h' on Facebook. It was still boring but more entertaining that it has been haha! We decided too that we've been doing good with running and Sister Pearson really just deserved a mug cake, so we made some! We actually used to make them every Saturday for Walk in the Light but because that's not a thing anymore we don't. I was seriously so exhausted today though, I ate that and wrote in my journal real quick and was sooooo happy to be crawling into bed. Nothing to crazy today just another road trip! Your day by the pool looked so nice! I'm jealous ;) I also got your card today! I love and miss you so so much mom!

SATURDAY 

Another day in a skirt haha! You always day how comfy skirts must be but let me tell ya, this girl had never really liked skirts and that still hasn't changed! Your package came today though! Seriously you're the best! Thank you thank you!  BÊNÇÃOS! How was your day?! Today was a sloowwwww day. We had a few lessons set up but they all fell through. One was actually with Elba (that was supposed to be baptized today btw) and she just said that she was gonna have family over and that she couldn't. She also told us thay she doesn't really feel the need to come to church. Honestly that's what I was worried about, her family seems to talk in her ear a lot and it just stinks. She said she can meet later this week though so we'll have to see what happens with that. We did have a bit of a spontaneous lesson with our homie Francisco! He always calls us when he can and we slide in the gospel because why not?! Haha! He said that he has work tomorrow but that next Sunday he'll try to come, we'll take it! We had a lesson set up with a memeber and after we called her and she didn't answer she told us that she'd just call us when she got home. No big deal right? We ended up waiting for 30 minutes and she never called us. Kind of a sad day, but we messaged her and we hope to see her at church or at least talk to her soon. Today was Sister Pearson's 10 months so we celebrated with some really good smoothies. Get this though! I was driving and the only way to park out here is to parallel park. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm trash at that! I went to go park and I literally couldn't not figure it out. There were all these cars coming too and Sister Pearson was like, 'I gotcha' so I put the seat all the way back and climbed in the back and she climbed into the drivers seat. Other than that little adventure, we had a pretty uneventful night of contacting people to get to church tomorrow. I did have an interesting Facebook encounter though. This man told me that he'd pay for my dinner after I literally said three words to him. I was like 'hey how are you?' He said he was good and that he was just leaving work to which I asked where he worked and if he liked it. This man proceeded to tell me yes and that he has to have money because if he takes me to dinner he has to pay. Excuse me what!? He then goes to comment on one of my photos "nossa que linda" I shut that down real quick and told him that I'm a missionary and he has yet tk say anything to that. Haha! Anyways, today was pretty uneventful, hopefully your day was a little bit more eventful or productive than mine ;) I love and miss you

SUNDAY 

I love Sundays!  I know I said that last week and this week is fast Sunday but I really do just love Sundays:) The funny thing is, we don't really have too much on Sundays haha! We have pur normal Branch counsel and then we do our studies before heading to church. I just love the members here though! I kinda dread fast and testimony meeting but the members here have such sweet and genuine testimonies. How was Sunday for you? Any crazy testimonies this week?  Irmã Fatima is also my absolute favorite person too! She gets up and just goes, "Why is no one here? Why are you all on zoom? You can't take the sacrament over zoom!" Haha! She's preaching to the choir ;) After church though I got to talk to everyone and Irmã Celeste wanted to talk forever until Irmã Fatima comes over and asked us for help with her new phone. Call me a technology wizard ;) Actually please don't! Haha! When we got back we were supposed to have Sunday school, butttttt that didn't happen. It's okay though because I got a lot of DuoLingo in because guess what?? I have to give a talk next Sunday... I'm actually kinda really nervous for it and I don't know what I'm doing. It's super simple too! I literally just need to give my thoughts on a talk from Conference, but still. Wish me luck on that one ;)  We didn't have anything too crazy today honestly. We did a LOT of contacts and prepping for our posta that we have to have for the pages. This is the real kicker, we have to do a post for the English page but also the Português page. It's all good though because we have some stellar members thag are willing to help us:) Sister Pearson and I also broke our fast today with mug cakes! It's like our thing you could say haha! All I have for today is that God is so good even when life isn't and I love Sundays! I can't wait to talk to you today!