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