MTC Wednesday Letter - June 26, 2013 "You are the sharpest pencil in the pencil case."

Wednesday, June 27, 2013

This week's quote, "You are the sharpest pencil in the pencil case!" comes courtesy of Sister Kervinen,  one of Katie's companions who is from Finland.  She apparently said this to Katie, sarcastically, after Katie had done something particularly dumb.  Katie just loves her.  I was actually quite impressed with Sister Kervinen's English!  Idioms are not always the first thing you pick up on in a language!  

This is Katie with Sister Kervinen

So Katie's letter this week began like this : 

"Heyyy family!! Okay so I don't even know where to start! You want to hear about the drama, don't you? Not all just the spiritual experiences or the day-to-day drill. So I will tell you about the drama."  

Now, I'm guessing this is where my job as editor of the letters becomes important, because my non LDS family and friends may not get the picture that you are with your companions 100% of the time.  You go nowhere, and do nothing without them by your side!  Anyway, Katie goes on to share that there has been some drama between her two companions but in no way would she want to imply that they are not both wonderful and that she doesn't love them both so much!  Apparently they have something called "companionship inventories" where you work on improving your companionship so you can focus on the work.  Katie was gratified to be very instrumental in helping work out some differences between her two companions and she concludes her stories with 

"Things are soooo much better now!" 

Three girls on a mission
Sister Kervinen, Sister Lewis, Sister Packer

"More about my roommates! There's me, Sister Kervinen (from Finland), Sister Packer (from Lindon. She's the one I was next to during the broadcast when you saw me!), Sister Mcewen (from Scotland), and Sister Maatta (from Finland). The upside of my original companion Sis Wood leaving is now I get two closets! Niiiiice. Okay so my district. It's me and my two companions, plus Elder Rogers and Elder Bulkley. Everyone in my district expect for Sister Kervinen is from Utah so no, they don't have the excuse of not being American for not knowing what a two-point conversion was.  (referring to a story she told last week) The elders in our district are going to Frankfurt. Elder Bulkley just turned 18 two weeks before entering the MTC. All of them have taken some German before.

I want you to know that I really can feel your prayers. Sometimes I feel like I just live on top of this bubble of prayers and it's keeping me from getting too low. I really am doing well. Yesterday Sister Janice Kapp Perry and her husband gave our Tuesday devotional. Obviously I loved it. That woman is basically responsible for a lot of my testimony. We sang lots of songs! She has rewritten the words to that EFY medley thing so it's just for missionaries.

So I live in one of the newer buildings on the main MTC campus. My classroom is in building 7M and my residence is in building 17M. They told us our building was newer but I didn't realize how nice ours is compared to the others until we helped clean one of the other buildings' bathrooms. That's our service assignment once a week. And our bathrooms are a lot nicer than the ones in that building.

So you wanted to hear about my branch president. His name is President Petersen and I think he's from Mapleton. And so is one of his counselors. He served in Germany and so did one of his councilors. And the other councilor served in Finland! I really like our branch presidency.

I loooove all your letters! And Uncle Randall sends me quotes. And thank you for praying for me. Seriously I can feel it. 

So basically I feel like I see the hand of the Lord a lot. I just think that it worked out the way it was supposed to with me having Sister Wood for a companion for a little bit and then being added to Sister Kervinen and Sister Packer's companionship. I seriously don't know how they would have survived without me. It's been good.

I love you family! Sorry my emails are so scatterbrained. "

Stalking Sister Kate

So on Sunday, June 23, there was a special meeting at the Marriott Center on the campus of Brigham Young University.  All the MTC missionaries would be attending and Kate would be singing in the choir.  It was a special training meeting for all the new mission presidents but it was being broadcast to the church around the world.  There was a lot of "buzz" that there would be an important announcement made.  There were a limited number of tickets available to attend and since we had Kate singing in the choir, we got tickets from our Bishop.

FYI for people who aren't LDS...the Bishop is the ecclesiastical leader of our congregation.  The LDS Church does not have a paid ministry.  All positions of service within the church are unpaid.  A bishop typically serves about 5 years and is called of God to this position and has 2 counselors who serve with him.  Almost every member serves in some capacity.  In the near future I'll post about how the church is organized. 

It really was a terrific meeting and of course Franklin and I were overcome with missionary spirit.  They are a powerful force for good and having so many missionaries in one place at one time ramps up the spirit exponentially.

No, they weren't being irreverent,
this was before the meeting started

Of course, being doting parents, we brought binoculars and my camera with telephoto lens. We were sitting on the opposite side of the Marriott Center (which is actually a basketball arena for those who don't know). We had no intention of actually having contact with her, but we were just giddy with excitement at the very thought of getting to see her in person.  (Okay, I know it's only been 10 days...but it's going to be 18 months!).  The girl to Katie's right is one of her companions, Sister Packer from Lindon, Utah.


The announcement wasn't as unexpected as what some had thought.  It had to do with the use of social media by missionaries, something they haven't done in the past.  There will also be more of an attempt made to keep chapels open during the week so those who want to learn more about the church can stop by.  Typically, since there is no paid ministry and no paid administration hanging around the chapels during the week they are locked up.  So, it was a happy Sunday getting to STALK KATIE!

There is nothing quite like a big group
of missionaries singing "Called to Serve"
I think the choir was at least 500 strong.

It was fun to sit with the Kirk and Jackie Williamson and
our excellent stalking abilities resulting in our finding
the amazing Elder Chase who is on his way to Korea and just
started at the MTC earlier in the week.

MTC Wednesday Letter - June 13, 2012 ""Jesus is going to come again! I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I have to tell them in German."

This weeks quote is from Katie after having watched the movie "The Testaments".  She was overcome with the excitement of her upcoming missionary service and exclaimed "Jesus is going to come again!  I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I  have to tell them in German!"

"Family!! I don't even know where to start. Okay seriously I don't even know what to say. I'm on a mission! Oh sad story. I'm not a schwester. I still like schwester and everything but my nametag says sister and it's because schwesters are more like the nuns and nurses in German. So we are sisters. But it's okay because my nametag still says Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage. It is really fun to be with so many foreign missionaries.So now I have one companion who is from Lindon and one who is from Finland. But from the part of Finland that's like on the Arctic Circle.  Okay so I get along really well with Sister Kervinen (the sister from Finland). She studied German for 6 years in school (but also English and Swedish). She is so much fun and she doesn't take things more seriously than they should be taken but she loves the gospel. Sister Packer took German for 3 years but she's really good because she worked on it a lot while she was preparing for her mission. And she's had her call since December (she deferred because of a boy). I kind of miss my first companion and I know she really misses me. She doesn't get along so well with her current companion and every time she sees me she just wants to talk to me. All of you that have been on missions should take this opportunity ro reminisce  about your missions and tell me mission stories. I would love to hear your stories.

Okay so you wanted to know about my first day. I got here and said bye to you and tried really hard to not look back. And I didn't. My host missionary took me to my room and then to the book store to get my training materials. 

Most important training material in addition to scriptures
"Preach my Gospel" in German
(picture obviously not taken on the first day because that
is not what she was wearing)

Then I went to my classroom and met my teacher and my district. And then when my companion, Sister Wood, came in I met her. 

And then we went to a welcome meeting by the presidency of the MTC. Then dinner. And then we did this cool teaching experience where we were in classrooms of 40ish people and we all taught an investigator together. For the first two missionaries that have been in the MTC for a while helped us get started, but the last one we did by ourselves. That was basically the first day. Then we kind of unpacked and just went to bed. Every day is a little different. We've had different workshops and orientations and branch presidency interviews but mostly we all the following.... gym (yay I love it when we have gym), classroom instruction (a lot of that), meals, TALL lab (technology assisted language learning. It's great.), and study time (personal, companionship, language, additional . . .). 

I am singing on Sunday!! I will be there! Uh I hope I don't see you ha ha. That would be too hard. We switch off every Sunday after Sacrament meeting who is the Senior companion. I still don't even really know what it exactly means to be a senior companion, particularly in the MTC. But right now it's me. This email is going to be soooo disorganized. Don't put it on the blog like this ha ha. Also I have two different teachers. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. My district/class has only five people in it. There's my threesome and then two elders. My old district/class now has only two elders in it. When my companion left me I had to leave them. So yeah our districts are small. I loooove our zone/branch. And the people I love the most are going to my mission. We have people from Scotland, England, and Finland. The two sisters in my room that are Finnish speak Finnish alllll the time. So funny story. Our teachers never speak English to us, always German (which means that a lot of the time I am lost.  I am the only person in my district who has not taken any German. It shows. But I'm not the only person in our zone/branch.). It's really weird if the teachers ever do speak English. But in order to avoid speaking English they act things out or find weird ways of explaining them. And he said a word that no one knew and in order to tell us what it meant  our teacher started acting out "touchdown" and then he said "zwei punct" or whatever two point is and we were supposed to know that the word that came after that was the word for conversion. The word that we didn't know was conversion. But I was the only person in my district that had even heard of a two-point conversion! So I was the only one that got it. Proud of me Daddy? Ha ha. And my teacher complimented me on that during my personal interview. 

Hey I looooove letters and dear elders and everything! Thank you everyone! Keep it coming! I seriously believe Heavenly Father exalts people who write missionaries.

So I have a fake investigator! We call him Marcus. Funny story I had just joined my new district and met my new teacher and he took me out in the hall and told me stuff in German and said the name XXXXX  and stuff and then he said in English, "I just didn't want you to be surprised." And I just agreed and said everything was fine. I thought he was just explaining to me that the investigator was actually fake and I said, "Yeah I had an investigator in the other class too?" like I was confused about why he felt like he had to explain that to me. Duh they're fake. I figured he just didn't want me to be nervous so he told me the investigator's real name so I would know he was fake. XXXXX is a common enough name. But when we walked in to teach our investigator I was like "Ohhhhhhh. Our investigator is XXXXX!" Ha ha I know the kid. He went to Timpview. He liked Madelyne in the eighth grade and we talked all the time in art class. So I guess they try to avoid that or something so he must have seen my name and knew that I would know him so they warned me. And then I told my teacher after our first lesson with Marcus that I got what he was saying now. It's just funny because since he said it in German I didn't know what he was really saying. I love you alll!!!

I love Himmlischer Vater and Jesu Christi! We watched the TestamentsSunday night and I just got way stoked for the second coming. I basically ran around saying, "Jesus is going to come again! I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I have to tell them in German." Bye! Love you! Sorry this is so scrambled.

Entering the MTC - June 12, 2013

THE BIG DAY! Entering the MTC

This was the big day on the calendar....the countdown had been going on for weeks. It's such an exciting day for everyone; bittersweet, sad and happy.  She was assigned the time of 1:15 to report. Lindsey and Max & Claire came over in the morning to hang out with us as we packed the last few things and brought suitcases downstairs.  We packed one with all the winter stuff that she hopefully won't even have to open until she's over there in the cold.  One of the last things we did before leaving the house was for Franklin to give Katie a beautiful father's blessing.  He laid his hands upon her head and brought the spirit of the Lord to rest on her as she prepared to step out of the security of her home and move forward with her commitment to serve the Lord. I think his blessing addressed many of the concerns she has had and I know she felt very loved and reassured. 

Next was lunch.  Lots of local places give "free lunch" to missionaries on the day they go into the MTC, but we didn't chose one of those and went to Zupas, where we could get a light, healthy lunch.  We ran into a friend of hers that was also entering the MTC that day...the excitement was palpable.  She had said goodbye to her Grandma & Grandpa Lewis and Jesse and family the night before but Joe was able to meet us there...... 

and then it was time to leave.... 

We took some pictures in the chapel parking lot near the MTC. Then Joe
stayed there with Max and Claire so Lindsey could come with us for the final hugs.

FYI -The Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo in near the BYU campus and here the missionaries eat, sleep and learn.  There are also MTC's in foreign countries as well and missionaries are assigned depending on where they are from, where they will serve and what language they will be learning.  Right now there are an unprecedented number of new missionaries with close to 7000 in the Provo MTC at one time and close to 80,000 serving worldwide.

This is my very favorite picture.  Not even really posed.  I love the expression on her face, which is funny because Kate is a very affectionate person by nature so kisses wouldn't usually garner this reaction!

Nowadays you arrive at the MTC at your designated time, and are simply given enough time at the curb to unload luggage and give a final quick hug goodbye.  Missionary "hosts" are there to whisk you away, because, after all, there were about 870 NEW missionaries arriving on that day (a group enters the MTC every Wednesday) 

We were lucky to get a few final snaps because two adult volunteers, who are friends from our previous neighborhood, just happened to be near our "stop"! Thank you Jackie and Robin!  

We all just love this girl so much.  Lindsey will so
miss her "best of sister".

Hah, Hah. Do you think I am just kind of a
smother mother with this last hug?

The truth is you are really just filled with such a range of mixed emotions.  Grateful for the decision they have made on their own to give this service,  grateful for the incredible blessing this child has been in your life, incredulous that you not only won't get to see them for 18 months but you'll only talk with them 3 times during that time,but also so grateful for the amazing experiences they will have as they learn to sacrifice and serve and put the needs of others before their own on a day to day basis.  

With all the trials Franklin and I went through to bring Katie into this world, I feel such a deep sense of gratitude for all she has meant to our family that I am more than willing to let the Lord use her as a full time instrument of his love.  

My prayer is that her

amazing spirit, her love for her Heavenly Father and all his children and creations will give some of those she meets the opportunity to pause and reflect on their spiritual life and whether or not there just might be something missing that she could help them 

reconnect with.  I know that God lives,  that he is aware of each one of us, that Jesus Christ is His son, and that through our relationship with Him, all of life's joys and challenges can take on meaning that will further bless our lives and guide us back to him.  

After dropping her off, Franklin and I just weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves.  Didn't fee like going back to work, that's for sure!  So we went to the Provo Temple and afterwards realized that there was just no better place that we could have been. 

GOOD LUCK SISTER LEWIS! 

  

Whose blog is this anyway?

I've created this blog for me, her mom, and I hope for those who have expressed interest in keeping up with Katie's activities during the 18 months she is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I plan on posting her letters . . . edited maybe just a tiny bit so she can feel free to write ANYTHING she wants to her mom, but know that I will keep to myself those little things meant just for me.  Katie won't see this blog until she gets home, and I think that's best because she would drive me crazy with my driving her crazy with my . . . s and also with the fact that the new standard is to NOT PUT TWO SPACES between the period at the end of the sentence and the start of the next sentence.  You just can't teach an old mom new tricks . . . but I'll give it my best.

I also plan on adding some points of clarification for our friends and family interested in Katie's experience who are not familiar with the LDS Church and with the very unique characteristics of a mission.

Katie and I have always been very close and very good friends, so I hope she will be happy with my efforts to share her love for her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and her joys and hardships as she commits herself to serve Him.

Hope you'll join us for the journey!

Mother & Daughter: June 2013 in Little Wild Horse Canyon, Utah

Kate's Farewell & Open House

And finally arrived the Sunday of Kate's farewell and Open House.

FYI - In the LDS church, all talks during the Sunday Sacrament Service are given by Church

Members.  The most important thing that happens during the Sunday worship service is taking the

sacrament and renewing our baptismal covenants with our Heavenly Father.  In taking the sacrament we promise

to remember our savior Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice and always  to try and be like Him.

The Sacrament Prayer is actually the only rote prayer given in our Church.

The remainder of the worship service is a series of usually 2-3 talks given by church members

who have been invited to prepare a talk by the Bishopric.  A departing missionary is always

invited to speak prior to leaving on this mission. 

Katie was asked to talk on "faith" and after the conclusion of her thoughts,

she sang one of her favorite songs from her years growing up in Primary,

"I know my Savoir lives".   It was so sweet to hear her sing, as her singing has

been something that has brought me such joy over the years.  So many people in the congregation

didn't know she had such a lovely singing voice and were very touched by her

testimony through song. 

FYI - "Primary" refers to the Sunday School classes for ages 3 -12 years.  There are

lots of wonderful songs for this age group that really teach about the Gospel and

reinforce tender testimonies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

FYI - Very often the family of a departing missionary will have an "Open House" later in the

day so that people can come by, give that dear young person a hug and their best wishes. 

Katie was really just amazed at all the love and support she received.  Throughout the 
day she kept exclaiming "people are just so nice!"  One of the great blessings of being a
member of this Church is the unconditional love and support that you can receive from
your Ward members (your congregation is referred to as your Ward). 

We had lots of yummy food at the Open House.  I was kind of busy so
didn't take any table pictures, or really many pictures at all at the Open House.

But we tried to have some typical Swiss food. One of Katie and my favorite Swiss
treats is Swiss Meringue with ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream. YUM!   So I had
been busy making dozens and dozens and dozens of little meringues over the past week. We also
had lots of fruit, Swiss cheese with bread and crackers,  and of course,  Swiss chocolate!
Thanks to my friends who helped! 

But thank you mostly for all our friends and family who came by to wish her well.
It meant the world to her, and to me, to have so much support and love. 

The pre-mission bucket list

quix·ot·ic  

/kwikˈsätik

This is an adjective I have often applied to Katie.  She's a dreamer, and dreams big and  sometimes with little regard to realism.  It's often hard for her to understand why we might look at her a bit cross-eyed when she comes up with a new idea.  Part of the

humor of it all is that she dreams it, and then expects our full enlistment in carrying

out her dream.  But it's part of what makes Kate, well, Kate, and we love

her for it and know that it will take her places others may not dream to go! Actually, it
takes us places we wouldn't dream to go too.

To that brings us to her 

Pre-Mission BUCKET LIST

Actually, it wasn't that unrealistic, but with everything we had going on, it did take some major effort and commitment to squeeze it all in.

She had just under six weeks after Winter Semester was over until she would report

to the MTC.  And some of us (actually all of us except her) had jobs, and work travel, and busy families etc etc etc.  But looking back, without her pushing and planning

we might never have had such a good time together in the weeks before she left. 

Live just gets busy and unless you really schedule and really push to make it happen,

it just doesn't happen.  

So here's a few things we did that were on her "bucket list".

ONE 

The house that built me. Northridge, CA

Katie wanted to make sure we went to California to visit her Grosvati, my dad.

She hadn't been back to their home since my mother's funeral ten years ago, and for 
some reason it was very important to her to refresh her memories of that home.

My dad is 92 and last summer I took him to Switzerland and met up with Kate
as she was concluding her hiking tours.  It was with me and my mom and dad that
Katie made her first trip to Switzerland 12 years ago while my mom was in
remission.  She has always shared with them a deep love for the outdoors and I wanted them to introduce her to their beloved homeland. 

This short visit, we took him for a couple day adventure to Lake Arrowhead, which is less

thank three hours from his home, but a lovely getaway from  the San Fernando Valley. 

Note Kate doing her customary trash pickup
and I love the picture of Grosvati working with
her on German pronunciation. 

TWO

A family camping trip was also on the bucket list.  This was actually  a 
bit of a challenge to pull off since the only night that was available in
everyone's schedule was the Friday of the Memorial Day Holiday and
most of the local campgrounds weren't open yet.  With two nursing moms
who weren't going to be able to spend the night, we also wanted to be fairly close 
to home so they could still stay for the evening.  We ultimately decided on
camping along the stream at Big Springs Park.  It was perfect and we all had a great time.

One lesson to be learned is that if you don't REALLY want to do something,
it just doesn't happen.  Our lives today have gotten so busy that it's easy
to not want to add more to the agenda. But often that means we omit that which is really
most important.  This campout was a good example.  I know it was so 
important to Katie to not only get her family together as often as possible, 
but to share some of what she loves most with these little nieces and nephews
that she will miss so much.  

THREE

Then Katie's friend James came home from his mission to New York North, Spanish, 10 days before Katie was to report to the MTC and so the bucket list took on a whole new dimension. They both love adventure and so the fun continued. 

We went together with the Hulmes on a trip to Goblin Valley.  Again, it would have been

easy to say that this was "pushing it" the week before she was to leave, but it was

really a lot of fun and I'm so glad we went and especially that Jesse & family were

able to come as well.  We left late Sunday afternoon and some of us went into

Goblin Valley in the dark that night which was awesome and then went back to spend

the night in Green River before going back to Goblin Valley in the morning to

hike Little Wild Horse Canyon.

It was so fun to watch Bella (5)  and JJ (almost 3)  have SUCH a great time.  It was hot, we hiked for quite a long time but they never complained and just had
such fun.  Katie, and many of the rest of us, had never been here
before and for being under 4 hours from home, this was just a 
perfect trip for the "bucket list".

FOUR
Going to a number of different temples in the area was also important to 
Katie.  She first went through the Timpanogas Temple and then during the
next weeks went through the Salt Lake Temple, the Manti Temple, and the
Provo Temple.

Katie with her grandma, Madeline Lewis

Katie with her cousin, Regan Lewis, who is 
serving in the Rochester, New York mission,  Spanish-Speaking

FYI  - The Lord has commanded His people to build temples from the days of the Old Testament. Much of the LDS temples mirrors things we have learned from ancient temples and ancient temple rituals. They are

sacred buildings, different from chapels where Sunday worship takes place. Temples are a place of learning and peace.  When a temple is first built, the public is invited to tour the temple.  However, after it is dedicated, only faithful church members participate in temple activities.  These include the "temple endowment" and the sealing of families together for time and all eternity.  Marriages that take place in the temple are blessed by the Lord to be not only "until death do us part" but for the eternities.  The blessing of eternal families is central to the Lord's plan of salvation and our belief that families can be together forever.   

FIVE

Squeezing in as much adventure as possible, Katie was also happy to be able to go with the Hulme family when they rappelled Bridal Veil Falls up Provo Canyon.   This happened the day after getting back from Goblin Valley and the day before Katie and James
went Hang Gliding at the point of the mountain (no pictures).  

SIX
One last trip to wakeboard on Deer Creek Reservoir and spend the
night at our cabin in Wallsburg was saved for Friday night.  We have
built wonderful memories there over the years so it was important to Katie to be
there together again just a few days before she left.  David was able to
come from Denver to join us for the weekend so that was great. We missed
Austin, Lizzy and their family but work schedules just didn't let it work to
have them with us :-(. 

We like to finish off lots of our weekend jaunts to the cabin
with a trip into Midway to the Tarahumara Restaurant.  We love
the food, and really love just sitting out on the porch all together. 

So thanks Katie for making a bucket list!   We couldn't get to everything, but I 
think we did pretty well and we certainly made family memories that
we wouldn't have without your dreaming and planning. 
We are going to miss this girl so much!