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Return to special coverage of Bishop Wester's Installation
Kearns-St. Ann School, Salt Lake City
Dear Bishop Wester,
On behalf of the eighth grade class, all of the students, faculty, and staff of Kearns-St. Ann School, we would like to formally welcome you as the new bishop of Salt Lake City. We are all very pleased to have you as our new bishop, and hope that you enjoy living here as much as we do. We have heard good things about you, and we are sure that you will do a great job.
The eighth grade class was so excited to have a new bishop because we were afraid that we would not have a bishop in time for our confirmation. We are all looking forward to meeting you this April.
In Salt Lake City, we Catholics, love our faith very much. We know you share this same love for God. At Kearns-St. Ann, we practice our faith daily, and show our devotion to the Lord through prayer.
Everyone here wishes you good luck and is happy to welcome you.
Sincerely,
The Eighth Grade Class
J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School, Salt Lake City
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to Salt Lake City! We are full of hope and joy that you are our new bishop. We would like to invite you to visit our school, J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Catholic School. Cosgriff is a school filled with nice people. It’s fun and has a great learning environment. Our students are great readers and helpful to one another. They know how important a Catholic education is. Thank you for considering a visit to J.E. Cosgriff. We wish you lots of blessings and courage in your new ministry.
Sincerely,
Students of J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Catholic School
St. Olaf Catholic School, Bountiful
Dear Bishop Wester,
I am looking forward to seeing you! I know the church will welcome you with joy and love. I wish you lots of love when you are the bishop. May God give you the strength when you have troubles. May God also bless you and your loved ones. I hope you have a wonderful time being our bishop!
Sincerely,
Sharon Pham, 4th Grade
P.S. Where do you live?
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to Utah! We are all looking forward to what you will do for us and I am personally looking forward to meeting you at my confirmation. We welcome you with open arms and hope we will be able to make you feel at home here. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Maria Fernanda
Dear Bishop Wester,
I am honored to have you as our new Bishop. I am very excited for you to come. I recently visited San Francisco for my birthday, I was able to talk to some of the priests there and I heard a lot about you. I was able to interact with Bishop Niederauer and I hope I can have the honor to interact with you. I am so glad you are going to be our new Bishop and I think that your coming to Utah is the best birthday present ever. Thank you so much.
Love,
Alex VanDongen, 7th grade
St. Jhn the Baptist Middle School, Draper
Dear Bishop John C. Wester,
My name is Natsumi Alvarez and I am an eighth-grader at St. John the Baptist Middle School on the campus of the Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper. Our teachers, administrators, parents, and students would all like to welcome you to the Salt Lake Valley. We are so glad that after almost an entire year of waiting, you have arrived to shepherd our flock. As an educator yourself, I’m sure you know how exciting the upcoming weeks will be for us as we prepare for our confirmation in early May.
It is exciting to know that you were once a teacher and a principal and are more keenly aware of what it is like to work with children, young adults, and teenagers. We face a lot of challenges in our daily lives and often feel like we have more pressures than we can handle.
It makes me wonder if you have ever felt pressured and scared with all your duties and responsibilities. I’m sure you have and that is why I believe you can relate to the questions of faith and religion we are dealing with as we approach our confirmation.
I think of these questions as obstacles but not roadblocks. With your new leadership and the support of our parents, teachers, and priests, I know we can overcome them and strengthen our relationships with the Holy Spirit. In fact, we can all serve as inspirations to those younger than us. My little brother will make both his first reconciliation and First Communion this spring.
It is an unusual coincidence but I don’t believe in coincidences – I believe in God and what happens happens for a reason. I think that is why God has chosen you to come here to Utah to lead and strengthen our growing community of faith. As young people, we will do all we can to support you in this important mission. We have tremendous faith in your ability to bring us all closer to God.
God Bless You,
Natsumi Alvarez
Blessed Sacrament School, Sandy
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to the wonderful state of Utah. The students at Blessed Sacrament School in Sandy are very pleased to have you. All of the eighth-graders are especially looking forward to meeting you at Confirmation this year.
We’ve gone many months without a bishop, and we are excited to have you as our new leader.
Sincerely,
The students at Blessed Sacrament School
Juan Diego Catholic High School, Draper
Dear Most Reverend John C. Wester,
On behalf of Juan Diego Catholic High School, we would like to welcome you into our spiritual and educational community. We look forward to many years of your leadership and counsel, which will hopefully include several trips to our school. We hope to serve and grow in faith in the coming years together with you, as we progress through each liturgical season.
At Juan Diego, we represent the diocese as more than an academically exceptional school; we are a convergence of caring individuals, followers of Christ, always reaching out to those in need, and living the true virtues of a Christian community.
We are eager to share with you our time, talents, and treasures in all endeavors our church will engage in under your guidance. We are honored to have you here with us, and wish you the best in your service.
God Bless,
Ali Lamb, ‘07, Student Body President, Juan Diego Catholic High School
Judge Memorial Catholic High School, Salt Lake City
Dear Bishop John C. Wester,
As our ninth Bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City we welcome you to our community under the mighty peaks of the Wasatch and congratulate you on this appointment.
It is our hope that this pilgrimage of faith you take as our spiritual leader of the diocese is a fulfilling one. In being a shepherd who brings much energy, finesse, political acumen and deep spirituality, we look forward to following your lead.
With a rich tapestry of ethnic groups emerging throughout our ever growing Catholic community it is essential we have the spiritual guidance necessary for our community to stay connected.
Bishop Wester, we the students of Judge Memorial look forward to your installation Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, and extend our heartfelt embrace in welcoming you to our vibrant and committed diocese.
We pledge to you our support and prayers for the journey ahead.
“Glory be to Him whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20
Sincerely,
Colleen Grogan & Kelsey Elizondo, Class of 2007
St. Joseph Schools, Ogden
Dear Bishop Wester,
The students of St. Joseph Catholic Schools welcome you to Utah and particularly invite you to come up to Ogden!”
In the pre-kindergarten class, students are very eager for you to come and visit. Jacob wants you to know the monkey bars are really cool.
Keagan says, “Lunch is the best time. You can have hot dogs with us!”
Middle school students have a slightly different slant.
Sean said, “We have the best skiing!” While Justin’s input was, “We have beautiful mountains, and hiking trails are very close.
Sammie invites you to come to our school because, “This is a great school!”
Chelsea added, “Our teachers are very helpful; they never let anybody down.”
In the halls of St. Joseph High School, Ricky said, “I’m glad we have a bishop; I’m being confirmed this year.”
Larson noted, “If the bishop would come to our school that would show how much he cares about us.”
Ricky added, “He can see how much we care about our faith and what our school is all about!”
We know you have a lot of territory to cover, but we want you to know we are eager for you to visit us. Our doors and our hearts are open to you.
Remember, we are only 35 miles away. You can have lunch with us and be home in time for a nap.
With love and prayers,
The Students, Faculty, and Staff of St. Joseph Catholic Schools
Our Lady of Lourdes School, Salt Lake City
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to Salt Lake City. We are so glad you are coming to our state. It is great here. We have lots of mountains. You can g skiing and hiking and the air is so fresh.
We are very glad you were chosen to be our bishop. We think you will be a great bishop. If you ever get time we would love to have you visit our school. It is one of the best schools ever.
The second grade class, Our Lady of Lourdes School
St. Vincent de Paul School, Salt Lake City
Dear Bishop Wester,
The students, faculty, and staff at St. Vincent de Paul School are pleased to know you will be our new bishop. We are excited to have someone compassionate and kind running our diocese, and we are honored to be writing to you.
Many of the things you have done, including your work with Hispanic immigrants, “Theology on Tap,” and your trip to Asia are remarkable accomplishments. The war and leadership problems in many parts of the world are so awful, and we think it’s wonderful that you would travel half way around the world to help people affected by those problems. It sounds like you completed some amazing things in San Francisco, and we are delighted to have you as the new leader of our diocese.
Our teachers thought your arrival in Utah provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about bishops. We have learned about the bishop’s chair, or cathedra, and how no one can sit in it except the bishop. Now we know what you will be wearing, like your miter, cassock, and pectoral cross. We are wondering, is the crosier you carry very heavy? We like the simplicity of your coat of arms and how each section has a special meaning. “Abide in Christ” is an inspiring motto which shows your devotion to Jesus, and adding blue and green for Sweden and Ireland was a perfect way to show your heritage.
We believe you will love it here in Utah, for it is a spectacular place. The Utah landscape, with the mountains and deserts is very different from California, but we are sure you will feel at home. We read you are a hiker. Well, you’re in the right place because we’ve got the Rocky Mountains, if you’ve got the time. If you’re the more adventurous type you should try to visit Moab and hike around the splendid red rocks.
There are numerous activities to keep you busy in Utah, including hiking, mountain biking, river rapids, rock climbing, and our world famous Arches National Park.
If you’re more the non-adventurous type, you could try a mountain hike to Dog Lake in Millcreek Canyon. Every fall, many of us hike up that trail. When we get to the top, we sit by the lake, have a snack, and laugh at the dogs enjoying the water. The trees are beautiful during this cooling off time of year. The leaves around the lake are a strikingly vibrant yellow and the ones coming up the hill blaze a brilliant red and orange.
If you want to see the mountains and get some fresh air in the winter you could try skiing, because we’re rumored to have the greatest snow on earth. These are a few of our favorite places to go for fun.
We read you like the opera, and want you to know that our kindergarten and first grade classes at St. Vincent perform yearly operas they write themselves. The singing, dancing, and acting are fantastic, and our youngsters are wonderful to watch.
We also heard you like to play bridge and have fantastic card skills. Maybe you could stop by our school and teach us a few strategies!
Your efforts to capture the eyes of young Christians mean a lot to us. Please come visit us for an opera experience, to observe a science experiment, to read our poetry, or to play a game of chess. We have been without a bishop for some time now, and are grateful to have you here.
On behalf of the entire student body of St. Vincent de Paul School, we hope you enjoy Utah, and are able to make it your home.
Sincerely,
Josie Mascher, Tim Allen, Connor Edwards, Paige Fery, & Simone LeForestier
St. Francis Xavier Regional School, Kearns
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to the Diocese of Salt Lake. We are thrilled to have you as our newly appointed Bishop. We are glad that you will be spreading your faith of Christ and the Gospel to all of us, helping and guiding us through our lives, and the communities of each church of the Diocese of Salt Lake. As a student of St. Francis Xavier since kindergarten, I hope you will be able to visit soon and get to see the wonderful job our principal, Mrs. Essary, and faculty does. We hope with your support and guidance the Catholic schools will continue to grow and educate the children of this diocese. This is an exciting year for the Catholics of Salt Lake, after long awaiting for the appointment of a new Bishop. With your open heart and your kind spirit, may God continue to strengthen and enlighten you. We are very glad to have you and we welcome you with open arms.
Sincerely,
Anthony Fratto Oyler, Student Body Vice President
Bishop Wester,
Welcome to Utah! Saint Francis Xavier Regional School is very pleased and excited to have you as our new Bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. We really hope that you will like living here. I’m sure that Salt Lake is quite different than San Francisco, but Utah is a very pleasant place. There are amazing Catholic schools here that truly reflect our faith in God and teach children from an early stage in their lives that you must treat everyone with respect and love them as our brothers and sisters.
Again, St. Francis is very pleased to welcome you to the Diocese!
Sincerely,
Jacqui Rodriguez
Dear Bishop Wester,
Welcome to Utah! As a student of Catholic school, I have learned the importance of a spiritual leader in a community. The Catholics of Utah have had no shepherd, we have been a wandering herd of sheep. With your arriving here, myself and thousands of others in the Diocese of Salt Lake are rejoicing that we finally have a shepherd back in our life to guide us in the right direction.
May God bless you in all of His ways and may He guide you in the right direction as you guide us to Him.
Welcome and God Bless,
Charlie Fratto, Student Body President
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