Merry Christmas

Mike called home around 9:30 AM Christmas morning. First, he talked to his friend Kyle to find out he was going to the Rome Italy mission. We all had a good amount of time to talk to him. He sounded great. He had an appointment at 2:00 he was going to, but the phone call was not rushed at all. He is staying in Rock Hill, SC for at least another 6 weeks, so he will be there for 6 months anyway. He said he knows the Rock Hill area better than he ever knew SLC. He's still with Elder Herbert. He also sent home a package that had some pictures in it, so expect to see those on here soon.
His new niece Aynslee Alyssa Alexander was born the next day on the 26th. She was 9 lbs. 11 oz. and cute as can be. He'll have a good time meeting her and getting re-acquainted with his other niece and nephew when he gets home. Who knows, there may even be more by then.

12/21/06

Elder Babs,

What’s the word Choch? Sorry again for the lack of letter in your e-mail. I fixed my internet Monday night, but it was down all weekend to send off an e-mail. I know we’ll just be talking on Monday, but what the heck? I might as well try to get a letter off to you. I think it can get there by Friday. Here’s to hoping. If I send it off by lunch today it should anyway. But who knows with all of the Christmas mail going around. Friday will be the busiest day of the week with Christmas presents, cards, and letters all going out. What to do? I have been super sick all week. I had this cold for like 2 weeks, then as I had it beat, I got the flu and my immune system went down the toilet with my puke and squirts. So my cold came back with a vengeance and it blossomed into a raging sinus infection and I’ve been way warn down. Suzanne and Brinlee have both been sick with the same thing so we finally went to the Doctor yesterday to get on some heavy duty anti-biotics. Hopefully we will be free and clear before this little baby comes to a family of sickies. Can you believe how soon we will be having this baby? A Day after we talk to you if not sooner. I’ll be interested to see if Grandma pulls her strings on Christmas since we’d be celebrating her birthday on June 25^th so as not to take anything away from her birthday or from Christmas. So being celebrated on Grandma’s birthday, I can see her expediting the process if at all possible. I still need to get out and get Suzanne’s gift(s). I only have one gift responsibility every year and that is Suzanne’s and I always put it off till the last minute. She bought everyone else in the family’s gifts a while ago. I’m a slacker. Speaking of gifts, I sent yours in Mom’s and Dad’s package but it wasn’t wrapped, there was no explanation, nothing. So I don’t know if they did anything with it or just tossed it in and that was that. So sorry for the lack of intrigue and surprise there. I was rushed to get it over there because they were sending it that day and I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to with it. I hope you like it. We can discuss it when you call in case you waited till Christmas morning to open the box as you should! I’m throwing in a little sum’m sum’m with this letter too so that you can get what you need and keep it light. I know that getting actual gifts from peeps back home were a bit bulky and would usually just get sent back home anyway, so you can go get a tie or socks, or go towards a re-sole or something that you need. Sorry for the lack of actual gift stuff, but I know you are into other things and the material commercialism that makes up 90% of the country’s idea of Christmas is a bit bothersome to a missionary. Christmas is such a great time to be on a mission. Man, I loved that time of year in NYC. Sure there was a lot of hustle and bustle on 5^th Ave. at all the premium stores and what not to get shopping done. But there was also a ton of activity in all of the churches around, mostly black churches that got rowdy every other Sunday, but as they got closer to Christmas, they settled it down, reflected on the birth of Jesus, put nativity scenes around, and people’s hearts turned to thinking about the true meaning of Christmas more than every. It was easy to build on common beliefs around Christmas time. We are doing a sub for santa at work right now for one of our employee’s who’s 13 year old son was mowed down in a hit and run a couple of weeks ago and is still in bad shape at Primary Children’s Hospital. His daughter just younger than this kid had her birthday that day he got hit. So they still haven’t celebrated that either and this Christmas is going to be spent at the hospital without many gifts or reason to celebrate much. The bills are through the roof, they still haven’t caught the driver and life has been gloomy for him lately. So we organized a sub for santa that will more than adequately help out his family this year. So that’s been fun to help with that. Oh, my work party was awesome. It went off without a hitch. Well, one hitch, but the rest of it was smooth as silk. We had great food and more than everyone could handle at Rodizio Grill. I had my Brazilian mix going on Dark Angel for all 2 hours. I MC’d the crap out of that party too. Everyone had fun with the prize drawing. We gave out so much swag that more than half of all our employees walked away with at least 10 bucks worth of gas card or 15 bones at Best Boy. The rest of the gifts all got more valuable from there. So we broke the bank on prizes for 130 peeps. I had nothing but great compliments from everyone. The one hitch was while I was up front calling people down as I drew their name, I was told to ask the head pressman that was up front to get his prize if he had a sash. I didn’t know what that meant and was frankly nervous to ask it, but because it was coming from Kent, our Operations manager, I asked it and got a big Birdy flipped at me in front of everyone. Yeah, that’s not cool. I must have looked shocked, but I said, “well, I guess it’s a good thing we are off site, huh?” after the party, he came up to me and apologized and said, hey, that wasn’t meant for you, that was meant for whoever put you up to asking that. I guess he takes Tae Kwon doe where instead of karate belts, they wear sashes. He thought that was a little bit gay and made mention of it to Kent and didn’t like Kent bringing that up in front of everyone. Well, I accepted the apology but told him we’d be having a chat about that later. He looked at me to see if I was kidding and saw that I was as serious as a heart attack. So he sweated it out over the weekend and yesterday I had his boss have a 15 minute discourse on how inappropriate that was at a work function and that he made a fool of himself and set a standard that that kind of thing was OK when it’s not. We asked him if we should make an example of him and fire him now so that other employees would know that it wasn’t OK to put up that gesture. We asked him what he would do in our situation to let other employees know that what he did wasn’t OK. We gave him more than enough awkward silence to think his answer over carefully. He didn’t have an answer because he would have condemned himself. We let him off the hook finally, but he had to go wipe because we dropped the hammer pretty hard. Last week I went and had lunch with Staci and Ajax at Granatos by my work. That was fun. Ajax is getting big and cuter. He is still so stone faced all the time that it’s a challenge to get him to laugh. But a welcome challenge I’ll take every time. Staci hadn’t seen my offices before and felt left out since you and Shelby had been here before. So it was fun spending an afternoon with her. It snowed a ton this weekend and made the commute suck. I was actually so sick that when my home teacher called, he said I sounded like crap and asked if I had shoveled my walks yet. I told him no, but didn’t want him to come do that. It was too late, he had called me from his cell phone and was already enroute to my house. So he shoveled my drive way and walks. That’s a lot of work. I felt bad. But I had to let him do it and allow him to receive his blessings for serving us. It was nice of him.

Here are the football standings with two weeks to go…

Team	W	L	T	PCT	GB	Strk	Wks	PF	Back	PA
Jake's G-Men	13	2	0	0.867	0	W11	3	1675.5	0.0	1338.5
Ghetto Fabulous	12	3	0	0.800	1	W4	2	1524.5	151.0	1343.5
The Bradiators	10	5	0	0.667	3	W2	4	1578.0	97.5	1433.5
Baybaz Ballaz	8	7	0	0.533	5	L2	3	1426.5	249.0	1465.5
Uonlywish Choppers	7	8	0	0.467	6	W1	0	1320.5	355.0	1526.0
Silent Assassins	6	9	0	0.400	7	L1	1	1479.0	196.5	1471.5
Ice Cold	6	9	0	0.400	7	L4	0	1371.0	304.5	1399.5
Hip Waders	6	9	0	0.400	7	L5	1	1325.5	350.0	1343.0
Money in the bank	4	11	0	0.267	9	W1	1	1371.5	304.0	1519.5
Buffalo Wings	3	12	0	0.200	10	L1	0	1196.0	479.5	1427.5

I can still be overtaken by Bradiators if I lose both of my last two games and he wins them both since he leads me on points. But it’s not likely that I’ll lose since my last two games are Buffalo Wings and Money in the Bank respectively. The two worst teams in the league. John still has to get through Silent Assassins this week and Choppers who are both solid. Those aren’t two gimmes there. If John loses both and I win both, I will win the league. So here’s to hoping. Ghetto is going to finish strong. I actually beat Baybaz this week in a tie breaker. We both had 90 points each, but my bench outscored his 56 to 39. So I’m pretty happy about that squeaker win. How is everyone coming with their commitments you assigned early on in your letters? I had committed to begin reading and finish the Book of Mormon which I did. I think you assigned Shelby Lynn to pray nightly or something? What else did you assign? Mom and Dad to do family home evenings or something? What were your assignments and how is everyone coming? We should discuss this over the phone on Christmas too. I’d be interested to know if peeps have kept their commitments and if you are holding them accountable. Remember the section of setting a cadence of accountability in your discourse on leadership. People will play differently if you are keeping score. Let them know you are monitoring their progress and it matters that they do this for you, for them, for Heavenly Father. What new commitments are you going to give everyone with this new year upon us? You should throw down the gauntlet and start holding everyone accountable to what you commit them to. Everyone actually liked those little challenges you gave us. I think you should give it some serious though, see what feels appropriate, follow the spirit, and throw us some challenges. I got your fitness regimen. I didn’t think that was going to start till you got home. Anyway, I haven’t had BK since a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be tempted today though as I drive past it on the way to the post office. I need to keep this letter sort of short since I have to mail it and fit it all into an envelope so I’m cutting out my next segment that I had prepared as another little educational series. I think you will like it and will be able to implement some its principles in your missionary work. I’ll send that off next week in your e-mail, assuming I have e-mail access to do so. I can’t believe I’m on 4 pages already. I’m going to do a shrink to fit to get this to 3 pages so I don’t have to use extra postage. Anyway, I hope you have a great Christmas on your mission. It really is a season of giving, but not in a material sense. Give the more valuable gift of your service, your love, your spirit, and the best gift of all, the message of the atonement of Christ and his plan to get all of us back to his presence. I can’t wait to talk to you soon. I miss you like crazy and love the crap out of you and I’m so proud of what you are doing and who you are and what you are still becoming. Keep up all the good work. (had to go with the 9.5 font. sorry for being so small, got it to 2 pages though.)

Love,

Trav

12/19/06

What up Elder A,

It’s 1:04 AM on Tuesday night. Oh, that reminds me, I should have put my garbages out. I better wake up early and get those out. The garbage man is outside picking up my trash promptly at 7:00 AM without fail every Wednesday. If I forget to get it out and barely miss him, then I’m stuck with a full trash can for a whole week. Anyway, I’ve been sick starting Sunday night after I wrapped up and sent off your letter and all through Monday night till I woke up this morning. I felt like I could go to work and after I got there I didn’t think I’d make it through a whole day, but I nutted up and every hour I seemed to get better. I made it through a whole day and then some since I stayed till almost 7:00 PM trying to catch up on work I missed Monday being off. I think I got enough sleep by sleeping all day and all night yesterday to last me half the week. I’m not even tired right now. I should have taken some melatonin tonight. That always gets me back on track after I travel across time zones and get messed up. Oh well. It is giving me time to put together a nice work party music mix on Dark Angel for my work party on Thursday. We are at the Rodizio Grill so it’s somewhat Brazilian themed. My mix is 29 songs long and almost 2 hours. Yeah, I have almost 2 hours of Brazilian music on there that I can think of anyway. That’s what happens when you have almost 10,000 songs I guess. It’s all good stuff too. I listened to the whole thing tonight after putting it together just to make sure there weren’t any inappropriate music for the work peeps. I had to remove two songs, just because they talked about how hot the brazilian women are. No curses or anything bad, just not so fitting for a work related activity. The rest are mostly all in Portuguese anyway. So if they are talking about that stuff, all that will know it are anyone who speak Portuguese and RM’s from Brazil and Portugal. I’m not too worried. Anyway, back to my sickness. I think I got the flu. Usually I don’t get that sick from the flu, I’m down for about 12 hours and calling it good. This time I was REALLY sick! It lasted a little over 24 hours and I was miserable. Suzanne got a flu shot about a month ago and I passed it on to her and got her sick. That’s how bad this strain is. She stayed home today. Waste of money and getting poked for that! Ha ha. I never get a flu shot. I hear of people getting sick from the flu shot. So why pay for it and get poked and maybe get the flu that way? Why not just roll the dice and see what happens? Tomorrow is my work party for HR. We are eating at the Grand America. I hear they have a FATTY buffet of all you can eat EVERYTHING. I’m pretty psyched. Then Thursday is my Production/Manufacturing Division party that I organized. It’s way cooler than my HR party of 10 people. This is for 120 peeps and I’m giving away Crazy prizes. I negotiated quite the deal to swing the full Rodizio and all you can eat salad bar for every person and still had enough to drop $2,000 on prizes to give away after the dinner. How’s that sound? I’m MCing the event for good measure and doing the prize give away. That’s why I had to put together a sweet mix for the ambience.

Anyway, I’m going to try to go read and go to sleep or I’m going to be hating it tomorrow. I have to try to get back on a regular schedule. I’ll pick this up tomorrow and tell you about my meal at the Grand America. It was a year ago now that Bryan (the VP of HR) [my boss] called and offered me the job at FC from the Grand America at the HR Christmas party. He just got the call from the management team of my division saying to offer Travis the job so he called me right then from the Grand America. I was sitting in a meeting at the Cliff Lodge in the Magpie A room and walked out to that big room in the corner with the huge fireplace. What is that called again? So I talked to him there and accepted the job. I went back in that meeting and felt weird. Like I was sort of transcending Snowbird all the sudden. It was a weird feeling. I began feeling disjointed from there immediately. Speaking of Snowbird, I actually talked to Mark Paterson today on the phone. I called him to ask him about a story he read in a manager training. He gave me the story, but when I researched it, the story is totally bogus. That’s part of the reason I was at work for so long, because I couldn’t believe that I was finding out this story that inspired me and so many of the managers at this training he was presenting was totally illegitimate. Oh well. I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss. I still like the point he made with it, even if the people he referred to didn’t really say the stuff he said they said and one of the people is actually no hero, he was one of the biggest turkeys in US Army history that everyone hated and he was a lying scum bag that earned him that reputation well. Mark used the example totally out of context and twisted it to make his point. I loved the point, but didn’t like what I found out to be the truth. But that’s Mark. He’s earned himself a little reputation at Snowbird the exact same way this “hero” he referred to did. Kind of ironic. Mark’s a good fella though. I still like him even though I’m one of the few who does. Well, that’s enough for now. I’ll check you tomorrow.

12/11/06

Ho there! I found your apartment complex easily on Google Earth with your directions. I got your letter today. It was a good one. The directions made it easy to track down. So you go almost all the way around the round about before you hit your buildings, right? Cuz it looks like some more of the same complex maybe that you might even go past in the round about and then one last set of buildings before you have gone all the way around.

Austin and I played all 3 BK Xbox games. They are fun! They didn’t make them hokey, they are cool. We like the bumper car one the best. There are all kinds of different games on that one. The pocket bike racer was fun too with different things to do and different games. The sneak king gets a little bit old after a while because it’s just one player and sort of the same kind of thing. But it’s fun for the first hour’s worth.

We are all looking forward to talking to you on Christmas. Just waiting to find out when so we can all plan our day out. So as soon as you know, let us all know. We’ll see what happens with the baby. Suzanne is having strong contractions daily and is dilated to at least a one already and the baby is already in position. So who knows? Sounds like Grandma is already pulling her strings up there and getting ready for the drop window. We need to put together a contingency plan of cell phones to call if you don’t get us at Mom’s and Dad’s house in case the baby comes on Christmas. So let’s talk numbers to call as back ups. Even if I’m at the hospital and you do get mom and dad, I better talk to you via cell phone that day from the hospital. Eh?

Way to go resisting the smallville temptation. Just wait till you see this season. The ending of it, which is still a ways away is going to be huge. I just caught a glimpse of some of it and I’m getting way psyched. I actually got goose bumps as I watched this teaser for the rest of the season. Very few shows do that for me. Very few indeed!

So did you get pics from Kyle? I finally got them e-mailed over to me. They were just of us standing around BSing. What a waste! We needed some good action shots. I think I might actually have Shelby come next year and video tape it and edit it down to an actual highlight reel for you for a 10 minute wrap up segment. I’ll have john whip it over to a DVD that you can take to someone’s house and break down some film for us. We’ll play that by ear next year. I’m glad you liked the summary of the game. It was fun, but would have been funner with you and P and Chode there, not to mention Karl and whoever else you get to come. We’ll really be hard up next year without Kyle. It’s just going to be me making all the defensive plays next year. I don’t know what happened to all the pictures after we had them developed. I think Suzanne took them to scrap book them. So they have disappeared. But I’ll see if I can rummage some up. Austin never made a big tackle on me. He just had a couple of big tackles for the whole game that surprised me. They were just a leaping leg wrap kind of tackle. Something I didn’t expect to see from Austin, but he got them where he needed to hit them and they dropped. The other good plays were a nice interception when Clint’s friend took over for Tyler Mons and threw a week duck in my direction and Austin almost went Yard with it. He had a big catch too. But that was it. Still surprised me to see those big plays out of him. It was fun to play with him. You will have fun playing with him the year you get back too. I’ll look forward to your Fitness Regimen you think you are going to lay out for me. We’ll see what you can come up with. I’ll need all the help I can get, guaranteed.

I’m glad you liked the letter and discourse on Leadership. It may take you a few readings and even at different times to comprehend it all. Keep it around and bust it out now and then.

I am finally setting up a full physical with the doctor on Monday. He told me that my health is all jacked up. So he recommended I get in for a full physical to see exactly what is going on and put a game plan together. My BP is higher than Mom’s which she is concerned about already. So when she found out mine was higher than her’s, she got a big bugged. So I guess I’ll get serious about it finally.

I liked your Doctrinal answers. It does make you ponder where all 4 of them might be and what they are doing eh?

Elder Herbert sounds like a decent fella. Crochet? Seriously? Dancing? What kind of dancing? His taste in music is kind of interesting too. I’ll have to take your letter over to Mom’s and Dad’s soon so they can read it.

How is your planner? I haven’t ever heard what you think of your planner you use out there? Is it made by Franklin then as predicted? You’ll have to send me a sample of it so I can see what it looks like and how it works? Pretty effective?

Well, I just spent the last hour fighting your Blog again! The stupid site that was hosting your song file that sits on there that peeps can hit play to listen as they browse, just deleted my profile for being inactive for 60 days. I was supposed to log in every 60 days to let them know I’m still alive. Well forget that. It deleted my whole profile. So I went with a few other sites until I could find the best one, then I had to write new code into the blog to adjust for the new hosting site and it was an hour long nightmare. It’s 1:00 AM now and high time for me to go eat a browny with some milk and go to bed. I’ll have to finish this up tomorrow. OUT

Well, it’s Sunday night, I’m down in my FF game 53 – 79. But he’s done and I have Marc Bulger, Stephen Jackson, and Lance Briggs still to play tomorrow night. So I’ll be watching that game tomorrow for sure! John has won and so has Brad this week. So here are the standings before this weeks scores are tallied…

Team	W	L	T	PCT	GB	Strk	Wks	PF	Back	PA
Jake's G-Men	11	2	0	0.846	0	W9	3	1443.0	0.0	1141.5
Ghetto Fabulous	10	3	0	0.769	1	W2	1	1316.5	126.5	1180.5
The Bradiators	8	5	0	0.615	3	L2	3	1366.5	76.5	1254.5
Baybaz Ballaz	8	5	0	0.615	3	W1	3	1271.5	171.5	1265.5
Ice Cold	6	7	0	0.462	5	L2	0	1190.0	253.0	1193.0
Uonlywish Choppers	6	7	0	0.462	5	W1	0	1182.5	260.5	1347.5
Hip Waders	6	7	0	0.462	5	L3	1	1167.0	276.0	1168.0
Silent Assassins	5	8	0	0.385	6	L1	1	1278.0	165.0	1283.5
Money in the bank	3	10	0	0.231	8	W2	1	1192.5	250.5	1346.5
Buffalo Wings	2	11	0	0.154	9	L1	0	1017.0	426.0	1244.0

Here is Brinlee. Just a minute..

I go to school day tomorrow. Write to us. I watch Christmas shows on TV. Funny kids on TV too (Funny Home Videos on tonight). Chimney at Christmas. I saw missionaries. All done talking to Mike.

This is Trav again. Brinlee is wild and doesn’t have much attention span tonight to talk. But she may have her own segment in your letters now.

Here is your quote of the week and then I think I’ll sign off for this week. Shorter letter than most, but I’ll have more to write next week.

If those who are going to preach do not go with that faith that pertains to eternal life and that spirit that is like a well of water, springing up into everlasting life, their labors will be vain. They must realize that success in preaching the gospel springs not from the wisdom of this world. They must so live as to enjoy the power of God.

-Brigham Young

I sat next to Chad’s dad today in Quorum. He said Chad has been in the MTC for a week now and has a companion from Mexico. That’s all he knows for now. But he mentioned some letters you sent Chad that encouraged him a lot about the MTC and personal testimony and stuff that helped. That you were proud of his choice to go, etc. So he appreciated those letters to Chad.

Anyway, I better go. I have a lot to get done tonight before I get back to the work week.

I hope you have a good week. Go forth with Faith this week that you will find someone to teach. I have a few things I’ll put in your next letter pertaining to this. Sorry for the short ending this week. I’ll catch you next week.

Love you and miss you.

Trav

New Companion Bio.

I just got a long letter today. Here are some snippets...

So y'all got hit by a big snow storm huh? how did you like that action. it got up to the 70's almost all last week for me, it was really nice and i enjoyed it quite a bit. Its kinda cooled off quite a bit though in the last couple of days so i've had to go back to some long sleeve action. i heard it was going to get stormy but so far i havent seen that unless they meant last thurday and friday. we got some rain then but it wasn't too bad i don't think. We had zone conference last friday and that was pretty good, we had 3 zones there so it was big. thats just about half the mission right there. we only have 7 zones total in the whole mission.

If you want to find his apartment on Google Earth (link on the right side of his blog) here are his directions: Find Cherry Rd. - follow along Cherry till you get to Ebinport Rd. Go down Ebinport till you get to Marett Blvd. That will take you right into my aparment complex. It has a round-about and my apartment is the last building around the round-about.

Elder Herbert's Interview:
Full Name: Travis Clayton Herbert
Where are you from: Born: Morgantown, West Virginia
Came out from: Salt Lake City, Utah
Where have you lived: Morgantown - 10 years, Salt Lake City - 9 years
Church Membership: Born in the Covenant
Interests/Hobbies: Video Games, Crochet, Dancing, Music
Girlfriend: Yes, but if she doesn't wait he won't be bothered
Drive: Subaru Outback, Honda Civic, Dodge Caravan
Work: Lawn Care (on his own), KFC, Fix It man for friends and family
Music: Classic Alternative, Simon and Garfunkle, Peter Gabriel, Enya, Phil Collins, Savage Garden, Etc. mostly soft stuff.
Areas served: Cherokee, NC - Danville, VA - Morganton, NC - Rock Hill, SC
Interesting/Unique thing: Had a Brain Tumor when he was 5 years old.
Post Mission: Finish College, Don't know what career yet though. and play his computer.
He has been out now for 15 months.


He also mentioned being excited to call home on Christmas, as are all of us.

12/02/06

Supp Yo?

It’s Monday morning, yeah, I’m getting an early start on your weekly letter this week. I just got your e-mail and forwarded it on to Mom, Dad, Staci, Shelli, and Suzanne. I also immediately took off the pres. Interview thing as soon as I read that in your e-mail. So don’t worry. It’s been removed. I actually wondered if that might be something you wouldn’t want to share. But thought it was a cool compliment and threw it on anyway. But Pres interviews are personal and sometimes of the sacred nature and I will respect that in the future and not include any comments from things like that in the Blog.

As I was coming in to work this morning, a big wall of white was about 10 minutes south of me and chased me all the way in. It’s going to snow somethin’ fierce today and we actually have a winter storm warning through Wednesday. So we’ll probably have 3 days worth of hard winter action. Hey, it held out past Thanksgiving to give us a nice Turkey Bowl. What more could I ask for? My yard is all clean, winterized, and the house is ready to withstand a harsh winter too with those new windows and reinforced roof (at least until spring). So I’m ready for it. Well, can’t write much right now. I am late getting to payroll and need to get that going right away. So I’ll pick this up in a bit.

Yo, I’m back at work, it’s Tuesday 4:11 PM. I have gone to BK for my Trav’s special the last two days. Not to get back in a rut or anything, but to get those Xbox games. Dude, the King Rules! These games are so funny. Let me put some descriptions in here and some screen shots in hopes that they will work in the e-mail…

Sneak King: The game is Sneak King, and the object is surprise. Now's your chance to step into the royal shoes of the King himself as you silently unleash hot sandwiches on the hungry citizens of this famished world. All of your covert gaming skills will be put to the test as you take on the role of the slickest sneaker on the planet: The Sneak King.

There's an art to sneaking up on someone and surprising them with a hot, delicious sandwich. You might not know that, but it's true. The average person might just knock on a door with sandwich in hand and yell "Surprise!" but something would be missing from the experience. That something is drama, mystery, finesse. And the King has it all in spades.

Here's your chance to learn the King's magic. Step into his royals hose and learn the cunning stealth that elevates his surreptitious sandwich surprises to an art form. Sneak down alleys, roads, and sidewalks. Surprise unsuspecting burger lovers from inside barrels, pipes, and treehouses. The more you sneak, the more you will gain an appreciation for the methods of the true Sneak King.

Welcome to the wild world of pocketbike racing: The tiniest and most back-breaking of motorsports. Swing your leg over your Pocketbike Racer and experience the exhilaration only a knee-high motorcycle can provide.

It might look a bit ridiculous, but being this low to the ground does have its advantages. You have a lower center of gravity, so you can take those corners harder and stay stable. Also, if you fall, there's not so far to go. Best of all, your opponents are on the right level to eat your dust.

So choose your 40 pound, 14 horsepower beast, chose a character, and chose from a series of tracks with long straightaways, tight bends, and treacherous hairpins. Then sit back and enjoy the game, knowing you can always Have It Your Way®.

You've been in a bumper car before, right? It's a simple concept: You drive around and smash into people. But in Big Bumpin', there's a catch. These bumper cars come with big hazards like surprise saws, bottomoless pits, and ice patches that let you dole out bumps so bumptastic we hesitate to even call them bumps! But we still do, because that's the name of the game.

Watch out for the King, by the way. Outside the arena he's a gentle guy, but get him in a bumper car and he will mess you up!

Don't worry about skill, this game only requires you to desire to beat your opponents no matter what. That includes using hazards like fire jets and lightning bolts to your advantage. Even if you haven't ever piloted a bumper car before, don't worry. All you need to succeed in any of the five game modes is a little bit of attitude and a whole lot of bumper.

You know me, I’m lovin’ these games just because the freaky king does some cool stuff. They are fun and funnier than heck! You’ll have to play all 3 with me when you get back.

I have been chatting with Challis this morning and we are going to do a live draft with everyone in one location this next year. I’ll put up the big draft board, use all the stickers, people will be able to trade for draft order, etc. We are also going to allow everyone to keep however many people they want this year and whoever folds in say 10 players for example will have 12 picks to draft since 22 players are allowed. If someone keeps 20 players, they will have two draft picks and they will be the last 2 rounds of the draft. See how it will work? We are still planning all of the logistics, but all of us are in the SLC except for Challis and his 3 other boys. But he’s going to fly everyone in since 3 of them are airline employees anyway and can get here for free and he’ll just pay for his brother in law to come up. When you come back, if we have 100% retention of everyone in the league, we decided to make it a 12 person league for at least that year just to try it out. Then as people drop out, we’ll just bring it back down to a 10 person league unless we like the 12 banger.

We have an induction date set for the baby in case Suzanne doesn’t have her earlier. It will be December 26^th. So the day after Christmas. I think it would be cool to have her on Christmas, then just celebrate her Birthday on June 25^th being the meridian of that birthday, and just so happens to be Grandma’s birthday too. Knowing Grandma, I bet she is pushing for Christmas and will be poking and prodding to make it happen then. We’ll see if she has any pull up there, eh? It would be cool to be born in that week of holiday stuff with Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years day. Have your birthday be between all that. That would be a fun week!
You are going to like Smallville when you get back. This season has been pretty solid. This week is a re-run for some reason, but all the new episodes have been cool. There are going to be some good developments happening this year. I’d tell you about it, but your buddies like Kyle or someone probably already is. You may not even be all that interested, but if you are and no one else is telling you, AND you want to spoil it before you get the DVD’s let me know and I’ll tell you about it. But if you are like me, you don’t want any spoilers and will banish the thought of any previews before you get the DVDs.

Back once again. Now it’s Friday night at 12:37 AM. So actually, that would be Saturday morning, eh? I finished the B of M earlier this week. Always plenty of new insights every time I read it. Well, that sentence was all I got out last night. I got too tired all the sudden. It’s now Saturday at 9:31 AM. So what do you want for Christmas this year? I’ll need to figure something out and send it soon so I’ll need to know by your next letter you send. Did I send you two Pen refills? How are those going? How is your Journal writing going? Any better since you recommitted to doing better?

I’m sure by now you got my big fatty letters. What did you think of the Turkey Bowl recap? Did it make you trunky for some hard hitting football action? It sounds like you had fun on T-day though playing Foose and Pool, and Ping Pong and Air Hockey. Funny that you and I were probably playing some hard core Ping Pong at the exact same time that day. That sounds like quite the party house with all of those fun features in it. I would love to have the room in my house for a Ping Pong Table and Pool Table and of course a Fooseball table. I wouldn’t waste the space with Air Hockey. I like it, it’s fun, but I wouldn’t play it often enough to use the space for a Air Hockey table. I haven’t ever had fried turkey before. Sounds like you are a big fan though, eh? What makes it so good? What else are you doing on Christmas besides going to that members home, calling us, and chillin’? We as a zone got together and thought of our most needy investigator family just before Christmas and knew that he didn’t have a Christmas tree. So we all pitched in and got him a decent tree. It hardly cost us anything since we all split it equally. Then we took it over as a zone and presented it almost Extreme Makeover Christmas Tree Edition style as a zone. It was super cool. He was way grateful. Something to think about if you wanted to pitch it to your zone. We are all looking forward to talking to you in about 21 days. Then we’ll be having the baby the next day if we haven’t had her already. I can’t believe how soon that’s going to be now till there is another little baby in the family. We haven’t decided on a name yet. Suzanne wants to, but I don’t want to until we have seen her. It’s down to 4 names though I think. It’s either going to be Ainslee, Ashlyn, Taryn, or Lyndee.

I hope you have a good Christmas out there. I know you will. Christmas’s are extra special on a mission. Make sure to send me ideas for a meek and humble missionary gift I can send out.

I’m glad to hear that Preston is so strongly converted to the Parker persuasion and that he is converting other souls. I see pictures like you and Elder Moss, whoever that is, and I see his generic wanna be pen in his pocket and think, man, that is so sloppy to have a missionary all dressed nicely in a suit and tie and to ruin it by putting a cheap generic “pen” in his pocket. Missionaries shouldn’t use “pens”, they need fine writing instruments which is what the Parker® writing system provides. Some day they may have the opportunity to hear the truth and they will have to choose to accept it or deny it. But heaven help them if they deny it. That may be their only chance right then. How is Preston doing out in Oregon? Is he liking the state? What area is he in right now? How’s the weather for him? Washington got blasted with snow, I mean Big Time snow. So I wonder if Oregon got much. Usually those states don’t get a ton of snow because they are more temperate being close to the coast. But that storm is what came down and shellacked us and then worked it’s way to St. Louis and whomped them. I guess it’s still making its way through but I haven’t heard where it’s at or what it’s doing lately. Once it crosses the Mississippi, the West doesn’t care anymore. It’s freezing cold here now though. We went from a nice mild late fall with some unseasonable warm days to full on bundle up in the parka and brave the outside temps and snow conditions if you dare.

So what’s up with your Sunday school lesson? Fist of all, why go that deep in Sunday school? Especially when the missionaries are in there with a gator. People should know better. Second of all, is that all speculative? I haven’t heard ANYTHING about Joseph Smith being one of those two prophets. Have you, before this?

Here are the latest standings in the league. Jake’s G-Unit and the Beats-a-Nators are playing each other this week. I am playing Assassins which have the highest score in the league for one week (138.5) They have been putting up some LARGE points lately. There are only 4 games left after this week. So we are down to it. It’s make it or break it time now. This season has been going fast! I hope I can pull it off against Challis this week. I need Brad to beat John too to get a tie going with him again. Money and Buffalo wings are as good as done though. They don’t have a chance with only 4 games left after this week. If Challis won ever single game from here on and John lost every game form here on, it would still be a tie and would come down to points. The odds are pretty much against that. I think it will come down to Baybaz, Bradiators, Me and John. We’ll see how the race to the finish line goes. I’m hopeful. It just depends on how the next two weeks go.

Team	W	L	T	PCT	GB	Strk	Wks	PF	Back	PA
Jake's G-Men	10	2	0	0.833	0	W8	2	1336.5	0.0	1079.5
Ghetto Fabulous	9	3	0	0.750	1	W1	1	1197.0	139.5	1076.0
The Bradiators	8	4	0	0.667	2	L1	3	1276.5	60.0	1148.0
Baybaz Ballaz	7	5	0	0.583	3	L2	3	1180.0	156.5	1183.5
Ice Cold	6	6	0	0.500	4	L1	0	1115.0	221.5	1073.5
Hip Waders	6	6	0	0.500	4	L2	1	1086.5	250.0	1071.0
Silent Assassins	5	7	0	0.417	5	W2	1	1181.5	155.0	1164.0
Uonlywish Choppers	5	7	0	0.417	5	L1	0	1081.5	255.0	1245.5
Money in the bank	2	10	0	0.167	8	W1	1	1095.5	241.0	1266.0
Buffalo Wings	2	10	0	0.167	8	W1	0	908.0	428.5	1151.0

Alright, I’m back. It’s Sunday night at 8:30 PM. I’m watching Alexander get stuffed on every run against the Broncos right now. No worries though, I have the highest score in the league and will beat Challis tonight by close to 10 pts. John will win too which will put me one game further on Bradiators. I really needed John to lose though. It felt good today though, this was a moral victory to beat the Assassins. Well, I better get going. I have to wake up early tomorrow for Payroll as always. So write me back soon. I’m still looking for this long response you’ve been talking about… eh?!

Let me drop the missionary quote of the week for you here. I’m going with this one because it ties back to my Leadership Epistle. One of the biggest aspects I pointed out was humility. I can give you a lot of quotes on that, but I’ll stick with this one:

You will never be effective as a missionary unless you are humble in your work. The Lord has made it very clear that no man can assist with this work unless he is humble and full of love. -Ezra Taft Benson

Keep up the hard work. Let me know soon on what you need for Christmas.

Love you and miss you!

Trav