10/01/06

Eh Yo!

It’s time to start bustin’ out the weekly letter. Who shows you love like I do? I bet Mom and Dad probably write once a week, but do they bust out 8 page, single space, 10 font type to fill up the joint? That’s what I thought. I will keep e-mailing you, but I don’t care if you e-mail or write me. You were asking in one of your other letters how everyone likes it. Just write me period. I think I told you in my last letter that Shelbs and I loaded up “White Boy” with a bunch of good church tunes. I’ll tell mom and dad to send those speakers with it, if they haven’t sent it already. I’m calling them now… Not home. I left a message though. Anyway, yeah, White Boy has a bunch of good stuff. We kept it all appropriate too. Shelli did most of it. It was taking forever, and I had to bust out, so she did most of the hard effort. Ghetto Fabuloso is 2 -1 for the season. I’m taking on the Silent Assassins this week. I knocked the undefeated Hip Waders off their perch at the top last week. Assassins are favored by 1 measly point. You will know the results of that before I finish this letter. I have been roofing John’s shop the last couple of days. It’s looking good. Wait till you check this funky MoBah! It’s big, it’s nice. It would make a smooth guest house for you if you moved in and paid your rent by being his yard boy. Mow and edge his newly sodded lawn once a week and get free rent. Seriously, it’s that nice. He’s getting a massive hot tub soon too that will take up the other corner of his yard. He won’t have much grass in the back. His front yard looks way good now. Not like the barren waste land that you left seeing. His sprinklers MORE THAN get the job done. It’s a monsoon within 10 yards of his yard in any direction. There’s water flying everywhere. When John does something, he goes big. I swear he should be from Texas.

Yo, check this action out… I just copied these screen shots from the new game Halo Wars that is made by the peeps who did Age of Empires. It’s a strategy game that will only be available on the Xbox 360 platform, not PC which has gamers all up in arms. The shots look pretty cool though. See what you think. There were 12 but these two are the coolest and I can’t fit much more in here without messing up the e-mail.

I just got off the phone with Dad, he just called back. They went and ate at Cracker Barrel. Gross! How are you liking the food down there by the way? Anyway, he couldn’t find the speakers, but he’s on a quest to find them now.

I just tried to put the Spider video on the Blog, but it’s 126 Meg. Large! What’s up with that? That is WAY too Big! So anyway, I guess I can’t put that on there.

I’m listening to the first session of the Saturday morning conference right now. How do you like your first conference in the Mission Field? I LOVED conference on my mission. I got so much more out of it then than I ever did at home. Just because it was a taste of home, the pure doctrine from the prophets and apostles when most of what I got was from scriptures and mission president talks. It was so refreshing to get modern day revelation straight from the mouths of the anointed. So I hope you enjoyed it. Conference will be over by the time you read this letter, and you will more than likely be left hungering for more.

Well, I just got back from John’s. I finished up his roof, and went and picked up my truck from the shop all in the 2 hour gap between sessions. The second Saturday session is on now. So it’s all shingled, temperature controlled heat vent installed, drip edge, etc. all done. Oh, and yeah, my freakin’ truck had the check engine light on. I checked all the fluids to make sure it wasn’t something dumb. Everything checked out, so I took it in. Well, I had a mis-firing plug and bad ignition cables and ignition coil. What do you think that set me back? I was thinking oh, just a plug and some cables or something? Maybe a rip off at 100 bucks. But no!! $586 Smacks across the face! What the FREAK!? So I’m broke as a joke and about to choke on the smoke of the … I guess there aren’t all the many words that rhyme with Broke. Anyway, I’m that broke.

So did your investigators come to conference with you? How did it go? What did they think? I loved taking investigators to conference. It’s a little long and full of talks for newbies, but the spirit is strong and there can be some good doctrine that investigators feel like they are getting an inside scoop and seem to eat it up.

Wow, I have bad food poisoning right now. I have blasted the toilet to death and I think I must weigh about 10 lbs less than before my 3 or 4 rounds of blasting. I’m about to get ready for Priesthood and head over to Mom’s and Dad’s house.

Well, through the magic of the space/time continuum, I have returned from Priesthood and actually, it’s Sunday morning at almost 10:00. I liked Elder Christofferson’s talk the best. The one about being a real man, following the Savior’s example of true manhood, not being a slacker and not taking your education seriously, etc. Stop letting the women folk out-do you in everything, education, income, everything. Aspire to greatness and take your rightful place as an important member of society. What did you like last night?

OK, well, now Sunday has come and gone. Conference was great. Suzanne and I watched all of the second session at Ma’s and Pa’s. It was good as usual. Pres. Hinckley seemed a little weaker than normal, and he was almost giving his “I soon go down to my grave” speech Saturday morning. We’ll have to see if he sticks around much longer. I suspect he’ll still be around for Aprils’ conference. Anyway, I’ll tell you who is quickly becoming my favorite GA. Elder Bednar. He gave a great talk Sunday 2^nd session. The one about being easily offended. That is one of my favorite topics and he nailed that topic today. His talks seem to be spot on every time and I totally relate to all of them in so many ways. Anyway, good stuff. I’m going to put your letter to Shelli on the Blog soon. That was pretty creative. What scripture was that that you asked Shelli about? I couldn’t find it. Ron thought it was Nephi for sure. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Nephi. So we all need to know. I’m also calling for Nostalgia Days from everyone who reads your blog that served a mission. I want pictures, memories, areas and dates served, etc. it will be cool to see some nostalgic pics from friends and family.

Now for the fantasy football update…

I beat Challis this week, after a teeter totter game. 114.5 – 101

John is 51.5 – 32.5 over Bradiators, but Brad has a ton of players tomorrow. It will be close.

Money whooped Waders 133.5 – 90.

Clint’s team Ice Cold beat Baybaz Ballaz, the only undefeated team left, but no more, 95.5 – 72

Choppers are over Wings 72 – 71.5. That is too close to call going into MNF.

So I’m 3-1 now. Looking pretty decent. I won’t take over number one, but I’m getting closer. I’ll send you the rankings next week. I am currently 6^th, just to tell you how close things are.

Well Choch, keep writing, send more pics and vids, but get the videos a little smaller. The largest I can put on is the first half of your mint ball snort.

Keep up the hard work and send plenty of missionary experiences home. We want to know how the work is progressing. I’ll keep bustin’ an e-mail your way every single week. You can write me however is most convenient. Can you print your e-mails?

Write back soon.

“Work Hard, Pray Hard”

-Travis Alexander

Talk to you soon. Love ya,

Trav