Hermana Heywood

Kaitlynn in the Chile Puerto Montt Mission

Evening Call with You (Puerto Montt), June 8, 2026

June 8, 2026 · Puerto Montt

Mom and I caught you in the evening from your study room while you were serving as Hermana Líder Viajera in Puerto Montt. The big news on our end was that Craig is being re-baptized this Sunday and I get to do it; the big news on yours was that President Mackay gave you permission to drive a mission vehicle.

Driving permission from the president

Mom asked what was going on. You said President Mackay had given you permission to drive, but the APs did not want you to. Mom asked why, and you said because they like driving. She asked whether you get along with the APs. You said for the most part, but they are "kind of cocky." When Mom joked about whether you would want to date one, you said no, that you do not want to date anyone from this mission ever, and that they should stop asking.

The senior couple and President Mackay's parents

Mom asked about something you had mentioned, that the mission president's parents are missionaries, and whether I had heard about it. You explained that the mission has a senior couple who are President Mackay's parents. Asked what their role is, you said they do what every other senior couple does, working in the office, and that they were going to go visit the Falkland Islands because they speak English there, to see how the missionaries are doing. You said you were going to grab something from your room. Mom remarked that it is funny to have your own parents serving in your mission, where you are the president to them.

Uncle Craig's re-baptism

You said you had two things to share. The first was that Craig had emailed you and told you that I was going to baptize him on Sunday. You said Craig had answered an email you sent him six months ago, and that he wrote, "Thanks for your emails. I treasure every single one of them," and that it had really helped him with his repentance process. You said Craig is finally being approved to be re-baptized, that he asked me to do it, and that in about a year he is going to send in papers to get his priesthood and temple blessings restored so he can finally go to the temple again. You said when you read that you started crying, and it was awkward because you were in front of your whole zone, but you had been praying for Craig for so long. You said that even if you had gone your whole mission without baptizing anyone and without talking to anybody, just hearing that your emails helped him would have been worth it, one hundred percent.

I said I was really excited Craig reached out, and that it was just this last Sunday. He texted me around nine thirty asking me to call him when I got a second, so I called him right back, and that is when he asked. I thought that was really cool. His voice sounded weird, and he has had a hard life.

You told me you were sure my example changed his life. You said seeing his little brother and how happy I have been in the gospel, seeing the family, seeing Bryson on his mission, Natalie going on hers, the kids finding success in school, and seeing how happy Mom and I are and how we have been able to work things out, had all probably helped soften his heart. You said if there have ever been little problems or fights, that has probably helped, because you know it has not been easy for me these past couple of years to not have contact with Craig and to try to help him the best I can. You said you were honestly pretty sure that my example and my faithfulness to God and to the gospel had probably been one of the biggest things that helped him, and you thanked me on his behalf and on your own. I said it was very sweet.

Uncle Dave knowing about the baptism

Mom said another thing that was cool happened during the afternoon: I got a text on my phone while Uncle Dave was looking at his phone, and it was Dave confirming the time. So now Dave knows what is happening, which Mom did not think he would have known otherwise, and she said that was really good for him. You asked whether Dave was going to go to the baptism. I said I did not think so, but I did not know. Craig said he was going to invite Dave and Debbie and Aunt Correne, but in the end I do not know who he will invite, it is not up to me, and I was not going to say anything. I said Dave is the most anti-anything out of our entire family.

Why Uncle Dave is hostile toward the Church

You asked why Dave is so anti, and what happened. You asked whether it was his first wife. I said Dave messed up in his first marriage and they ended up getting a divorce, and then he was working through the repentance process. I think he was offended by the court (it was a lot more strict back then than it is now), that they said something that really offended him, and that he walked out and never came back. He then spent the rest of his life arguing, not trying to find truth but trying to find fault, not trying to understand but just trying to be argumentative, and inviting the wrong type of spirit into his life. Dave has a good heart but is extremely stubborn, hard-headed, and rebellious. Even when you and I were at his house, he made rude comments about the Church, even though you were going on a mission. I said I do not understand what is going on with him and it makes me feel bad, but that I think if things are going to happen with him, it is not going to be in this life.

You said that is really hard and really frustrating. You asked Mom and me to tell Dave's family that you love them. Your roommate, Hermana Van Dyke, appeared while grabbing her laundry, and you introduced her. I said I had sung "that" with her too and that it is a lot of fun. You apologized for the interruption and told me to go ahead.

I said I think it is just a mistake that was made, and then Dave got offended and kept talking himself out of anything, and that it is really unfortunate and really sad. You said you really hope Dave never gets the guts to joke around you about the gospel, because after being on a mission and hearing some of the things people say about the gospel, you have no fear to directly correct them and to testify of the truth. You said you hope he does not make any jokes around you if you are ever around him, because you will not sit back and let it happen: you will tell him and bear your testimony and tell him what is what, and if he gets offended by that, great, that is his choice, but you will not sit back and let Jesus be joked about. You thanked Mom and me for being good examples. I said it was our pleasure.

The countryside service project and the smashed thumb

You said you had two other things. The first was that earlier that day, when you were out in the countryside, the hermano [the man] whose property you were on went up to the elders and said he needed help with something. The elders agreed to help, and they had to build some kind of post. (The audio broke up badly here, and we worked through repositioning your phone until it was better.)

You continued that the elders were building what looked like a pull-up bar: two wooden posts where they had to take a nail and make a hole, then put in a screw. You went up and asked to help, told them they were doing it wrong, and asked to try it. You said you got to build half of it. What was really funny, and what made you feel just like me, was that you smashed your thumb and it started bleeding really badly. You said you told yourself, "I'm like my dad. I'm doing a project. I'm bleeding and I'm not gonna use a band-aid," and kept working. The others said, "You're bleeding! Are you okay?" and you said, "It's part of the work."

Permission to drive, in detail

You returned to the driving news, asking whether you had already mentioned that the president gave you permission to drive. You said you can drive a car because the mission has cars. You explained that technically you are not a driving mission, so nobody should be driving, but you have permission because the APs have access to a van and a truck. I said that is awesome and also scary because it is on the wrong side of the road. You said no, it is still on the right side of the road, so it is not as scary, but it is in the city, and it is weird because some roads are one way and some are both ways. You said the APs do not want you to drive and are very against it because they like driving and do not want to give up the privilege, but the president said you could drive, so you will be driving. I said it makes sense since you are a traveling sister, and that it is fantastic news, almost as happy as my brother getting baptized.

You said you might text the president that night and ask if you can drive to Valdivia the next day, since you are going to drive to Valdivia. You said when you mentioned to the elders that you would drive, they said no, you were not driving, and you told them fine, you would take it to the president and ask him, because if he says you can, they cannot tell you no, since they are just being cocky. I asked whether the APs have to be with you everywhere you go. You said they have no control over you and cannot tell you no, because in the Church a calling does not mean you are higher above someone else. Mom added that they are not overlords. You said you think if you ask nicely, instead of just announcing "I'll drive tomorrow," and say something like "Hey, can I drive for this trip?" really nicely, they will say that is fine, and you will see how it goes the next day.

I asked how far Valdivia is from where you are. You said it is hours, maybe four hours by car, or three, and that you do not think you drove that much at home either, but it would be good for you. I said the first time I ever drove on a six-lane highway was on the East Coast, which did not make my companion feel comfortable, because the only other time I had driven was in Hurricane, just back and forth through that small town to St. George, and my companion said, "What?"

Finishing the project

I asked whether you got the project done. You said yes, you finished it, and you finished it before the elder you were working with. I asked what it was they wanted you to build, and whether it was the pull-up bar. You said it is not a pull-up bar; you think the man is going to use it to hang things on. You described two wooden beams stuck in the ground: you had to take a nail and make the hole, then take a little metal frame that would hold a pipe, line it up with the hole, put a screw in, hammer the screw a little, and then screw it in with a crescent wrench. I asked whether the tool was a socket, the kind that makes clicking noises. You said no, it was a crescent wrench, the kind that does not make clicking noises, because "they're not fancy down here." You said you finished your side before the other elder finished his side, and they told you, "Take that, boys."

President Mackay on women and the priesthood

You said what was really funny was that the day before, possibly during your interview, you were talking with the president, and he is all about making the women in the Church feel equal to the men, because there sometimes feels to be an imbalance since the men have the priesthood. You said so it is funny: you think that if you were to ask to drive to Valdivia in front of the president, or just ask permission, he would say, "Yeah, why not? If they can, why can't you?" I said you were going to play that card. You said you genuinely will, because the APs need a little bit of humbling, and that it gets to you sometimes how stupid they are.

I said the thing that triggers me the most is arrogance and entitlement, that it will get me triggered one hundred percent of the time, and that you could probably think back to the times growing up when I got the most upset, which was probably because of entitlement or arrogance. You said you are the same way, that there are some elders and some sisters you just cannot be around because they think a lot of themselves and it drives you nuts, but that it is okay.

The blitz exchange program

I said it did not look like you were in your normal apartment. You said you are, but you are in your study room, which you called "our little hobbit hole," basically a closet you turned into a study room because you gave your bigger study room to the other Hermanas. I asked whether you are in a foursome. You said not technically, because you live with the Hermanas who travel around and do exchanges with all the Hermanas of the mission. You said the mission is doing lots of new things: similar to how the leaders do exchanges with the younger missionaries, there is now a set of Hermanas and a set of elders whose only job is to go around and do exchanges with all the missionaries. They do not have a ward, a district, or a zone. You said they are all older missionaries, all ending their missions this transfer or the next, so they are training everybody. You said your own job is still to do all the exchanges with the leaders, while these traveling missionaries do all the other missionaries. They stay with your companionship on weekends or whenever they are in town, partly because you need to know the information they gather about all the missionaries to help with transfers. You said it is super fun, that it feels kind of like college.

I asked their title. You said they are the "Hermano del Blitz" or "blitz" missionaries. I said I did a blitz on my mission, describing it as two missionaries going to work in the sector of some other missionaries.

I said I saw a text and was fine with it. I continued that on my mission we did a couple of blitzes where we invited all the missionaries from the district to a college campus. One was at the University of Delaware, where we taught a religious class to a bunch of non-member students, just normal college students. I said another blitz was at the University of West Chester, then corrected myself that it was the University of Delaware. We invited everyone and it was a lot of fun, but it also invited a lot of craziness and was super scary.

You asked why it was scary. I said that for me it was always easier to speak with people older than me about the gospel, but speaking with peers made me feel like the nerdy high school kid again, and I had a lot of internal stigma to work through because I immediately felt like I was not the cool kid and would have flashbacks to high school, so that was harder for me. You and Mom said that makes sense.

The Valdivia blitz plan

I asked again what was happening in Valdivia, whether it was another conference. You said no, you are going to do blitzes up there with the leaders. I said if you are doing a blitz up there with the leaders, then you will go with the "blitz sisters." You said you think your blitzes are a little different from mine: when you and Hermana Figueredo go and do blitzes, it is just the two of you going to work in the sector as two other missionaries. I said so it is like being in a different person's area where they have new faces. You agreed: same area, same everything, you just switch companions for the day. For example, on Wednesday you are going back to Martínez de Rosas, the ward in Valdivia you were in right before coming to Puerto Montt, and you will be with Hermana Stewart's companion, while Hermana Figueredo will be with Hermana Stewart. You are still working within the same ward boundaries, but both of you are going in to work. You said it is an exchange, but because you live so far away, it is not worth it to bring the other missionaries all the way down to Puerto Montt to work in your sector.

I said that makes sense, and that I would just call those exchanges: there were times when the district leader would come into my area, I would go with him, and the companions would split up and hit different appointments. I asked whether they double-book appointments because they will have twice as many sisters. You said yes, you plan double for that day. You said what will probably happen is that you will go visit all of your ward members and your converts. I said that has got to be exciting. You said it is, because you also get to go to every zone in the mission, so it is a blessing and really cool.

My convert Bill Giordano and the Riverton house

I said I remember, even in the house we live in right now, getting a call from Bill Giordano, a new member I had worked with on my mission. He baptized his own son and daughter, and even from this house, he called and I talked with him for an hour, which was really cool. I said it is crazy to think how many experiences we have had in this house.

You said you do remember the Riverton house: the back porch, the turtle thing, the tree in the front yard, the little computer room that was like a closet with the big computer, the rocking chair, and the fireplace that was all stone. You said you remember hiding behind the rocking chair with Mom's big bag of Costco Skittles, and you teased Mom, "How dare you." I said that is really funny.

"You're basically dead" and the thirty-year reunion

You noted that you were fifteen when... (you and Mom worked out the math): we moved out of the Riverton house about seventeen and a half or eighteen years ago, when you were two and a half. I teased that if you can say you remember something seventeen or eighteen years ago, that pretty much means you are on the downhill slide now and are pretty much dead. You said you are basically dead, and noted my thirty-year class reunion is this year. I said I have been dead for years. We worked out that the reunion math is 1996 to 2026. I thanked Mom, and she clarified her own graduation year (she is not as old). I said Mom is married to someone going to his thirtieth reunion, so if people rob the cradle, she is robbing the grave, and that she has a sugar daddy. You said Mom likes old men and Dad likes young ladies, and that we are the perfect match.

Goodbyes and the dolphins

I told you to have fun the next day and said I love you. You said you love us too and thanked us for talking to you. Mom asked what you saw that day so we could have it out loud, and you said you saw dolphins. You said there are dolphins in Puerto Montt, which you did not know, and that you saw them diving and doing "the little hoppy hop thing" in the water. You were in an Uber and looked out the window and saw them and started shouting that there were dolphins. You said it was really cool.

You said you and your companion had been talking to a returned missionary who served in Brazil, where the president at one point sent half of the missionaries home for disobedience. Hearing those stories, you said you are so blessed to be where you are: it is gorgeous, all the missionaries there are very dedicated and good people, your president is incredible, the leaders are amazing, and the work is so good. You said this is an amazing mission and you are very blessed to be where you are. You told us you love us, thanked us for talking, and told us to have the best week. Mom said it was a great email and that it was really good. I said we should take a picture, and everyone smiled. Mom said, "Love you, pretty princess," and we said goodbye.

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