08/20/06

Hey Babbers,

I got your letter a few days ago. It was awesome to hear from you. I guess it’s too late to send a letter now and get it to you before you leave Wednesday morning for NC. So I’ll hold on to this one and send it as soon as I find out what your address is going to be in Charlotte. So I suppose I should write this in the pretext that you are already out there even though you are still close to home in Provo. How was the MTC overall now that you spent the whole 3 weeks there? (I’m going to underline all of my questions to make it easier for you to respond in your next letter to all Q’s). It sounded like you had great experiences there learning the Preach My Gospel system and using the Spirit. It sounded like it was a humbling experience too which is awesome. You need to always stay humble no matter how good you feel you are getting at the lessons or how good of a missionary you are, etc. Even when you feel like the Lord is blessing you like crazy and the world couldn’t stop you if it all combined against you, the more humble you stay, the more powerfully you bring the spirit and the more you are continually led by that same spirit. So keep learning from that lesson and stay praying just as hard as you prayed that day. I loved hearing about how your testimony was re-affirmed and how it has solidified multiple times over. That will only continue to grow too as you face very real blessings, grow even closer to the Lord and stand in the face of pure evil.

I was happy to hear that your MTC comp. was a fan of Parkers®. Gramps has been wearing his around in his pocket with pride. So that’s cool. Have you converted any souls to the Parker® writing system yet? After all, they are not just pens and pencils. They are high quality writing instruments. I’ll send your new XD card with this letter when I get your NC address just in case you are coming dangerously close to running out of room on your 700 picture card there. I look forward to seeing your pics you send home too. You will have to send a letter of descriptions with picture numbers on it so we know what’s what when we develop them and save them to DVD and post them to the Blog.

We miss Turtle. It was sad to have to put him down, but he got so sick so fast. I think we might go look at some kittens today with Brins. She will have fun with a new kitten. She hasn’t really said anything about Turtle. I’m not sure if she knows he’s gone. She wouldn’t quite understand death now anyway and I’m not sure how to explain it to her on her level. So we’ll see what happens as we go look at kittens. I’ll send pictures if/when we get one. Your iPod doesn’t connect to my computer to sync. I just tried it for the first time just now. It doesn’t support firewire, so I’m going to have to find a USB connector before I can use it. What have you found out about music out there?

Our draft is tomorrow. I have only pre-ranked about 10 players. I’m feeling like I’m not really ready for this draft this year. I will send you a full report of who got who though. I always look forward to the big draft day. Austin and I went and played a big system link party last night at Ryaneng’s house. We had about 14 guys there and played till midnight. I’m sure they stayed and played till 2:00 or 3:00 AM. But I had to get Austin home. It was a blast. That’s the first I’ve played Halo since I played with you on MTC day. I was always in the higher tier with the exception of only a few games, so I represented. I think I play better when I give it a week or two rest between playing.

It was Dad’s 50^th Birthday yesterday and Mom’s 55^th coming up in a few days. Crazy!

We just got home from kitten shopping and seeing ma and pa for their birthdays. We got them a gift certificate for Ruby Tuesdays. While we were there we got to read your B-day cards and letter home. That was fun. It was good to get 3 letters in a week from you. Great job. I understand the pressure you are under with peeps back home demanding a piece of the letter writing action. I would try to write most of my letters while I was doing my laundry. I could sit in the Laundromats and bust out at least 2 or 3 letters in the time it took to do a small load. But you are keeping everyone happy right now, so good job. Mom said that they were going to send a box to you overnight to the MTC so I will include this letter in there after all and put your memory card in there too. So you won’t have to fret running out of room anytime soon on that big boy. But it’s cool cuz we get to develop pics and videos and save them over to DVD and see what you have seen and done. Oh, the kitten shopping was not fruitful. No kitten for now, but mom and dad are keeping their eye out in the thrifties or free kitten flyers at the grocery store, etc. and we will keep our eyes open too. Reminds me of our cat Willy that we had in Harlem to keep the mouse problem down. He surprised everyone though when he had a litter of Kittens in Elder Steven’s shoes.

I was just out in the garage moving all of our Tupperware storage containers out to the rhino racks that you helped me buy. I ran out of room and still had three to store, so I had to remove the weird shaped shelving thing that was on dad’s welded shop desk I have next to the racks so I could put them on there. I had to get that beast to fit into my black garbage can but how? I wanted to tear it down, but the stupid thing was put together with allen wrench screw heads. Well, I couldn’t find a bit to fit those anywhere, so I had to get out the “adjuster”. When you don’t have a tool or bit for it, just get out the adjuster, that’s what I always say. So I busted out the Porter Cable Reciprocating saw (the Adjuster) and hacked that big boy into manageable little bits. Everything fit into my garbage can with plenty of room to spare with the lid down and everything.

Well, it’s late. I’m going to bed. I’ll finish this letter up tomorrow after the draft with a full report and bring this letter over to Mom’s and Dad’s with your card.

Well, it’s Sunday night almost 10:00 and the draft was all screwed up. It died in the second round. It even started 2 hours late because the site was so mucked up. I’m really bugged right now. So now I have to do an offline draft by e-mail to get everyone their teams. Unbelievable. Not much else to update you on. I’m really glad I held off to take this letter and your card to mom’s and dad’s now that the draft didn’t even happen. So far I’ve picked up Hines Ward. That’s the only update I have for you. Anyway, you will be all updated on the final results by next letter.

Next time I talk to you, you will be in Charlotte somewhere. I can’t wait to see where your area is and hear all about your experiences. I’ll talk to you soon.

Love ya,

Trav