03/10/07

Yo Elder A,

Supatchu? That is what I used to tell my cub Scouts who were all into Pokemon, is that my favorite Pokemon character was the rare and powerful Supatchu! They were always perplexed and told me that there was no such Pokemon but I always begged to differ. I think I caused countless hours of research since they thought he must be so rare and powerful, they MUST have him!! But never found him. Anyway, It was great to hear from you on Monday. That letter was seriously a big delicious meal that I had been craving for a while. All of the little appetizers you had been sending me for weeks prior were all forgotten as I ate till I was filled with the content of your last e-mail. I really did feel filled and content. I almost wanted to unbutton my pants and take a nap afterward. OK, too much visual there, but I really enjoyed it. I’ll respond to it shortly. But to address your challenge first and foremost. It’s funny when I read that because I was going to tell you in my last letter I sent you Sunday night, that I had gotten my hands on a Preach My Gospel finally. My EQ Pres. gave me a copy on Wednesday night when he was handing out some priesthood manuals. They had some extra goodies in the clerk’s office cupboard so he asked me if I wanted a PMG. I was like Heck ya foo! Hook me up! So I got one just before my challenge. I haven’t read it or even glanced over anything in there yet, so that will be my challenge now, to pour through it and glean some serious information from it. I’m excited to do it. It’s just that I’m so overwhelmed by the amounts of reading I have to do lately, that I am a little over-booked on my reading. So I’ll get to it as soon as I’m done with school which will be May 12^th. That’s when I take my final test that tells me if I am certified or not. I’m really not hopeful at all. Yikes!! But at least I have met the first part of your challenge and will keep harping on Ma and Pa and Stosh and Geegng.

I need to go to Mom’s and Dad’s house Saturday and Sunday to take care of the animals since they will be in Vegas all weekend at the NASCAR race. Yeah, they have tickets, I’m sure Dad has told you all about it already. So he is stoked. He talked Ma into is somehow and I think she’s actually excited now about it. I told him that you would be way jealous and Dad just said “WAY!!”. John was at our after blessing get together at our house for some light refreshment, there with LM making the introductions, and he and Dad got talking about NASCAR. John is a fan all the sudden too. So he is the lost son that I never became to Dad when it comes to NASCAR lovin’. My neck isn’t red enough to like it as much as Y’all. So that was good conversation for Dad and John. Well, I need to get my bones home. It’s 5:40 PM on Friday night and I’ve been at work far too long already. So I’ll e-mail this to myself so I can finish this letter this weekend and send it Sunday night as usual. But I needed to get a head start while I had some time after work. Going to be yet another busy weekend so I had to sneak in some writing now. The Girls are at Wheeler farm right now and have been at Gardner village before that. So it’s an Emery girl family outing with Patt, Monica, Suz and Brinlee, Carlie, Aynslee, and Davis. So I wasn’t in a hurry to get home since no one will be there anyway. I’ve had a rough week at work this week. Really busy and emotionally draining again with one of the pressmen who has nut cancer and is going through some rough times with that. He has a young family, and his wife doesn’t even know how serious it is because she is so depressed right now over just knowing about it. She’s seeing a psychiatrist about it and for some dumb reason, he recommended to this guy that he not tell her if it gets serious. WHAT? Where did this idiot get his degree and/or expertise? What a loser! So how much worse is it going to be when he goes in on the 15^th for his procedure (that his wife thinks is just exploratory) and ends up hacking away a huge portion of his junk and a bunch of his insides there where is spread and tells his wife that the outlook on a life much past 1 year is not good? Seriously! The whole thing is way sad, especially considering that he resigned and declined any FMLA or benefits that we were offering him. So now he’s on his own financially, can’t talk to anyone at work because he doesn’t want anyone but me knowing about it, he can’t talk to anyone in his family about it because he’s been told not to by some “professional” and he’s not thinking straight about turning down these benefits, but no matter how hard I have tried, he just won’t sign any paperwork. Now he’s gone and coming in on Monday to fill out a waiver saying he understands what he’s turning down and won’t hold us accountable since we tried out guts out to make him take his benefits. He’s the EQ pres. in his ward and I just don’t get why he’s acting this way because he’s even voiding his life insurance policy which will leave his family in a lurch. Oh well, I can’t concern myself anymore with it or I’ll get all depressed over it too and that’s now how I roll. K, I’m off for home…

Back home now. It’s 8:00 PM, so I’ll start responding to your e-mail now…

Oh, I posted E. Van Leeuwen’s bio on your blog. I also put a countdown timer on there which is cool as jive. It counts days, hours, minutes, seconds and Milli-seconds. Ha ha ha. It’s cool. I liked your story about looking for the LA’s house and finding that lady. Sounds like she was prepared eh? How is that going now?

Did you ever get my pics I sent to the mission home a while back? I don’t think I heard back on that. They better have gotten to you. I sent them just before you got transferred so that’s why I sent them to the mission home, since I suspected you’d be going. But let me know.

Good to hear you are doing better in your journal. How are the Parker© ink units doing? I can send some more anytime that are just sitting here. So make sure you let me know. You also have more mission journals waiting for you on your shelf in your room. I just noticed those when I was over there a couple of times ago. So apparently Ma and Pa bought you some too, so you best be for filling that thing up so you can get more mission journals and Parker© refills sent out to you. Congratulations on bringing more souls to the knowledge of Parker©. It sounds like you are having much success and my heart glories in your successes, no matter what it is you are converting people to out there. What do you hear from P-Diddy? How are his efforts in Oregon? And how is his Patented Parker© writing system working out for him? I just checked out the Parker site and found the next line of Parker I’ll be picking up. I’ll have to keep my eye out next time I’m in one of the 4 stores it’s sold in around SLC.

It sounds like you are really getting along with E. Van Leeuwen, eh? It’s always so good when you get a great comp. that you really like and really click with. It makes a huge difference in your teaching, in your work, in everything. In fact, I’m selecting this week’s quote based on a good companionship relationship.

“I hope you and your companion are true to each other. I hope you draw close to each other as companions, that you uphold and sustain each other before the Saints, before our friends, before the world. When you reach the point where you can enjoy and rejoice in the success of your companion, even when that success exceeds your own, then you have got the real missionary spirit, the real unselfish spirit of love, the spirit of the gospel.”

- Ezra Taft Benson

I was going to expound on that, but I think it speaks for itself and I really can’t add something to a Prophet of God’s quote when he pretty much said it all there. But try to get to that level with every companion you have after your current comp. Even if you don’t like them as much as you like someone you have had or have currently, still follow this advice and you will achieve tons of success and see many blessings because of it.

I’m really digging my new calling as EQ Secretary. I get to know everything that is going on and have none of the responsibility. Ha ha ha. That’s not true. I am being kept super busy by it, but it’s a great kind of busy. My presidency meetings have been awesome. The spirit is always so strong in there and the things that we discuss are lead by the spirit and inspired and it’s stunning to me to realize it when I feel it and hear some of the things we are discussing and the plans we are making. It’s the same kind of awe that I haven’t felt in much abundance since my mission unfortunately. But I love to be in that zone again where I feel the spirit, go with it, say things that truly are inspired and acknowledge the wisdom and inspiration of other comments by the counselor and president of the quorum when they are sharing certain things. I’m super motivated by that right now. I actually need to work on some EQ stuff tonight in fact, but I better go up and help put the girls to bed first. It is 8:44 now and I have spent more time down here on this letter than I planned on. Back in a while…

OK, back. It’s 11:00 AM Saturday morning. I have Matty Cakes coming over to bring some mission pics for the Blog. I still have about half of everyone to go on the mission profiles. That’s one of the most popular things on there that people like to read and see.

Now it’s 10:22 PM Saturday night. I am just listening to some music and taking a load off from reading my homework. I am so overloaded with information, I don’t know how I’m going to keep it all straight. Anyway, Suzanne and I went out tonight to Iggy’s in Jordan Landing. It was good. It’s the first time we’ve both eaten in there. Just thought we’d try something different. Brinlee stayed home with a girl in our ward that she adores. So that cost me an extra 10 spot, but it was fun to get out. We had Aynslee which was weird since I was already paying a babysitter, but what can you do when the boss wants the baby with us? Then we went to the Circ (Arctic Circle) to get ice cream cones. Those were good. Then over to Ma’s and Pa’s to feed Abs, the Fish and check on the cats. Then we went to Sam’s club to buy a pallet of Turlet Paper and other sundry items. That’s how we rock date night now that we are old. Nah’m-sayin’?!

Now it’s 9:00 PM Sunday night. I had good meetings at church and even better meetings at our Priesthood leadership meeting tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever been to one of those before, but I was very much edified and spiritually rejuvenated. The main talk was on Elder Bednar’s talk before he was ELDER Bednar, but the president of BYU Idaho. And it was on the Enabling power of the Atonement. It was good. Then we had some break out meetings where those over the Aaronic Priesthood quorums met in the Chapel, those over the High Preists and Elder’s quorums met in the Relief society room, Clerks met somewhere, and the Bishops met in the Stake Presidents office. That meeting was good too. After our meetings, the EQ Pres. And I went to Jordan Valley hospital to see one of our Elders who has Pneumonia. His story is cool. He is sort of my kitty corner neighbor, who I used to see out there smoking in front of his garage all the time. His home teacher was relentless about never missing a month with them and brought his A-game lessons. He eventually decided that he and his wife wanted to come back to church. When I saw him there the first week, I was all about the fellowshipping and making friendly so he felt welcome every week. He was showered with that kind of welcoming by several of the elders in the quorum. He and his wife just about 2 weeks ago went through the temple to be sealed. So now the family is all happy and on fire spiritually. We just made him the committee head of the Redeem the Dead committee in the EQ. Anyway, he has had pneumonia since August and it finally nailed him and he’s been in the hospital since Friday. So TJ (EQ Pres) and I went to visit him. So I’m really enjoying my calling so far.

I was going to address one more topic before I “peace out” as you call it. I read your last two letters over at Ma’s and Pa’s which were good. There was one part of the 2^nd to last one that you mentioned you had been chastised and that Mom’s and Dad’s and My chastising cuts you to the core or something like that. I hope that I have not overstepped my bounds at any point. I have never meant to chastise really in any letter. I wonder if it was when I was talking about the dude who was flipping a bird for the camera and my feelings about missionaries conducting themselves in that manner. Not sure. I asked dad if he has chastised you and he wasn’t sure. But anyway, I know that dad can throw a javelin through your heart when you least expect it like our homie Teancum has been known to do. I hope if I have come across as chastising that it wasn’t harsh, but I feel like I am not a person in any position to chastise you. My point is, I always hated getting chastised by dad, but I always learned something from it and tried to apply it. I think the reason I hated it is because I thought I was doing so great most of the time and the humbling effects actually pained me to feel. But I think about chastising examples from the scriptures and they always turn out as a great step forward for whoever it was who experienced it. I look at the Brother of Jared when he was chastised in Ether 2:14 for not praying. What happened there? He was chastised by the Lord himself for 3 HOURS!!!! I think I always read that and many other examples of the Lord chastening his servants as cruel and unusual, but the more I feel chastened by the Lord as I go through life, I feel his love and his pattern of showing an increase of love afterward. I bet you that those 3 hours were actually some of the most uplifting and inspirational 3 hours the Brother of Jared ever had in his life! I think anytime Dad has lectured on something, I know he does so with love. I hope that if and when I throw a little chastisement to whomever I do, I can do so only when moved upon by the spirit and that I can show an increase of love afterward and make them come away from it feeling better than they went into it. I hope it’s the same way with you, that you feel the concern and love from whoever you get the chastisement from, be it Mom, Dad, or me, or whoever. I don’t write all this because I think it concerned you or bugged you. I can tell that you took it all well and learned from whatever. I think you were just saying, don’t think I don’t listen to your counsel, because you do, etc. I just wanted to give you my perspective from what I have seen with Dad and his chastisement. Whether it’s you, Shelli, Staci, or me, he and mom both do so out of pure concern and love. I think it’s hard to express all of the feelings in letters though, especially that increase in love afterward. So hopefully you are feeling it, because it’s there, whether it gets conveyed in the letters or not. And not like you give us hardly any reason to chastise anyway. You are doing such a great job out there and you have proved your character in so many ways and at such a young age, it boggles my mind. It amazes me the age we are sent out on missions. We think we have it all figured out, but man, we are still so young and inexperienced and have so much more to learn, but I think that’s exactly why we are sent at 19. What a beneficial learning experience a mission is every day of those 2 years. You will be blown away at your own development by the time you come home. You may or may not see it because you are seeing it every day, but the weekly letters we get and the things we all hear amaze us at what kind of person you are becoming and the things you are doing.

Keep making us all proud and doing the work you have been called to do. Magnify your work in every way.

Brinlee is going to work on a letter for you tomorrow. She will draw you some pictures and tell you what she’s been up to lately. So look forward to that. Maybe we will send that on soon with your picture card now that I’m done with that.

We love and miss you. Keep up the hard work and write back soon. Let us know everything that’s going on with your investigators and companion and area, etc. We look forward to your letters every week.

Talk to you soon.

Love,

Trav