Clint Emery's Mission Bio

It's about time we got back into the mission bios of friends and family. I will have to start harassing people again unless you e-mail me some pictures and some facts and memories of your missions if you have not been featured already.

This time we are reading about Clint Emery.

Mission: Canada, Edmonton Mission 2002-2004

Memories: Has seen the Northern Lights, wild caribou and worked in -42 degrees C temperatures. They would still see snow in the city in July. He was teaching a Filipino lady who would get the goose bumps every time she touched the Book of Mormon.

Facts: Edmonton is big on... well... Bigness. They have had the record for size for the following: world's biggest Pirogi on a fork, world's biggest Easter Egg, worlds biggest duck and world's biggest sausage. All things to be very proud of, I'm sure. And finally, per capita they had the largest number of different churches to number of people around anywhere. 14 different denominations for 2000 people in the city.

pre-mission picture

In the mission home with the President and his wife

Tracting was slow, so he devised a new way to get more investigators

That is one sweet ride Elder!


Update to the family around September 11th, 2001

6/25/07

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, You Bahhhhhhhhhhh

It’s been a while since we said that, eh? How has your week been this week? Any good action to report on? Sorry that I’m getting around to this so late this week. It’s 6:55 AM on Monday morning. I hurried and got up, got Aynslee’s bottles made and Brinlee dressed and Aynslee fed, and now I’m hurrying to get your letter done before I have to help the girls out to the car to go to school. So I might keep this short, just so I can get it off to you before you begin checking e-mail.

Did you ever use those additional gospel jeopardy games in your District meetings or for any other occasion? Just curious how everyone did with them.

Let me jump into your last letter here before I get much farther. Yeah, Alex tossin’ his hot dog was about gross. Little fella walks right up in front of me and starts gagging. I’m looking at him like, kid can’t breathe. But Staci is sitting right next to me and Josh not 2 steps off and neither one of them seem concerned. He keeps gagging and clearly is not catching a breath. I finally reach over to him ready to give him the old back slap or quick Heimlich or something and his body finally takes care of business for us and chucks the last two Red Flame jumbo style hot dogs he has eaten already and up it came. Like a bubbling stream of hot dog chunks flowing gracefully out of his mouth and onto the deck. I looked down at my half eaten hot dog as I’m smelling the acidic smell of stomach gall mixed with hot dog. I shrugged it off, tried to enjoy my hotdog again, but it just wasn’t the same. Staci was trying to clean it up, but it was more just smearing chewed up (larger than expected chunks of hotdog for a little kid) bits of hotdog and juice all over the deck.

I’m looking forward to seeing that box you sent home (or are sending home?) soon. Did you already send it? Does it have a picture card in it? We went to Beth’s for the annual big family summer BBQ bash over there. It was fun to see everyone again. Everyone was talking about your blog and how it’s great to stay up on your progress there. I thanked everyone, but I haven’t done an update in a couple of weeks. I put one up yesterday finally just because I felt bad about slacking. But I have had a hard time finding entries to get in there lately. A lot of the blog worthy material has been in Mom’s and Dad’s letters, so I told them to make sure to send that stuff to me when they see good stuff in their letters. When I read those letters, I’m usually at a place like Beth’s reading a brought letter and I don’t have anything to take notes and I don’t want to go off memory, and I have to give the letter back before I leave, so I told them just to send me an e-mail with the good stuff in there. We’ll see if they do that soon. This week’s entry was your account of peeps down there talking Mitt Romney with you. So I had some decent stuff to throw down. But your letters that have the spiritual accounts of what you have been up against, or what you have been blessed with lately is what kills. So keep those up and send some pics soon. Your fan club starves for pics. I got some great feedback from everyone at the BBQ though. I got a little embarrassed as everyone kept raving about it. Beth wants to pay me to build one just like it for Parker. I told her I’ll just send her the code for the template, she can build around that and keep it up herself. She was more interested in just paying me to do it. Ha ha.

Interesting that you run into a bunch of Evangelicals down there. I’m glad to hear that everyone seems to like Mitt pretty well. He is winning most of the straw polls that they have been conducting which is a good sign. He was my second and maybe even third candidate before the last couple of weeks and he has since taken the lead in my book. I think I’m going to vote for him. I have gained a lot of respect for him lately with some of the stuff he has been saying and doing. So I’ll probably have to rally around the Mitt flag now.

Interesting facts about Joseph Smith you put in here. I didn’t know that about how much he knew about all the creation or about if he wrote it all down, how long it would be. Very interesting. Again, you amaze me at how much you know and how fast you are learning it.

That’s cool you are staying in Lincolnton for another transfer. Do you think you will leave this coming transfer then? On your birthday huh? That’s kind of a cool day for a transfer. It’s crazy to me how long y’all stay in your areas out there. I was 4 months in every area with two exceptions. I was 3 months in Midtown Manhattan and 7 months in Greenwhich, CT. as much as I loved City work the best, I couldn’t have gotten out of Midtown sooner and I couldn’t have stayed longer in CT. It worked out kind of cool that way.

Well, that’s it for your letter. Let me give you the quote of the week and I might need to send this off. I’m up against it here when you will be checking your e-mail. It’s 7:21 so it’s 9:21 your time and I’m guessing you will be there soon. Let me hurry and try to find something…

I’m going with this one based on your latest experience with the guy who called his pastor over. What a chicken. Funny how they do that though. But I appreciated how well you handled that situation, as fun as it is to bash with folk. That was an appropriate response and well executed according to how the Savior would have done it.

“Go in all meekness, in sobriety, and preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified; not to contend with others on account of their faith, or systems of religion, but pursue a steady course. Those who do, shall always be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

-Joseph Smith

Well, Mike, it’s time to send this off. It’s almost 9:30 your time now, and I better get ready for the day myself. So enjoy the rest of your P-day, enjoy the rest of your week. May it be fruitful and educational. May you find the elect people prepared for you and Elder Gardner. Don’t let that preparation go to waste. Get out there and do your part – seeking inspiration and guidance from the Holy Ghost to find them where they wait. I love you, I miss you, I’m constantly inspired by you and above all, I’m proud of you like you wouldn’t believe. Thanks for being that shining example for all of us in the family. We all appreciate it and need it more than you can know.

Work hard!

Love,

Trav

How Mitt Romney is affecting missionary work

I sent this article written about Mitt Romney to Mike last week and asked him how his run at the presidency is affecting missionary work. I will paste in his response at the end of this article...

Mitt Romney Not Our Pastor-in-Chief by Nancy French Wednesday, May 23, 2007

There's a question I'm often asked by my closest friends and casual acquaintances alike: "How could a committed Christian like you support a Mormon for president?"

I get that question a lot as co-founder of the Evangelicals for Mitt organization - especially now that Rev. Al Sharpton has apparently taken it upon himself to question the validity of Mitt Romney's faith.
In fact, the news that I'm supporting Romney for president recently brought one of my Christian friends to tears - she couldn't understand it.
The mainstream media often seems as incredulous as my friend. They maintain that Romney has no chance in the Bible Belt, due to the differences between the Mormon faith and mainstream Christianity. But my emotional friend's reaction notwithstanding, the media have it wrong.
Let me explain why. To paraphrase Jerry Falwell, I wouldn't want Gov. Romney as my Sunday school teacher, but that's not the office he's running for. The fact is, we're not electing a Pastor-in-Chief. Voters who care about traditional values are smart enough to keep that in mind.

In countless conversations with Southern evangelicals, here are the questions asked most frequently:

Can Evangelicals and Mormons really work together and trust each other?
The fact is that in spite of our theological differences, Christians and Mormons are already political allies. In fact, if Mormons weren't consistently more conservative than their evangelical neighbors, Al Gore would be America's president now - instead of his newfound role as the earth's "weather psychic."

Does believing "Mormon stuff" make Romney gullible? All religions require a leap of faith that appears silly to outsiders. If a reporter questioned me about my religion, he'd raise an eyebrow over my belief that Noah was a floating zookeeper, that Jesus was the best sommelier in Galilee, and that he paid taxes with coins from a fish's mouth.

No one belongs to the Church of the Scientific Method, so religion falls outside normal reasoning. Gov. Romney's beliefs certainly require faith - including his quite miraculous notion that Jesus is his personal Savior.
In my experience, evangelicals loathe religious litmus tests, ever since Democrats tried to disqualify Christian and Catholic judges because of their beliefs. And as far as gullible goes, well, don't forget: Mitt Romney has two Harvard degrees.

Is America ready for a Mormon president? If someone asked me whether I'd support a "former alcoholic," a "divorced Hollywood actor," or a "Southern Baptist," I'd pick the "Baptist" every time. However, when actual names are associated with the traits, I'd pick the former alcoholic (George W. Bush) or actor (Ronald Reagan) over the Baptist (Bill Clinton) faster than you can say "Lewinsky."

The point is, individual personalities matter. As America learns more about Gov. Romney, his political triumphs will overshadow his religion. For example, after brazen judges legalized homosexual "marriage," he stopped Massachusetts from becoming "gay Las Vegas" by refusing to marry out-of-state gay couples.
He also erased a $3 billion dollar debt without raising taxes, and has forcefully advocated pro-life positions. In other words, the question isn't whether we're ready for a Mormon, but are we ready for this Mormon.
What about Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee? John Mark Reynolds wrote that "my faith in the holiness standards of Baptists survived Clinton and my belief in their sanity survived Carter, though that was a closer call."
But Gov. Huckabee doesn't deserve to be tainted by the dubious political legacy of recent Baptist leaders - i. e. Clinton's moral failure, Carter's weak foreign policy, Johnson's social programs, and Gore's use of the word "lock box." Evangelicals evaluate candidates on their political merits and don't vote for the "most Christian" person on the ballot. (Note the Oval Office absence of Alan Keyes.)

Doesn't theology matter? Of course it matters! If a candidate belonged to the "Church of Killing Canadians," to use an absurd illustration, voters would rightly ask whether he planned on invading Canada and stealing their moose. Some theologies do lead to flawed political decisions . But Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity have common moral and, therefore, political values.
In fact, the only difference between a Mormon and a Presbyterian at a cocktail party is the Mormon isn't getting a chardonnay refill. Perhaps someone less scandalous than Ward Cleaver is just what a Mark Foley/Ted Haggard fatigued nation needs.

How many "first ladies" will Mitt bring to the White House? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gave up polygamy in 1890. In fact, the polygamists and their bun-wearing wives on Dateline are as realistic a portrayal of Mormons as mountain-dwelling snake handlers are of evangelicalism. Romney's been married to the same woman for 38 years - while Rudy Giuliani walked down the aisle three times, John McCain twice, and Newt Gingrich three times. As Kate O'Beirne recently noted, the only GOP frontrunner with one wife is the Mormon.
Are you really a Christian? Please: I've eaten countless unidentifiable casseroles at potlucks and I've sung "Just As I Am" 73 million times. I just so happen to support Mitt Romney for President - in spite of our theological differences. I happen to think it's more "Christian" to give the man a fair shake, than to pave the way for candidates without a commitment to social issues.
I'm apparently not alone - donors in Tennessee gave more money to Romney than any other candidate. Plus, he beat all current GOP candidates in straw polls in Memphis, Washington, D. C., and even Greenville, S. C. He's also garnered endorsements by prominent evangelicals like Jay Sekulow, Mark DeMoss, and Hugh Hewitt.

Most importantly, though, the mere mention of his name makes the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the mainstream media break out into hives. That, of course, is enough to make any evangelical put aside theological differences, and take notice.

Nancy French is co-founder of www. EvangelicalsforMitt. org and the author of "Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle"

Mike's reply:

We actually do hear quite a bit about Mitt Romney running for president, most people down here are of the same opinion as the lady that wrote that article, which is pretty good actually. when we are tracting, once in a while some guy will ask us if we are voting for Mitt, hahaha. And then they'll tell us that he's their man for the job and talk about politics and all that stuff. One guy, as we were leaving yelled out to us: "Vote for Mitt!" hahahaha. but we haven't run into any body thats really ragged on Mitt Romney surprisingly, there are really a lot fo people here in the south that like him. so thats pretty cool. And yes, we run into Evangelicals all the time, the other day we were tracting and just about everyone was watching the funeral for Billy Grahams wife on TV, hahaha, it was on ALL the channels down here.

6/17/07

E. Babs,

It’s Saturday night at 11:12 PM, we just got home from Ma’s and Pa’s for Padres day festivities. Everyone was there, including Ron and Marian and family, and Grandpa. I guess we were missing Don and family since he was in Atlanta with his family for father’s day. But a good time was had by all. I got hooked up with a sweet outdoor folding chair with accompanying footrest from mom and dad. It was nice. I read your last letter you sent to dad for father’s day. I should throw some of that in your blog. I haven’t updated your blog in quite a while. I need some blog worthy stories or experiences or pictures. So send me some good scoop soon!

I got sent this e-mail about Mitt Romney the other day and thought you might be interested in it in case anyone hits you up on the mormon running for president out there.

Seems you might run into some Evangelicals possibly, do you? Check this out:

Mitt Romney Not Our Pastor-in-Chief by Nancy French Wednesday, May 23,
2007

There's a question I'm often asked by my closest friends and casual acquaintances alike: "How could a committed Christian like you support a Mormon for president?"

I get that question a lot as co-founder of the Evangelicals for Mitt organization - especially now that Rev. Al Sharpton has apparently taken it upon himself to question the validity of Mitt Romney's faith.
In fact, the news that I'm supporting Romney for president recently brought one of my Christian friends to tears - she couldn't understand it.
The mainstream media often seems as incredulous as my friend. They maintain that Romney has no chance in the Bible Belt, due to the differences between the Mormon faith and mainstream Christianity. But my emotional friend's reaction notwithstanding, the media have it wrong.
Let me explain why. To paraphrase Jerry Falwell, I wouldn't want Gov.
Romney as my Sunday school teacher, but that's not the office he's running for. The fact is, we're not electing a Pastor-in-Chief. Voters who care about traditional values are smart enough to keep that in mind.

In countless conversations with Southern evangelicals, here are the questions asked most frequently:

Can Evangelicals and Mormons really work together and trust each other?
The
fact is that in spite of our theological differences, Christians and Mormons are already political allies. In fact, if Mormons weren't consistently more conservative than their evangelical neighbors, Al Gore would be America's president now - instead of his newfound role as the earth's "weather psychic."

Does believing "Mormon stuff" make Romney gullible? All religions require a leap of faith that appears silly to outsiders. If a reporter questioned me about my religion, he'd raise an eyebrow over my belief that Noah was a floating zookeeper, that Jesus was the best sommelier in Galilee, and that he paid taxes with coins from a fish's mouth.

No one belongs to the Church of the Scientific Method, so religion falls outside normal reasoning. Gov. Romney's beliefs certainly require faith
-
including his quite miraculous notion that Jesus is his personal Savior.
In
my experience, evangelicals loathe religious litmus tests, ever since Democrats tried to disqualify Christian and Catholic judges because of their beliefs. And as far as gullible goes, well, don't forget: Mitt Romney has two Harvard degrees.

Is America ready for a Mormon president? If someone asked me whether I'd support a "former alcoholic," a "divorced Hollywood actor," or a "Southern Baptist," I'd pick the "Baptist" every time. However, when actual names are associated with the traits, I'd pick the former alcoholic (George W.
Bush)
or actor (Ronald Reagan) over the Baptist (Bill Clinton) faster than you can say "Lewinsky."

The point is, individual personalities matter. As America learns more about Gov. Romney, his political triumphs will overshadow his religion. For example, after brazen judges legalized homosexual "marriage," he stopped Massachusetts from becoming "gay Las Vegas" by refusing to marry out-of-state gay couples.
He also erased a $3 billion dollar debt without raising taxes, and has forcefully advocated pro-life positions. In other words, the question isn't whether we're ready for a Mormon, but are we ready for this Mormon.
What about Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee? John Mark Reynolds wrote that "my faith in the holiness standards of Baptists survived Clinton and my belief in their sanity survived Carter, though that was a closer call."
But
Gov. Huckabee doesn't deserve to be tainted by the dubious political legacy of recent Baptist leaders - i. e. Clinton's moral failure, Carter's weak foreign policy, Johnson's social programs, and Gore's use of the word "lock box." Evangelicals evaluate candidates on their political merits and don't vote for the "most Christian" person on the ballot. (Note the Oval Office absence of Alan Keyes.)

Doesn't theology matter? Of course it matters! If a candidate belonged to the "Church of Killing Canadians," to use an absurd illustration, voters would rightly ask whether he planned on invading Canada and stealing their moose. Some theologies do lead to flawed political decisions . But Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity have common moral and, therefore, political values.
In fact, the only difference between a Mormon and a Presbyterian at a cocktail party is the Mormon isn't getting a chardonnay refill. Perhaps someone less scandalous than Ward Cleaver is just what a Mark Foley/Ted Haggard fatigued nation needs.

How many "first ladies" will Mitt bring to the White House? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gave up polygamy in 1890. In fact, the polygamists and their bun-wearing wives on Dateline are as realistic a portrayal of Mormons as mountain-dwelling snake handlers are of evangelicalism. Romney's been married to the same woman for 38 years - while Rudy Giuliani walked down the aisle three times, John McCain twice, and Newt Gingrich three times. As Kate O'Beirne recently noted, the only GOP frontrunner with one wife is the Mormon.
Are you really a Christian? Please: I've eaten countless unidentifiable casseroles at potlucks and I've sung "Just As I Am" 73 million times. I just so happen to support Mitt Romney for President - in spite of our theological differences. I happen to think it's more "Christian" to give the man a fair shake, than to pave the way for candidates without a commitment to social issues.
I'm apparently not alone - donors in Tennessee gave more money to Romney than any other candidate. Plus, he beat all current GOP candidates in straw polls in Memphis, Washington, D. C., and even Greenville, S. C. He's also garnered endorsements by prominent evangelicals like Jay Sekulow, Mark DeMoss, and Hugh Hewitt.

Most importantly, though, the mere mention of his name makes the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the mainstream media break out into hives. That, of course, is enough to make any evangelical put aside theological differences, and take notice.

Nancy French is co-founder of www. EvangelicalsforMitt. org and the author of "Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle"

Back to me now…

I have been watching my favorite summer time show lately, “So You Think You Can Dance”. I have Suzanne into it now too. Brinlee loves it as much as last year. She has been picking up some sweet dance moves from it. She amazes me sometimes with what she picks up and does. She’s a cute little girl!

Grandpa and I got into a doctrinal discussion tonight that was nice. We haven’t delved deep into the doctrines in a long time together. I always liked going there with gramps. I started it because the stars came out while we were sitting out on the deck and I asked if he ever heard of Joseph Smith saying that if you look just beyond the 7 sisters of Cassiopeia you were looking nigh unto Kolob. He hadn’t heard that but said that some dude he knew once said if you look just near the north star, you were looking at where Zion or the City of Enoch was relocated to. I said, Huh, I always thought it was taken up to heaven. Grandpa said, yeah, I did too. I asked where this dude got his information and he didn’t know, so I’m not buying that one. But then we got talking about the universe, science, what has been revealed to each prophet of each dispensation like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joseph Smith, we speculated Lehi too would be a prophet of a dispensation, and what they knew about the universe. You want to weigh in on any of that?

Oh, I was getting a headache there at Mom’s so I asked if she had any Excedrin. She didn’t, but she gave me some asprin and some tylonol since it’s all the same anyway. I took two aspirins and they both lodged in my throat hard core. I couldn’t breathe because my choke reflex kicked in. I started swilling water and it wouldn’t come out. I tried to choke, but all my air was already out and I couldn’t take any in. I started chugalugging the water again and finally got it down, but I think one of the aspirins lodged on my Hein ledge and burned it’s way into my skin. I have had bad acid feelings there all night like I have bad acid reflux that won’t leave that area of my throat. It’s misery I tell ya. I bring that up now, because even at 11:30 PM, it’s still buggerin’ bad and I can’t make it stop. I think it scratched my throat and burned some acid in there. I can’t drink enough water to ease the feeling.

I don’t think I told you that I got recruited out of the blue from Target to take an HR executive job in Pueblo, CO a while ago. I told them no since it would require a relocation to Pueblo and I’m not hip to leaving Utah. Well, they have circled back around and have sweetened the pot and so I interviewed over the phone and passed the first interview. The second one is Monday with some other Executives of the corporation. I still don’t think I’ll accept if and when they offer, but it will be interesting to see what I can negotiate them up to anyway and possibly use that as leverage for FranklinCovey. It would be interesting to see if they offered me a wage I couldn’t refuse too. But I’m getting the cart before the horse here. I am no where near an offer yet and I still don’t think I’d ever consider leaving Utah. But I’ll update you as that goes on.

You hear about that Utah lady who moved from West Jordan to Raleigh, NC a year ago and was found murdered in her car at a convenient store at 4:00 AM last week? She was 8 months pregnant too. She was doing a paper route to earn extra money while her husband was getting established in his job out there. Pretty sad. They haven’t caught the killer yet either. Bummer. I hope they catch him and fry him for it.

Well, it’s 11:40 PM and I’m dog tired. I’m going to hit the sack for tonight and finish this up tomale. Check you then.

Yo, I’m back and now it’s 10:25 PM on Sunday night. I can’t seem to get to letter writing any earlier with all the goings on of the day. So sorry that I’m always tired by the time I get to talking to you. We did Father’s Day stuff over at the Emery’s tonight. We took a long mother of a walk and I got grumpy about it. I don’t like walks to begin with, I don’t like them even worse if it’s with 23 people all in a row. I asked the whole fam damily if next time we should construct a float that half of us can ride on and throw out some candy to those who gather to wave at us as we go. Anyway, now we are home, it’s the beginning of another work week that will keep me plenty busy and what more can I say about that?

On to respond to your letter… Your views on Golf were mine exactly when I was your age and on my mission. I never liked golf, clear up till I came home and even like 2, 3, 4 years later, I don’t remember what it was. In fact, I was even married at the time and I still shared the same views on golf. Then finally had enough people pressuring me to go with them and showed me a few pointers and I have loved it ever since. I won’t ever be a pro or anything, but I can hang with anyone I play with and that comes in handy when we do it for work, or tournaments that go on in part because of work. It is true that most big business deals are done on the golf course. So you can knock it as much as you want, it won’t bother me, since I bet eventually you will take it up. We’ll see, eh?

So why was your bishop sketchy on the missionaries before you got there? Bad experiences before? That’s good that you are repairing those feelings and building that trust again. Hopefully you will establish a tradition of excellence that can be lived up by those that come after you. So have transfer calls happened now? What’s going on with that? That’s too bad about your investigator that had a testimony of the BofM, but crapped out on baptism. Sounds like her minister got to her or something. You guys have a great attitude about bearing through the discouragement though. I’m sure you have already began reaping the blessings from that.

Sounds like interviews were good as always and that Pres. Hobbs has a ton of trust and respect for you. I love that you are so humble about all of it and Pres. Hobbs recognizes the humility. The best missionaries are the ones with the most humility. That brings me to the quote of the week and then I better peace it out for the week.

“The Lord has not chosen the great and learned of the world to perform his work on the earth but humble men and women devoted to His cause, men and women who are willing to be led and guided by the Holy Spirit, and who will of necessity give the glory unto Him knowing that of themselves they can do nothing.”

-Lorenzo Snow

That says it all right there. We have discussed this before, maybe in your leadership epistle. But regardless, it’s worth one more mention since you exercise your humility very well. Keep that up, keep up all the hard work. Keep bustin’ butt despite the discouragement and keep in the back of your mind that the Lord gives you those discouraging events to strengthen you further, build your character, increase your faith, and to teach you lessons that you will relate back to your mission on countless times after you are home. What a great experience and blessing to be on a mission right now. Your Awesome Mike! I love you and I’m proud to be your brother and friend. I can’t wait to hear from you tomorrow.

Love and miss you every day.

Trav

6/10/07

Greetings again young Elder,

It’s letter time again. It’s 4:00 PM Sunday. Just got home from Church, grilled up some Steaks on the grill and got to thinking about nap time soon. But better get this started so it’s up and ready for me to finish by later tonight. I finished up some Home Teaching interviews today after church. Still not sure why I’m doing that as a Secretary, but it’s all good. They have been cool to do. Get a feel for the families, get a feel for the companionships, see what I can do for them, offer a little counsel and then send them off with a prayer for their success and for inspiration for their stewardship.

Yesterday I went up to the Homestead and played in a golf tournament on their course. Wow, that was nice up there. It’s normally 90 bucks a person to play that course. Not only did we get a free round of golf, they fed us the best lunch I’ve had in a LONG time with awesome chicken breast, an amazing pulled pork sandwich, some yummy BBQ beans, this tasty pasta with tomato, mushrooms, artichokes, and some good sauce to go on it. Some pink lemonade and an assortment of cookies and brownies. We all got free hats, sleeve of Nike Distance balls, a Support our Troops bracelet, and free snack cart vouchers for when that rolled around. They also gave away thousands of dollars in prizes away. It was pretty amazing. I’m going to make that a tradition every year for sure. I didn’t go last year, but now that I know what I missed, I won’t ever miss that again. We played pretty well too. We ended up 1 under and I almost got the closest to the pin contest, missed by about 2 feet is all. That’s where you tee off and can pretty much hit the green from where you are, in this case it was almost 200 feet away and way downhill from us. I hit a soft 9 iron and it wasn’t quite enough, but it hit the cart path by the green, took a nice bounce and flopped just 2 feet shy of the best ball all day prior to us. Dags! Then I missed the longest drive by about 10 feet. I had been crushing it all day and this time, I got out one of my free Nike Distance balls since I had been playing with my cheapos, and full on killed it again, my longest drive by far of the day. Everyone in my group and the one next to us all said, “Oh, you won it right there”. But then we got up there and the sign from the previous longest shot was about 10 feet further. Holy cow some dude launched it! Oh well, I made a worthy effort anyway. It was beautiful up there. I can see why it’s so expensive to play on that course. All of our golf carts had big GPS screens on them too that showed you exact distance from tee box to the pin, from you and all the other golf cars on the course, gave pointers on where to hit it because of slopes and water hazards we may not have seen with the naked eye, out of bounds, etc. So that was cool to play with those. You kept your score on those too so you could watch a real time leader board. Pretty amazing!

Aynslee has been jumping in her jumper lately and really likes that. Brinlee has been carrying on pretty creative conversations. She has a pretty involved imagination.

I can’t believe I never got the newspaper article. What’s up with that? Did you send it to my house? I never got any kind of envelope or anything.

So how is that lady that you are trying to help her kick smoking and stuff? Any progress with her? She committed to baptism? How did E. Gardner like doing the commitment? How does he like Senior comp. duties? How were your interviews with Pres. Hobbs? Good as usual? Did you already get transfer calls? How long have you been with E. Gardner? Did you write Chad yet? You’ll have to let me know when you hear back from him. Give me some conversation fodder for my chats with Leon on Sundays. I think Chad’s brother is up in Washington now. He wasn’t at church, so I think he’s up there for the summer now.

Time for the quote of the week. Not much on my mind for topic, so I’m just going to throw this one in here.

“I challenge you to enjoy your call and to magnify it completely. Be happy and joyful in the service of the Lord. Love missionary work with all your heart. I promise you that as you magnify your call this will be the sweetest and most glorious experience you have had.”

-Ezra Taft Benson

Every week I hear from you, you let us all know that you are doing exactly that. You are happy and joyful as you are in the service of the Lord. You love missionary work, you are passionate about it and magnify it in everything that you do. You also recognize what blessings come from that kind of diligent work. Keep that up Mike. We are all so proud of you. We love to sit around and talk about you. Dad was telling me that he wished he was the missionary that I was and I reflected back to him that I wished I was the missionary that you are.

I guess I’ll check you next week. It’s 11:00, time to hit the hay.

Have a good week. I’ll look forward to hearing from you tomorrow to see if there is any news on transfers or anything.

Love you,

Trav

6/03/07

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy Yo!

What’s crackalackin’ young cracker? It’s that time once again for your weakly letter. Yeah, I spelled that right, I think I’ll be writing this letter a little bit weakly again this week. Not a lot going on really. Brinlee, Aynslee and I went with Mom to Dad’s Corvair Club gathering at Sugar House park. Suzanne had a shower for a co-worker today, so she didn’t go. You would have had a lot of fun there. Brin and Grandma and I went and fed the ducks, geese, seagulls, and little scrounge birds, along with the baby ducklings and goslings that were swimming around there too. That was fun. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, all kinds of salads and pastas and cookies and drinks. Good times. I went around and judged about 18 different ‘Vairs. There are some nice ones there. Dad’s looks pretty beater out there compared to these shiny looking ones. So Mom and I were talking about everyone going in on a pain job for Christmas or his birthday or something. This will have to be stricken from any replies back to me for surprise purposes, but keep that in the back of your mind for right now. Or write back incognito or in red font or something so I remember to extract the sensitive material from my forwarded e-mails to family. Dad would be proud as a peacock with a shiny new coat of vintage metallic aqua marine on that pup, eh? Mom and Dad brought your letters and news article over yesterday. That was fun to read. On the letters, I know what you mean about house prices out here. You can’t get a house for under 200 thou anywhere. Even ghetto shantys are selling for about 196 just because they can. It’s ridiculous. We stand to make an easy 100 thousand in straight equity when we sell our house if we sold it today. That’s how much the market has gone up on houses. Can you believe that? That’s awesome for us for getting in when we did. The house across the street from us which is the same size and condition as ours just sold for almost 250 K. But it’s a family of 22 mexicans that have packed about 5 moving trucks full of junk in there. We are nearly surrounded now by junkers and we aren’t psyched about it. We might consider moving pretty soon before our property values go down too much. They are about as high as they will get for a while right now, I bet. We are looking at a lot close to here and considering building new. That would be cool so we could customize our house a little bit. But I’m so comfortable with the low rate I’ve managed to get, the low balance on the house, I mean, we could pay it off in about 10 years. How sweet would that be? Be totally debt and payment free except for the bills and taxes? We’d be saving some bank-ola. Suzanne would be able to quit working finally. I like this idea more and more of staying. We’ll have to see. It’s a big decision.

Back to your newspaper article… I thought that was nicely written. When I did an article for the newspaper, I got all misquoted, words turned around, and looked like an idiot!! I hated that! It made me so mad that they misquoted me so bad and twisted my words to come out how they wanted to hear it. So I’m glad you didn’t get hosed on your quotes. I did like the bugger quote. Funny! I thought the whole thing was positive and good PR. That’s an awesome thing to keep around forever. I wish you would have got more copies. I wanted to trim it up and scan to the blog, but I don’t want to cut up your only copy.

No worries about not writing last week. I knew the libraries would be closed, so I didn’t sweat it. Did you get my e-mail from last week too?

I have to teach the EQ lesson tomorrow. It’s my turn in the presidency rotation. My topic is on Tithing. I am supposed to use the conference talk “Will a Man Rob God” which is fine, but it is only about a full page long since that Japanese Elder, I can’t remember his name right now, talks so slow, the information is much less. But I have a bunch of other resources I will try to use. Including PMG by the way. We’ll see how that goes in preparing an Elder’s Quorum lesson. Should be useful.

I watched a show on KBYU last night (well, it was on a week ago, but finally watched it on TraVo) called the Mormon Way of Doing Business. It had a bunch of muckety muck mormon CEOs of large organizations and it was pretty decent. Some good thoughts from some of them. You might have heard of that book. They are selling it at deseret book and seagull, so this was kind of a infomercial for that book more or less since it was only a half hour, but the interviews of these guys were pretty decent.

I like that you have been encouraged to be more bold in your statements to call people to repent. It takes a certain kind of missionary to be bold in statements like that and actually doing it rings any feelings of being timid out of you like wet rag. The easier it gets for you to be bold like that, the more it will come in handy later in life. Later is not really accurate, since the benefits of that ability are immediate.

Oh, Brinlee was at the doctors office the other day to be checked out. She got some sores in her mouth, we think as a result of her swimming class she has been taking (which she passed by the way). She will jump up to the next level now. Anyway, while at the doctors office, she got up on the computer at the check in desk (you know, where you tell them your symptoms and stuff) and turned to Suzanne and said, “So what do you want to say to Mike” just like I do when she comes down when I’m typing you a letter. Suzanne said it was really cute.

Here is the quote of the week, getting back to your calling peeps to repentance…

Our missionaries, young men and women and older couples, are workers for world peace. By inviting all to repent and come unto Christ, they are working for peace in this world by changing the hearts and behavior of individual men and women.

- Dallin H. Oaks

So do you have a picture card to send home anytime soon? Or have the pictures tapered off? I’ve been waiting for a card for a while, but no sign yet. Let me know your card status and when to expect it if anytime soon.

What’s new in the way of investigators lately? How is the finding going? How is the teaching going? Any solid prospects lately? How is the training going? It sounds like the DL calling is stretching you and helping you grow in all the right ways. That’s awesome. Keep up the good work there.

Work is keeping me busy. I need to get organized and put a plan together for this coming week so I don’t flounder around so much trying to decide which of my fifty A priorities I need to get to first. I was interviewing a guy this week that didn’t disclose that he did some time in a federal penitentiary. I caught him as I was checking into some gaps in his employment and he told me that he was wrongly charged (aren’t they all). He went off on his story for a while and I was getting a weird vibe from him, so I busted out some W-Z method interrogation tactics and within 5 minutes had him totally busted for lying to me. I didn’t call him out on it, just led him down the road to where he had to realize I knew all of his lies with a few key questions. He finally said he was going to stop talking now and I gave him a knowing glance and wrapped up the interview. He left with a defeated look and knew this interview was a bust. That was the first time I busted out the tactics in a job interview, but it was cool. I would have sent him on for a second interview and he probably would have been hired easily since we are hurting so bad for employees right now. So money well spent, yet again for that training. Well, I better get back to my lesson. I need to get going on that. I have a PPI with a member of the stake presidency tomorrow too, right after church. Then it’s off to Suzanne’s grandpas grave to see her dad dedicate it. So a busy Sunday yet again. I’ll hold off on sending this until tomorrow in case something comes up tomorrow that I want to throw in. Check you tomorrow.

Ahhhhhhhight, it’s Sunday night at 9:30. Today was a cool day. Sundays are super busy lately, I almost feel like I need a weekend to recover from just Sundays. But anyway, I got up early, got my lesson finalized and felt pretty good about it. Went to Sac. Meeting and Chad’s dad Leon got up to bear his testimony and told us how his mom just died of a massive heart attack on Monday or Tuesday. He just buried her yesterday and you could tell he was having a really hard time with it. I cornered him after sac meeting got out and put my arm around him and told him I was sorry to hear about his mom. I asked how he was doing and he told me he was having a harder time than he expected he would. I squeezed his shoulder and told him to hang in there and let me know if I could do anything for him. His eyes were welling up with tears so fast he just wanted to make a bee line for the door. He scrammed after a quick thanks but I was still kind of concerned about him, especially since he didn’t stick around for the other two meetings. But Sunday school was good. Then I taught EQ and my lesson turned out awesome. Like I said, I felt a lot better about it this morning than I was last night since tithing to me is kind of a cut and dried sort of commandment and it’s just sort of a get ‘er done sort of deal. But anyway, I found some awesome stuff on it outside of the talk by elder kikuchi from Brigham Young who never has a problem being bold in everything he ever said. David O. McKay had a good quote about how he learned the concept of tithing from his dad, and Heber J. Grant has some of the coolest Doctrinal thoughts on tithing I have ever found. I was stoked to use that stuff. So anyway, we had really good conversation, participation, and spirit. It got me kind of jones’n to teach again. I taught so long as EQ teacher and Gospel Doctrine teacher then moved to the Sunday school 15 year olds for 3 years, that I forgot how much I kind of missed it. Well, after church, I went with the presidency to the stake center and met with Pres. Hanson who used to be my bishop before my current bishop. He is the first counselor in the stake presidency now. The 4 of us in the presidency, came in, we all kneeled in prayer, then discussed the concerns of the quorum, what we are doing well, what we wonder about how we are doing, and then sat and heard counsel from Pres. Hanson. It was awesome. I haven’t had that kind of experience since my mission. It reminded me a lot of president interviews, which I always loved just like you do. So that went for about an hour and before I went home, I went with the President and first counselor in our presidency to Leon Johnson’s house and woke him up from his nap. I felt bad about that since there’s nothing better than a quick lunch after church and a hearty nap in the air conditioned room. But we went in, visited with him for a bit and offered to give him a blessing. He said he would love that. He told us that when he talked to Chad when he called to tell him about his grandma, Chad asked how he was doing and told him he needed to get a blessing. Leon just didn’t get around to calling anyone and was grateful that we just dropped in and asked. So that was awesome to stand and give him a blessing there in his living room. His younger son is about to go to Washington for the summer to be with his mom. I looked at leon and asked what he is going to do all summer without him since basically he will be alone now. His eyes welled up again and he said don’t even get me started with that. So I was really glad then that we got over there to give him a blessing of comfort and throw a little Priesthood blessing his way. I am going to go way out of my way to keep my eye on him and give him as much friendship as I can give him over the summer. What a lonely time to be alone while your son is on a mission, your other son is up with your ex-wife a few states away, and you just lost your mom. That poor guy! He’s a stud though. I love to talk with him about random stuff. Especially our missionaries that we are both so proud of. I told TJ (the EQ president) that I would just walk home from there so he drove off and so did Scott. Suzanne saw them both drive by and knew that TJ gave me a ride from church to the stake center. She was out front waiting for me to get home so we could go to her family’s house for lunch. So she looked down the road, saw me coming and rushed me along. I hopped right in the car, we motored to Patt and Ron’s house and had lunch. Then we all caravanned up to Tooele to her grandpa’s grave and dedicated it since they didn’t do it at the funeral a couple of weeks ago. So that was cool too. So now I’m home and it has been an action packed Sunday. Now I need to get ready for another full week at work. Oish!

I just got off the phone with Ma too about the Hein family reunion. You wouldn’t believe how involved and detailed this is. I mean they have activity after activity laid out by the minute for 3 solid days of ever lovin’ family reunion extravaganza! So I just RSVP’d to Margaret. I’m going golfing tomorrow free of charge at Stone Bridge with Clark and Brad. Clark gets the hook ups at work so we are in for free. Then I have a golf tournament on Saturday up at the Homestead in Midway. That one is for FranklinCovey. I’ll let you know about that next week. They give away a ton of free swag too, so I’ll see if I can score any of the goods. They are nice prizes too, so here’s to hoping. Stay tuned for next week’s letter.

I hope all is going well this week. Keep up the hard work. I’ll talk to you again next week.

Love you,

Trav