Hermana Heywood

Kaitlynn in the Chile Puerto Montt Mission

Thanksgiving Family Call with You (Puerto Montt), November 27, 2025

November 27, 2025 · Herriman / Puerto Montt

A chaotic Thanksgiving Day video call. The whole family was on the home side at varying points (me, Mom, Bryson, Mason, Alexa); you were on your end in Puerto Montt. The call ranged across many topics in the way family holiday calls do, with photo sharing, riffing, sibling interruptions, and a substantive close on missionary protection.

Opening - a miracle story cut short

I asked you to retell a miracle story from your first transfer in Punta Arenas. You started in: it was in your first cambio, you and your companion were trying to find people because you did not have any friends, you asked your Hermana leaders for advice, and they told you to stay out later. Right then the family's pre-meal prayer started in the background. You said "they're praying" and the story got truncated. It never resumed.

Pickle riff

I went on a tangent about pickles. I said if you go to the Currie family's house you have to have a pickle in your hand. I said I really like pickles and I am going to start a pickle band. I worked through my rankings: dill pickles the most, kosher pickles okay, spicy pickles gross. Lost weight from fighting pickles all day. You said "Dad" to get me back on track.

Suno AI hymn experiments

I told you about an AI music tool called Suno that I had been playing with. My self-imposed rule: no hymns with Jesus in them, that would feel disrespectful. The Primary songs work great though, like "When We're Helping We're Happy" and "I'll Sing as I Go," because you can run them through different music genres. You said it sounded fun. I started singing one of the songs during what turned out to be the home-side prayer. You said Dad was singing during the whole prayer. The people in the other room couldn't hear me but you enjoyed it. You: "They couldn't hear it, but I enjoyed it." Original lyrics, you confirmed.

Photo sharing - grandmas you have visited

You started sharing photos through the call.

Grandma with the granola. You visited a grandma earlier that day who made you what you called "Want Granola" (a local sweet, name uncertain). Her grandson grabbed your phone mid-visit.

The grandma who yelled at the nurse. Another photo: a grandma who got mad at her own nurse mid-lesson. You explained the nurse did not want to participate, was trying to leave, and the grandma was not okay with that. You and I both found it funny.

The "gringo side / colored side" photo. A candid photo where one side of the group was naturally darker-skinned members and the other side white. You said it was not on purpose. I said it might be "naturally gravitate." You said it looked like the left side was too close to the campfire. The riff turned into pool teams: on a recent P-day, you and Hermana Soares played pool and Hermana Soares had picked the white members; you picked the Black members. Your team won. Then Mom made a comment about Bryson commenting on the photo. Bryson defended the genetics-and-pool joke ("they're better"). Pushback came back: "Genetics has nothing to do with pool. It's not basketball."

The 70-year-old "snake old man"

A photo came up of a man you estimated was around 70. You told the story: you had your hands on your hips for the picture, elbows out, and he snuck his arm through yours and pulled you against him at the waist. You did not know what to do in the moment. I joked it looked like "Brother Doctor came back from the dead to get you." You moved on quickly.

Phones stay with the missionaries

You announced that at a recent mission devotional the news came down: missionaries no longer have to turn in their phones at the end of their service. The Samsung you are carrying is now yours to keep. You said you and Alexa would have matching phones until Bryson takes yours when the time comes. I joked that Bryson would have to give up his phone that says "Play School" on it.

Family chaos - Mason, Alexa, Bryson

Mason popped in for a couple of seconds and bolted. I asked Mason to say hi to you. Mason did not.

I said as you could tell, nothing has changed at home. You said: "You're not missing anything." I said: "You are not missing anything."

Mom and someone went to get Alexa.

The conversation drifted into Mom telling Bryson to watch his mouth. Then someone teased him for "vulgarous words" in front of you. You picked it up: "I don't want to hear no more horseradish from your boca." Some bilingual riffing followed about huevos and bolas de pollo.

Alexa came on. You told her you had really missed the top of her head. School was "top of the bottom." The freshman panorama picture took 30 minutes because everyone kept doing the arm thing in the photo (the six-seven meme) and they could not finish the picture. You asked Alexa if she would take Spanish. Alexa flatly said no: "the last Spanish class I took, I failed. I'm being serious." You said the people there are very tan and good. Alexa would not show her face on camera. You said: "You are just like Mom. Did you know that?"

The six-seven meme crosses borders

You confirmed the local kids in Chile have picked up the six-seven trend from American TikTok. They literally stop you on the street and chant "six, seven, six, seven, six, seven" because they recognize you as a gringa. I confirmed my read on it: rage bait. Doesn't mean anything; the point is to be annoying. You agreed: "Rage bait, yeah, exactly. I don't know what's going on with the kids these days. I was just a kid in Chile, trying to survive."

Christmas in Chile

I asked what you were most excited for at Christmas. You said you did not know. You said yes, they do celebrate Christmas: "All their decorations up. And it's funny because they're all like little Christmas trees and there's a bunch of snow and everyone's wearing super heavy clothing. And then outside, it's super hot." Strange to have summery weather while everyone is dressed up in heavy winter clothing for the displays.

You added: "Honestly, there's not even holidays here. In the mission. As a missionary, you don't really have holidays. Life is pretty because you still work. Life is prison." I said: "Yeah, it's just whether you work with the members or you work with gen pop." You riffed on that: there is the gen pop, who sells you alcohol.

You and I talked briefly about the Thanksgiving-day call rules. You said yes, you are allowed to call on this day. The mission standard: if you are a gringo, you call. If you are not a gringo, you do not.

The Australian elder

You talked at length about an Elder in your zone. Australian, around 24 years old. Samoan heritage, you thought. Could "beat me up with one hit." Plays the ukulele. You tried to get him to play an Israel Kamakawiwoʻole song. He refused. He said he just knew other songs. You called it: "fake Samoan." I helped pronounce the name (Kamakawiwoʻole).

Plan to visit Hermana Soares in Brazil post-mission

You announced you are going to visit Hermana Soares in Brazil after the mission. Soares is from São Paulo. I asked if Soares had been a member her whole life. You said yes, but she had gone inactive for a couple of years before coming back. You added that Brazil is wild compared to the States, and that you have been thinking about it this way: it's like the children of Israel, who could have lived by the higher laws but did not because they were too wicked, so they lived by the lower laws. Everybody around the church in Brazil, in your read, is living by the lower laws because that is just normal there. (You called the surrounding culture "Bryson's people" as a joke.)

Testimony - telestial kingdom, demons, and missionary protection

The most substantive thread of the call. You laid out what you had been learning about the telestial kingdom. The people there are those who reject Christ's atonement, distinct from sons of perdition. They have bodies because everybody gets resurrected. Satan and his henchmen do not have bodies and want them. Hermana Soares had pointed out the implication: those resurrected telestial bodies would be tormented by the spirits trying to enter them.

I pushed back gently: "I don't know how true that is. It will be quite the opposite, actually, because they don't have any [body]. They've stopped their progression. They can't do anything. The people that have bodies will have all power over them." I added: "It's an agency thing. People don't just [let them in]. They have to let them in."

You shared two stories along those lines:

  1. An hermana in your mission went into a house, felt bad, left, and asked an elder for a blessing afterward. She felt something leave her during the blessing.
  2. An elder, during sacrament meeting, went to the pulpit and started screaming. Someone with priesthood authority commanded the demon to leave.

You then tied it back to FSY. Your FSY counselor had served in an old building on her own mission and had terrible nightmares every night for months until she finally had the house blessed.

You mentioned the practice in Pentecostal-style churches (the transcription rendered the name garbled, "Yvon Jaliko") of screaming, shaking, and dancing as a worship form. I said wow.

Then you closed the segment with what was the load-bearing line of the call: "Just know that God is more powerful, and the miracles you see on your mission, and the miracles that you can see, even not as a missionary, are way more powerful and way more often than any bad thing that'll ever happen. Because really, as a missionary, there is, like, this shield around you. This shield of protection. Because when you are following God's commandments, you are protected by the Spirit and you are walking with angels wherever you go. You are completely protected and nothing can hurt you. If you are following the commandments. And it's been really cool to see that in my mission, to see how I've been blessed as I've been obedient."

I said: "That was really good. Thank you, Kaitlynn."

Freddie (brief)

You mentioned Freddie. 21 years old. He gave you a hug. He does TikTok dances. Single anecdote.

Carmen baptism reference (passing)

Earlier in the photo-sharing block, you had pointed at a photo of "a lady that I found in my very first transfer, and she just got baptized in the ocean." Punta Arenas, your first transfer area. Likely Carmen, baptized May 2025.

Eating in the bedroom

You got caught eating in your room while doing the FaceTime. Mom called it out: "you can't do FaceTime calls in your room either... because you ate in your room, and you did FaceTime in your room, you're now going to die." You said you only went in there so you could tell the story.

Talk recommendation - "100% Responsible"

You invited the family to read a BYU speech called "100% Responsible." You first misattributed it to Tad R. Callister, then corrected yourself to Lindsay W. Robbins. You said it might blow our minds. I agreed to read it. You said you would send the link.

Closing

Mutual "I love yous" and Thanksgiving wishes. Some bilingual sign-off ("Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias también"). Goodbye.

Cleanup Notes

The Krisp auto-transcription tagged all home-side speech as either "Jason Heywood" or "Kaitlynn Heywood," but the whole family was on the home side. Attribution above is based on context. Several lines I could not confidently attribute beyond "someone on the home side"; I marked those with "(probably Mom)" or similar when there's a strong tell.

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