Transfer update 10/29/07

Here's a little snippet from Mike's latest e-mail he sent home today. Sounds like he is doing great still and adjusting to a new apartment (see new address beneath his picture to the right) and a new companion. Read On!...

President called Elder Van Leeuwen to be an assistant, so he got transfered to Chartown and he left me here in Greensboro and made me Senior comp and is having me train a new ZL. Its nuts. His name is Elder Hyde, he's good, he'll be a good companion, he's always looking for something he can help me out with. So anyway, my guess is that we'll be together for 2 transfers, or till about the beginning of January or so. I don't think he'll only have me here for 2 transfers, this area has had a lot of short stays by missionaries for the last little while. But its all good, i like the summit area.

10/28/07

Yo Yo Yo,

What’s new with you? It’s been another roller coaster week for us on the house. We are right there, we got the one we wanted, we are really excited about that. It’s the one that will save us 30 thousand more than the one we already talked down 31 thousand from their asking price. So we are sitting pretty on financing, but we can’t get a buyer to keep their commitment after we sign all the paperwork. Our 3^rd buyer just got dumped by their financing. So that leaves us without a buyer and our new house just waiting for us to sell. I’m not sure how long they can wait for us either. I’m REALLY bugged!! Know anyone who needs to buy a house? Well, we just keep on truckin and keep the faith. It’s gotten us this far and we have been blessed like crazy to get the house, now we just need a little more blessing-wise to get our house sold for good.

We went to Suzanne’s uncle and aunt’s mission farewell today. It was nice. They are going to Samoa. That would be pretty cool. Then we carved our jack-o lanterns tonight too. Brinlee is getting really excited for Halloween. What are you guys doing on that holy day of Holidays? Playing some risk or something? That’s what I usually ended up doing on Halloween night. I’m not sure if we are doing a trunk or treat this year or not. That is the only way to go though. Now that I’ve finally done one, that’s all I want to do now. Forget this business of trick or treating around the neighborhood. WAY TOO MUCH walking for nothing.

I’m getting pretty psyched to play some football in less than a month. We won again this Saturday, so we might be in the stake bowl. I’ll have to find out for sure this week. I popped a ligament in my left ring finger knuckle. I have all this internal bruising in it right now. It looks like I smashed it with a hammer. I was grabbing for the guys flag, but grabbed his shirt tale, yanked hard and felt my finger pop right there. It was more like a rip, but it made a popping noise. It hurt pretty bad. I tried to pop it back since it felt like I just jammed it bad, but when I pulled on it, I knew I didn’t just jam it. I’m chatting with Austin right now too and he is getting pretty excited to play too. He’s been playing a little 4 on 4 tackle football lately with some buddies of his. So he will be ready to go. You making any contact with your friends who will want to play yet? Going to want to get that started pretty soon since it’s less than a month away. Hang on, I’m going to go blast a Deuce. I’ve had this big dog barking at the back door for almost 2 hours now. Sit tight…

K, back and feeling at least 2 lbs lighter. I ate at the new brazilian steak house in Jordan Landing on Friday, so I had to unload a big mama jammer from all that meat. I didn’t have one yesterday. It must have corked me up eating all that meat.

I’m now helping Austin figure out a way to answer a girl that asked him to sadies. I guess she’s the head cheerleader for the sophomore squad. So he is feeling pretty good about the status symbol there. She has liked him for a while now I guess.

He’s going to do the frozen rose in a bucket idea like you did that one time.

Last night we went to the Odyssey Dance Theater production of Thriller at Kingsbury Hall. It was fun. I went with John to the Moulin Rouge show last year. Thriller is a Halloween themed production with all dancing and stuff too. You know how into that stuff I am. It’s a lot of stuff you will see on SYTYCD. Too bad you don’t have the cultured mind to enjoy that kind of thing. This one was good, but not as good as Moulin Rouge. I think we’ll go to that again this year and maybe West Side Story. Those are coming up in March. But it was fun to go with Clark and Katie. We hit up Granatos before the show and made a night of it. That’s about all I have to report on besides House stuff since that’s all that has been occupying our time, talents and energies lately.

I guess I’ll wrap up here and drop the quote of the week in here for you and talk to you later on.

“Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

- Sam Walton

I know, the founder of Wal-Mart isn’t necessarily the spiritual leader of those I’ve been quoting in your letters, but it’s a good point to make. The more you can boost the self esteem of your Zone members, the more they will be able to accomplish when they believe in themselves.

When will I be getting a pic card? What happened at Transfers on Thursday? What is the update with your investigators and zone? I’m excited to hear from you tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to a letter tomorrow and will talk to you again next week.

I hope all is well with you. I love and miss you and pray for you every day.

Love,

Trav

10/21/07

Hey Yo,

It’s Monday night and Brinlee has something to tell you right off the bat. She made me come down and turn on the computer so she could tell you something she forgot last time... “Have Fun, Have fun at the Birthday, Have another birthday. Have fun with my boat. (she has a toy boat she dug out of the old toys) annnnnnnnd…. I’m going to think about it.

OK, I guess that’s it. She’s going to think about it and get back to you on what else she forgot to tell you. She’s being kind of silly tonight for some reason.

OK, now it’s Saturday night at 9:00 PM. Just got home from Stake Conference. It was good. Man, I’m going to miss this ward and Stake. I also finished watching Sunday afternoon session of conference today on the TiVo. It’s great to TiVo conference. No distractions. If something comes up, just pause it or come back to it later. I really did like E. Callister’s talk. I really liked how he ended it too. “I know what I know, and my witness is true!” I shouldn’t quote, because I don’t know if that’s exactly how he put it, but he bore some powerful testimony. I really liked E. Oaks talk too about spending time wisely on what’s good, better, and best like from the Sears Catalog. That was a good and applicable talk. The other good thing about TiVoing conference is that you can just take a talk or two a day and it gives you that spirit spread throughout a week or more instead of all in one day. It kind of spreads the love and good feelings throughout the week and helps keep the spirit throughout the week a little stronger.

Let me get to your letter and respond to that. That’s good you have dropped 10 lbs in a month. That’s a pretty good loss and sounds pretty healthy. So what’s up with your Zone T-shirts? What’s the history of the saying you are putting on them? And who’s idea was it to make them? When and where will you wear them? On P-days? Service projects, etc.?

K, now it’s Sunday at 10:04 PM. I just got home from Stosh’s house. I was watching the Steeler’s vs. Broncos game on their new HD big screen on their new couches. It was fun, other than the fact that the Steelers lost at the last second of the game as Elam booted a field goal to break the tie and win with zero on the clock. Josh was so happy and I was bugged. Oh well. I took it like a man and left with a smile on my face anyway. The World Series was decided tonight too. Well, at least is still getting decided, but it’s a done deal. Still a little bit of time left on the clock, but Boston is going to beat Cleveland to go on to the world series against the Colorado Rockies. So it’s the Redsox vs. the Rockies. Should be pretty good. I’m not all that interested since my Yankees were knocked out by Cleveland. So I’m kind of happy that Boston beat Cleveland tonight, even though I’m certainly no Boston fan. That will start on Wednesday night. That’s about the only time I watch baseball is the world series and maybe a few ALCS or NLCS cames right before it.

Congrats on the baptismos. That’s way exciting!! Also on the soon to be baptisms. That’s just as exciting. You guys are truly being blessed hard core for your efforts and diligence. Keep up all the good work and obedience!! It’s paying off in spades for sure. Don’t worry too much about the diet and stuff. I’ve been doing pretty good. I had a few fatty snacks at Stosh’s house tonight, but it wasn’t bad. I snuck a coke too, but it’s only the 3^rd coke in over 3 weeks that I’ve had and it’s only a can, not like a 32 or more ouncer from the fountain or anything. So I’m doing a lot better there and watching what I eat. I’m also regular on my meds and haven’t missed a pill. I actually notice it when I am late in taking it. So I feel how much better I feel when I take it as opposed to not. We lost on Saturday in our football game. It was close too. I think that loss along with our other one the first week will knock us out of the stake bowl. Bummer! We have a pretty good team. We’ll see what happens this Saturday and if the other teams have lost any games. I have felt pretty good after these games. Just a tad sore each week, but less each week too. I’m excited for Turkey Bowl coming soon. You are going to have to coordinate again from the out there to get in contact with peeps like Scott or anyone else who has played or would want to play with us. We’ll have a good team again this year and play the team we played last year, which are way more fun to play than the other blokes related to the Elisons. But let me know what you can wrangle up for me. Send me numbers or give them my info. But give them my cell… 801-349-6030 because I probably won’t have my home phone much longer. We will probably be moving around Halloween. We bought a house out in Stansbury Park. That’s before Tooele. It’s about a half hour from Mom’s and Pops depending on time of day. So it’s a little farther away, but it’s not bad at all. It’s all freeway miles. I’ll have to send pictures soon. I have a tennis court in my hood too, so that will be nice to use. It’s brand new, we’ll be the first owners there. It’s got 4 bedrooms upstairs, an office downstairs, a nice covered front porch, a 3 car garage, it’s on a quarter acre lot, walk in closets, stainless steel appliances are all included, so now we’ll have two fridges when we take ours from here. So an extra fridge and freezer for the food storage. It has a good size basement with a room for food storage (my biggest incentive to move) a family room, an extra bed room, and another full bathroom. It has 3 bathrooms upstairs already and a laundry room. Kitchen has an island, nice tile throughout, lots of cabinets with upgraded finish on the maple. Corienne counter tops, dining room, living room, family room in the front with 25 foot cathedral ceilings, recessed lighting, deck in the back, it’s right by some friends of ours, it’s also at the top of a circle so we get no traffic up there. It has great views of mountains from every window you look out of. It has a tiled roof which comes with a 75 year warranty. So that roof will last way longer than I ever will. It’s all brick and stucco. It is on the same street as our church building which is 4 or 5 houses down from us. Right by a 6 acre park. It’s wired for phone and cable in every room. We are really excited. It’s exactly twice the size of our house now. So gives us some room to stretch out and grow a little if necessary. You wouldn’t believe the course of events that led up to us getting this specific house. We are definitely meant to live in this house/neighborhood/ward/area/etc. Everything really fell into place like clockwork where everywhere else we looked at and wanted just wouldn’t fit together. We definitely saw some workings of the Lord in this decision and how everything worked in pushing us to this particular house. Some real testimony builders actually. That will have to be reserved for a phone call, probably around Christmas or something. That leads me to the Quote of the week. Because I happened upon two that both relate to my own situation but can be likened to you on your mission, you are going to get a two for one special this week.

“Get the Spirit of God before you go on your mission or anywhere else. Get the spirit of revelation with you. And when you get that, you are safe, and you will do exactly what the Lord wants you to do.”

-Wilford Woodruff

“Pay attention to what the Lord requires of you and let the balance go.”

- Brigham Young

I really had to pay attention to the spirit because I never believed I would live in Stansbury Park. In fact, I swore with an oath to Suzanne that we would never live out there no matter what. I definitely had a turn around since then. I had to pay attention to what was being communicated to me in ways other than just being flat out told. I really couldn’t argue it. And now, I have such a sense of peace about our decision that I’m really excited about it. One of my concerns what that I wouldn’t see as much of Mom and dad and you when you get home from your mission. But this won’t change anything being out there. We’ll still see just as much of everyone and talk to them just as much as before. In fact, we are even closer to mom and dad than Stosh are. So the distance ain’t a thing. We are also WAY closer than Don and LeeAnn and family.

Ahhhhhhight boyeee. I’m going to sign off for this week. It’s almost midnight on a work night. I’m way tired too and have to get up early tomorrow. So I’ll watch for your e-mail tomorrow and catch you next week. Looking forward to hearing from you as I do every week. I hope all is going well and that you continue to keep receiving the blessings you have been. Keep up all the good work.

Love you, miss you, and I pray for you about every day.

Talk soon,

Trav

Baptisms update

It's been quite a while since we've had an update on Mike. Here is some news on some investigators he's been teaching recently, pasted in from his e-mail sent today...

We had 3 baptisms on Friday, a guy named Frank, and a married couple named Tilda and Ramon Rodriguez. it was awesome. The cool thing about it is that when we first started teaching Tilda, Ramon didn't want to have anything to do with the church at all. He told her to never ask him to come, and that there were too many white peeps at our church. hahaha. So then Tilda got anti'd by her old preacher and she fell off the face of the earth for about a week and a half, and then we caught up with her and talked her through it and got her testimony to pull through, after we talked to her we walked around the back of the house and Ramon was back there working, we got talking with him and found out that his favorite dessert is warm apple pie and ice cream, so we had an appointment with them a couple days later and went and bought all that stuff and took it over with us. hahaha, ever since then he sat in on all the appointments and stuff, and found out it was true after all, hahahahaha, so they got baptized. And we've also been working with their son, Xavier, and before their baptism he wasn't feeling like he had received an answer and didn't know that it was true, and then he told us yesterday that he felt the spirit at the Baptism and wanted to start working toward his own Baptism, hahaha, its amazing. plus we have a few other peeps that we've been teaching, like Mary, Sally, and Mfon all planning to be baptized on the same day as Xavier... the 27th. hahahahaha, The Lord is blessing us like crazy, but, we can see some stumbling blocks that we'll have to work through, so those might get changed, but the Lord will help us.

10/14/07

Hey Buddy,

What’s going on this week? I’ll make this a quick one again this week since it’s late and I’m super tired. I was watching some Sunday night football upstairs and couldn’t stay awake. I had our cousin Shaun Alexander playing in this game and no matter how hard I tried, I kept falling asleep and snoring all loud Suzanne said. Ha ha. I forgot it was Sunday night and I needed to get a letter out, so no matter how tired I am, I better get this out before tomorrow morning. I will win both of my leagues this week in FF. That’s good. Keep my un beaten record going in the EQ league and improve from a truly pathetic 1-4 to a sickly 2-4 record. We set Austin apart as a Priest today, so we spent the evening over there after that. We had a pretty tasty meal, played a bunch of ping pong, had a huge dessert and played more ping pong, then caught up on FF scores and went and played more ping pong. Austin is all into Ping Pong right now, so we have been playing that any time I go over there. I guess Halo 3 is easy to beat in like 3 hours and you will beat the whole game. Kind of disappointing to some peeps. So because of that, we have played more ping pong than Halo 3. We are getting good as in Olympic team good. You should see us. We are like 10 feet back from the table and throwing down some mean arcing top spin slams back and forth. No one in the family, including the coveted Christmas Eve tournament with extended family will be able to touch us. I have been winning the tie breakers, but we are pretty evenly matched. We can’t wait to go play in the family Christmas tourney and show them what for. After that, we went to Gardner Village and looked at all the witches they have out there. Brinlee is on a big witch kick for some reason. That is what both she and Aynslee are going to be this Halloween. So she had a lot of fun there checking those out. It was nice and cool and the leaves are pretty. I love fall. My favorite season. I’m getting pretty excited to play in our turkey bowl, even as unhealthy as I am. My meds have been helping with my heart issues I was having and my diet is getting better. I have only had one coke in like a week and a half or two weeks. But we are playing well in our flag football tourney with our stake. We are 2 -1. the one loss is to that team with 20-25 elders every week. They look un beatable. We watched them play on Saturday before our game started to get a scouting report on them. They really do switch teams with five fresh legs every series and they all have plays and execute them nearly flawlessly. We can’t compete with them, even though with only 4 and finally our 5^th guy showing up, we could have tied it up with a TD and two pt. conversion if our time didn’t run out. So maybe we can compete with them now that we have 12 guys showing up. I checked, I’m still the only person in the stake with an un-necessary roughness call for when I blew up their QB when he waited too long to toss the ball. Ha ha. What could I do? I was wearing my Urlacher jersey and was playing by proxy there. Anyway, it has been getting me in shape, getting my football skills honed and getting me pretty pumped to play next month.

So what is the update on your journal accountability? I didn’t hear back last week on that. Don’t ignore the question. I’m a need an answer on that one. Just as you are holding me accountable on a couple of issues, I am likewise.

Also, what is the status of pictures? Any pictures coming anytime soon? Looking for some blog entries. You want to send me anything to address your peeps in the blog specifically? Send something for that if you want.

How were your splits and your busy week? Everything going well in your zone and with your investigators in your own area? Drop me an update on all that and of course something you learned this week, or just the epiphany of the week.

Here is the quote of the week…

“We must lay on the altar and sacrifice whatever is required by the Lord. We begin by offering a broken heart and a contrite spirit. We follow this by giving our best effort in our assigned fields of labor and callings. We learn our duty and execute it fully. Finally we consecrate our time, talents, and means as called upon by our leaders and as prompted by the whisperings of the Spirit.”

- Spencer W. Kimball

I know you are doing this and have been doing it since day one. I’m so proud of you and love to hear about your learning experiences, see the level of growth that has taken place in your life, in your spirituality, and in your testimony and faith. Don’t ever let that wane. Make sure you keep that level of commitment to the Lord always. Commit today that you will maintain the highest level of obedience and commitment to the Lord as you feel out there in His service. It will take you so far in life if you can maintain even a small level of what you do out there when your mission is completed. Keep learning, keep working. I love you and miss you. I’ll talk to you soon.

Trav

10/07/07

Wassabe?

I just finished watching the first session of Conference and so far, so good. What do you think of Elder Eyring? I was trying to start an office pool at work with a $5.00 buy in to see who could take the pot and nail the new counselor in the first presidency. But I didn’t have any takers. Just kidding. But anyway, I did have it pinned down to E. Eyring or E. Holland. Those were my two picks. Of course, it could have come from outside of the 12, but that hasn’t happened since David O. McKay’s time.

I’ll get to more conversations about talks later when we’ve had a few more sessions under our belts, especially Priesthood session, and get your thoughts.

How has your week gone? I’ll get to your e-mail and respond to that. Sounds like you were getting ready for a crazy week. How was your interview with the President? Good as always? What did you gain from it this time?

My health tests came back OK on my Echo stress tests, where they did an ultra-sound of my heart at rest and then another one after making me run till I almost puked. Holy cow. I was told to wear some comfortable clothes and some walking shoes. I didn’t know they meant wear what you would wear to a marathon since they taxed me about that hard. They showed my heart in the ultra sound pumping hard. It was cool to see inside my heart and watch the old valves trying to get the job done. So I guess the ticker looks OK, but my blood work came back and I have scary high cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure. So they put me on medication that I’m supposed to be on the rest of my life. I didn’t want to do that, so I asked the doc what if I just did diet and exercise. He laughed and said NO, you need to be on the medication AND start exercising on a regular basis AND change your diet. Otherwise, with these numbers, you could have a heart attack any day. He said that I was at heart attack risk right now with as high as all of my stuff was. That was kind of sobering. So I’m on the meds now and doing a little exercise and watching my diet. So no more coke or caffeine, no more red meat… WHAT??!! That is my staple, coke and red meat. Between hamburgers and other forms of yummy beef and coke. Man! This is going to be harder than I thought. I have to have all low fat meals now too. Geez!

Well, I just had a big list of stuff typed back out here and Brinlee was playing by the computer with her balloons and shut it down. So it didn’t save past this point. Man, that kind of thing makes me mad. Good think for Pres. Hinckley’s talk in Priesthood meeting about anger, eh? Anyway, Suzanne was down here earlier and said hi, she wanted to tell you about Aynslee’s new tooth that is coming in on her bottom row. It’s cute. She’s learning how to dig stuff out like an apple slice, she can get the apple out of the skin with it. So it’s coming in handy. She is crawling all over and getting into trouble. She is also very photogenic we just found out tonight. Every time Shelli pointed her camera at her, she’d get a big huge smile for her. It was cute. Shelli got some good pictures. You’ll have to have her develop some and send them to you. Brinlee wants to talk to you for a minute.

Brinlee: “hi mike… I want to watch my favorite Halloween movie with you. I want to run with you at the park. I think I can beat you. I’m very fast. My Aynslee has a new tooth. When I was a little baby… um… I want you to watch me hit some balloons.” (she was hitting balloons around all night at Stosh’s house for Alex’s birthday party). She brought a couple of them home tonight. “watch me throw some balloons and him ‘em. And watch me to draw something and make you a pie. (she drew you a card the other day but then lost it somewhere). I love you and miss you. Have fun on your mission.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my owie. I fell and got a big owie at Alex’s house. But it’s going to be better. I just drew a picture of it for you.

K, so anyway, I’m going to lose in fantasy football. In fact, my perfect record in the other league is in jeopardy right now too. I may just barely lose there too, depending on how Romo does tomorrow night in MNF.

Well, let’s talk Conference talks. When you write back, tell me who you liked best and why. What did you think of Klipshke’s talk on the PMG? Good stuff to throw over to the family on your next commitment.

My favorites were L. Tom Perry’s talk during Priesthood session that would be a good one for you as a ZL to incorporate into another one of your trainings when you get the ensign or let me know if you want me to send you a copy of the talk about raising the bar to find your potential. Stop setting it just where you need it to qualify and to play it safe. You will never find your potential if you don’t raise the bar. Good stuff. I loved it. You probably figured I loved that. It’s the kind of stuff I love to study about and use with peeps. But I like how he tied it all in to physical preparation, intellectual preparation and study preparation.

Then of course the Sunday morning session from Pres Eyring. When he talked about Journals. We are not given experiences for just ourselves. Write it down. We are given experiences for the generations following us. So just how is your journal entries coming? I liked the rule of thumb he gave when to write in your journal. Anytime you recognize God’s hand in the days events, write about that. I believe that the more we recognize God’s hand in our lives, the more we will actually recognize God’s hand in our lives. Does that make sense? The more we acknowledge God’s hand, the more we will see from him that way too. I think we are rewarded for acknowledging all things to God, when we are humble enough to realize that we are nothing without God’s assistance. Anyway… those were my faves.

When we got back to Ron’s house last night, we had some good food. Sloppy Joes and jello, and all kinds of treats and desserts along with chips and dips and beverages. I pounded a couple of Sloppy Joes, but you probably would have taken down 3 or 4 of those bad boys. They were a tasty treat. We all sat around and discussed our favorite talks. That was fun. While there, Mom busted out your last letter for us to read. I noticed in that announcement from Zone Conference that you got to do some training. How did that go? What did you train on? Give me the summary.

I also noticed that besides you, there was another companionship training. I think they were ZLs too. Elder Hair was one of them. Do you know him pretty well? What do you know about him? I served with an Elder Hair in Connecticut. We tore shiz up there. I was with him for 3 months and we saw some of the best success of my mission. He was from Orem and came from a family of like 17 kids. You will have to see if they are related. I mean, seriously, how many Hairs do you know besides him? See what you can find out. That would be crazy if he was his brother. Hair and I served together as ZLs together and now you two being our younger brothers serving as ZLs in the same proximity. See what you can find out. His name is Andy Hair by the way if you get to asking. I also noticed on there that there was a new missionary coming in named Brian Alexander. Ha ha. I never had another Elder Alexander on my mission. Especially one with the same name as my dad, but I did know of an Elder Alexander in the NYC South mission. Our mail would cross occasionally.

Well boy. I’m out of stuff for this week. I’m not going to do a quote of the week since I threw in the snippets from conference and what better quotes to use then the long laundry list of the ones we just got this weekend. So great! Well, write back and hopefully those cables are not stolen this week. I’m due for some love this week.

I’ll catch you soon. Congratulations on all the success you are seeing recently. You guys are truly being blessed in that area for your dedication and hard work. Keep it up!

Love and miss you always.

Trav