9/30/07

Yo Yo Yo,

Another week, another letter. This one will be much shorter since I got nothin’ to go off of from last week, so I’ll just update you on the latest from the home land. I’m getting an earlier start this week too, since it’s still light at 6:00 PM on Sunday night. I can’t believe how dark it’s getting lately and now… how cold it is. It actually snowed here in the valley yesterday. Can you believe that? The colors in the mountains are pretty, but man, a typical Utah fall (almost non-existent). It’s supposed to storm again tomorrow I think, so we’ll see how cold it gets again. I told you how I started playing flag football in the stake. Well, Saturday, I got up, it was chilly in the house, but not shivering sort of chilly. So I got in my under armor cool wick shirt and my Urlacher jersey and some shorts and headed out the door. I was fueling up on a clif bar and a powerade on the way to the church and started feeling that cold breeze cut through my clothes and hit my bare legs and arms. It was downright cold. I figured I misjudged the weather, but then I got to the church and the open field and felt the wrath of the north wind shooting some cold wind right to my bones. It was freezing. The clouds were dark, there was not going to be any sun to play havoc on catches or pass defenses today. That was the only good news. Luckily we got started pretty soon after I got there and we got the blood flowing and warmed up a little, but then came the mist. Wow, now that was cold! We played well though. We had 6 guys this week, so we could actually sub a guy out every so often. I caught a couple of TD passes and had only a few spectacular defensive plays to brag about. I wasn’t on my game the way I should have been, but the team meshed well and we beat them like 48 to 21. it felt good considering we lost by 8 pts. Last week. So we are 1-1 and go into our bye week this coming Saturday (General Conference). It just feels cool to call it our bye week. I felt much stronger and more fit this week too. I think killing myself last week was good for the lungs and muscles. I’m still a little stiff, but not like last week. So I’m excited for turkey bowl time now. I’m going to be much more fit than I thought I would be. Speaking of that, I had my doctor’s appt. on Friday. They did some blood work and I should find out what the news is on Monday. I already know I’m going to have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. But we’ll find out what they say on Monday. I also have to go to another location by fashion place mall and do a heart and lunch echo stress test where they hook me up to a bunch of computers and put my fat butt on a treadmill and have me run till I can’t run anymore. That should be about 20 seconds. Ha ha. They’ll have a better idea of how bad my pulmonary lung capacity is and how weak my heart is then. I’m really looking forward to that. The idea Suzanne had when she made this appt. was for me to get a physical. So when I asked the doctor after he checked all of my breathing and took my blood and did all he did with my heart and other stuff if he was going to do a physical still, he said that he’s done everything he normally does for a physical minus checking my privates for hernia with the turn head and cough and slap on a glove and poke around in the back door. He asked me if I wanted to finish up with that and I said, NO, I’m good. That didn’t take long for that decision. I don’t think he even finished his sentence before he had his answer. So that was that. Before I went in to the doctors office, when I pulled into the parking lot, I saw this old couple pulling in just before me. The 80 something year old guy let out his 80 something year old wife by the door and he went for the closest parking spot that was open. It was the far right one with a curb along the right side of his car. He was turning left into the spot and his right tire nailed the curb on the right and stopped him, jerking his Kia wanna-be SUV to a halt. He looked around like “what the sam hill is stopping me. I don’t see anything in front of me. So he put it in reverse, back into drive and hit the gas. He nailed the curb even harder jerking his whole car back and forth for a few seconds. He was so perplexed and had this look of pure confusion as to what is stopping him. He looked like he was checking for a big post or wall or something and couldn’t comprehend the curb below him. So he hit reverse one more time and with sheer determination on his face, floored it this time bounding over that curb in this weak SUV and came to a quick landing right into his spot he wanted. Good thing he had his seat belt on tight or it would have thrown him out the window he got jerked so hard. He got out, looked around like he was still looking for a pole or something and shrugged and walked into the building kind of rubbing his neck. Poor fella. I was having a good laugh at his expense anyway. Old guys are cool!

So you must be pretty excited about conference this weekend coming, right? I’m excited. We’ll get to find out some new moves in this one, so that is pretty exciting.

Looks like I’m going to win again in my Elder’s Quorum league, so that will make me 4-0. I will continue my quest to be undefeated the whole season. That is very unlikely, but it is a cool goal to go after. Everyone else is making a lot of moves in there too like working the waiver wire and changing things up. That is a good way to win, but I have another goal to have the lowest number of changes (one all year so far) and just rely on the strength of my draft. In our main league, it is too close to call still. I’ll see what happens tonight after this Sunday night game since I’m facing Donovan McNabb in both leagues. He’s been on fire lately. So we’ll see if he kills me in both leagues tonight.

We looked at a couple more houses last night, but nothing too serious yet still since we have no leads on our house here. The market is super slow now that it’s after labor day. So we aren’t planning on any hot action from here on out. But on the other hand, we are waiting to find out tomorrow if one couple that went through on Thursday wants to make an offer. They said they wanted the weekend to think it over and decide if they wanted to make an offer on Monday. Not holding my breath though.

So what’s new in the mission field? What’s happening with your zone, area, companionship, investigators, etc.?

I’m going to run upstairs for a bit. Grab some dinner and I’ll come back and wrap this up. Check you in a few.

OK, Brinlee is down here now. “Hi”

And… and… play with him. and… hug him. I want to play with you and say thank you to you. And… that’s all.”

That was short and sweet. She’s getting big fast. You won’t believe the conversations she has with people now. She just made a drawing of your mission here behind me. Ha ha. It’s a bunch of scribbles, but she can tell you in graphic detail what is what on there.

Well, the Sunday night game is over and the Giants stuffed McNabb in a bad way. He got 5 pts. All night. So that is going to help me win in both leagues tonight. So what else can I tell you? I didn’t come prepared with a quote of the week this week. I had a scripture chain I was going to have you follow. But my scripts are upstairs and I’m too lazy and tired to go up there and get it right now. So I’m going to throw out a generic quote this week, but I still like it. It’s good stuff.

“The source of our spiritual power is the Lord! The ultimate source of spiritual power is God our Father. The messenger of this power is the Holy Ghost. This power differs from electrical power. An electrical appliance consumes power. The use of His spiritual power replenishes our power.”

- Russell M. Nelson

I like this quote because just like a testimony, when you use the Priesthood, or share you testimony or do anything in the service of your fellow beings, our finite minds think that we are consuming energy or power, or that very testimony that we are sharing. But you get to know by experience that the Lord increases that very thing which you are doing. I loved that. I still do love it. I’m sure you have seen plenty of experiences like that which have strengthened your testimony of that very concept.

Well, like each week, I’ll be looking for a new concept learned, a new experience to share, a new epiphany realized. Whatever you got for this week or last. Drop it on us. I’ll catch you on the flip side next week, but will look forward to your letter Monday.

Take care of yourself. Take care of your companion. Take care of your Zone and all of your other stewardship. Love you and miss you.

Trav

PS. There are a couple of significant news items this week from the family. So make sure you let me know your thoughts when you hear them. One involves Gramps. I guess that one is not all that proprietary to share since it’s anyone’s news. But he was in a car accident yesterday on his way up to Don’s house. I guess a cop in his private car cut him off and caused the big wreck. Gramps C-RV is pretty mangled, but still drivable I guess. The cop was cited I think, but I mean, c’mon, it’s a cop. How much trouble will he get in?! So I guess Gramps is OK, but he had some chest pain. Not sure if it was his seatbelt restricting on him or if it was his heart from freaking out. We got Priesthood night coming up on Saturday. The last October Conference without you. We’ll miss you again in April, but then you’ll be chillin’ in there with us nudging me and Grandpa awake by next October Priesthood session.

I’ll send you my thoughts on Conference next week. We’ll compare notes then. Check you later on.

T