I got permission to play full court basketball in the mornings for exercise!

Hi People,

What the- no baby Yam yet?

Well first things first- the most important thing that happened this week...
I got permission to play full court basketball in the mornings for exercise!  I know my life is ca razy!  The missionary handbook says that we can only play half court bball but then I thought to myself, hey, I'm not an elder and I don't play with competitive elders so we took it up to big man Gillette.  We told him that the sisters are getting chunky because it's too cold to exercise outside.  He agreed.  I'm kicking myself for not asking him sooner but life just got so much better.

In other news, the missionary work is fantastic.  On Saturday I got to go on exchanges with a fresh sister from the MTC who's headed to Independence, Missouri on her mission.  This was fun and made me reflect on how I was ten months ago.  Yeah, ten months ago; what the heck, time flies.  My Utah born and raised companion for the day was a mega stressball.  I probably enjoyed her pain too much.  Right away, I could tell that she was freaking out to be in the real mission field.  She told me about the goals that she had for our day together and what things she was struggling with in the mtc.  We got along well right away and she was almost mind-blown as we quickly planned for our day.  She continued to stress about particular things in missionary work and I basically told her less yak more action.  So we got on the square.  She was asking me if she was allowed to say hi to everyone and how we're going to know who to talk to.  I just told her to be a human.  We made friends with some nice old people and then we got a call for a tour with one man.  We met Nico, a nice young man who asked all the right questions.  He had grown up Christian but converted to Judaism a few years ago (I didn't know people converted to Judaism).  We had a grand ole time with Nico.  I could tell my companion was nervous at parts but she was brilliant at many parts throughout the tour too.  We evaluated our long tour after and she was thrilled to see how the different parts of missionary work fall together at a visitor center.  She also didn't realize that we could be our human-like selves as missionaries.  So that was great.  It's an important lesson to learn that as missionaries we don't know everything and we don't always know what to do or say but hey, we do our thing, follow the Spirit and enjoy the ride.  

Sunday was a crazy day for us.  In the morning we had a tour with 2 middle aged women and one man.  We quickly figured out that the women were mother and daughter, only 15 years apart.  We learned a little bit more about their Degrassi story and found out that the mom gave her baby up for adoption and they met for the first time this year.  The couple were members of the Church and the biological mom wasn't but had met with missionaries in her home a few times.  We took them to the model of the temple right away and I just kept thinking, "Okay, what scripture can I share for an estranged mom and her long lost daughter with her daughter's newlywed second husband?"  The tour went on even though these people kept boggling my simple brain.  We talked about how the Atonement of Christ can heal our pain as we pray and ask for help.  The husband in the group talked about how he was recently divorced and homeless just 5 years ago.  Eventually he trusted that the Lord would help him but he didn't understand why his life wasn't made better right away.  A year after that he met his current wife.  FYI the two have a blended family of ten kids.  Something that was confirmed to me in this tour is that we are not to just focus on the non-members on our tours.  We are here to teach everyone.  I know that everyone in that tour/lesson was taught something according to their needs and along the way we committed the ex-teen mom to baptism.  Coo.

Right after that tour, Sister Savelio and felt like we were on fire with the Spirit.  Our fire was quickly exterminated in our next tour.  We an older couple from Utah with their non-member friend who was visiting from the East Coast.  We got to know them all a little bit and told them what we'd do on our tour.  We got into teaching the restoration pretty quickly.  We hit the worst road block when I asked the member woman something about how she came to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and not just a crazy.  This 70 year old woman didn't know how to answer the question and just mentioned how she started going to Church at a really young age therefore she doesn't know the answer to my question.  Then this frustrating daughter of God turned to her Jewish friend and asked, "Is this the kind of tour you want? Or do you just want to know about the architecture? I feel like we're being pushy."  Her friend's response, "Well I have questions too like him (referring to Joseph Smith) and I'd like to learn a bit."  Then our favorite member woman told us that she thought we were just going to give them a regular tour.  My face dropped.  WHAT?  I didn't leave my life for a year and a half to be your temple square tour guide without pay.  Pushy?!  I'll show you pushy... I told her that in a nicer way but she completely through off our tour groove.  Members of the Church are either our best tools for missionary work or our worst tools.  We basically had the gospel on a plate for her friend to take and this woman took it away completely.  What the heck?  I should be used to bad member missionaries by now but I was still so shocked.  

We had a really interesting conversation on Sunday night with Dean from Alaska.  Dean was just passing through SLC but wanted to stop at temple square because he "knows a lot about our religion" and works with many members of the Church.  We showed him inside the cry room of the tabernacle.  We couldn't go into the main part because a flood of YSA were rushing in for the CES fireside.  Dean was a hilarious comedian who kept us entertained but he had it so wrong about the Church.  His argument was that there are few people who are deeply rooted in the teachings of the Church; most people just go along with it because life is easier that way.  We had a long, non-argumentative discussion about Mormon life.  He kept saying that he didn't want to tell us what we believe though he did keep telling us why we believe.  I corrected him so many times throughout the conversation.  He asked us the question, "Why should I become a Mormon?"  I told him that I had never gotten that question before and he couldn't believe it.  He thought our answer would be, "So that you can go to heaven."  Pshhh that didn't even cross my mind.  I thought a lot about why we do things.  We could follow the commandments (including baptism) to be obedient or because we want blessings but I think the real reason why I follow the commandments if because I love God.  I want what he wants for me.  Blessings are cool and eternal happiness sounds nice but that's not why I do this.  Dean then wanted us to teach him the plan of salvation and I said no.  I told him that it couldn't all be learned that night but we could call him to teach him.  He thought it would be weird to have two college age girls call him without his wife so he said no but we committed him to learn through his co-workers.  

Wow, that seems to be enough words for today.  I can't get enough of this work but I miss the fam.  

LOVE, SISTER KATIE KYLE