02/10/08

Elder Mike,

It’s another week already. They seem to fly! Time for yet another letter. So do you know the area Preston is in? You may or may not remember my friend Aaron Pedersen. He lives in Portland and is the ranger in charge of Multnomah Falls. I think that is where Preston took some video of a water fall area in his CD to you. You will have to ask him about it and let me know. Maybe you should send me his e-mail or address and I’ll write him and tell him where to find Aaron and he can go over there and teach him. It may not go well since Aaron has been Ex’d and is living with his boyfriend of so many years, but Preston is in need of a challenge, right? If he drops my name, he is guaranteed at least one full teaching appt. ha ha. If you write Preston, this is the area from Aaron’s words…

If the waterfall your friend took pictures of had a bridge spanning the upper and lower falls it was Multnomah Falls. That is my office! I work in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, 35 minutes east of down town Portland. The Gorge separates Northern Oregon from Southern Washington. See if that rings any bells for P-Diddy.

Today, I went down to the Hunters expo at the Salt Palace. I guess it’s a $20 entry fee, but we just acted like we owned the joint and walked past the guard at the gate taking tickets. I guess if you look like you know what you are doing, you can walk right into wherever you want. We weren’t going to stay longer than 45 min. anyway since that’s all we really had. So we just strolled through and checked out a few big trophy mounts and racks. I saw the state record Elk for Rifle, I saw the world’s 3^rd biggest rack on record for moose. That was huge! My co-worker and our sales rep entered for some big league hunts while they were there, so we’ll see soon if they draw out of those. I was waiting for them to get their stuff in and the guy in the line directing people was like, you can step up to that booth there. I said, no I’m just waiting for them. He said this is a great opportunity to enter for some big once in a lifetime hunts. I said I’m not much of a big game hunter. He looked at me like I was some kind of fool and said son, everyone here in this place is a hunter, what are you doing here if you don’t hunt? It was kind of funny. I was one of very few that didn’t either have on Camo or a cowboy hat. Ha ha.

Did I tell you that Aunt Margaret and Uncle Howard are going to serve a mission at the Nauvoo Temple from April to October? They just wanted to make sure I passed that along to you. They also sent this poem about Pres. Hinckley that I posted to your Blog…

Prophetic Passing

I imagine he's running to Marjorie now,
Yes, running, not waving his cane.
I see him embracing his father and mother
While they keep repeating his name.
I see him now meeting his forebears,
Brother Brigham and Joseph are there.
Sweet reunion of prophets, united by service
That only such noble men share.
I see him embraced by the Savior
While Father says, "Good and well done.
So faithful in stalwart endurance,
I welcome My noble, most excellent son."
I then hear the ripples of laughter
As he says the reception's just fine,
But he hopes that he'll get an assignment or two
Since there's no need to waste any time.
I can hear his clear voice in the stillness
At the close of this sweet Sabbath day,
Have faith and move forward - there's work to be done.
President Hinckley would want it that way.

Jayme Jensen wrote me from Snowbird this week and asked about you. She said that you they’d take you back in a minute if you were interested in going back to the Bird. I told her that he’d appreciate that, but I didn’t know if you’d go straight back to school or if you’d need to work a season or so to save some college fundage again.

I am not sure if I told you about this e-mail that went around last week that was encouraging people to take up the “Hinckley Challenge” and read the book of Mormon cover to cover again like he challenged a couple of years ago. But this time to do it in 97 days for the years he was alive. I took up the challenge since I’m never one to pass up a good challenge and I’m schooling it. I will crush that 97 day goal actually. It’s been a little while… well, since his last challenge actually since I read it cover to cover just to read it, so I’m eating it up again. I love it. With every reading session my testimony strengthens. It’s great. Actually, I do remember telling you about this in your last letter now.

I can’t remember if I told you about my employee that went missing for almost 2 weeks down in the desert. It was all over the news here. They actually found them alive and doing pretty well. He came in to pick up his check today and I had a chance to talk to him for a bit. He’s still all over the news where they are asking him how they survived for that long on limited resources. He actually credited making the most of what he had and surviving based on tips from some shows like survivor man and man vs. wild they have on discovery channel. He is actually going to be interviewing on the radio with survivor man from that show calling in to interview at the same time. That ought to be interesting. Those shows are good. I’m pretty proud of Tom for actually putting that information into practice in the heat of the moment. That would be tough.

Well, I thought I’d be able to churn out most of your letter here in one sitting, but I just hit the wall. I’m dead tired. I’m going to go upstairs, plow through some B of M and go to sleep. I’ll catch you tomorrow…

K, I’m back and it was an eventful night last night. Clint announced that he and Rachel are pregnant, that was exciting. But even more exciting is that they are pregnant with TRIPLETS!! What the heck??!! I told them several times when they babysat that we will owe them when they have a baby. But I told him all bets are off last night. As soon as we baby sit that first time, we are EVEN! Ha ha. So I’ll have triplet nephews or nieces or both in about 20 weeks or so.

I just watched this show called Sisterz in Zion. They showed it between conference sessions a couple of conferences ago I guess. But I missed it. I wanted to watch it because it’s about some girls in NYC that come to Utah for EFY. Well, it was coming on KBYU on Friday, so I told TraVo to go snag it for me. Come to find out Syretta McQuiller from my area in the Bronx is one of the main girls in it. It was awesome to see her, her mom, her sister, and some of my old stompers profiled on that show. It was cool to see some areas of the Bronx and Manhattan where I used to work. With all respect to your mission there in Charlotte, I most definitely went to the coolest Mission in the Church!! I’m way trunky for NYC again after watching that. I wish I could afford to go back more often.

So in reading your letter about getting sick again, are you sure it wasn’t the Pizza you ate the same day, rather than the burgers from the day before? Or did that family get sick as well? It sounds like you are super busy with all of the trainings and conferences, and exchanges and stuff. No better way to be on your mission than busy beyond belief.

Well, I think I’m about out of stuff for you. Time for the Quote of the week and I’ll sign off.

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”

- W.T. Purkiser

Think about that this week as you go out and share your talents, skills, and blessings with everyone. Share them liberally, in fact, look for ways to share them more often than you currently do and you will find even more blessings flow your way to share even more abundantly than previously. What a great concept!!

I miss you. I love you and I love what you are out there doing right now. Keep making us all proud. Talk to you soon.

Love,

Travis