Dear Elder

December 23, 2010

Thanks so much for your letter! I was so excited when it came in the mail. I’m so sorry that I haven’t written. It seems like life gets busier and busier every day. Can you believe that it has been 6 months!? I’m so proud of you! I have been keeping up on your Blog and am so impressed with your hard work and your testimony. You are such an incredible missionary and I can see that you have blessed the lives of your companions, the members, and all those that you teach. I’m so glad that you chose to dedicate two years of your life to serve the Lord and to teach his message of hope and love. That is exciting that you get to talk to your family on Christmas. I guess by the time you get this you will have already spoken with them. How was it!? ;) I remember when I had brothers out in the mission field that I was always so excited to talk with them on Christmas. One year, we had two different missionaries to talk to. So fun!

Things have been good here. I am actually only working one job now! Are you so proud of me? I’m working full time at UCCU in their online support department. It’s not my favorite, but it pays very well and UCCU is a really great place to work. I’m full time, so I’m working the 40 hours a week and going to BYU part time at night. This semester was probably my favorite so far. I took World Civilizations, Humanities, and Book of Mormon.

My World Civilizations teacher was Dr. Kerry, who has a degree from pretty much every Ivy League school in the world and knows everything. He even references his sources while he is lecturing. He just pulls it out of his head, it is amazing! We got to read so many good books in his class and I learned so much. After the first day of class I was thinking about dropping the class, but he was so passionate about what he was teaching and the books we were required to read were book that are actually worth reading, so I knew he wouldn’t be wasting my time. It was such a good experience and I loved the class! I highly recommend him as a teacher, so keep that in mind for when you come back. : ) Humanities was kind of blah, but the teacher was pretty funny which made class interesting.

Book of Mormon (second half) was amazing. Sister Morgan was my teacher, and she actually worked with my Dad up at the church office building for many years. She has such strong testimony and she can’t help but testify of the truthfulness of the gospel with every word that comes out of her mouth. I loved her class because she was so passionate about what she taught and she wanted nothing more than to strengthen the testimonies of her students. I always always felt the spirit in her class and it was such a blessing for my life. Something funny that I picked up from her is that she always will say “Its okay, the church is true” or “I can’t even begin to tell you guys how true the church is”. I love it when she says it because it is true and she says it so easily. It helped me to know that you don’t have to full on bare your testimony in order to tell people the church is true, you can just say it! My friend Chelsey and I have started to remind one another that the church is true all the time. Whenever we call and leave one another a voicemail we say “just wanted to call and remind you that the church is true…” and then we leave whatever other message. It has been so much fun to be able to add that in to my life and have the constant reminder of the truthfulness of the gospel.

The only other update is that I went to New York back in October! Such an amazing experience, I loved it! When I was a Beehive in Young Womens, I had a leader who I absolutely loved! She was about 25 at the time and she was such a good example to me. I loved spending time with her and talking with her about anything and everything. She was the person that I wanted to grow up and be, because she had served a mission, married in the temple, was pregnant with their first child, and had the most incredible knowledge and testimony of the church. She moved back East about 3 years ago and has been asking me to come out and visit her ever since. She and I kept in touch over email and she was always so kind to answer my questions about life and about the gospel. She is the nicest, sincere, and honest person I know.

Anyway, so I went to New York to visit her! I decided in August that I wanted to go, and bought my ticket for October. I went for about a week and half. I left the Monday night/Tuesday morning after General Conference (which was Oct. 4/5th) and came back on Wednesday the 13th. It was one of the most spiritually enlightening experiences of my life, and it was such a relaxing vacation. Although it wasn’t my very first time flying on a plane, it was my first time flying all by myself! It was a little scary, but it went really well. I took a red eye flight and flew from SLC to Atlanta, Georgia and then on to Rochester, NY. I left SLC at 12:50 am and arrived in Atlanta at 6:20 am their time. I had a lay over of about 3 hours and then left at 9:47am to Rochester and arrived there at 11:50. It was the most amazing experience to be able to fly on a plane. Like I said, it wasn’t my first time, but it was different when I was by myself instead of with 150+ Timpview Band members. The view was incredible and being able to see the lights on my way to Atlanta and then seeing the amazing green landscape of New York on my second was so cool! Before we started the decent we were way up in the clouds, and I was able to take a couple of really cool pictures without any of the flight attendants get mad at me for having electronics on. It was amazing and so unreal. The New York landscape was incredible too. It was completely green and there were so many farms.

I finally landed in Rochester around 11:45, so a couple of minutes early. When I went to get my luggage, it was nowhere to be found. I called my Dad and was like “so…what do I do now”. I kept looking and then saw my bag! It was in the Delta bag claim office! But, lo and behold, it was closed and locked. I went upstairs to the checked bag line and was finally able to get a Delta representative to come and help me get my luggage. I’m not sure how it happened, or why I wasn’t on that flight, but my luggage had arrived on an earlier flight than I did. I’m still baffled as to how that one happened, but as long as it got there in one piece, I was okay with that. After I grabbed my luggage Katy Storey met me with her two daughters. She greeted me with the biggest hug, and it made me all the more excited to be there.

There were so many places that I got to see and visit that I don't know where to start! To prevent this from turning in to a 10 page long letter, I will tell you the highlights of the trip.

First off, I loved spending time with Katy Story, her husband Ross, and their two super cute daughters. Their house is so cute and they have a huge yard! Katy is an amazing cook and I learned a lot from her while I was there. Katy was the early morning seminary teacher. She spends time each day preparing her lesson for the next morning. It was so fun to be able to help her prepare and give her insight from someone who not too long ago was in Seminary. They were learning about the Doctrine and Covenants, which was such a good learning opportunity for me, because everything they were studying, happened right where I was vacationing! Their church is right next to the Whitmer farm. The sacred grove and Palmyra temple is about an hour away, and the Susquehanna River is about 3 hours away. So many historic sites that went right along what I was able to study with her. It worked out perfect. Katy and Ross are such good examples of faithful church members. They have so much faith in the Lord and it is obvious in every decision that they make. The spirit is so strong in their home, and they are doing their very best to raise their children in the gospel as well.

Church Sites! Katy's house is in Geneva, New York (upstate New York) which is about an hour from Rochester, 5 hours from the big city, and right next to one of the Finger Lakes. It is right in the middle of all of the New York church history sites. On I think Thursday the 7^th of October we started our tour of the church sites. The first one that we went to was the home and farm lands of Martin Harris. His house is very large and extremely beautiful. Afterwards we stopped by the grave site of Josephs Smith's brother Alvin. It was super peaceful at his grave and the spirit was very strong. After that we headed to the Book of Mormon publication site. It was way cool to see how the Book of Mormon was printed and the floor that the prophet Joseph would have walked on. They had a lot of historic information, and it was amazing to learn more about the process of the translating and printing of the Book of Mormon.

From there we went to the Sacred Grove. Before I went in to the grove I toured through the Smith Family log house and the home that Alvin built for the family. It was so cool to see some of the things that they would have had and the actual house that they live in. It was especially cool to see the house where Joseph Smith originally brought the gold plates home to, and the fireplace that he removed bricks from to hide them. You could tell that some of the bricks had been removed before, and so they weren’t as straight as what they originally had been. After we toured those homes, Katy let me go in to the Sacred Grove on my own to spend some time pondering. I ended up spending about 45 minutes in the grove, and the time passed so fast! I walked for about 10 minutes before finding a bench in an incredibly beautiful area. I took a few pictures before sitting down to ponder for a minute. Before I went in, I had been thinking about if I had a question that I needed/wanted answered while I was in the grove. Its kind of hard to go to a place as sacred as that grove was and not want or expect some kind of miracle or revelation. As I sat and pondered on the bench, I decided to just sit and allow the spirit to teach me. Although the heavens weren’t opened to me, it was one of the most peaceful experiences of my life. The trees were just starting to change colors, the air was warm, and everything was so quite. The grove is a lot bigger than I thought. While I sat on the bench, I pondered a lot about the first vision and about Joseph Smith. He truly is a prophet and I know that he saw what he said he saw. The spirit that I felt in the sacred grove confirmed to me what I have believed my whole life and it strengthened my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. Those grounds are, just as President Hinckley said, the second most sacred place in the entire world, and you can feel. It was so strong that you wanted to reach out and be able to touch it. I have never been so engulfed by the spirit before in my whole life, and it was an experience I will not soon forget. So amazing!

After the Sacred Grove, we stopped by the Palmyra Temple and the Hill Cumorah to take pictures. The Hill Cumorah is beautiful and super steep! The Palmyra temple is amazing as well. I loved that on all the windows they had the stain glass with Aspen Trees on them. It is such an amazing connection to the sacred grove, especially since you can see the sacred grove from the temple grounds.

On Saturday October 9^th, we went to Harmony, Pennsylvania, which is now Oakland, Pennsylvania, to see the Susquehanna River, the home site of Joseph and Emma, and also the grave of Joseph and Emma’s son Alvin as well as Emma’s parents. The drive is about 3 hours, which is a long time, but we were able to drive through the most amazing country. The colors of the trees were starting to change, and everything is so green and beautiful out there. I thought Utah has a lot of trees, but New York made me remember that Utah really is a desert. Utah is beautiful, but its still a desert. On the way to Harmony we stopped at Glenn Watkins canyon to go hiking for a little bit. It was super wet that day, but it was incredible! The canyon was so beautiful and the water falls and river was amazing. A little farther down the road we passed through Scranton, Pennsylvania, which, if you’re a fan of the show The Office, you will know that that is where the TV show is based out of. I was super excited and tried to take a picture…but we passed through it pretty fast.

The first place we went to in Harmony, Pennsylvania was the cemetery where Isaac and Elizabeth Hale and of an infant son Alvin born to Joseph and Emma. This cemetery was the oldest cemetery I have ever seen. Many of the headstones had been cracked in half, were almost completely buried, and some of the words had been completely rubbed off of many of them. It was so peaceful there though, and it was such a cool experience to see the names and dates of the people who were buried there. The graves of Isaac, Elizabeth, and Alvin had been replaced by the church to preserve the original grave stones.

The cemetery is about 100 meters away from the Restoration of the Priesthood monument and another 50 meters away from the home site of Joseph and Emma Smith. So we stopped by the Priesthood Restoration monument, which is huge! It stands around 15 feet tall and is a statue of Joseph and Oliver receiving the Aaronic priesthood from John the Baptist. One of the coolest parts about the monument is that you can hear the river in the background. We also went to the home site of Joseph and Emma Smith. Their home is no longer there and the foundation of their home is mostly buried by the grass, but it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We read about the home and talked about it for a minute and then I walked over the area. I have been so shocked at how strongly I felt the spirit. Yet again, the spirit was so strong and it testified to me that Joseph and Emma really did live there and that the 15 revelations that were received and the parts of the Book of Mormon that were translated in that home were true. It all seemed so subtle, but the impressions and feelings that I had were overpowering. Every time that I stepped on those grounds there was such a strong and prevalent difference. So amazing!

The next place we went to was the Susquehanna River. It had been raining for a couple days, so the road to the river was super muddy and bumpy. We got out of the car and started walking along a path that led down to the river. It was so quite and beautiful because the path was completely surrounded by trees. All you could hear was the sounds of the river in the distance. Ross was walking in the front and he stopped and just stood there for a second. He turned to the rest of us and said did you feel that? The spirit is so strong here, and it was. We took a couple of pictures of the path, which are so amazing and peaceful and then continued toward the river. The water by the river was super muddy, so we weren’t able to really touch the water. We talked about the history of the area for a little bit and took a ton of pictures. The Susquehanna River is most definitely a river, and not a stream. It is probably about 50 feet wide and I have no idea how deep. It was so beautiful and the sun was shining off of the water just right. It was super muddy and we all slipped a couple of times, so we ended up with quite a bit of mud on our shoes and clothes. On the way back from Harmony, Pennsylvania, we stopped at Cornell University in Ithica. I thought BYU had old buildings, but Cornell had some incredible architecture that was super old. It was cool to see college students on another campus and to experience the atmosphere.

The next day, Sunday the 10^th, we went to church. The Storey’s church is so incredible. It is right next to the Whitmer Family Farm, which is where Joseph Smith stayed for quite a while, and where the first meeting of the church was held. The spirit was so strong in the sacrament meeting. It was fast Sunday, and the missionaries had brought an investigator to church and he stood up to say something. It was the coolest! He talked about how he thought we were all such good people and that he really felt the spirit in the sacrament meeting. He kind of talked like a gangster, so it was really funny, but I loved that he was so excited to share what he felt. I bet you get to see that a lot our in the mission field! I can’t wait for the opportunity.After Church I took a tour of the Whitmer home. The spirit was so strong there. One of the coolest things I learned was that whenever anybody in Ross and Katy's ward is ordained or is given a calling, they are set apart in the Whitmer home, because that is where the church was originally organized. Is that not the coolest thing!? I thought it was.

The last big thing I did before I left was go to Niagara Falls. It was so amazing and I got some really good pictures. The falls are huge! I got to go on the Maid of the Mist boat and ended up soaked, but it was so worth it. The Falls truly are a wonder of this world and I loved getting the chance to see them up close and personal. We had a picnic about 30 feet away from the horseshoe falls, which was way cool. The mist was everywhere, but it was awesome!

From Niagara Falls I headed straight to the airport and headed home. I almost missed my flight that was leaving from Rochester at 3:27 pm. I arrived at the airport around 3:15, so I ran in, hurried through security, and ran toward my gate. They were calling my name over the intercom while I was turning the corner. I was super stressed at the time, but looking back at it, it was pretty funny. I arrived at the JFK airport in New York at about 5pm and had a layover of 2 hours. I sat and read for a while, grabbed something to eat and it was time to go again. We loaded the plane and left about 20 minutes early. After we left they announced that we would be arriving to Salt Lake about 45-60 minutes early! Wow! We ended up pulling in to the airport at 10pm. I was so ready for bed! It had been a long day, and the 2 hour time change wasn’t helping either.

I loved my trip to New York so much. I’m glad I got to experience the East a little bit. I don’t know if you have already been to all of these church sites, but if you haven’t, it is definitely worth the trip. The experiences I had there have been such a blessing in my life and it has strengthened my faith and testimony.

Other than that trip, there hasn’t really been anything else big going on. I hope everything is going well for you. I really am so proud of everything you have been doing. You have such a strong testimony and spirit and I know without a doubt that the Lord is so pleased with everything you have done on your mission. Keep it up, and focus on the work. Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you, or if there is anything you need. Don’t forget, the church is true!

Kaytlyn M