11/03/07

What’s shakin’ Babs?

It’s Saturday, 4:47 PM right now. Just got home from the storage place upgrading the size of my unit. Ha ha. That sounds funny! I just quadrupled the size, so I have a ton more space to fit all my junk in now until we move. I came home and Suzanne and the girls are gone, so I thought I’d drop you a letter. It’s been an average week at work. Not all that eventful on the home front since our buyers lost their financing and we are on our 4^th contract now with buyers. Frustrating. We are still planning on closing on the 15^th and moving out on the 16^th and 17^th. In the mean time, if we don’t have any promise on the house, then Shelli Lyn might be moving in and renting the joint on the cheap until the buyers get their house sold and can close on ours. It would get Jukka out of the house and from driving Sami crazy, making her pee and poop on ma/pa’s bed. Ha ha. It gets Shelli A LOT more room, and a garage, and a sweet place to call her own for a while and all for far cheaper than she was paying rent in the projects she was living in prior. It’s mutually beneficial not only for her, but it saves us from hemorrhaging money while the house is unoccupied, but we still have to pay the mortgage on it. So I’m pretty excited about that action. She might bring in a roommate, if not, I told her I’d even split her payments, it’s still half the cost of what I’d be paying, so it’s still great. But if she brings in a roommate, it will bring her payment down even further.

Getting to your last letters… So how do you like the new apartment? What happened with your old apartment? Why did you have to move? That’s cool about E. Van Leeuwen being made AP. He seems like a stud. Now it’s just a matter of time till E. Leavitt gets there, don’t you think? How do you like your new companion? I need a comp. bio on him. So here are the questions I’ll need answered by next letter on Monday…

Full name:

Where are you from:

Where did you work before you came on your mission:

What are your hobbies:

Girlfriend at home:

What are you going to be when you grow up:

What will you do the first couple of weeks after you get home:

What do you like most about your mission:

What do you like least about it:

What is your favorite Cold Cereal:

Where is your favorite place to eat:

What is your favorite movie:

What were your favorite TV shows before you left:

Favorite talk of last General Conference:

What is your favorite scripture verse(s):

I’m going to be wanting some pictures here soon too boyo. I know you haven’t been taking that many lately, but the next biggest regret of my mission after not entering enough journal entries was not taking enough pictures. I would have taken twice the amount of pictures at least if I could do it all over again. It’s so great to look back on people I knew, sites I used to see, places I visited, companions I worked with, missionaries in my districts and zones, those I split with, etc. Not to mention, they keep your Blog lively and people more interested. Send that card home soon.

Congrats on Sally’s baptism. That’s way cool. So was this last week as you predicted when you said “this will be such a good week”? So games are apostate? What’s up with that? What can you do on P-days anyway? You made it sound like that’s all I did on my mission in your retort back, but we would only play them on P-days or sometimes P-day eves or Holidays that we had an early curfew due to the violent nature of the big city on certain days after dark. But we could own a chess set or a risk board if we wanted to pack it with us. Josh has been playing a lot of risk lately I guess and Staci just texted me today and told me he beat all his friends last night and was ready to whoop up on me. I guess Staci told him I used to be good back in the day and now Josh wants to take me on. I’m going to have to learn him a thing or two in the near future about what it’s like to be owned in a game in such a dominating fashion.

I play the Silent Assassins this week who is the number one team in our league right now at 7-1. Meanwhile the Ghetto Fabulous team that won it all last year is in a humble position of 2-6. Pathetic. I don’t know how the mighty have fallen so bad this year, but whatever! I’m 7-1 in my EQ league and controlling that group pretty well.

So get this, I got the hook ups for the home opener Jazz game two nights ago. Two tickets, front row, Center court, RIGHT ON THE FLOOR!!! I mean our feet were right on the floor where our chairs butted right up against. It was pretty amazing! The Rockets and the Jazz players were close enough that I literally could have tripped any of them as they ran along the side of the court by just stretching my legs. We could hear them talking smack to each other, calling plays, and even practically smell their sweat as they inbounded the ball right next to us. I TiVo’d it and we are all over the TV. It was pretty awesome. They were $800 bucks a piece. I mean, with the two tickets I got, we could have paid our mortgage for two whole months. Part of the package you get with these tickets is you get free VIP parking right there at the Delta Center. No schlepping our way from blocks away to get there. A fancy meal prior to the game on the 6^th level of the Delta Center where you get the biggest selection of the best food. I had no idea that that restaurant was even up there. The food was excellent. I haven’t had that good of food or selection in a long time. I loaded up!! Larry Miller was up there dishing up right next to us too. After the meal, you go down to the lower level and come walking out through the same portal the players come out and come rolling in to the front row. Come to find out, Larry H Miller’s seat was right next to Suzanne. Ha ha. So we sat next to him and his wife the whole game. Camera crews come up by us and interview him once or twice a game. At the half, you roll back through the portal with the players and go into the 100 Club VIP room where you get your snack on and your drink on and rub shoulders with the other millionaires and VIPs from the community. I bumped into Lisa Conelly from Channel 4 that I’ve had a crush on forever. She now hosts Hot Utah Homes on Sundays that Suzanne and I watch. Suzanne can hardly watch it with me because I drool on myself for the whole half hour. So that was fun. I snapped some pics and some video of the Jazz dancers shaking their money makers just feet away from us. The Jazz bear doing his stunts right next to us, Larry Miller chillin’ there next to us, some sweet basketball action right in front of us, etc. But you can’t get any pics over e-mail I guess. Lame! Anyway, it was way fun. I’m not even a big NBA fan, let alone much of a Jazz fan per se, but I could get used to that action if I could get those tickets free again. Xpedx, one of our large paper suppliers hooked us up. I will go to their suite with them a few more games this year, but I won’t get another shot at those court seats again anytime soon. Josh (the biggest Jazz fan as you know) was recording it too and dying that he was seeing me right there by the players. They kept texting me about seeing my thin spot on my dome and generally harassing me throughout the game. Ha ha. It was quite the experience anyway.

Well, I’m going to call it a night. I need to go get my bowl of Oatmeal and take my meds for the night. I’ll finish this up tomorrow and send it off. Chat at you then.

Ahhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, it’s Sunday night at 7:10 PM. Just watched the Pats rally to beat the Colts in what was the battle of the last two unbeatens in the NFL. Now the Patriots are the only unbeaten team and they look to roll through the rest of their schedule now that the Colts are out of the way. They are scary good, which is too bad, because I hate the Patriots and their cheating coach, Belichick. I lost in both leagues this week and am really tanking now with both teams. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve lost the touch. I can only hope to rebuild for next year and start picking up some pieces which will have some promise for next year’s team in our main league. I’m dropping the EQ league after this season. It’s too hard to focus on two teams. It drives me crazy. Church was good this week. It’s been since before conference since I sat through a whole 3 hour block due to Gen. Conf., Stake Conf. and a couple of weeks of going home early with Aynslee. So it was nice to get back to the full block this week for the first time in 4 weeks. I miss it when I’m not there for the full time. Which is weird, especially during football season when it would naturally soften that blow. So I guess it’s good I have that desire to always be there the whole time and not get soft after missing it for so long like most peeps tend to do.

Well, it’s time for the Quote of the Week. I don’t have any theme this time, so I’m just going to dig deep in the hat and pull one out that I like. So this week is from John Taylor.

“When missionaries rise to speak in the name of Israel’s God, if they live in purity and holiness before Him, He will give them words and ideas of which they never dreamed before.”

Don’t you love it when you have been working hard, living right, obeying every rule, and you find that you go into a situation, or are lead to a certain person or teaching experience, and you just start going by the spirit and you begin speaking and testifying with so much power that it gives you chills just to hear the words coming out of your mouth? I loved that!! I thought it was an awesome experience to have words given to me in the moment that I needed them that were exactly what that person needed to hear to be truly taught by the spirit. So I’ll leave that quote with you to ponder on and act upon this week. Live so that you can always be given those ideas and words to be a powerful teacher of the gospel of Christ.

I love you. I hope you have a great week and some great experiences. Make sure to drop me a note on what you’ve learned this week. As for my update, I’m still plodding along with my PMG study. I picked up a new book that I’m wanting to start, but I still need to make a bigger dent in my PMG before I get started on any other book. This one is by Leon Skousen, I love his stuff. He’s quite the scholar when it comes to Book of Mormon history and even history of the country and God’s hand in the development of our constitution and founding fathers. So I’m wanting to dive into that pretty soon. But I’ll be hitting some PMG tonight after I send this off. Then I’ll look forward to a little love from your bones tomorrow in the e-mail. Check you later.

Love,

Trav