First letter home 12-20-2010

Family and Friends,

Oh my goodness! So much to say. Today ends day two for me. Honestly I am doing so good. Amazing things keep happening. I have not only one, but two companions! How lucky am I!! I love them both, they are amazing! I will tell you more about them when I get to email on Thursday, because I don't have lots of time right now. So tonight at our brach meeting I was made senior companion! CRAZY!!! And out of all 3 of us I am the youngest! I feel good about it and I am excited! Oh my companions names are sister Howard, and sister Soelberg! So I have been able to read a lot of the letters and it has helped so much. Thank you everyone! I got a dear elder from Calee today and a letter from Brooke. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone!! I will write back as soon as possible but we are so busy!!! All the Elders were impressed with my basketball skills. It was pretty fun. I was sure trying to be humble....I'm terrible. lol So today I met the sweetest lady. She was working at the immunization check off place! I walked up to her to hand her my stuff, and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said ," I have been waiting for you all morning!" So of course I assumed something was wrong but come to find out she was a convert to the church and the elder that converted her was named Elder Balmforth!!!! He is from Idaho and his name is Joel. How are we related? So anyways that made my day and she was so cute!! I got my picture taken with her. Its so amazing that all these things happen. I am truely loving it here. I love being able to share my testimony all day long. Sorry this is so short but I am out of time. I love you all Please post this on my blog and email it out to everyone! I love you all so much! Stay Strong!!!

p.s. Please call Tanya Albertson and tell her that I talked to Tyson and he looks and sounds so good! It was hard not to call him Tyson. I also saw Mike Rupp and from a distance Tindall. I saw austin and Jeff the first day. They looked good and a little lost.....but, I probably did to. Well I love you and I promise to write as best as I can. WE ARE BUSY!!! Love you. Oh I haven't seen matt yet.

Love Katee
Sister balmforth

MTC 12-15-2010

Well Hello everyone. It's me Kelsee. I will be running katee's blog until she gets back.
We took her to the MTC today. When she got out of the car she put a smile on her face and was one Strong lady. ( a lot stronger than I was.) She did great! She is going to be a great missionary. Here is her address. She wants everyone to write write write! Thanks for your love and support. the next 18 months are going to fly!!!

MTC Mailbox #209
WA-TC 0103
2005 N 900 E
Provo UT 84604-1793

Gettin Close!

Wow, this week has been crazy! Heck this month has been crazy! I don't even know where to start! It is coming so fast! Tomorrow will be 14 days until I head to the Provo MTC. I can't even believe it. Where has the time gone? And I know that it is going to be like this in the mission field too. Pretty soon I'll be on here writing about how fast the whole thing went!
So these past couple of weeks have been really amazing! I have had a lot of time to spend with my amazing family and friends! I couldn't ask for better people to be a part of my life. I look forward to Jazz games during the week. Recently Brooke, and Courteney(recently joined our great group of people that are always at our house haha), and usually Kelsee, Riley and my mom and dad watch the Jazz games together! It is so fun, and me and Brooke always wear our amazing D Will Jazz Jersy's! I love every minute of this precious time that I get to spend with them. My parents and family are so amazing, and I don't know where I would be without them! I love my friends as well. I am so grateful for my old friends and my new one! Courteney is amazing and I am so glad that we have gotten to know her better.... When Colton was home he would never bring her over haha he was embarresed I guess! But now that he is gone we hang out all the time, and I love it! She is so amazing! I love when I get to sub at Taylorsville because then we just hang out all day haha and I get paid for it! I am thankful for good friends and family in my life. And I am going to miss them all so much!
On another note.... Colton seems to be doing really well in South Africa! He is really worried about me... I love him for that. He said that he wishes that he could just do this first part (leaving) for me, so I wouldn't have to hurt, because he knows how it feels. Isn't he such an amazing brother?! I miss him so much and I think about him every day.... But I know that he is where he is supposed to be, and that he is doing an amazing thing. I am so thankful for his example in my life and for the joy he brings me.
Well... I am getting excited and nervous but I know that everything will work out and be just great. Things will be hard at first but I know it is where I am supposed to be! And I know that the Lord will bless me and Colton and our family. Well thanks to those who read this. I'm getting a little long winded so I'll go to bed now haha. Goodnight! :)

Finally I posted a blog!

Ah!!!! The joys of computers sometimes! So I just wrote this big old blog and then lost it all! Darn. So I guess that I will start over. These past few weeks have been crazy! Three weeks ago we put Colton on a plane, and off he went for two years! That was probably one of the hardest days of my life! It is so crazy, but I know that he is where he needs to be and I wouldn't want him to be anywhere else! A couple weeks before he left we were able to take one last family vacation to California! It was so fun! We went to the beach and to Universal Studios! We all had a blast!

The last week I have been trying to get ready as much as I can because I leave in a month! It is so crazy how time flys! I can't believe it! I am so nervous and scared but sooooo excited! I am so thankful for my family and friends for all of their love and support! I know that going on a mission is what I am supposed to be doing at this time in my life, and I am so glad that I have made this choice. I know it will be hard but I also know that it will be sooooo worth it! And I know that the Lord is going to bless my family so much, and I am so grateful for that!

So I finally added some pictures! They are mostly from California. One of them is me opening my mission call and then a new family pic. I will post more pics later! I have a ton from a cabin trip and a fishing trip!

AH!

I have so much to tell about. First our Nauvoo trip and also Colton getting his mission call!!! I am going to try and figure out how to post pictures because I can't tell you about Nauvoo without pictures! So I will try to do that sometime soon!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well I can't believe that another week has already gone by and that in just two short days we will already been heading into June! It's crazy how the time flys. This week has been pretty busy. Mostly with trying to get things ready for girls camp. My goal this week was to get the t shirts all finished. And I finally found someone to screen print for fairly cheep, and I dropped the shirts off to him yesterday. I am so glad that I don't have to worry about getting those done now. The next thing on my list is to go to the church and get all of the tents we will be taking to camp, and bring them home and set them all up so I can make sure that they all have everything they need. I think I am going to try and get this done today as soon as I get off work. I am hoping that they all have all of the parts. We haven't used these tents in over four years because we have been very blessed to go to Heber Valley and use cabins! It is much easier that way. I never really realized how much work goes into a girls camp. Actually I take that back, until my mom was put in as president I never knew. It is so crazy. As a young woman I would have never thought that it was so much work. And now that I am a leader I realize how hard it is. But it is so worth it and I am so glad that I serve in this amazing calling. My mom is an amazing person. She has done this for years and I don't know how she keeps on doing it. But she loves it. Anyway hopefully I will get the tent situation taken care of today. Then I will probably get another job to accomplish before the big day. (June 14th) I am excited for girls camp but it will definitely be a lot of work. It is hard too when you only have ten girls going. I remember there being more like thirty or so when I went. Crazy how time fly's. This week is also a busy one because my little bro is graduating. I am so proud of him. He is amazing! He also just got a new job at primary childrens hospital. He is freakin amazing. And he is only 18! Well anyway... I hope you all have a great week!

Not much to report

I know I am terrible at writing. I'm sorry. I will really try to do better. This past couple weeks has been pretty crazy! I had my wisdom teeth out, and that actually went better than I had expected. I think I ended up having more pain in my arm than my mouth. Okay that is probably not totally true. But when I went in the lady started putting in the IV. I felt the pinch and it was fine. The next thing I know she is starting to pump the medicine in. It wasn't to bad for a few minutes, and then I started to feel it pinching! I tolerate pain really well so I wasn't worried about it and I didn't think there was anything wrong because it has been years since I had an IV. So I just said, "its kind of pinching a little." Then she said, "oh it is?" then i said, " yeah but don't worry its fine no big deal." So she just went on her way. A few minutes later she says, "are you not getting sleepy yet?" and i said, "no, not really (wide awake lol), but my arm is asleep, and numb." So then the doctor came in and said, "oh thats not in the vein!" Lovely! lol So they proceeded to poke me three more times until they finally found a vein that would work. It was actually pretty funny and I really didn't mind. But the next thing that I remember was sitting on my couch. That didn't turn out to well either. I got home and my Mom gave me the pain pill and i proceeded to lose whatever was in my stomach. It was kind of a rough experience, but after that it really wasn't to bad. I am pretty much back to eating normally now, thank goodness. And I am really thankful that my Mom took such good care of me. So that was last week. A lot of nothing has gone on since school got out. I am glad that I am done with school for two years. It takes a lot off my plate. I now just need to work on finding another job, so I can earn money for a mission. I am still really excited, scared, and nervous about my decision to go on a mission. But I know that it is what I am supposed to do, and I am very excited. It is weird that my little brother has already finished his papers, and will be turning them in at the end of June! I never thought that we would grow up. It has been very strange, but good at the same time.
I also got a new cousin this past week! She is the cutest little thing ever. Her name is Clara, and Brenna and Emery adore her. Brand and Mer are doing good now that they are settled with everything. Brenna and Emery have been spending a lot of time with my family, which I love. Brenna is my little buddy. Its funny because I was always brands little buddy and hung out with him all the time, so it is fun to do the same with Brenna. Well anyway I think I have blabbed on enough lol. Thanks for reading. Oh and Bonnie I am not sure but I think I might have fixed my blog so you can comment now. Try it and see if it works and you can let me know. Thanks!
-Katee