99 bottles of ROOTBEER on the wall

Wow, we are down to double digits now with the days Mike has left. So we'll be counting them down anxiously.

In the mean time, here is some outtakes from his letter this week:

Its been a good week out here. We spent the fist half of the week in Hendersonville, NC on an exchange with the Zone Leaders of the Asheville Zone, Elder Newton and Elder Gandy. Then did their Zone Conference on Wednesday. Drove home wednesday evening and taught a sweet lesson to one of our investigators in a members home. Thursday morning we had to unload the trailer full of the Hendersonville Elders apartment furnishings (they just moved into a members home) into the mission storage shed, then had to get ready for our exchange with the Zone Leaders in Hickory. We then drove up to Hickory, NC and began our Exchange with the ZL's up there, Elder Hyde and Elder Casselman. We did their Zone Conference on Friday, worked with them that night, studied with them saturday morning and then left and came back here to Charlotte. We then had a slew of things to get done, from recoding Confirmations in the Computer, to creating an even newer program to record the missions key indicators. Then today, we are here before church to get this program done before we take the stats from the ZL's tomorrow morning. We may start working on Transfers again tomorrow, but mainly i think we're going to just work on the new program and tailoring it to meet President Hobbs' needs. So, its been a fun week. I love weeks like this, the only bad thing is that we've hardly been able to work in our own area the past couple weeks with all the traveling and the exchanges and Zone Conferences and Emergency Transfers.

I made big old boo boo up in Asheville. Hahaha, we have the big old mission van and a trailer for all the stuff we have to do, and we took it all up to Hendersonville to pick up all the ZL's furniture. That all went good, but when we hitched up Wednesday morning to go to Zone Conference apparently i forgot to put the lock back in the hitch, and i set it on the bumper of the van, well the keys to the trailer and the mission storage sheds and a whole bunch of other things were still in the lock. When we took off it must have fallen off the bumper. When we got out of Zone Conference we went to get something out of the trailer and couldn't find the keys... I then came to a remembrance of the morning hitching and knew what happened... We thought it would be alright and went back to look for the lock and keys, but could not find them. We were under pressure for time as well since we had to back back in Charlotte, 130 miles away in time for an appointment. At first i knew we had spare keys back here at the office and thought it would be ok and we could just get copies, but then i remembered that we just barely got a new shed and both keys to that were on the key chain i lost. The other shed is totally full and we couldn't unload in that, and we had to have it all done by Thursday when we left to go to Hickory. So then i thought i was going to have to pay a locksmith 150 bucks to come and monkey the lock, so i was pretty bummed out. The bad thing was, it all would have been ok if i would have just put the second key to the lock in the office. I had even had several Promptings over the last couple weeks to do that, but because of what i thought were time restraints, i didn't. Thursday morning the Lord was too kind to me, the maintenance man at the storage place ground off the lock for 15 buck and the place gave me a new lock for free and then i just had to pay for a new hitch lock and copies of all the keys... So all in all, it cost me about $30. Much cheaper than a locksmith. So i am a blessed little guy. so anyway, thats my adventure story of the week. It all worked out, and we got to our appointment and had an amazing lesson and the trailer was unloaded in time and we got to go on the exchange.

4/27/08

What’s bakin’ this week? You still hard at it? It’s the NFL draft yesterday and today. Most of it happens today, but all the hype and pomp and what not happens yesterday with the first and second rounds. Your Niners are not adding anyone spectacular, at least that I know. But my Steelers added a sweet Running Back out of Illinois that it’s amazing he slipped to 26^th in the first round where the Steelers were hanging out. So that is a nice bonus add there. Willie Parker finally has someone to spell him and a young prodigy to take the reigns in a couple of years max. I’m pleased with that pick up. I watched most of the 5 ½ hours last night. It’s easy when you have TraVo burning through commercials and awkward commentator pauses when they run out of stuff to say in the 4^th hour. Ha ha. So it was good. I won’t watch any today, it’s all just circumstantial bidniss to be attended to today. I’ll just check the internet to see who went where and what kind of drafts all the teams had. See if any local boys went anywhere good. That kind of thing. Speaking of your 49ers… we were at lunch at Wingers on Friday and they were hyping the draft on Sports Center on the TVs in there. This kid in the booth next to us must have been about 4 yrs old max. When they started talking about San Fran, he starts chanting “49ers suck, 49ers suck…” It was pretty funny. I’m sure you would have loved it. Ha ha. Anyway, so Shelli took that 9 yesterday, so I’m going to get a 40. No need to worry about that. It’s all been decided. I just wasn’t sure if Shelli was going to want the 9 for sure and at that deal I was getting, I would have kept it for sure. But now that it’s official, I’m going with the 40. I am pretty excited for Tuesday. I’ll be officially a card carrier. I hired Shelli’s friend and secret crush Joseph Featherstone to work at the FC last week. He starts tomorrow. I brought him in for an interview on Friday (not that I needed to, I already got him the job) to have a little time to get my psychological strategies planted into his mind. I had plenty of success too by the way. We’ll see if things start to develop a little now. I had to keep it subtle, but I think we might see a little more inclination to ask Shelli out. The whole family wants to see that relationship develop and hopefully get those two together for good and have little Joseph/Shelli babies. Little Jellies if you will. Ha ha. I think he’s a quality kid. It was fate that I ran into him on the Subway in NYC a few years back. A city of over 7 million peeps and I happen to run into him on the subway in NYC? Come on! It’s a future brother in law introduction is what that is. Now Shelli needs a little bit of convincing there too. We’ll see. While he was there for his “interview” Jessie called and said she was over at the retail store there on campus and asked if I could come hook her up with a discount on planners. I told her sure and took Joseph in tow with me. So we had more chance to discuss things on the walk across the parking lot. So Jessie met him too and liked him as well. When she found out he was Vaughn J’s grandson she lit up and said “he was our mission area authority”. I told her the he was ours too and explained to Joseph that Jessie and I were on our missions at the same time close together in D.C. and NYC. I recapped my encounter with his Grandpa too where he presided over the mission conference that I conducted. So I sat next to him on the stand. He liked to do this little exercise in the middle of it to loosen up and had you turn to your right and give a shoulder rub to the guy next to you (which happened to be me), so he was rubbing my shoulders. Then turn around and switch it up, so I was rubbing his shoulders. It was kind of surreal to be literally rubbing shoulders with a General Authority. He seemed to think that was kind of funny. When we were walking out of the store, he asked me if Jessie was my wife. Ha ha. So I gave him the overview. We are going to Ma’s and Pa’s tonight for dinner and everyone will be there, so we’ll have to have a Joseph discussion. Better yet, maybe I should invite him over. Ha ha. Now that would be fun!

Yesterday, we went to Gardner Village and did a little bedroom set shopping and found a screamin’ deal on a nice set. So we bought it. I have to go pick it up sometime this week. While we were there, I bought Brinlee a pony ride. She had fun with that. She was a little nervous at first, but got the feel for it and loved it. The landscapers did a little more work on the yard yesterday too. At the rate they are going, I hope they have it done by the time you are home.

So how’s the work? What are you working on now? I still have yet to get a feel for topics and examples of what you are training. What about pictures? You have any new pics to send home anytime soon? The Blog is drying up because letters are few between and I’ve been sans pics for a while now. See what you can do about sending some pictures when you can.

So how do you feel about coming home on 08-08-08? How sweet is that date? You won’t ever forget the day you returned home eh? I’m glad to hear that the quotes of the week are actually doing some good now and then. I hope my letters make a difference every once in a while. Well, I’m going to take off and get ready for church but I will finish this up tonight when we get back from Ma’s and Pa’s.

K, we are back from the Natals house and now it’s 10:26 PM Sunday night. We were there kind of late. Dinner was good. Meatballs and noodles among other things. A little reminiscing, a lot of laughs, etc. We gave Gramps a blessing for his eye procedure he’s having done on his other eye now. That is on Thursday. A blessing for Staci for baby stuff. And were going to do a blessing for dad on his colonoscopy tomorrow, but he chickened out for some reason. So oh well. That was nice anyway. Shelby wasn’t there till everyone left (except for us). She had a date after work or something. So she got home later and had just enough time to play with the girls just before we left. The date wasn’t with Joseph, so I didn’t care who it was and didn’t get any further details on it. I’m only interested in one dude being with Shelli right now. She thinks I have a man crush on him. What can I say? I’m just a good judge of character and potential.

I helped mom print off your letter so everyone could read it tonight. She couldn’t figure it out for some reason. So everyone had a chance to read your letter this week. I also installed Microsoft Office for XP. It’s about time you had office over there. So now you have Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Front Page, etc. Whatever is all in Office. There you go. You have been wanting those on there for a while, yes?

So to get into your letter to Ma and Pa… Wow, so you get 40 min. to talk on Mothers day, eh? What will we do with all the spare time after we have talked everything out? I mean, we can have a slightly meaningful conversation and it’s time to go. What’s up with 40 min? I think I have sat on the turlet longer than that a few times! Oh well. We get what we get and we don’t throw a fit, right?

Sounds like you had quite the episode with the keys getting lost. They never turned up, eh? That’s good that it worked out the way it did at least.

How’s the journal coming? Still plugging away on a daily basis? You know the other thing I got thinking about I’m way glad I did? Every roommate and companion and even a few others just on splits would sign this little book I had, almost like a year book and put their home address and phone numbers. This was before e-mail really, so I didn’t have e-mail addresses, but that was AWESOME to have. I just went through it again for the first time many years and had actually forgotten some names and people that the book reminded me of and now I can contact them again if I get the hankering. Something to consider if you have not kept something like that. How are the Parker’s holding up? Need any refills yet? You know I got your back with whatever you need if you need it.

Well, I better get ready for bed. It’s late now and I have a busy week ahead of me. I’ll check with you later on.

Oh, time for a quote of the week, eh? I almost forgot. Here you go…

“If we do not do our duty in regard to missionary service, then I am convinced that God will hold us responsible for the people we might have saved had we done our duty.”

- Spencer W. Kimball

I like that quote, even though it seems a bit harsh sometimes, but I think it’s true. Missionaries who slack, who are out there for a 2 year get away, or who just occasionally get lazy, I think will have a harsh reality check in the world to come when the accountability is doled out. Make sure you are doing all you can to save every last soul while you are out there. Leave it all on the field, or in the field in this case. I know you will. You always bring it hard.

I guess I’ll talk to you on Madres’s day. But I still look forward to whatever letters you send out. I have run dry on the blog. Needing some photos or good blog fodder to get out to your peeps. So whatever you got, send it along.

Talk to you soon.

Love,

Trav

Retro Video

It's been a dry spell hearing from Mike, so I thought we'd get a little bit nostalgic and post this old video of Mike and his friends. These are some Dorks at their finest. This video was shot before all these guys went on their missions. They were out doing a little service and decided to have some fun with ripping up a tree. This video is called Stumpy the Stump.

Enjoy...

4/20/08

Hey Yo,

Yet another week has passed already and time for another letter. I guess I’m sans letter from you again this week, but I will still bust out a faithful letter. This was a semi eventful week. Besides my typical 50-60 hour work week, we had a little bit of fun on the side. I got free tickets to the Bees game in the suite or a free movie sneak preview down at Gateway. I opted for the sneak preview so that the girls could go see the new Dr. Seuss movie Horton Hears a Who and Mike Woodbury (who’s in town for a few weeks before shipping off for Turkey) and I could go see the sneak preview. We all met up at the Gateway and ate at the Dodo. Then went up, got our tickets and went to the movies. The girls liked the movie a lot, Mike and I liked our ours OK too, it wasn’t the best movie I ever saw, but it was definitely good for free. I took Mike back to FC where he parked at my office and Suzanne and the girls headed home after their movie. We got home close to the same time. Yesterday (Saturday) I went with a manager I work with to the Crossroads of the West Gun show at the South Town Expo Center. It was OK. Lots of cool guns, lots of cheap Ammo, I actually negotiated a new concealed class with a dude there who will not only do it $10 per person cheaper than the place we were going to do it a week from Wednesday, but he will come out and do it on site at FC. So that will be pretty cool. Oh, and they also go wait in line and take care of the State business for you too. So it will save us all 10 bucks, a trip to the Ghetto in WVC where the class was going to be, and a trip and wait in line at the State to get our paperwork turned in. I’m pretty excited actually. They had some sweet 50 cal. Sniper Rifles there that would be a BLAST to shoot. All they were good for there were to covet and admire just looking at. They had a way sweet tactical Shotgun there too that was all pimped out with the works with pressure sensitive flashlight commands, heat shields, extended magazine, collapsible stock, vented barrel, night sites, shell holders, etc. It just looked awesome. That guy is actually going to call me tomorrow with some information on a magazine extender for my shotty so I can increase capacity for the home defense mode it’s in now with my 18 ½ “ barrel.

I’m listening to some Moleni Brothers right now. Good stuff. Too bad you can’t listen to that, even though they bring the spirit hard with their Pacific Islander style of church music.

Last night, we had a baby blessing for Rick and Monica’s new baby boy. That was kind of cool to do it on a Saturday at the Church with just the family. We had Ricks side and Monica’s side all there. Ron presided and conducted being the first counselor in the Bishopric there in his ward. We had a song, a prayer, the blessing, a testimony meeting, a closing song and prayer and then some serious refreshments in the gym. After all that, Rick’s side of the family had a family meeting in the Relief Society room, we cleaned up the gym, put away the tables, chairs and swept up and then played a couple mean games of hoop. That was fun. I am seriously out of shape, but we had a good time. I haven’t worked out or sweat like that in a long time, so that was good for this old fatty.

Friday, I had lunch with Clark and Shirley McKenzie from New Zealand. Do you remember her? You might not have ever met her at Snowbird. I hired her the first year I did the International program and she was great. She’s returned most years, minus one or two is all she missed. We went to the Training Table over by my work. She is about to go to NYC and then to Cancun for a while and then after her little vacation, she’s heading up to Roche Harbor in Washington for a summer of work up there and then home to NZ for a while to decide if she’ll return to the Bird one more year. After lunch, I went back to work for an hour and then met back with Clark and we went golfing with my other former Intern Tyler Hooper. I think he is the one who took your picture for the website that one day. You were up on the Snowbird Website for seriously a year and a half it seems like. So that was good times. We hit up Stone Bridge over my Lake Park across Bangerter from my work. That was fun.

I have been chatting with Shelli Lyn while I have been typing your letter. We’ve been comparing our tunes and making some recommendations. I got a CD from her recommendations and have been listening to that while I type too. One of the songs was on Smallville a few weeks back. It’s good stuff. She is going to take the concealed carry class with me on the 29^th. Ha ha. Kind of unexpected, but cool eh? Shelli a concealed carry chick. That’s cool. I’m hooking her up with a 9MM for $100 bucks too. Now that’s a screamin’ deal.

Well, it’s time to put down your Quote of the Week and bust out.

“A good leader encourages followers to tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear.”

- John C. Maxwell

I think we were talking a week or two ago about gathering information out in the field to bring back to the President. This is one of the biggest challenges I found was how to get missionaries to tell me what I needed to hear and not what they suspected I wanted to hear, or to hear past the fluff and get to the real issues so we could make things better and improve instead of hearing the warm fuzzies only and possibly neglect some real issues that may be impeding some real progress in that particular Zone. That was one long sentence. Anyway, you get the point. So I like this quote because that really is a quality that few leaders possess or know how to achieve. They love to hear what they want to hear and have a problem finding or encouraging ways to hear what they truly need to hear to gain the results they should be striving for. So that is my challenge for you this week and beyond. Look for ways to encourage that and hear what you need to hear.

That’s about it for this week. I’ll hopefully hear from you this week. Keep up the hard work.

Love you,

Trav

Elders Foster & Alexander

Elder Foster's mom sent this picture to me last week. This is E. Foster standing next to Mike. Quite a contrast. This is one of the funniest pictures I have seen of him. This makes him look like he's a little toddler. ha ha. Of course Elder Foster is over 7 feet tall.

Baptism Shots

Every Missionary's favorite color is white...

4/13/08

Hey E.A.

What’s new with you this week? I don’t really know when you will get on, so I can’t time my letters so you get them fresh for the week when you get on the computer. So you probably haven’t received my last week’s letter yet. But it’s sitting there as of last Sunday afternoon. I figured I better write earlier today if possible so you have it if you get on earlier, but then you’ll have two letters from me till next week. I had a dream about you last night, that we went walking into this random house, it must have been ma’s and pa’s since we just walked in, even though I have never seen this house before. And you were sitting there in your white shirt. Looking exactly the same as when you left. There was another dude in there dressed the same, I think it must have been an old companion visiting you since you had just gotten home. I think it was a surprise to us since I don’t think we were expecting to see you in there. Even though I didn’t act all that surprised in the dream. I was wearing my suit, but it was all haggard like it was a long day so my tie was loosey goosey around my neck, my shirt was unbuttoned a couple of buttons, my collar was sticking out over my suit and opened, etc. But you said I never looked so good. Anyway, I walked over and gave you a hug and the dream was over and I woke up cuz Aynslee was crying. That was just this morning. So what did you think of Conference? Make sure to return the favor of my favorite Conf. talks and why with your own. I’m curious to know what you gleaned from the talks and what you are taking with you to train the mission with. Still waiting for a few examples or topics of what you have been training on the last few ZC and ZLC’s. Have you heard much about the new church campaign for ads and commercials calling it “Truth Restored”? Here is scoop on that…

A new advertising campaign for the LDS Church that has been test-marketed in selected areas looks to focus public attention on "Truth Restored" as an answer to life's greatest questions.

With the 178th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set to begin Saturday, church leaders will focus on specific doctrinal issues for church members. But the new ad campaign is designed to reach those who know little or nothing about the faith.

Developed by the church in conjunction with Brigham Young University's advertising department, the ads — inside publications such as Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report and Sports Illustrated, and targeted at specific geographic markets — are a departure from the faith's long-running "Homefront" series.

The new print ad campaign features people who identify themselves and their quest to find God, describing a life challenge that sent them looking for meaning in the divine. "I felt so destroyed by my addiction to alcohol and drugs," writes Jovanny Vasquez, of Bronx, N.Y., in a two-page ad that appeared in U.S. News in the Las Vegas area in August.

Appearing alongside the image of a man dancing with a woman and two children, he continues, "I prayed with all my heart to find a solution to my life. I was at the point of losing my wife and family. The God I was looking for was a merciful God. I wanted to know how to be forgiven."

Story continues below

At the bottom of the page, the church's logo appears in large lettering, with the phrase TRUTH RESTORED underneath in smaller type, followed by mormon.org beneath them both.

The campaign, which has adopted a slightly different format for TV, radio, billboard and Internet advertising, has been running for about eight months in four different areas of the country that correspond to designated LDS mission areas: Las Vegas; Las Vegas West; Independence, Mo., including Kansas City and Wichita; and New York Utica, which includes Albany, Syracuse and Utica.

Kevin Kelly, a former New York advertising executive and associate professor of advertising at BYU, told an overflowing auditorium at the school last week about developing the campaign with the church, with oversight from LDS general authorities on the Missionary Executive Council.

In surveys or pretesting done before the campaign began in those markets, results showed 63 percent of respondents didn't know the main claims of the LDS Church. So in an all-out media blitz, the team sought to "have people keep bumping into our message," Kelly said.

"The idea was that (our) media would do the heavy lifting, and that church members would then just answer people's questions, and if they couldn't answer then they would pull out their wallets."

The campaign includes pass-along cards for church members to carry, with answers to questions about topics including life after death, God's involvement in the world and how to keep one's family and marriage safe and secure based on LDS gospel principles.

After three months of intensive media in those markets, surveys were done again and showed that many more people than before "felt it's possible to answer life's deeper questions," Kelly said. "This was thrilling as an advertiser. People were actually looking for answers and also described the main claim of the church, that Christ's church and its teachings have been restored."

After several months, one mission president reported 76 convert baptisms that he believed were in some way attributable to or had been influenced by the campaign, Kelly said. The ads provided "identified messages that are relevant" to everyday people and increased traffic to mormon.org, he said.

Scott Swofford, director of media for the LDS Missionary Department, said the campaign was designed to target areas of the United States "that best mirror the country as a whole." It includes TV and radio spots featuring "man on the street" interviews, but simply walking up to people and asking them to sign a release and talk on camera or for radio "is almost impossible," he said.

The team called casting agencies that supply extras for film and television, told them they needed a diverse population, and had them send the extras to a street corner at a specified time, he said. "Then we asked them questions about life satisfaction that they had never heard before. They were actually questioned on camera, and it wasn't rehearsed, but these are people used to signing releases and appearing in front of cameras.

"I was shocked at how cooperative they were and how honest in their opinions," he said. "We had a wide variety of people to compare and contrast. Many of them expressed opinions that contrasted their own religious belief."

Their comments, including statements like "I would like to think God knows me," and "I don't think God cares about me," were condensed into radio and TV ads, followed by a voice-over that says, "After centuries of confusion, truth about life's great questions is now restored. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Visit mormon.org"

Swofford said the focus of the campaign is "what are things that resonate commonly among us, and does the restored gospel shed light on your question about life?"

He said eight months "is a pretty short time to decide whether the campaign is working," but the team will continue to analyze data on how it affected people who actually joined the church. "What we do know is that traffic to mormon.org increased from 200 to 300 percent from pretest levels. Of the referrals coming in, many of them are from that site, but we don't have specific numbers yet that say things have improved or changed.

"Whether the net result will be an increase in baptisms — we're still trying to figure out where that is."

Early feedback from missionaries, church leaders and members in the test areas is "really enthused. ... Many reported retention (of converts) was better, and we've probably shipped over 500,000 pass-along cards.”

K, that was longer than I thought it would be. Sorry for hogging all of my letter time with that story. But it’s kind of interesting. A little reference to the Bronx too, yeahhhh!

Oh, you don’t need to worry about sending that picture of you and Foster, I think that’s what his Mom sent me. It’s the one of you two standing next to each other and he’s easily twice as tall as you? Or do you have a different one? You can send it anyway and if it’s different or better quality, I’ll post that one. But she sent me one at my request cuz she wrote saying she had one. She’s nice. Home boy is TALL huh? That picture looks so funny to me. I told her that her son is a giant among men. Thanks for the companion bio on Elder Gillett. He sounds like a good guy, with the exception of his musical taste. I like his Scriptures though. Those are pretty sweet scriptures to have as favorites. Do you have any new favorites? Seemed my favorite scripture changed from week to week the last half of my mission. So August 8^th eh? That’s the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. That will have to go on the TraVo since I’m sure we’ll be pretty busy with family festivities getting you home and listening to lots of stories and stuff.

I asked Ma what the plan was for Elder’s Lee and Van Leeuwen. She said if they contact her, she might have them over, but she’s not going to try to hunt them down or anything. So hopefully they check in with her and we all get together. That would be fun.

I’m having a few things in my yard quoted for some landscaping. So hopefully we’ll have some if not most of that done soon. This week I put a type test on my family blog. It shows how fast I type and you can click the link to see if you can do any better. Shelli has been obsessed with beating me, but it’s hard when she types a 74 WPM score and keeps seeing my unreachable 92 WPM score. That’s gotta be disheartening. I told her it’s like when we all played monopoly or chess and I offered you 3 a CD of your choice or a $5 spot if you could ever beat me in those games. It was just enough to keep you coming back for more, but I think it finally wore on you guys to keep losing and never get the unattainable prize. But she swore with an oath she would beat me, so I told her she could have a CD of her choice if she did, but I had a couple of hours upon notification that she beat it to beat it myself, which I can if I did it a few more times. That was not my best time by any means. It was fast, but I was a little bit sloppy. So it took my score down a little.

I drove by our old house the other day. We were having a little reunion with Mike Woodbury, Matt Ashton and Cammey Blake and all of their families over at Nicki’s Dad’s house which happens to be in our old neighborhood by Eisenhower. Do you remember that house well? It was pretty Ghetto. It looked way small and run down and they had junk all around the yard. I wonder if the BarnJarnies are still renting it out or if they just sold it. The Neighborhood was still decent, not really too run down, but that house was in bad shape. The BBQ was fun. I played a game of Halo 3 with Mike’s two sons who are 14 and 12 I think. They are good at Halo. Zach, the 14 year old went up 3 nothing on me right away. Then I got my bearings and went on a 10 kill run before he got a kill joy on me and scored his 4^th point. I went on to make an insurmountable lead and he gave up and threw his controller over to JC (the 12 year old) and left the room. JC is better, he actually got 5 kills in a row before I got ticked and cleaned him up too and got my 25 to end the game. So they were both a little bit bugged that I beat them both. When they were living in Florida, we were talking a little smack online about who was going to beat who, so they were a little embarrassed. We played some Guitar Hero too which is always fun and then we played some Wii. We bowled which was alright, we played tennis which was the funnest game on Wii, then we boxed and that was kind of fun, but too exhausting and too easy to cheat. I hate games you can cheat on.

I’m signed up for my concealed permit class on April 29^th. So I’ll have that soon enough. That will be cool. Not really getting it so I can pack heat wherever I go, but I wanted to get it before the elections since we are going to lose a lot of rights and privileges that we have now I think. Better get it while I can and have certain rights and discounts for that matter. So the time is right. John and Carry and Larry are taking it with me, along with one of the managers I work with and his wife and one of our vendors and his client. So we will pretty much pack that class. I’m kind of excited about it. It will be kind of fun.

Let me drop in your quote of the week and get this in the e-mail for you.

“The first responsibility of the leader is to define what can be. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.”

- Max DePree

I think you have found that principle of leadership is paramount, just through Christ’s example that servant leaders are the best leaders hands down. The more you serve those under your stewardship, the more loyal they will be to you and the better example you are to them. As evidenced by how much King Benjamin’s people loved and respected him for exactly that.

Ahhhhight kid, write back and make sure to cover all the questions that have been asked. Can’t wait to hear from you again soon. Hope the work continues to go well for you. Keep handling that load. You will miss that heavy burden like crazy in just a short time. So enjoy it while you have it. Soak it in.

Love you and miss you as always.

Trav

Latest letter (with departure date revealed)

Mike still sounds super busy and very happy. He is not excited about coming home, but Mom managed to drag his departure date out of him, so the countdown timer has been adjusted appropriately and should be accurate up to a few hours now. Here is a good portion of his last letter home this week:

Are you enjoying conference? Its been really good stuff so far for us. We've been watching it with Zone conference in mind trying to see what and how we can apply the words of our leaders in the things we decide to do in ZLC and ZC this transfer. So it is amazing out here, i'm sure its the same there. > Just to answer your question and get it out of the way quickly here, my release date is August 8, thats the day i'll fly home. Sister Phillips here in the mission office should be sending some stuff here soon i think, probably this week, usually she does it 4 months before our release date because she has to book the flight 90 days in advance. So there you go. We had transfers on Thursday this week, So Elder Lee and Elder Van Leeuwen went home. Well, Elder Lee went home, Elder Van Leeuwen is traveling the mission with his parents until Tuesday. Both of them said they were going to go visit y'all, so you'll have to set up a time for the family to come over and meet them. And Elder Van Leeuwen wants to try Dads taco's, hahahaha, I told him about them and he thinks they sound really good. So you'll have to see what you can do. I thought that would be fun for y'all to have my two favorite companions come over and chat with ya, hahaha, you'll like both of them, they are awesome. So maybe they'll call soon. I have my new companion, Elder Gillett, from Woods Cross, UT. He's good, this should be a really good transfer. I've been looking forward to it. > We should have a busy week this week though. We'll have ZLC on Wednesday and an exchange with ZL's after that. Then we'll have two exchanges the week after as well as 3 zone conferences. Those weeks are always the best. I love the way busy weeks, they are so much fun. We are always just bouncing off the walls busy and so tired but they are the best. So it is going to be a good transfer that I'm looking forward to.

Elder Gillett (new companion Bio)

It's time to get to know Mike's new companion, Elder Gillett:

Full Name: Carson Dave Gillett

Where are you from: Woods Cross, UT

What were your hobbies back at home: Baseball, Fishing

Where did you work?: I worked in plumbing

Favorite thing about your mission: Everything

Favorite restaurant to eat: Manuels El Burrito

Favorite TV shows back home: Sports Center, Seinfeld

Favorite Music: Country

Favorite Scripture: D&C 58:2-4, Jacob 1:19

Girlfriend back home: Yes, hehehehe

Favorite cold Cereal: Fruity Pebbles

Favorite Book aside from any of the scriptures: John Stocktons biography

What do you have to say to Mike's large world wide following? May your John Deere run well all your days.

4/05/08

Hey Yo,

How did you like Conference? It’s Saturday night, 10:45 PM, we got home just a little bit ago from Priesthood night at Don’s and LeeAnn’s up in Syracuse. I ate till I was in physical pain. Ughh. Good food, good folks, and fun. Isnt’ that an old restaurant tag line? Training Table or Chuck a Rama or something? The Stake Center was jam packed. They had two screens going. The Stake President did what I haven’t seen done before. He muted the pre-broadcast music and stood up and gave a talk of his own. It came across a little pretentious at first, but I guess it was OK. I was joking with Ron and Grandpa who weren’t there yet that his was the best talk of the night. It seemed very well practiced, written, and spoken for that matter. He looks like a TV News Anchor. His hair is immaculate, his face is a TV personality face, his voice was that of a radio announcer. It just seemed a little bit fake. His inflections and mannerisms were just like watching a news report or a campaign speech out on the political trail. It was a little weird. But he gave a good message and that’s all that matters. All of the visitors were turning to their relatives in the stake and asking who is this guy? I could hear some of it and just the observance said enough too. It was kind of funny, since I was one of them leaning over to Don asking exactly that. Who did you like? When you get this, it will probably be after conference is all over and I haven’t seen Sunday’s sessions yet, so I will wait to send this off till after the Sunday sessions. But I have some thoughts on the Saturday sessions and Priesthood session too. So I’ll drop those in after tomorrow’s sessions. I guess in the mean time, I better go hit the bed. I’m hammered. It’s almost midnight now and I’ve been up late the last few nights running. I got working on some other stuff there after I started this letter and now my time is more than gone. So I’ll check you tomorrow during or in between conference. OUT…

I just got your letter this morning. Now it’s noon on Sunday. Just watched the first session of conference. I’ll reply to your letter here. Yeah, the sooner you can get that picture of E. Foster, the better. I’m sure his mom will be all over that! How are you liking E. Gillett? How long has he been out? So you think 4 APs sounds like a lot huh? I think 2 sounds like too few. We freed up all that traveling time to allow those other two more time for the administrative work, office work, etc. and we had the chance to get out and do all of the training, putting out fires, recharging some areas that were going stagnant and likewise for companionships and missionaries. That is a full time job in and of itself. Sounds like you guys are a little stretched trying to do all of the above. I remember when we only had 2 for most of my mission. Then when President Howell announced we would be moving to that structure, we were pretty excited. It just gave the president two more sets of eyes and ears. The ZLs are supposed to be serving in that function to a degree, but you will also have at least one Zone that is having a tough time with this or that and he now has the resources to infuse some training, bolster the zone, and give some concentrated effort direct from the President for a solid week. That’s not something he could afford to do with his office AP’s. He needed them for other functions. So it just gave him some more outreach and communication through the mission as he deemed necessary. I liked not knowing from week to week where we would be going next. It was cool to come back on P-days, load up our wash, write our letters, and over a gourmet breakfast cooked by him, receive our orders for the next week as we broke down the past week and answered all of his questions he had about our last assignment. It was a great return and report set up. He couldn’t get that kind of detailed reporting he was looking for from the ZLs on a weekly basis. But different Presidents have different styles and are successful in their own ways. Sounds like Pres. Hobbs runs a tight ship and gets things done very thoroughly with his current set up.

I can’t remember if I told you in the last letter that I talked with JD Berry. I think I did tell you, but if I didn’t he is at George Washington University working toward his MBA. He has a job set up in Boston as soon as he gets done. It was good talking to him again. He said to tell you hi and asked about how you were doing on your mission. He is a cool cat.

I guess I should recap our anniversary festivities. It was a lot of fun. Ten years is pretty significant, so I wanted to make it memorable. I met the girls over at G-ma and G-pa Emery’s at 4:30 where they would stay over night. Suzanne and I went from there up to the Park City outlets to do some shopping. Suzanne had a good time shopping for some clothes and I even picked up a new pair of sweet Eddie Bauer Khaki pants for all of 12 bones. I was pretty excited about that. After shopping, we went into down town Park City and ate at Main Street Pizza and Noodle. It was good. We dropped $60 bucks between the two of us and ate till we were in physical pain. We started with our two refillable Beverages. Suzanne got a salad and I got a plate of burn your lips off Buffalo wings. Probably the best I have had! Then they brought out a big container of their famous spaghetti and sauce. It was good. We could have easily been done after that. But then came our large Santa Fe Chicken pizza. We managed to down half of that. Then came our Butterfinger shake. We took that down to empty and put the unfinished half of the pizza in a box and left for Midway. We stayed at the Johnson Mill bed and breakfast up there by the Homestead. It was cool. We were the only guests too, which was even better. We had run of the house, access to their fresh baked cookies and snacks. They had a bottle of sparkling cider chilling for us. The room had a jetted tub and sat right next to the private lake. It’s stocked with fish too. If I would have brought my fly pole, I could have hauled in a bunch, but it’s flies only and catch and release only. I’m all about catch and release anyway, but I really shouldn’t have diverted attention away from Suzanne so it’s good I didn’t fish anyway. They had some Mute Swans swimming in that lake and some Canadian Geese and some kind of Coots and ducks. It was cool to see the wild life. The lake emptied into a stream that dropped to a double tiered water fall and the sounds were very relaxing and peaceful. So Suzanne wanted the sliding glass door open all night to hear that even though it was 20 degrees outside. So we just stoked up the fireplace in the room and it was nice and romantic. However, the Geese kept swimming up by our door and honking. It kept waking us up which got annoying after the 3^rd or 4^th time. The next morning, we took a walk around the property and then went in for Breakfast at 9:00. It was probably the best French Toast I’ve ever had. Best sausage too. It was a really good Breakfast with Orange Juice, Cranberry Juice and Milk. After that, we headed back to pick up the girls and I went in to work by 11:30. It was a lot of fun and definitely memorable. So mission accomplished. It was good to get away, just the two of us since we rarely get that opportunity with the girls, so we loved it. That night though, after I got home from work, Both Suzanne and I were not feeling well and both of us ended up hucking before midnight. But afterword, we both felt much better, so I’m not sure if we picked up a little bug or if we had something not so good to eat.

I got my hair cut this week too and took it high and tight. It’s pretty much a military cut because it’s so short, but I like it for summer coming on. Oh, Ma and Pa came over this week too and while they were over, I had Dad help me set up the Foosball table, so that’s up and ready to rock now. So when you come over here, it will be ready for some fierce action as I beat you down. I also rigged up a sweet new ring tone on my cell phone. It’s the CTU ring that they all have on their phones at CTU on 24. it’s that boop boop BEEP boop sound. You know what I’m talking about? You may not remember it. But it sounds cool. Check it out, I forwarded your e-mail to Ma and Pa and told them to check it and send me something if they got one and here it is… so let me reply to this one…

So what talks have you liked the most and what are you going to use in Zone Conferences and ZLCs? What has stood out to you the most so far? What else have you been training on lately or talking about in these meetings? I would love to hear what you teach about in these meetings, so give me some examples. That would be cool to have taco dinner with one or both of those blokes over at Ma’s and Pa’s. You should make sure that gets set up. Oh, I just got an e-mail from E. Foster’s mom saying she just got a picture of you two. So he must have sent it home. You better still send that in your next e-mail so we can post it. But now the element of surprise is out. Dags!! Here is what she said though… I got a photo this week from my missionary son. He's standing next to Elder Alexander. Well, conference is over and I loved it. I can’t wait to get your thoughts, but here are mine…

First of all, Elder D. Todd Christofferson… huh? What do you think about him being the new Apostle? Do you remember my thoughts back in October of 06? I sang his praises. I loved his talk the best of all the talks in conference that October. So when they said his name, I was pretty psyched. Do you remember his talk? It was called Let Us Be Men. It was so good, Yo! In fact, I’m sending it to my work e-mail now so I can print it off on the Laser Printer and keep it in the archives. I loved it. I think he’ll be great. Let me go in order of the talks as they went… Donald A Rasband spoke early in the Saturday session. You know that I’m related to him? My Grandson married his Daughter. My first Greenie’s Greenie Elder Werlich. So he is my first born’s first born son’s Father in Law. He was the Mission President after Pres. Howell of my Mission and Elder Werlich went on to make me proud as an AP, keeping up the proud Alexander family tradition. Well, apparently he also caught the eye of the president’s daughter and vice versa, so after his mission, he pursued and obtained. So I thought that was kind of cool to hear him. In fact, speaking of that, the mission president before my president of my mission Sheldon Childs spoke as well. He’s also a 70. So the NY NY North Mission is churning out the GA’s apparently. Back to Rasband’s talk. I liked how he asked us to reflect on the experiences given to us for our good. To remember when we accepted Moroni’s challenge and received our witness of the truthfulness of the B of M, etc. that is something I think we all need to do more often. And if, while pondering these things, they aren’t in our journal now, should get there soon before we begin forgetting them. The next talk I really liked was Dallin H. Oaks, when there are mis-perceptions of us as members of the church or the church itself, it is our responsibility and obligation to clear those up, to speak up and correct those and that required Testimony. Just a good reminder to keep your testimony polished off and ready to give at a moments notice. And to share it often.

In the Priesthood session, Merv Arnold gave the opening prayer. He used to live in our stake in Taylorsville. He had a son my age named Jay, who came home from a mission because he was bi-polar. He had some chemical imbalances or something. I was sort of friends with him in school. But it was in Elementary, so I didn’t know him that well after that, but apparently his parents left town for a couple of days and he had an episode at home and got out the ol’ shotgun and put it in his mouth and took care of business on his mom’s and dad’s bed. That would have had to be so hard for them to come home to. But Merv is a bonafide stud. I remember having a scout camp at the Redwood Campus of SLCC, it was a big district wide camp. Tons of scouts all around. It got pretty cold that night and we were less than prepared. Merv was rolling through and we were out sneakerin’ around and he said hey guys, come here. He was out in his sweet, red mac daddy caddy. We came over, he thought he had recognized us, he said are you guys cold. We were like yeah, kind of. He said well what are you guys doing out this late? I think he was volunteering to help the scout leaders watch for trouble like us. We told him we were just going back to camp. I think he discerned our thoughts and intentions so he said, well, since you are cold, hop in and get warm. So we did just to take a quick break before we went back for more trouble. Well, he kept us engaged in such cool conversation about spiritual things that none of us wanted to get out and go do our trouble activities. I realized that we had spent over 2 ½ hours in his car with the heater going by the time we got back to camp and were too tired to go cause mischief. I never actually realized what he had done until I reflected on that at Priesthood last night when I saw him up there. So in retrospect, he was one cool dude for doing that in that kind of a neat trick manner.

Next: Elder Uchtdorf in the Priesthood session, time to make small corrections is now before it’s too late. I’m liking him more and more each time he talks. His story about the flight from New Zealand to Antarctica and the 2 degrees difference and the tragic results of not making the corrections early. It struck me when he said we have made an Oath and Covenant that if we magnify our Priesthood, we can have all that the Father has. I also loved his comment, “the Heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes, but by those who recognized they were off course and made necessary corrections”. Pretty poignant.

Next: Elder Eyring: Confidence in our abilities. Magnifying our callings and our Priesthood. He gives a solid talk every time he stands up and delivers.

Next: Pres. Monson: I loved his story of the kid in the ward who came up to share his testimony and got up there, looked out at the congregation and turned around and went back. And how he can’t do that as the President of the church as much as he may want to. He made a couple of good funnies last night. I loved his story about the kid who was trying to imitate him too and how he got him with the ear wiggles. He can really shake those bad boys, can’t he? He has always told some humorous stories, but he was just funny last night like Pres. Hinckley could be most every time. I really found myself feeling those feelings of love for Pres. Monson that I had for Pres. Hinckley. He motivated me with his comment that we can accomplish miracles and often do and our opportunities are endless. I also liked his comments to be aware of those things that we are surrounded by everywhere, meant to distract us from our responsibilities and the exercise of our Priesthood. You have to be the one to stand for the right, even if all yoru friends are standing for wrong. It also struck me when he said ‘Your influence, whether for good or for ill can and will be felt for generations to come. Another good comment was when talking about the best leaders. Those who have the most influence can set hearts afire and influence those around them to engage in good works.

In fact after this talk and his talk at the end of Sunday morning and even Sunday afternoon, I really saw that mantle settle in with him. Even Elder Holland commented on it and took some personal liberties in his talk Sunday afternoon. I think we all saw it and it was awesome for us to see. I expected that it would happen with conference, but it was a much more spiritual deal than I thought it would be. I thought it was really cool to see and have the spirit confirm to us that he truly is the Lord’s Prophet and leader of His church for the whole earth. Pretty awesome!

Well, that’s about all I ought to write since I’m on page 5 right now. I will send this off without a Quote of the Week since you have plenty here from conference. Write back and let us know how your trainings went, what you have been training on, etc.

Have a good week. Know that we all miss you and love you a ton. Keep up all the hard work and personal growth.

Love,

Trav

Tracting in the Rain