5/18/08

Elder A,

What’s happening this week? It was good to talk to you last week. As brief as it was. I guess I’m sans letter this week though, but you’ll still get love coming from me. About the phone call anyway, Mom seems to beat herself up over the Christmas call and letting the whole family talk, and I’m not sure why. Whether you griped about it or she just felt like that went on too long, I sort of told her this, but you should know that I would have insisted on that happening even if you put up a fight last year. You have no idea how much good that did for all the youngins in the family who look up to you as an example of what they should do with their lives as they get older. To have a family member serving the Lord in that capacity is almost a rare thing in this day and age and it’s a proud moment to get to talk to them once or twice for a few minutes while they are out there for two years. I think it was priceless for Ron and Marian to get to talk to you maybe to spark some extra spark in the mission fire and for Riley to get to talk to you, may have very well been the final shove that got him to decide to be ordained an Elder and now eventually to get his papers in. Don’t you dare regret that, even if it meant bending some mission rule for a few extra minutes. If we had known about a time restriction last year, we might have structured the time limits a little differently to accommodate the tight limits on time and I would have gladly given up my spot to let those little cousins talk to you just from seeing them all light up with pride that they talked to a cousin who is serving the Lord officially they way you are. But I think we can go with the spirit of the law on this kind of thing instead of the letter of the law. They all felt your spirit and it did them a ton of good. You probably did more good there than we all may ever know.

That will be cool to have Elder Coleman come out for the mission tour and for you to tour with him and hear all that he has to say and partake of that counsel. What a cool experience. The one we got from Vaughn J. Featherstone was extremely inspirational. He is a stud.

We went to Wheeler farm yesterday with the girls and Aysnlee was all over the animals. She was talking to them, getting all excited, trying to get their attention, oinking at the pigs, etc.

What have you gotten back in the way of your tests? I sent you Grandpa’s yesterday, so you have mine and Suzanne’s and Grandpas that I know of. But not sure what Stosh, Shelli, and Ma and Pa have sent in. Let me know if I need to do any more harassing for you, even though it will be more influential if you say it. But I’ll chase down what I can too. I sent it back out recently and that’s what got Grandpa’s to come in. So everyone has it, no excuses accepted now.

That’s pretty cool that you were on the church website, as short lived as that was. I got it on your blog immediately so everyone could see it before it went to David Archuleta, the LDS kid who’s in the top two of American Idol. I also posted the other pics with it that were part of the series I guess. So that was fun for everyone to see. I’m seriously struggling with your blog here chochy. I put up what little morsels mom throws me that she gets, but throw me a bone here and send me some good stories, some more testimony, some pictures!! Anything. I’m dying on the vine here waiting for some blog fodder and everyone who checks it daily is all thirsting for more. You have a world wide avenue for sharing your testimony and cool experiences here. While your time is brief, take advantage of that. You have parents of missionaries out there that follow it, you have who knows who else reading that, let’s not squander the occasion. You don’t need to come up with some world wide message every week, just send a little more my way when you can so I can select the best and put it up there for you. It’s going to be the coolest kind of mission scrap book you can think of when you get back and want to reflect on memories, but you are going to have to send more of those memories home to fill that bad boy up. I have told you several times that my biggest regret of my mission is that I didn’t take enough pictures and closely behind that was I didn’t write in my journal more. There are a few details that I have totally forgotten because I didn’t elaborate in my journal and because I don’t have pictures of the occasion.

We got our cement pad laid in the back yard for our patio area. Now I just need to build stairs from our back deck down to the pad. Ha ha. Why that wasn’t done originally is beyond me. But it is starting to take shape back there now.

Here is your quote of the week this week…

“Self-confidence is important. Confidence in others is essential.”

- William Schreyer

This is a principle that I learned on my mission and have used it on a frequent basis in every day life here at home ever since. As I would go out into the zones and do training exchanges, the more I left the missionary I was working with full of confidence that they were going to be successful, that they would make their Zones much more successful, etc. I found that they ALWAYS did exactly that. You already know that I’m big on self fulfilling prophecy and this is a big part of that. Even now when I conduct employee performance reviews, or disciplinary meetings or anything, if I express my confidence in that person, they will always come through to live up to that level of confidence I placed in them. It’s awesome. So that is the quote I chose this week.

Well, Brinlee is way sick today, so I’m not going to church and am staying home with her today so Suzanne can go and teach the lesson. But I’ll get this sent off. I’m not sure when you collect your e-mails or if it’s sporadic. But off it goes. Write back when you can. Keep up the full charge out there. Go hard!

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Love,

Trav