5/20/07

Elder A,

What’s new this week? Anything good going on? It’s been a busy week for us. Just the typical work and trying to keep up on house hold stuff. I finally got my sprinklers turned on. It’s about time, right? It’s almost June for crying out loud. My grass is browning over pretty bad. But this should get it back to where it should be. Went and did my home teaching today. It was ward conference today too. Good meetings. I remember growing up with Ward Conference or Stake Conference meaning “church holiday” Woopty Woooooop!!! I talked to Chad’s dad and brother today. They were walking home from church and they were walking across the street from us as I was unloading Aynslee from the car. So I yelled across the street “Hi Brother’s Johnson”. Leon thought that was pretty funny for some reason. Anyway, Chad has been relocated from the Eastern seaboard to the Western side of the north island. It’s an area that hasn’t had missionaries for a few years now. So he’s re-opening it. So I gave them the run down on you too. We were just over at the Emery’s. Austin and I played some Halo for the first time in several months. He was showing me the new maps. There are a couple of new maps out. They gotta keep everyone’s interest up since Halo 3 comes out in September. Bedieu … who you played at his house that one time I think. You know, in my ward? He has the beta of it already, so he is going to own us when we finally all get it. Oh well. Austin whooped up on me 8-4. But that’s not bad since he’s been playing still and I haven’t played in months. Literally about 8 months ago. So I can hold my head up high.

I helped Neil move on Friday. I’ll tell you what, I’m not built like I used to be. I used to be able to heft the heaviest item in the house during a moving party almost by myself. Now I can barely squeeze a semi heavy item out with a partner. I’m feeling old, yo! I need to get working out! I need someone to motivate my bones.

So did you get both of my letters last week? How many copies of that letter from the week before did you get? Just wanted to make sure you got that letter. I felt bad that you didn’t get it that day you checked though. I always hated knowing a letter should have been there on a particular day and then it wasn’t.

How were your ZL trainings and how have your district meetings been going? You like your district? Good missionaries?

Oh, did you ever get that newspaper article about you guys? I looked on their site, but haven’t seen anything yet. What date if any was it on? I’ll keep looking just in case it’s still coming up.

I have my Pinewood derby this Friday. I haven’t even got my car yet. Dangit! I don’t even know where to buy the kits. I gotta get on that. I have a legacy to uphold. I have my 1983 1^st place winning trophy right here in front of me in fact. I wish I could find that car! We are doing a vintage class with a bunch of us who have won before who wanted a vintage grudge match. That would have been AWESOME! Oh well. I have to just build my own new one now. I don’t have long to do it either. I’ll let you know what happens by next letter.

So what’s up with the move by the church to put all missionaries in homes of members? That seems weird to me. I understand the cost savings, but I can also see more liabilities in certain ways too. When is this supposed to happen?

To answer your question about the test… I won’t be testing for anything else for a while. I may test for the SPHR in a few years. But for now, I’m just going to bask in my PHR certification. I can’t imagine going for the SPHR after all I went through to get the PHR. I actually had a job offer of sorts from Target to be an HR manager of their western states distribution center. I’d be over 15 employees and handling all HR functions. Problem is, it is in Pueblo, CO. So I told them no thanks. They almost had me convinced to come out to Pueblo, check things out and let them try to talk me into it, but I’d feel guilty knowing that I wouldn’t relocate. I’m just not in a hurry to get out of UT to live. The money would have been good though. But they just found my resume online and tracked me down on the phone a couple of times. I haven’t even dropped my certification on there yet.

I think I’m going to tap into some PMG for the first time tonight. What do you recommend? Get me a starting shove here and some direction on how to best utilize this bad boy. I’m kind of excited to get into something new other than HR related reading materials. Make sure you get on the rest of the family too. No laming out. They need to do it. If they lame out, they need to hear it just like any other investigator when they don’t pray, or read your assigned pages and what not. Of course with an increase of love afterward. But you know how we do.

So where are the latest pictures? I haven’t seen pics from you in a long time. The Blog is drying out for want of new pictures. See what you can do to get another card to me. You will be amazed that the 2 GB cards are way cheaper than your 1 GB card was when you left. You can get the 2 GB for like 30 bucks at Best Boy.

Time for the Quote of the week…

“You are going out on your mission, not merely to make friends for the Church, but to properly convert and baptize. The spirit of our work must be urgency, and we must imbue our missionaries with this spirit of “Now.” We are not justified in waiting for the natural, slow growth which would come with natural and easy proselyting. We believe that we must put our shoulder to the wheel, lengthen our stride, heighten our reach, increase our devotion so that we can do the work to which we have been assigned.”

- Spencer W. Kimball

I like this because it ties right in with that Henry B. Eyring talk from conference about procrastinating what we know we should do because we either get complacent, or we feel like it will come when it comes, or we say “I’ll get to it tomorrow” or other forms of putting off today what can be done tomorrow. Keep this message in mind this week as you go out and do the Lord’s work. Keep a sense of urgency with you at all times. This spirit of “Now” as Pres. Kimball puts it. Put your shoulder to the wheel, no matter how tired you get. Lengthen your stride, increase your devotion so that you can live up to the expectations the Lord, President Hobbs, Elder Gardner, your district, your family, etc. have all placed upon you.

I know you are already doing this, but I also know there is always room for improvement. Keep up the steady progression I have seen you doing Mike. I am so proud of what you have accomplished, continue to accomplish, and have yet to accomplish. Keep up the great work. You are a bona fide Stallion!

I love and miss you constantly. Have a great week! Talk to you next week.

Love,

Trav