08/03/06

Hey Elder Alexander,

Have you gotten used to being called that exclusively yet? It’s a mouthful for sure. I’m going to bust through my questions first in an order that will be easy for you to answer in your next letter.

• So how are you liking the MTC?
• How’s the food?
• How are the living conditions (showers, room, sleeping arrangements)
• How is your district?
• Info on your roommates:
• Names of those in your District, where they are from, where they are all going?
• Is it super hot? Or have they taken care of the temperature issues there?
• For Companion Bio: full name, where he’s from, where he’s going on his mission (I’m assuming Charlotte), a little history with some interesting tid bits.
• What are your teachers like?

Man, the drop off was harder than I expected it would be. I had been preparing myself for it for over a week too and it didn’t really help. I tried getting all my cries out in that letter the night before too and that didn’t help much either, Dang It! Oh well, I’m a boob and you know it already, so it doesn’t matter. I was going to tell you that I wrote that letter the night of your setting apart, but before we came over to your house. I was blown away at how much President Baer said in his introduction and during the blessing that I had written in the letter. So maybe you can let that letter be a reminder of a good portion of what he told you before and during the blessing. We must have been thinking along the same lines. Dad said that Pres. Baer spoke to a lot of things in your Patriarchal Blessing too. I’ll have to read that some time.

It was a strange ride back home. There is definitely a big hole in the family right now, but not one that is permanent so that is good. But we felt your absence all the way back home and even after. I’m sure Mom and Dad will feel that especially hard with you not being home and having your noise, personality, fun, energy, etc. around. I’ll miss my tennis buddy, gaming buddy, chat buddy, music buddy, shooting buddy, fishing buddy, all around activities buddy, and just my brother buddy. But I’m going to focus all of my lonely feelings for you into letters, your blog (which is looking awesome by the way with the new pics and write ups from the MTC) and supporting the crap out of you however I can. I’ll miss you on the boat this weekend as I’m catching more big fatties, but I know you won’t give it another thought because the MTC keeps you so active and busy with learning so much info. The coolest thing about the MTC, next to the overwhelming levels of spirit of course, was how much you can learn which occupies most of a 24 hour day and yet you still thirst for more. They can’t bring on enough information or doctrine for you to absorb like a sponge. So keep up as much learning as you can fit in your brain. You will pray more this week than you have prayed in nearly a year I bet. So have fun adjusting to that. It doesn’t slow down. And the cool thing is that it is the start of a beautiful relationship between you and Heavenly Father. You will talk to him on a more personal level than you ever have and draw closer to him and the Savior than you ever have and probably ever will.

Suzanne, Brinlee, and I saw the missionaries last night on our way home from shopping and dinner. We pointed them out and said look Brin, missionaries like Uncle Mike. She got excited and said “they have on a white shirt and a hat”. They were wearing helmets. But we have her all smiley thinking about her Mike as a missionary wearing a white shirt and a hat.

So did you get a big bottle or two of vitamins? Those are good. Make sure you take one a day every day. Your diet is going to suck, so you will need the essentials put back in and those vitamins do it for you. Some speculate that those are what give you the farts so bad in the MTC, but I don’t think that’s the case. You know, I didn’t blast a squeegee the whole first week I was in the MTC. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever blast again. But on the 7^th day, I blasted. Man! What I would give to go back to the MTC for a couple/three weeks. Mom is logging into Yahoo Messenger. She’s listening to Yahoo music too while she does her online banking. She’s so technologically advanced now. I’m proud of her. John just bought a new trolling motor for his boat. We are mounting that today probably and working on his live well to get that up and running before the weekend. We are going to measure and survey his yard for a new sprinkler system and new sod too. You just got your big fall catalog from cabellas. It was like a phone book. HUGE! I tried to cop it when we came home from the MTC but dad intercepted and said he wanted to look at it. So I called the toll free number and got on the mailing list right then. Mine should be to my house in 6 more days.

Ha ha, funny story, it’s now Friday, but I got home last night and got the mail. I didn’t get the mail on Wednesday, but Thursday night I see that I got one of those Cabelas catalogs on Wednesday too, under the name Wm Michael Alexander to my address. What’s up with that? So I probably have another one coming under my name. Ooops. I’ll have to call and cancel your name at my address. So John and I went to Sportsman’s warehouse last night too. We both got new line put on our reels and I bought new pop gear and hooks. John bought a new trolling pole a new net that is snag proof and some other stuff.

I’m going to drop some comments from the blog into your letter here. Then I’ll wrap up this letter and send it off.

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Travis,

Thanks for all of the updates. I really have enjoyed watching, from a distance, all of Mike's preparations. Wish we could have been there. I always let Don know when we receive a new email, but I don't think he always looks at them. Since being in the Stake Presidency he now has his own home email address and I don't think he gave it to you or Mike so I will give it to you now. Please keep the heinfam address in your list too or else I will not get to see all of the updates.

Don's address is "djhein@bellsouth.net"
Thanks Trav. You are a wonderful big brother.
Love, Lee Ann

It was quite an eventful day as we dropped off my little brother. There will be no more teasing, and poking at home for a while now that he's grown up and is serving the Lord. I will miss him very much and I especially will miss his bright spirit he brings with him. He is a great brother and he will be a great Brother to those he teaches!

Staci

Well we dropped off our Mikey today at the MTC. As expected, it was hard but was a beautiful experience. Yes, there were tears but there were smiles also because we know that this is what he is supposed to be doing and where he is supposed to be going. We are very proud of our Mikey. We will miss him more than words can say. (On the way home, I looked into the back seat of the car and was about to ask him a question - but he was not there.) We are happy for him and his choice to serve the Lord. We love him and support him.

Mom

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I’m listening to the Death Cab for Cutie CD again. I’m so into it lately. The Plans CD. Anyway, get this, I picked up your iPod for the first time last night and realized it was on. Well, I didn’t touch it from Tuesday night when I got it, so it was on and locked from Tuesday night at 9:00 and it still had a quarter battery left. Man, that is some awesome battery life.

You’d be proud of me, I have been finding any opportunity to bust some missionary work on peeps. I actually started praying for it Wednesday night after we took you down. I guess there wasn’t much waiting after that because Thursday I had 3 opportunities present themselves to throw some good to some people. My buddy Ricardo that I had to fire on Thursday was saying that his life was really taking a bad turn, which it is and that is why I had to end up firing him, but he said that he was thinking of going back to church and get back to Elder’s Quorum and start praying a lot more. I basically testified to him telling him that he had things straight and that he was doing the right thing. That human nature tells us to turn away from God at that point, stop going to church, stop praying because we are bitter and feel like God must have it out for us, but that is really the worst time to turn away. We need to turn to prayer, go to church, and knuckle under on our faith so that we can get past these hard times. I praised him for his decision and testified that if he kept it up, he would be blessed and his luck would eventually turn around and he’d find himself in a great position again. Then I had another employee that I would have never known was a member. David Church is his name ironically enough. He drinks, he smokes, he swears and is a little unstable sometimes. But after meeting with him on some disciplinary actions recently, it came up that he was from Cedar City. I asked if he knew any Challis’s. He said that he did and used to home teach Tom Challis which is Shawn’s Grandpa. We put a few other names together and started chatting it up about them. Building up a relationship of trust, I asked him when he started smoking. He said, well, it’s been a while but I’m trying to quit because he wants to baptize his 8 year old daughter soon. I started boosting his efforts and told him I helped several people stop smoking on my mission. It’s the hardest thing to quit and that he’d quit drinking way easier than smoking. He said that he actually hasn’t had a drink in weeks but the smoking thing has him. He didn’t have a smoke all night the night before or that day, but when he found out he had to come to my office with his supervisor, he went out and sucked down 3 cigarettes. I gave him my confidence that I knew he could do it and that he was doing it for a great purpose. That baptizing his daughter would be a life long memory and that not baptizing her would be a life long regret. Anyway, we had a good conversation and I think he’s much more motivated to get his act together. Then my admin Lorrie, was talking in the afternoon about all of her bad experiences she has had here in Utah and how she hates it here and how she doesn’t get along with any of the LDS as she put it. She said that it was OK because the LDS don’t like her either. I told her well, I like you, so there’s your first LDS buddy. She looked shocked. She was like, you are LDS? I said proudly YEAH! She said, I would have never known that. Then she changed her tune and said, well, actually, you aren’t the first, I have several LDS friends now that I think about it. Several LDS folks are nice to me and I like them. So anyway, it’s not really the job of the company HR person to boldly testify to people in disciplinary meetings or boost them up with a testimony after they’ve been fired, or “Out themselves” so to speak to their admin that they are LDS and proud of it and they won’t hear any more negativity about the faithful here in Utah because it’s unfounded and look, I’m a decent guy. Who knows, maybe it will get me in trouble, or who knows, maybe it will help a few souls. But there you go. You have motivated me Mike to stand tall and proclaim with boldness who I am, what I stand for and help lift a few people along the way.

Keep up the good work down there. I can’t wait to hear from you and what’s going on.

I love you and miss you and couldn’t be prouder of you.

Trav