Amazing Accomplishments

WARNING THIS IS A LONG POST! hehe

Temples have always been a huge part of my life. That is how my family has been blessed to be sealed together since Stacee, Brett, and I were adopted we needed to be sealed to our parents in order to live with them forever. I am so grateful we are! I was sealed in the Los Angels temple to my family and then once Brett was born we were sealed in the San Diego temple. I am jealous of my older siblings because I am sure they have some sort of memory of the inside temple when we were sealed together since they were older than me. I was two when Brett was sealed to us so there really was no hope of me remembering that experience.

Ever since I can remember I have loved the temple. At school everyone called the LDS temple a castle and would ask me all sorts of questions. Some of their questions I could answer

and some I couldn't because I honestly don't know exactly what all happens in the temple besides in the baptistry. Growing up in San Diego I think has also made me very bias to have the LDS San Diego temple my all time favorite. When we were able to go for Young Women's to the temple my dad always came with us and made it so he would baptize me every time. That is such a special memory for me because now that I live away from home I can't have my dad be the one to baptize me. Every time after he baptized me I would always give him a HUGE hug and get him wet! I didn't know how much he love that until he told me after I moved to college.

I explained how I don't like how other priesthood holders now are baptizing me and I thought it would be a little weird to hug them. :-) My mom and I share a fun memory with the San Diego temple as well. We are not good singers at all and whenever we drove to club soccer my junior we were blessed to pass by the temple. We would sing (every off tune and not on purpose) the song "I Love to See The Temple". Now when I sing it I instantly remember her and sometimes I tear up a bit. I love that memory.

As a whole family in 2009 for Thanksgiving all of us were temple worthy to perform baptisms and we share a very sacred and special opportunity as we went for the first time all together to preform baptism. This was the first time I can remember my whole family inside the temple. I'm not sure when we will get that opportunity again, but I really hope we will be able to one day.

The next temple I went inside was the Bountiful temples in Utah. When I came up here my junior year for a Snow Blast I told my dad how much I wanted to go inside some temples. I can't remember if I told my dad that I thought the Bountiful temple was the pretties or if we went inside because it was the closest to where we were staying. Either way we went inside it and I loved every minute of going inside another temple different than the San Diego one.

After that experience I didn't go inside any other temples until I came to Snow College. The Manti temple is only about 10 minutes from where I live and I have been so blessed to go visit the grounds and inside as an escape from the world. My first semester here at Snow my roommates and I would go every Sunday to the temple and read scriptures together. We grew so much closer together as roommates and friends because of this experience. I have not had the same amount of love or felt as close to my other roommates, which I believe is because we don't connect on the same spiritually level as we did that first semester.

In 2010 it was a challenge to be able to go to the temple and I think because of that trial

I made a goal to go inside every temple in Utah Valley. It was very discouraging to have to wait till I could go inside, but this goal kept me looking to the temple as a goal. When I came back for my second year of school, I asked one of my Best Friends (Amy Gonzales) if she would go inside the temple with me. She started to cry once I asked her because she was a HUGE support for me earlier that year. Two days after I asked her we went inside the Provo temple. It was such an amazing experience!

The next day I went inside the Mt. Timp temple by myself, which was very peaceful for me to reflect on the year.

In November I had asked another one of my Best Friends (Heather Wilcox) if she would go inside either the Jordan River or Oquirrh Mountain temple with me. She wanted to go inside the Oquirrh Mountain temple because she loves that temple and I was more than happy with that choice. In this temple

I was able to perform my first ever family name and it was AMAZING! The baptistry there is so pretty and I felt like an angel inside the temple. The next temple I went inside was the Draper temple with my friend Jake Newman and that was another great experience. This time I was going inside the temple with a guy I liked and was a completely new experience for me. I had a lot of fun going inside

and performing the work with him.

The next two temples I went inside was this last weekend with a friend I meet at a Snow Blast my senior year. Sarah Monson and I stayed very close from that first weekend we meet.

Last year we spent a lot of time together and unfortunately that little stinker graduated a year early and didn't return to Snow this year, but we still have stayed really close. We have always wanted to go inside the temple together and finally were able to go! I told her about my goal of going inside every temple and she really wanted to go with me to accomplish my last two temples in the valley. A week before I went up to Springville I called her and told her I was going to be up north and wanted to go inside the temple with her. We then planned to go inside my last two temples, the Jordan River and Salt Lake temple.

We had such a wonderful time catching up on each others lives and had plenty of time to do so because the wait to go into the font in the Jordan River temple was 2 hours! I am so glad neither one of us needed to go anywhere because that would have been sad not to perform work inside that temple.We talked about everything while we waited and shared our desires to serve missions. I thought it was so cool how she wants to serve a mission too and how we both are turning 21 this year, which means we both could be leaving within this next year or so. :-) I am very excited!

After we went inside that temple we drove up to Salt Lake and going inside one of the first temples the saints built was incredible. Yes, the Manti temple was also built by the saints, but the Salt Lake is where the Saints first settled. It was where Brigham Young said the famous words "This is the place". How cool to have that also be my last temple in the Valley to go inside too! Needless to say that was a very wonderful day. I did it! I went inside every temple in the Valley to perform baptisms! It is such a cool feeling for me and a great accomplishment to say the least.

It took a lot of strength, support, love, and determination to go inside the temples, but I DID IT! Now my goal is to go inside more and of course get my endowments out so I can go inside all of the temple! I want the San Diego to be the temple I get my endowments out and I CANNOT wait to go through it (hopefully it will be this year too!) and eventually be married for time and all entirety to the man who will make me so ecstatically happy.

The other BIG accomplishment for me this past week was I deleted my Facebook. Yes, that is sad for a few people, but it was something I needed to do. I was strongly prompting to delete it this week because of different reasons. Nothing bad or anything like that, but just so I will be able to have stronger relationships with other people and actually TALK to them instead of "FaceStalking them". I have been prompted to delete it every now and then, but this week I had such a strong prompting that I need to delete it NOW. A lot of different reasons helped me get to this point to such a friends and how I have been making a strong effort to listen and follow all the promptings I receive from the spirit. It has been amazing how the more I listen and act the more I can hear and feel the spirit in my life! I love it!

Ending Valentines and starting St. Patrick's Day

Valentines was a blast this year because I actually went to the Ladies choice Valentine's dance at the institute. I was left with a week to find a date because the original guy I asked couldn't come and told me a week before the dance... needless to say I rose above that situation and decided to ask a guy I didn't know all that well. All I knew was he was roommates with some of my favorite guys here at Snow (two of them I have been on dates with before haha) and he is such a NICE guy who loves the church.

It was a blast asking him to the dance because I made a play list to spell out the Valentine's Dance by using the first letter of every song. I thought it was pretty creative and an idea not used a lot, or at least I had never heard of someone asking in that way. Then the funniest part was he answered me back in a cute way. I never actually thought about the asking back part because to be quite honest I never had to ask anyone back because my first dance I had a date to I was set up on and the second date he asked me with cupcakes and gave them to me in person. Needless to say I was very surprised when my roommate from last semester came into my room with this:

I thought we were just being door bell ditched like we always do with no actually surprise at the door. haha

I had so much fun at the dance and our group was kind of funny too because it was all of our RS presidency minus our second councilor. We had tacos for dinner before the dance, which was very yummy, had a blast dancing, and then went and got amazing snow creams from the Sugar Plum Cottage! Basically this really amazing lady Victoria has part of her house set up for this little business that all of us college kids love! She is so nice to let us come in at all hours of the night and happy serves us. I have gone many times and love talking to her each time. We have built a fun relationship and she knows my name. It is so funny going with new people because they are very surprised by the fact that I know her name, she knows my name, and I give her a big hug. :-) I say that is just part of my Caitlan personality.

Well that was my fun Valentine's celebrations, but now it is moving onto St. Patrick's day which I LOVE! I have always loved every holiday and going full on out to celebrate the fun days. However, I don't exactly know why, but St. Patrick's day has always been a little favorite of mine. My family is really big on the fact that you have to wear green or else you will be pinched! I love it. My mom always makes us green eggs and ham (mostly because I ask for it) and when I was younger it was a tradition to read the Doctor Sues book "Green Eggs and Ham". Who knows maybe I will through a little party this year for the day and have everything been green. That could be fun...

I'm growing up...

Yes, I am growing up and you know it seems like a bitter sweet to me. It is about that time I think about where I am going to be living for the summer and how I am going to move everything over there... All I know is sadly I will not be living in San Diego this summer because I am trying to gain Utah residency. Very sad day fo

r me! I miss my family and my adopted families in my PQ stake. I have truly been blessed with many great leaders and families surrounding me.

However, in college those blessing haven't stopped. I have many great friends and I am making more everyday. My calling this year has really helped me jump out of my comfort zone and meet all of the women in our ward and I have to say it is very fun. I've meet more and have become a lot closer to people this year and I wouldn't change it ever!

Anyways today I was talking with one of the w

omen (okay that just seems really weird to say bec

ause yes we are women, but sorta kinda not really haha) in my ward who has become one of my best friends, Chantel

(but I call her Chan).

We got talking about our friends and especially our guy friends and to be honest I feel like I am

lacking guy friends because they now are not friends they are missionaries. Yes, they still are my friends, but I can't call

them on the phone anytime I am missing one of them. It is a very sad day when the thought comes into my head "I miss Ryan or Alex or Dusty or etc I want to call them...". However, I have been very blessed to be able to write and get wonderful letters from them. This last week I wrote one to Ryan and received one from Alex who I still need to write back.

As we were talking about all of our guy friends who are out we then started talking about how Chan really wants to serve a mission (could be another reason why I love her s

o much) and then it hit me... I could be gone in 10 months or packing my bags at least!

How cool is that! In 6 months I will be open a mission call that says something like "Dear Sister McConnell, You are hearby called to serve for the

Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints you are assigned to labor in the... mission"!!!

OH I CAN'T WAIT FOR THAT DAY!!! It is getting more and more exciting as the time goes gets closer and closer to that day. It has been something I have secretly/not so secretly been looking forward too since I was about 14. It blows my mind how I am finally getting to the age where I can serve.

Seeing Ryan open his call was a new experience for me because I never really had watched anyone open their call in person. I remember exactly where I was when he called me and how I was late to lacrosse practice because I wasn't going to miss my best friend opening his call. He has always been such a sweet friend and that was a wonderful spiritual experience for me. I want him to be there when I open my call.

Good thing this whole post was about missions huh? It could be anywhere in thew whole world... CRAZY!!! Haha I can't wait and am so grateful for my friends who are serving right now full time missions! What an example they are for me and others around them.