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Posted: 11:21 AM- LEHI - Friends and family focused on forgiveness as they filled the Lehi East Stake Center on Saturday to pay tribute to Kristy Ragsdale and celebrate her feisty, compassionate spirit.

If Kristy were here, she would have one request, said Russell Rhoades, president of the Lehi 36th Ward Elders Quorum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I think she would ask us to forgive," he said.

Ragsdale was fatally shot as she arrived at the church Jan. 6 - her 30th birthday - and her husband David has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Their two families set the example Saturday by filing into the church together. Her parents, Albert and Ann Palizzi, led the way. The couple's two sons, Brandon, 4, and Carter, 1, did not attend.

Sheldon Child of the LDS Church's First Quorum of the Seventy presided over the service.

Ragsdale was the middle child of five siblings, a "vibrant" girl surrounded by brothers. She desperately hoped for a sister and was devastated when she learned her mother's last child would be another boy, said Judd Simpson, her cousin.

"She locked herself in her room and pouted for three days," Simpson said. "Then she all of a sudden emerged from her room, happily singing and laughing. When asked why the change of heart, Kristy said that being the only girl, she was the princess. And she lived accordingly."

Ragsdale was optimistic, kind and, sometimes, very blunt, as Bishop James Davidson learned after appointing her choir director for the 36th Ward.

"A few days later she came up to me and said, 'Bishop, we're not very good but I know we can get better," he said.

Ragsdale loved to sing, had a beautiful voice with "a perfect accompanist always at her disposal" - her mother. During the service, Ann Palizzi played the piano as two of her daughter's friends sang a duet.

Tony Palizzi said earlier this week that his sister was the family's spark, a vibrant woman who balanced out her reserved brothers" four times over."

When she "saw somebody that needed a friend, she was more than happy to jump in," Tony Palizzi said. "She had a big enough heart that she could have lots of best friends."

But she had one "true" best friend: Ann, her mother, who was with her last Sunday as they drove to church. The two expressed their love and recounted their blessings, Rhoades said.

They also spoke of loved ones since passed whose presence felt very near. "When they arrived at church in that darkest moment, Kristy was not left alone," he said.

Later that night, Ann felt Kristy near her for a time, he said.

"And the message was that she had forgiven Dave," Rhoades said.

On Saturday, Ann Palizzi shared "a mother's wish," printed in the funeral program. It asked that people follow Kristy's example of compassion and service. "Find someone to serve, seek out a lonely heart, make someone smile or laugh, throw a party, give a compliment. Do something to lift another."

brooke@sltrib.com" Target="_BLANK">BOLD f=interstate-black brooke@sltrib.com STARTBOX BOXHEAD To donate o In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to a fund set up to support the children. Donations can be made at any Wells Fargo branch in the name of Brandon and Carter Ragsdale.