01/07/07

Elder A:

Wasupatchu? I am sitting here watching the first playoff game of the season. Colts/Chiefs. Colts are ahead 23 – 8. It’s over now. Colts just picked off Chiefs with 1:24 left in the 4^th quarter. They can just take a knee a few times now and it’s done. Next game is the Seahawks/Cowboys. I’m sure you know who I’m pulling for in that one. It’s 5:17 PM on Saturday night. Suzanne and I are about to go see a movie and grab some dinner. It’s our first alone date in a long time. And probably the last for another 6 months or so. It’s not that practical anymore. I picked up the CD “More Music from the Motion Picture Gladiator” yesterday. It’s better than the soundtrack. It has the coolest quotes from the movie and the music from the scenes that’s different from the regular soundtrack. I don’t do it much justice here, but when you hear it, you will be all over it! It really is slightly better than the soundtrack we had before. I still like that one just fine, in fact, I listened to it right after the new one just for grins. I’m up to 9757 songs after deleting a bunch of lame ones. So that’s almost 10,000 songs of great music!

Staci is on messenger talking to me about random things such as her last message. “I would be dead if I was in the desert with rattlesnakes cuz I won’t hear the rattle!” No kidding, that was her last entry. Ha ha ha. I updated your blog with some pics today and sent out the update. Then within 2 minutes of the update, we had our 2000^th visitor. Guess who it was? I didn’t expect it. I thought Staci, or Mom or Dave or John, but it was Lyndsey. I don’t even know who that was. But it was funny the entry she put in there and my response. So you’ll be able to check that in about what… 18 months from now? Ha ha. She was pretty excited about it. It’s funny. Anyway, I have some updating to do, so let me get to it.

Yesterday, I was online and I got an e-mail about my successful posting of my Star Trek Next Generation seasons 1-8 on eBay. I was like what? Must be a spam e-mail or someone phishing trying to get me to log in through their site and steal my log in. So I got out of my e-mail, signed into eBay on my own and found out 2 more of those packages were posted in that time. Someone hacked my account and were posting things on there right then. I didn’t know if this was a mistake or what. I got a live Customer service person on a chat window and told him what was up. He looked into it and while we were chatting, 5 more seasons went up for sale. A total of 8 items now for sale on my account that I didn’t authorize. He froze my account at my request, changed the password, and wiped those off my account. If they had been successful in closing any of these in the 24 hour “buy it now” sales, they would have had access to the buyer’s credit card info and could have racked up charges and I would have been investigated on it for any number of things, fraud, identity theft, etc. So it’s good I caught it right then. Crazy what some people do these days. Bugs me though, that he was using my perfect rating and good reputation to take advantage of some innocent peeps at my expense. I have no idea how it would have been hacked! I need to check for any kind of type capture spyware or something.

Tomorrow I have to skip church and go in to work to have some “court training”. The attorney representing Traveller’s insurance and Franklin Covey is flying in from Denver for our final court appearance in our 4^th court case against this clown that I fired forever ago. Dude is going to get chewed up and spit out on Monday. This attorney wants blood. I’m excited for it actually. Not so much for any repercussions that may come from it since this dude is truly psycho and will do something stupid if he has no other options. So we’ll see what this attorney has in store for us tomorrow. I’m not happy about doing this on Sunday, but apparently we don’t have any other time since our court date is 8:00 AM on Monday morning.

How did your Gospel Jeopardy turn out? Did you do it on your own? Or did you have your companion play too? What questions did you struggle with? I like doing those. They are pretty fun for the participants and for me to “Alex Trebec” for. So I’m just waiting to hear how it turned out. If you do end up using that for a future meeting or whatever, let me know if you want copies of my other two I’ve done. I wish I would have kept the ones I did on my mission!

I was over at Ma’s and Pa’s last night moving your pics from your photo card to CD for them. While I was over there, I read your last 4 or 5 letters I haven’t read over there. So it was good to get caught up on those. I read some of what went out to you too and I think Mom and Dad misinterpreted my Leadership Epistle. With what they wrote, I am actually sure they misinterpreted it. I hope you don’t feel that anywhere in there I was putting expectations on you to lead soon or to focus on leading. I had not intended that in any part of that epistle. I thought I was pretty clear in it too that all that was for was in case you should find yourself in any position of leadership in the future no matter what position that was including my favorite leadership position of Trainer. I thought I even said that in there. I thought I put in there too that I didn’t have any expectations of you to have any of these positions or whatever. Anyway, all that was for was something to fall back on for some ideas for you to glean from as you wanted. Not all opinions in there is meant to be taken as gospel. They are just different points that I found helpful and think it’s easier for someone to take life lessons from other people and see where they can benefit from certain points, or whatever. Anyway, I’m not bugged at their misinterpretation, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t feel any pressure from me after reading that. That is the last thing I wanted to portray in that. I also don’t expect you to have the same experiences as me. Your mission is your mission and will bring so many experiences that I never had the opportunity to see or do. I can’t wait for you to come home and share those with me so I can then benefit and learn the exact same way as I intended to relay to you. And when I say I can’t wait, that is a big understatement. I CAN’T WAIT to share all the war stories and what not! Anyway, I really hope you didn’t have the same interpretation of that big bounder as they did, and if you did, my apologies for my lack of skill in writing. I actually felt like an idiot when I saw that they came away from that letter thinking that. That was a huge waste of time to bust out 14 pages or however many that was if I botched my intent! Please let me know if I can clarify anything from that so that it can be somewhat beneficial to you. And please don’t feel any pressure to follow everything in it, to take any leadership positions due to expectations, or to have the same mission experiences as me. Our missions are totally different from each other. My only expectations, and I state them at the end of every letter I have sent you and will always send you and that is to work your butt off and enjoy every second of your short 2 year mission. OK, enough about that.

Troy wrote me the other day looking for Kyle’s phone numbers, so I think he’s going to call Kyle soon and talk missions. That’s cool for both of them. I’m excited for all of you guys that are out, and who are still going. What a great bunch of missionaries!!

What did you end up doing for New Years Eve? Did you have to be in early? We always had to be in early. I recorded a tape for the family from the roof of my Harlem Pad where you can hear gun shots and we could even see people firing off guns into the air from other roofs and from the streets. It was nuts. Did you hear that tape or remember it? What do they do out there to celebrate? We had neighbors here banging their pots and pans for old school sake I guess.

Today Brinlee started her dance class. She is pretty excited about it. I guess at first she was a little bit nervous, but it ended up pretty good. We’ll see how she does as the classes go on. She has some cute dance clothes too. A little pink leotard and pink tights and some black dancing shoes that look like a ballerina’s shoes.

Aynslee has a little eye goop going on. Either she has an eye infection or she has a clogged tear duct like Brinlee had on both eyes. We are hoping it’s just an eye infection since that was a surgical procedure to get Brinlee’s tear ducts fixed.

24 is starting next week with two nights straight of 2 hour episodes each night. So starting it off with a 4 hour bang. I’m excited about that. Speaking of TV, John and I are in the process of planning our superbowl party now. I guess Lynn Marie is coming over to scrapbook with Suzanne and Carrie and Jacque. Then we’ll play pool, snack our guts out and watch the game. I’m saying it will be New England and San Diego. We’ll have to see though.

I picked up a 500 GB external hard drive to back up my songs and pictures and documents. I feel much more at ease now since I have some serious time and money invested in my music on the hard drive. It will be nice and secure now on this back up drive. So I have almost a Terrabyte of storage now if I count my two hard drives and my back up external drive now. Well, Suzanne and I are headed out now, so I’ll finish this up tomorrow.

Eh Yo, back and now it’s Sunday at 1:20 PM. My court coaching went alright. I’m ready for this to be over with, however, there may not be a decision for 6 months to a year. Crazy huh? I’m watching some playoffs right now, it’s 4^th quarter in the Jets/Patriots game and Pats are up 29-16.

Suzanne and I went out last night to see the new Will Smith movie “the Pursuit of Happiness”. It’s a good show. Just stressful during the show, but pays off by the end. But I was so stressed out, I think I grew about 20 gray hairs in the movie. It was nice to get out and have a date with her alone for the first time in forever. Grandma & Grandpa Emery came over and watched the girls.

So you are probably getting sick of this by now, but I’m going to hit you up on the commitments thing again. Have you thought of anything to commit some peeps (Mom, Dad, Staci, Shelli, and me) on? I know you probably don’t think it would make much difference, but it does. Then follow up when you write now and then to see what kind of progress they are making. There are a couple of people who would really stand to gain a lot from that, that’s all I’ll say about that.

Time for your Mission Quote of the week. This has always been one of my favorite quotes on Missionary work for obvious reasons when you consider my main theme I write you about every week. Here you go…

“One of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work. If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people; and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry.

That’s the secret – work, work, WORK. There is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.”

- Ezra Taft Benson

On that note, I’ll wrap this up and go take a nap and get ready for the night game tonight (Giants/Eagles). I will have to get up early so I can be downtown at the court house by 8:00 AM tomorrow. Wish me luck. I’ll be anxiously waiting for your letter to come soon. Make sure to let me know what’s up with your investigators progress. It sounded like you had Trey pretty close. Anyone else? Keep hard at it. Work your butt off every minute you’ve got. Look at the promises of hard work by Ezra T. It sounds like you are already as you are getting E. Herbert ready to take over the area. Make sure you leave with a solid bang in that area. Leave your impression. Check that, leave your LEGACY. Leave everyone you work with such an impression that they will always talk about Elder Alexander for years to come.

Alright, I’ll catch you again next week.

Love and miss you. Our prayers are always with you as well.

Love,

T