Sister Heywood

Natalie in the Iowa Iowa City Mission

Your Packing Call with Kaitlynn, July 13, 2026

July 13, 2026 · Puerto Montt; Herriman (home)

About fourteen minutes, two days before we drove you to the MTC. You were at home with your packing spread out; Kaitlynn was on video from Chile. Mom and I were in and out. I was working in the garage for most of it.

Hangers and the packing pile

The call opened mid-inventory, green hangers and bags in frame. Someone counted the hangers off in multiples: eight, sixteen, twenty four, thirty six. Kaitlynn said she had brought about four hangers in a plastic bag and did not need thirty six. Someone asked to be shown the green shoes or the orange shoes. There was a passing exchange about shavers and shaving heads.

Comparing MTC schedules

Kaitlynn said she thought your MTC was like a home MTC. The two of you compared class schedules: one of you ended classes around eight or nine at night, the other was done at four thirty. Kaitlynn said that is what happens when you only speak English and you are staying in the US. She told you that you were going to love it, that she was really excited, and that it was going to be good.

New colors

There was an exchange about a product that had added new colors. Kaitlynn suggested you could maybe get one of those and asked what other colors they had and whether they were new. Someone said they were going to do four, and described one option as a kind of green, but a little lighter and less cute.

The Sharpie pen

You showed the Sharpie pen Mom gave you and said Mom called it her love language. Someone joked back that they thought Mom's love language was abusing you.

Snow boots and Iowa weather

You showed your snow boots. Kaitlynn asked whether there is a lot of snow over there. The answer was that it has really hot and humid summers and then really cold, windy winters.

Me in the garage

Kaitlynn asked whether I was in a meeting. I said I was in and out and was not in a meeting; someone else said I was in this meeting.

Boogie and surgeon banter

An exchange about a boogie in someone's nose, seeing into someone's brains, and feeling like a surgeon. One line was "Aw, I am a surgeon."

The coats

You asked Mom to show the coats and pointed out one in particular. Asked where that one came from and whether it was pre-loved, the answer was a run of discount figures: a price around sixty, a discount to ninety-something, and four discounts added at the checkout, against a regular price of two thirty.

Bags

Kaitlynn showed a roller bag with four wheels, and you said that was going to be really nice. There was an exchange about a "grandma bag," and one of you said this was her original carry-on that she already had. You showed the basketball shorts you wear now.

Asked about the pink bags in the corner, you said two of them were gift bags with random stuff people had given you. You said the pink one was a bag Reese gave you, and that you had packed it really full because it held all of your journal-type writing supplies, which you were going to bring to the MTC without a suitcase, so it would not normally be that full.

The hat, and Chilean winter

Someone asked whether your hat was the one you had just got or one you had had for a while; you said you bought it a couple of weeks earlier. Asked whether it was winter or summer where she was, Kaitlynn said it was winter there, and that by winter it just means it rains every four seconds.

Eyebrows

A long stretch of eyebrow banter ran through the middle and later parts of the call. Someone said "You guys have really good brows." Kaitlynn asked whether you were taking selfies. The thread came back later with how it would be to have real eyebrows, which was real and which was fake, and that it makes all the difference. Someone said that was a sensitive subject. Kaitlynn asked me whether it made me feel sensitive on the inside knowing that my eyebrows were not real and that yours were. Kaitlynn said you had sprayed her eyebrows the previous month and that it was almost gone now, and added that she had plucked them too.

The volcano trip

Kaitlynn said that day she had gone to a volcano and gone around it. She said it was funny because they tried doing a hike, but when they got to the crest of the hill the wind was so strong that they just had to go back, because the wind genuinely almost carried them off the edge of the cliff. The response was that it was scary.

Spanish

You asked Kaitlynn what her favorite sentence in Spanish was. She said she could not think right now. She said she does not even speak Spanish and kind of just exists there. Asked whether she was fluent, she said she likes to think so, but that she knows enough to get around.

Camera and hand-raising

There was an exchange about someone on the call raising a hand and whether they had a question, and someone noted that you can turn people's cameras off so you do not see them.

The buffet lunch

Kaitlynn said she was done eating, that it had been a late lunch, and that they ate at a buffet. There was a figure of about twenty dollars, and she said it was free. Asked whether the member paid and how many missionaries they had paid for, she said it was just her and her companion, plus the member and a random guy who was part of their family but is not, because they broke up. Told that was awkward, Kaitlynn said not for her, and that the woman does not care.

A sensitive subject

Someone said this is a sensitive subject for some people. Another person said they hear about it every single week in their weekly email and say very little about it, and that they do not know enough about it but get the feeling.

The tool belt and the chair

Kaitlynn asked who was getting on random work equipment while working in the garage. Someone said I have my work belt on, actually my tool belt, so I can put my pencil in it and the mouse and my water and your water, and told me I should start wearing it and that they wanted me to wear it the next day while I worked.

Then someone asked whether I had shown them the problem with the chair. I said I took it apart, that I had four paint cans holding it up, and that I set my chair on that. Kaitlynn said "Wow, Dad, impressive!"

Ending

Someone described a dress as a grandma dress and someone agreed it really is a grandma dress. Kaitlynn said she had to go because her meeting started in one minute, thanked us for coming, and said she loved us. The call closed with "Love you too."

Cleanup Notes

Carried forward from the cleaned canonical at Sources/02_processed/transcripts/2026-07-13_transcript_natalie-kaitlynn-packing-call.md: