07/07/07

Como?

What’s up this week Babs? How’s the missionaryin’? We are in the middle of Hein Family Reunion week. We are about to head back out to do that tonight at Grandpa’s chapel. I was up at the park by his house earlier to give the opening prayer and hang out with peeps. It was OK. I don’t know a lot of people there and there are some who are saying, Oh, Hi Travis. Then introducing me to others saying Travis is the oldest of Marv’s grand kids. I’m looking at all of them saying to myself, who the heck are you? I wish I was better at knowing people in the family. I can’t keep up with extended family like others can. Then throw on top of that Dad’s side of the family and then throw on top of that Suzanne’s mom’s side and dad’s side both. I have a lot of family members to remember names and faces for. I think I’m going to stand up and do the talent show. Should be interesting. But every family has to have some kind of talent represented. So we’ll see what I can come up with. Well, I have to go get the truck ready for Matt to take up to Brigham City and back just to get a bed. I don’t think he’ll make it home till 10:00 PM tonight. I don’t know why he’s doing it this late. It’s 4:30 right now. That’s a long ride on my truck. Oh well. Catch you tonight when we get back.

Ahhhhight, I’m back, it’s 10:12 PM. It was a long time of reunionizing. But it was nice. The dinner was pretty good. We played some Uno at our table. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good game of Uno going. Brinlee had a good time dancing out on the dance floor they had, with Amanda. All in all it was pretty fun. I got some good pictures from Kevin who made a CD of the whole reunion. He did some good family pictures too, so I’m pretty stoked about those. If I send you a CD with photos on it, can you view those OK? Do you have access to a computer and CD ROM to look at those? Let me know.

I had that Halo party last night. I just went till 1:00 AM and packed it in. I could have gone longer, we were having fun and my team was winning pretty steadily, but I wanted to leave on a high note and that was it when I left. I would have started declining I think and would have stopped having fun eventually. We had 18 guys there all on their X boxes. Jason, who you met that one night must have had a pretty high power bill for that night I’ll bet you. A lot of those guys left and even said they stopped having fun a long time ago. So I didn’t want to get to that point. But I was coming in 4^th or 5^th, pretty steadily almost every rumble pit slayer style game we played. Out of 18, that was not bad. Those guys that kept coming in above me were the usual suspects who play all the time still and clean up. I haven’t played in at least 6 months if not more I estimated. So I did pretty well by my own standards.

We looked at more houses today. I think we will be close to pulling the trigger sooner than later. I am 90% sure we will be in a new house when you get home. We’ll see since I’m still a bit hesitant, but Suzanne has given us enough momentum that I may not be able to stop this snowball from rollin’ now.

Let me axe you a question… (do you ever get that down there? Let me AXE you a question? I got that every time I talked to any dark skinned brother in NYC) I actually started saying it to the point that it took me several months after being home to realize it enough to make an effort to stop it. It still pops up every now and then, it’s weird) Anyway, the question is do you ever wear tie pins out there? You know, a pin to keep your two ends together instead of having them flop apart and go every which way? Just curious. Let me know in your next letter.

K, I’m dog tired, so I’m going to hit it for the night. I’ll check you tomorrow after meetings.

Well, it’s Sunday at 12:00 midnight. So technically it’s Monday morning now. Sheesh! I’m getting swollen glands in my throat right now too, so I should really go to bed, but I need to finish this up and send it off. I’m taking the day off again tomorrow to sand down and re-stain my deck. It’s in bad beater shape. My house is pretty ghetto right now. It needs some serious fixer upper work done right now, or I’m not going to be able to sell it for jack!

It’s a busy day tomorrow, so I’ll bail. First I better get your quote of the week out there.

“The work is demanding, the impact everlasting. This is no time for summer soldiers in the army of the Lord.”

-Thomas S. Monson

I put this in because I know you subscribe to the same point of view. It gets frustrating when you see missionaries out there who don’t put in their best effort. They are summer soldiers. They fight the fight when it’s convenient for them. But you as missionaries are on the Lord’s schedule. You need to put in the amount of work demanded. The cause is eternally important. The impact you make as a missionary is everlasting on every person you come in contact with. Keep up the hard work. We are so proud of you.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow. Have a great week. Let us know everything that’s been going on this last week and how the work is going in your area.

Love,

Trav