Hermana Heywood

Kaitlynn in the Chile Puerto Montt Mission

Easter Sunday / Transfer Eve Call with You (Valdivia), April 6, 2026

April 6, 2026 · Valdivia

Long call - about sixty-seven minutes from Valdivia, the day before your transfer. You were cleaning your room for Hermana Stewart, who would be moving in the next morning. The substantive thread of the call was the rule-break with your current companion that crystallized for you that your loyalty is "100%" to the Lord - that was one of your reasons for extending. The rest was a zone-walkthrough for me and Mom, Brad Wilcox's visit Thursday, the journal habit you'd started, Easter chocolate, fashion-show clothes, and a long sprawling banter.

Cleaning the Room, Time Change, Tomorrow's Companion Arrival

You answered the call cleaning random junk to get the apartment ready for your new companion. Mom: "Do you want her to think you're a slob?" The banter went on about whether the new companion's opinion of cleanliness mattered ("Well, it's not her choice, is it?").

I confirmed the time change with you. Chile changed the day before (Apr 5); the U.S. had changed March 8. Your body wasn't used to waking up an hour later - you woke up at your usual time and couldn't go back to sleep.

The new companion (Hermana Stewart, named later in the zone walkthrough) was in the same zone, a 10-minute walk away. She'd lug her suitcases over in the morning, possibly via inDrive.

Easter Bunny Banter

I said my Starburst jelly bean reds had been a gift from the Easter Bunny, "who is really hot and thoughtful." You called it weird. My response: "Well, if Mommy can kiss Santa Claus, and I can kiss the Easter Bunny."

Investigators - Venezuelan Family with Potential

I asked who you were teaching. You said you were still in the middle of finding people - a Venezuelan family with a lot of potential. You were supposed to text them but had forgotten.

Fashion Show - New Clothes Haul

You modeled a chocolatey-brown sweater you had just bought. You also had pants in black and tan; the new ones were the same chocolatey-brown. You hadn't tried on the clothes yet. The pants were long - you'd need to hem them (you still had your sewing kit). Mom: "That looks good on you." You: "Do I look like a missionary?" Me: "Yep, sí su misionaria." Mom: "Good job, little fashion shopper."

Sun Exposure - Hair Lightened

Mom noticed your hair looked lighter and asked if you'd done something to it. You said no, you'd just been out in the sun. "I miss the sun. I need to live somewhere that's sunny. I love the heat, and I hate the cold so much. Cold makes me miserable."

Bedding - Sleeping on Top of a Blanket

You mentioned you needed to buy bed sets again because you'd left yours behind (in Coyhaique). You'd been sleeping on top of a blanket. Mom asked if anyone could send them out your way; Mom and I spotted what looked like a blood mark on your bedding. Mom asked if you were going to put cold water on it to get it out. You deflected with banter about Alexa picking her bum.

Mom Stretching, My Mockery

Mom did some back stretching on the floor during the call. I mocked her. You and Mom noted that I could stretch the same way ("good lawyer" / "lying all these years"). My answer: "I can't do that without a hospital visit and a lot of tears."

General Conference - Notebook and Journal Habit

I asked what stood out from conference. You went to grab your notebook.

You brought up the journal habit I'd told you to start: "You'll be proud of this. Remember when you told me about the journal?" Me: "Good job, Caitlin. You will not regret that at all." You admitted it wasn't perfect and wasn't every day: "but it's better than nothing." Me: "Something is better than nothing."

Hermana Juncker - "I'm Going to Be a Grandma"

You showed off a book of letters Hermana Juncker had given you - two matching pins, one for each of you. Juncker had also dried a flower from Kiki (Coyhaique sector) for you before you left. You said it smelled good. Juncker was still in Osorno and was going to train. You: "So I'm going to be a grandma." Mom: "You're going to be the best grandma."

You also showed Easter items, including a card from your líderes Eicher: "This is for my first Easter. Welcome to the end of the world. We love you."

Two Books - Journal and Trunky Book

You explained the "trunky book" to me - like a yearbook missionaries pass around at the end of a mission. ("Trunky" means ready to go home.) You had both a journal and a trunky book. Mom asked if people read your journal when they wrote in it. I clarified: the trunky book is its own separate journal, not your personal journal.

You: "The only secrets I will - is that I miss Mom and Dad." Mom: "It's a fact." You: "Well, I wrote in my trunky book so that everybody can read it. 'I pooped myself yesterday.'"

My Herriman Hills Emergency Poop

I told you about an "emergency poopingectomy" I'd had to do in the Herriman Hills the other day. I'd taken pre-workout, waited a while, thought I was fine, then it hit me at the trail's decision point (two-mile vs five-mile). I couldn't make it back. I hid 10 feet off the path behind a tree, hoping no one would walk by. You: "I'm sure that the raccoons and the dogs very much appreciated your donation to the wildlife."

Language Study - Replaced by Immersion

I asked if you still did language study every day. Technically yes, but it didn't really happen - it got completely replaced because you were 100% in Spanish all the time. Your Spanish had improved a lot.

You were nervous for the upcoming transfer: your entire zone except for one person were all gringos, so your Spanish might drop. Mom asked if the quality of your Spanish would go down. You said yes, if you ever had the time to slip. Me: "That just means you have to study again. No te lo."

Zone Walkthrough - Who's In, Who's Where

You opened the transfer doc to walk Mom and me through the new zone.

Other districts: - Elder Anderson - staying. - Elder Lewis - never been a zone leader; will be trained as one this transfer. - Hermana Gonzalez - already in the mission but went home for health problems; coming back, technically in training even though she's already on the mission. Will be "fake-trained" by Hermana DaSilva (who you thought had just ended her training and was now normal). - Elder Yave and Elder Brenns - going to Los Lagunas. You'd met Brenns and knew him; Yave only by passing.

Your district - Los Cinos: - Hermana Cri - came with Hermana Juncker; you'd met her, "super sweet." - Hermana Bennett - staying. - Elder Taipei - staying. - Elder Delgado - met him in Coyhaique and Puerto Montt; "really chill, cool guy." Knows a lot; should help out Los Cinos. - Hermana Stewart - your incoming companion. Used to be Hermana Bennett's comp.

I asked what "STL" was. I guessed: "Sister training leader? Super totally likable, luscious?" Connection dropped briefly.

When the connection returned you continued through the photos: - Elder Bjornstead - "I have no idea how to feel about him. He feels like one of the stupidest elders I've ever met in my life, but feels very chill. So I don't know how to feel about him." - Hermana Gonzalez (the returning one) and Hermana DaSilva, with photos. - Hermana Stewart - Mom noted "Stewart looks like a glamour-shot picture. Her companion looked like she had the glamour-shot picture."

Connection Drops - Bed and WiFi

The call dropped multiple times. I suggested it might be you being under your bed; you pushed back: the whole house had been having internet problems all week. The Valdivia connection was reliably worse than Coyhaique's.

Thai Food Memory - 420 Days

I brought up that the last time I'd had Thai food was with you, Natalie, and Bryson before your mission. You: "Wasn't that on my last night?" Me: "Yep." You calculated: "It has been 420 days." You were eating Easter chocolate during the call.

Spiritual Experience - The Companion's Messenger Rule Break

I asked what spiritual experiences you'd had that week. The substantive one was from that day.

Your current companion had a crush on a specific elder still in the mission. She had been obedient ("not tueco") about it. That day, she took some "stupid advice" from another missionary and sent the elder a message on Facebook Messenger. He responded. She showed you (or you saw it over her shoulder; you weren't sure which).

"At first I was so surprised because I looked up to her so much because I thought she was completely obedient. And I was like, wow, like she is a good missionary. And she showed me that. And it just - like, my heart dropped, and I was just like, 'Man, that's really disappointing.' Even though it was just a text - like, doesn't seem like a big deal - but that's a big deal because that is breaking one of the rules that an apostle and prophets have given for all missionaries. Not just a couple of them, not just for her."

You worked through your options: let it slide, yell at her, or use an "I love you and I know you can do better" approach. You first laughed it off ("Ha. That's really funny."), but couldn't let it go. You then talked to her: "Why did you send that? Like, you know better." She responded that she knew it was kind of breaking the rules.

You invited her to course-correct. Her own earlier line came back at her - she herself had told you never to invite somebody to do something if you weren't willing to do it first. You used that on her: "If you are not willing to follow your own invitation, don't invite me to do it. I was very strict with her. It went better than how I'm saying it right now. I was following the spirit better than I am right now, I guess."

She went quiet, started thinking. You dropped it. About 30 minutes later she came back to you: "Man, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that." She said doing it had been like "a taste of the bad side again" and she didn't want to do it again or feel that way.

Then your reflection, captured close to verbatim:

"Along with other things that have happened, I've just come to realize that my loyalty is not to my companion, and my loyalty is not to the other missionaries. My loyalty is not to the ward members. My loyalty is to the Lord. Completely. 100%. As of right now, there is not a single person who could say or do something to persuade me or take me away from my loyalty to the Lord."

"I've been able to learn a lot about the atonement of Jesus Christ, a lot about the realness of the gospel and what it means to have made these covenants with God, what it means to have the privilege to carry around this plaque every day, and how real what I'm doing is."

"To be able to be here and to be a special witness of Jesus Christ is a privilege that is higher than any other privilege I've ever had. I'm very honored that God would consider me, little Caitlin Heywood from Harriman, Utah, to come and teach his children here and help them to feel God's love for them. That's one of the reasons why I extended."

My Reflection - Name Tag Above Jesus

I said it was humbling to think about who you represented. I quoted a leader from my own mission who had told me: "Enjoy the time that you have because it's one of the only times in your life where your name is going to come before Jesus." (When you look at your name tag.) Mom: "It's everything else." I added: "Anytime you get to represent the Lord to other people in any sort of leadership calling..."

Scripture Study - Book of Mormon as Radiation

I asked what you'd learned in your scripture study. You said the power of the Book of Mormon was the biggest thing - reading it every day, you found that even though you were a missionary surrounded by the gospel, if you didn't read the Book of Mormon every day, your life "just starts to spiral."

Your analogy: "It's like radiation. If there's an object that has radiation, if you're close to it, the radiation's going to get on you. With the [Book of] Mormon, the spirit - because of the veracity. Is that a word? The veracity of the Book of Mormon. Because it was written for our day, and so the spirit is going to surround that book because all the words in it are testifying."

I added that the Book of Mormon would keep speaking to you at different life stages (wife, mom, nursery leader, Sunday school president, Relief Society counselor, Young Women's advisor) - "almost like you've never noticed before, were there before, and it speaks specifically to your current situation." Mom: "Which is really nice that they keep rewriting the Book to apply to what's going on in your life. I appreciate that every time."

Tangent - New International Version of the Book of Mormon

You riffed on a Chinese-edition Book of Mormon "with math problems at the beginning of every single verse." Banter about NIV / international editions, devolving into nonsense by both of us.

Spanish Reading - Alma 5 (Mostly Unintelligible)

I asked you to read a verse from the Book of Mormon completely in Spanish. You went to find your Spanish Book of Mormon and started reading from Alma 5. The reading came through largely garbled in the audio. After about a minute, I said we had no questions. You admitted you had started talking about Alma 5 and then just started repeating to us that we didn't understand and you could be saying anything random.

Mom asked you to compare Chilean Spanish to Mexican Spanish: "I'm not going to be able to understand any Mexicans when I get home because they speak different Spanish."

Banter - Tata / Chata / Mom Getting Mad

You called Mom "tata" - your word for Mom being annoyed "up to here" when you and I joked. Mom asked what it meant. You: "She's headed up to here." Me: "Chata, is that like 'exasperated'?" You: "Yeah, you two are exasperating."

Hermana Comp's Clothes - Inheriting

You were going through your current companion's clothes (she was leaving tomorrow), seeing if there was anything you wanted. Mom told you to try the stuff on. I asked if you were the same height. You: "We're like the same height, but we're not the same build." Me: "I chose my question specifically." Mom mentioned she'd bought an all-white Easter skirt for your mission.

Natalie's Friend Ari

I brought up that Natalie was out with a friend named Ari. Ari is non-member, from a Catholic family but "a broken home." Ari has "a really awesome dad who's really kind of protective of her" and the family had had bad experiences with judgmental church members making comments or treating them a certain way. Natalie is probably one of Ari's best friends; I thought it was good for Ari to be exposed to good members of the church who love her outside of her religious beliefs.

You guessed Ari was Buddhist. I clarified - Catholic family, not Buddhist. You likened it to "the Asian friend Alexa has."

You: "It doesn't matter what you believe in because God believes in you, and all the people that God believes in are stupid."

Me: "[Laughter] People are dumb. Like, poor Heavenly Father. He's like, 'All my kids are retards. How do I get them back?'"

Down Syndrome Adoption Aspiration

You: "Did I - have I told you guys that my goal in life is to have a child with Down syndrome? It's a genuine goal of mine. I would love to have a child with Down syndrome, and I would love it if he was black. I want a black Down syndrome child."

Mom: "You can't just put in the request for both of those things and not - Why don't you try a normal one first and see how you like that and then go from there?"

You: "Just what? I'm going to start praying now. If someday I have to adopt a child with Down syndrome who's black, I will do it."

Me: "There are so many things getting caught in my filter right now, Caitlin, that I can't say."

Brad Wilcox's Visit Thursday

Mom asked about the zone leadership conference pictures you'd posted. You confirmed the big group was the zone leaders from across the entire mission (Coyhaique, Valdivia, Castro, all of it).

Brad Wilcox came Thursday morning and spent about 45 minutes with the zone leaders. You: "I think that was really cool because he speaks Spanish. He served here in Chile." Mom added he'd also been a mission president in Chile - Chile Santiago East, then Chile Viña del Mar. Mom: "He used to be in the General Young Men's Presidency."

You asked: "Is he a Seventy, or is he just a professor at BYU? What is he right now?" Mom didn't think he had a current role; you settled on "just a professor at BYU."

Tomorrow's Transfer Logistics

I asked about the cambios process. The transfer was tomorrow.

You explained the choreography. As hermana líder you had to dispatch (despedir) and receive (recibir) all the hermanas. - Your new companion (a "good cop") comes first thing in the morning. - Her outgoing companion also comes. - The two of you go pick up another girl's companion. - The old companions go back to their sector. - You, Stewart, and other arrivals form a trio while waiting for additional hermanas. - Drop off some; come home for lunch. - Go back to pick up the last set; say goodbye to Alma; close out the last two hermanas.

Mom: "It's nice, you get to send them off and give them encouragement and sweet farewells, and then you get to welcome - give them encouragement and sweet welcomes - and you'll be really good at both of those things." You: "That's the truth." Mom: "So that's a good responsibility for you."

Me: "Welcome to Valdivia. Don't mess this up. Very serious work here." I coached a Spanish translation: "Don't make a mistake, send people away from the gospel, not your job, bring people to the gospel."

Closing

Connection problems through the close. Mom hoped you'd have a really good week. You: "I love you Mom, and I hope your back doesn't break thy back-y stretchy moves." Me: "Caitlin, bye. I'm proud of you, bye." You: "Thank you."

Cleanup Notes