07/28/07

Hey Birthday boy,

How does it feel to be 20 now and out of your teens? I was over at Ma’s and Pa’s house tonight to update your Blog with Shelli’s pictures and birthday wishes since I’ve been doing a birthday segment on there. So I have had individuals putting pics and updates on there for you. Some peeps have put their birthday wishes on there too. So that’s been good. So What did you do out there for your B-day? Anything special? I guess it was transfers for you, right? No wait, that was the day before. So I hear you are in Greensville now. Is that right? Send me your exact mailing address and all of the scoop about your area. Don’t forget your companion bio. Here are the questions this round…

Name:

Where are you from:

Work history:

Hobbies/What do you like to do in your spare time:

Girlfriend back home:

Music:

TV shows:

What do you like best about your mission:

What do you like least about your mission:

How long have you been out:

Favorite cold cereal(s):

Favorite Fast Food joint:

What is your 5 year plan when you get home:

That should do for now. Looking forward to getting as much scoop as possible.

So after I got Shelli’s segment updated and showed Ma and Pa your pictures off your card finally, we went out on the deck and watched the torrential downpoor of a monsoon we had out there. It was crazy!! It was raining so hard, we had to yell at each other just to hear what we were saying and we were sitting chair to chair to chair. There was lots of lightening too like every 3 seconds another bolt. It was a crazy storm like I haven’t seen in who knows how long. It was a nice break from all of the super hot weather we’ve been getting.

Sorry I missed your letter last week. The first letter I’ve missed since the first day of the MTC. Dang dude!! Oh well, I didn’t have internet access up at Fish Lake like I thought I would. I took my computer up there just in case they had WiFi I could get on. But my cell phone lost coverage too. I couldn’t even get on my G-mail from my phone up there because of being out of range. So even my plan B was shot. Oh well. We had a good trip down there. Fish Lake is down by Capital Reef. It’s not Uintahs. Even though I think there’s a fish lake up there too. But this is a big, bottomless lake in a deserted volcano down there. They seriously have not found the bottom in most of that lake because it goes down all the way to the core practically. It will confuse every fish finder when you go on that lake, it’s weird. So we dropped or lines ALL the way down to the last color trolling knowing that we would not hit a snag. So that’s the plus side to that. You can catch big 40 pound Mackinaw lake trout in there. But I just caught all rainbows. 15 of them to be exact. Everyone else had a pretty successful go of it too, so we all caught our fair share of fish. Between all of us who caught fish, we only kept 3 total and cooked ‘em and ate ‘em. They were tasty. We all got a little sunburned. It was a tad bit hot for being high altitude, but it was a good time otherwise. Suzanne and I got a cabin while the rest of the Emery’s camped out and roughed it. It was nice with the two little girls to have a toilet, sink, and shower, not to mention beds and sturdy walls, door, and roof over our head. It stormed pretty good every day we were up there. Ha ha. Poor campers out there. So it was worth the 30 bucks extra for that action.

OK, It’s 12:31 AM on Friday night, time to hit the bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. I’ll check in with you later on.

Alrighty then, it’s now 10:00 PM on Saturday night. We have been packing up a bunch of junk, putting it all in Tupperware storage containers and I’ve taken two full truck loads of doubled up containers roped up in my truck over to the storage unit. So it’s starting to take shape of some less clutter around now. I think we’ll have someone come next week and take pictures to try to sell our house. We’ll have to see how far we get. It’s been pretty busy. We also had a family reunion for Suzanne’s family out in Herriman on their family farm and then we went to 5 parade of homes houses after that. So it’s been a fun filled day for sure. I’m sitting here typing with a bag of ice on my foot because I dropped a big, heavy, hard plastic container on it earlier in the garage. It was under the big full one, this one was empty, but it still weighs in at about 20 pounds. These are not the Tupperware kind with soft round edges. These are some industrial plastic containers Dad picked up somewhere and the bottom one fell out and landed edge side on the top of my foot. Right where that bone is on the top of the arch. I have a big blood vessel right there too that I must have burst open when it hit because it started welling up with a big blue bruise right then and swoll up pretty good. It hurt like a mother. So I’m trying to keep the swelling down. I don’t know why I was doing all this moving in the garage in my flip flops. Serves me right. I probably would have gotten away with just a typical bruise or something if I would have had shoes on to cushion most of that blow. But it was hard, sharp and heavy edge right on skin and bone with a big fat blood vessel in between.

We got our cable back on yesterday. That is a long story. Comcast came out and told me that I had to get their digital voice package because the standard option was going away. So they came over and chopped my cable to put in the phone. I didn’t know until they left and I went to watch some TV. So when I found out my cable was gone, I had to call them back and they said they couldn’t do a Saturday until 3 weeks out. So I was 3 weeks without any of my shows. Well, no biggie cuz I have them all on TiVo backed up a ways. So I had tons of TiVo options, but it bugged knowing that TiVo wasn’t picking up the new ones for the 3 weeks. I had someone at work hook me up with the newest So You Think You Can Dance. So I was covered there, and the cool thing is I was able to get my TiVo to find my other shows re-playing. So I didn’t miss a thing. Sweet! But it was nice having 3 weeks of no TV. I actually got more done and started reading more. I have put the PMG on hold temporarily so I can finish the Bourne Ultimatum. The third and final(?) in the serious of the Bourne series. The movie comes out August 3^rd. So I need to hurry and finish the book so I can go watch the movie and compare notes. The movie looks good. But I have loved both of the other Bourne shows. Bourne identity, Bourne Supremacy and now this one.

I just banged out the EQ newsletter. That took me about 10 minutes. It doesn’t take me long. I have it down to a science. I just use Microsoft Publisher to do it and it makes it pretty easy. So this week’s is done. It’s now 10:30. I’ll head to bed but I will check in tomorrow to wrap this up and put in the well wishes from the blog. Talk to you soon.

K, now it’s 9:00 PM Sunday night. It was a good day today. Church was good, I did my home teaching and got all 3 of my families done. Got some stuff done around the house and ate a good lunch and dinner. I missed my Sunday nap, but no bigs. So now it’s time to finish this letter up.

I have been reminiscing a bit now that it’s your year mark and your birthday time. I remembered that night we hung out in my living room for a while and talked, then moved it outside to my steps and hung out outside for a while. It started getting pretty cold though. We were both shivering and talking about crazy stuff like UFO’s and other such. Anyway, that was a cool night.

So what did you do this week? I read some letters over at Ma’s and Pa’s. They were pretty good. I can’t wait to hear all about your new area and new companion, etc. How did your transfers go?

Are you the sole DL up there or do you do double DLs? I don’t think you do? But Dad and I got conversing about duel ZLs. Do you do ZL companionships out there? We did in my mission. Where both me and my companion were ZLs for instance. But it was never a duel DL companionship. Kind of weird. I guess there are about 3 or 4 DLs to a ZL though, so might as well. I don’t know, I never really thought about that. But we were curious as to how it worked in your mission. Dad had Sister DLs and Sister ZLs though. That seems apostate to me, but what can you do. John’s mission had all the above and Sister APs that were somehow self appointed or maybe called by the President’s wife. However, that lasted about 6 months until a GA came out to tour the mission and TORE the mission he did when he found out about that. He ripped the President a new one on that and disbanded the little hierarchy of sisterhood post-haste.

Well, let me drop the Quote of the Week on you here and I’ll move into your birthday wishes from your Blog…

Two quotes this week as a make up for missing your letter last week…

“When a man is called to go on a mission and a field of labor is assigned him, he should say in his heart, not my will be done, but thine, O lord.”

- Joseph F. Smith

I chose this one based on moving from your beloved Lincolnton and into this new area. I’m sure you are taking it with great enthusiasm and look forward to the new challenges and experiences that lie ahead. You will always grow where you are planted and that is a great quality.

“To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all-consuming and all-encompassing. It is no lukewarm endeavor. It is total commitment of our very being – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – to a love of the Lord.”

- Ezra Taft Benson

This is how I see you on your mission now. In church, the missionaries spoke to us for the first time in a long time. It was good to hear their testimonies. The one missionary started his mission in this stake and was here for 7 months. Now he is back to end his mission here. Kind of funny. I guess he has some unfinished business to do here. But he had a great testimony of his being in this area and this mission, even though he went to BYU before his mission and was not enthused about coming to Utah for his mission. Ha ha. But his testimony was good to hear and he has grown a great deal while he’s been here. I got thinking about your attitude and where you have grown on your mission. I have seen you embrace this commitment with all of your soul and have grown in your love of the Lord so much. Your testimony is evident to all of us and it’s great for us to hear it. The most important people you can share your testimony with, even though you do it on a multi-time per day basis to those around you, is your own family. Keep doing just that, it’s good for all of us to hear on a regular basis and I have appreciated those times when you let your testimony loose in your letters or whatever.

So here is a collection of comments coming in on your Blog for your B-day/Year Mark…

(since this is already on your blog, this section has been edited out to not be redundant)

I thought I’d have a little better response rate on the comments, but most peeps are afeared of posting stuff on here because they are friends and feel like this is a family exclusive site. I’m trying to get more participation from them, but I understand their discomfort. So there you go. It was fun to get these ones anyway.

I better let you go. But make sure you show me the love this week. We haven’t talked in two weeks now. So I need all the scoop I can get for blog worthy entries and updates for the fam. Also, once I have your physical mailing address to update the blog with, I’ll send your memory card and some birthday love your way. Talk to you soon.

Love you,

Trav