1st letter from the MTC

Wow this week was honestly the longest and hardest of my life!! I am doing good, however the first few days were really hard for me to get adjusted to everything! Especially being away from my family and stuff! But things are getting better and better everyday!! So my companion is Sister Hutchinson and she is from Brigham City. She is actually serving in Honolulu Hawaii as well with all the Elders in my district. But the other 2 sisters are going to Canada like me. We have learned so much since being here at the MTC. We have class for at least 6 hours a day and then we do other teaching things as well. I was so nervous to start teaching because I didn't think that I could really do it, but it is getting better and better the more we teach. We have taught about 5 lesson, most of them in Zone teaching. My companion is great and I got some pictures developed today, but they won't be ready for a few days and I will send them to you! The spirit that is felt here at the MTC is amazing!! For example I have learned so much!! We had our first TRC yesterday which is where we teach a progressing investigator. We were supposed to have about 30 min to get to know them and teach them. We are teaching a lady from Guatemala. Her name is Hely and we planned on just teaching her most of the first lesson. But when we started to get to know her, she had 2 questions she wanted us to answer. They were both things that we had not studied or knew much about, but it was so amazing that we were able to answer her questions! We actually taught her for a whole hour and the spirit was so strong for the entire time! It really is amazing! I don't think I have ever been so busy in my life. I was made Sr. Companion last week, and then we will trade in about a week. On Sunday we had mission conference and it was amazing that all the things that were said were exactly what I needed to hear! I know that the Lord is totally watching out for me!! he wants me to be successful. So mom, I sent you a letter today as well that has some things I need in it, but ignore the mission letter, i actually have that here with me already. Sage needs to keep reading! but i agree hopefully he learned his lesson! I paid off my credit card, so you shouldn't have to worry about that. One thing though, do we need to talk to America First about using my debit card in Canada? Cause I will probably have to use that to buy my coats and boots and such! I am running out of time and I don't know what else to tell you! I get to go to the temple today and I am so excited!! It will be so nice to get away from this Spiritual prison!! I love you and miss you all so much!! I know Christ lives and that he loves us! He wants us to be happy!! I know the Church is true! Thanks for all your love and support!!! Love you tons!!

Love,

Sister Marchant

It was a little hard for me as a mom to drop Kaitlyn off because she was a little bit teary. I think she was excited, but scared and wondering what she was getting herself into. She'll be a great missionary!

Vacation!

Last year my Grandma Wayment and I went to St. George and Cedar City to see the plays at Tucahaun and one at the Shakespearean Festival. We had so much fun that we decided to make it a tradition. This year my mom decided to join us. We packed a lot of stuff into just a few days. On our first day we drove to St.
George and did a little shopping before heading to Tuachaun to see The Little Mermaid! It was so good!! I loved every single second of it! We woke up the next morning and did a session at the St. George Temple before

heading to Cedar City to see The Music Man. It was also very good and really fun to see.
When that was over we headed on down to Las Vegas!! We stayed at the Rio and when we got there we headed to the strip to find us some dinner. We decided on the Cheesecake Factory and I had the BEST cheesecake...it was a red velvet cheesecake and it was to die for! The next morning we met my mom's friend Amy and went to the Las Vegas Temple to do a session. That temple is so pretty and as far away from sin as you can get in Vegas! After the session we went to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop...ya the one where they film the show Pawnstars! Braydon loves that show so it was fun to go there and get him a souvenir. Then we just spent a little more time on the strip at the M&M and Coca Cola factories. Last time I was in Vegas I wasn't 21 yet and I really wanted one of those big drinks that everyone has!!! They just look so fun...so guess what I finally got one at the Coca Cola store filled with Diet Coke! I was in HEAVEN!!! That night my grandma and I went to The Phantom of the Opera while my mom spent some time with her friend. We had such a good trip and I didn't want it to end! I am sad that I will miss next year, but I told my grandma not to worry because I will miss 2 Christmases, but only 1 summer!!

Fishing

So you should all know that I do not like the wilderness...I do not like sleeping on the hard ground in the cold. I like to shower everyday and I hate bugs! I hate all of these things yet I was talked into

going fishing with my family for a weekend. I only touched a fishing pole
once the entire time and then I was just holding it for Sage while he went to get something. I sat in a chair the entire time and read a book. It was very relaxing and nice to be with my family in the wilderness. Sage was the master fisherman and caught most of our fish...oh
and that is another thing I forgot to mention...I HATE fish!! Don't ask me how I agreed to go, but in the end it actually wasn't too bad!

Family Reunion

Wow! I really suck at blogging during the summer! So much has happened, so I will try to catch up with the big even
ts. First I will start with my family reun
ion with the Gottfredson family! For a week in July our family rented a ginormous cabin in Heber. All of our family got together
and had an awesome time. Whenever we get together we have fun so it wasn't surprising. We played lots of games and ate lots of food! The day we got to the cabin, it was Sage's birthday and he turned 10. Since it was his birthday we had a little party and played the candy bar game, pin the baseball

on homeplate, and creepy crawly. It was pretty fun. One day we spent the day at Jordanelle Reservoir with

Uncle Ray who brought up his boat and all his fun toys. We wakeboarded, tubed, and I even attempted to water ski...lets just say it didn't go very well. After we were all sunburned and worn out we headed back to the cabin. It was a very fun day. Another day we rented some 4-wheelers and rode them all around. Then next day was the day after Harry Potter 7 part 2 came out, so of course we

had to see it! So a bunch of us drove over to Park City and saw it!

It was very good. Since we were already in Park City we couldn't not go to the outlets. So everyone came and met us there and we spent the res

t of the afternoon at the outlets. I was able to find a

lot of things for my mission so it was very successful! That night was our last night all together and Ryan and Jena put together a Minute to Win it Competition. It was lots of fun everyone

had a partner and we all had to do all the

challenges. My partner was Ryan and we won!! I won a gift card to Cafe Rio so it was totally worth it! I love my family and we have so much fun when we all get together!

The Flood

We have had SO much water this year and the rivers are soo high! The Weber River flows behind my house and for weeks they have been worried about it breaking out, but it didn't until one Thursday in June. We kept watching our garden and the rest of the land by our house to make sure it wasn't flooding. Sage was outside messing around and ran into the house at about 12:00 saying "There is water in the garden!!" Everyone immediately went outside to see what we could do because we had just planted our garden the week before. We dug little random trenches and eventually had to dig up the plants in our garden and plant them somewhere else. So now we have a very redneck garden...everywhere you look there is some kind of plant. We also decided it would be good to sandbag our garden so that if the water got higher it wouldn't do any damage to my grandma's house. It was crazy out in Warren with all the help people were offering. The police and American Red Cross had all their headquarters set up at the church and we even had a bunch of prisoners out helping us lay sandbags...I have to say I never thought I would ever work with prisoners. Because there was so much water, they had to cut 4 roads so the water could flow easier...of course the road we live on was one of them and it made getting places very inconvenient. But now the water has gone down and we should be safe now!

Mission Call

I know, I know it has been forever since I have blogged, but my summer has been crazy!!! So in the next few posts I will catch you up on what has been going on! Back on May 4th I got my mission call! It was very exciting! Everyone had a different guess of where I would go. The only things I really wanted were to stay English speaking, but go foreign...and guess what I got both my wishes!! I was called to serve in the Calgary Canada Mission and I report to the MTC on August 31. I am really excited and am looking forward to serving my mission!