Missionary work in the South

This is just a cool picture! Nice artistic eye working the timer on your own camera! I think this is one of the coolest shots he took his whole mission.

Preach it, Elder!

Don't try this at home!

Scenic Overlook?

Why do I get the impression that there is more to this Scenic Overlook than just the scenery?

7/27/08

Hey Short Timer:

How’s it going this week? I didn’t hear from you last week. Actually I don’t think anyone did. So there’s nothing to go off of this week. So this will be short. I was in Denver all last week, so I don’t have much to report on other than work stuff. I guess to pick up where I left off in the last letter with my hand. I got some pretty good burns on all of my left hand fingertips. I gripped down pretty hard on a burning hot exhaust and muffler of my mower. In fact, right on top of the symbol in the metal that has a picture of a hand with an X right through it saying not to touch here. Ooops. I wasn’t thinking when I did it, just wanting to adjust the length settings on the wheels and couldn’t quite get it on the far side, so I gripped down and heard a split second sizzle before I felt the sharp pains shoot through my hand and arm. Yowza! I still have some weird burn wrinkles and calluses, but the blisters cleared up after a week. We are getting a good storm in right now, which is good. We haven’t had much moisture for a long time and need a good rain storm. Just something to block out the burning sun is all I want. But I’m pretty stoked on a good rain storm. I love lightning and thunder too. So this is a cool summer storm.

I just got home from my home teaching appts. And then my home teachers came over for their visit. Can’t tell it’s the last Sunday of the month, can you? I just got off the phone with mom and pops and Gramps. They all seemed to be doing well. Brinlee was out playing in the big storm. We got a big down pour for a while, but now it’s quit and we are back to dryness.

I was going to throw down some preparatory advice on re-entry, but I decided against that until you are home. You will adjust just fine and don’t need to think about any of it until you are actually home. So continue to concentrate on your mission and we’ll have plenty of hang out time when you get back to talk, discuss, break it down, de-brief, etc. I’m actually hoping I can get the day off to see you at the airport. I won’t know until late this week. And it might be tough, but we’ll see. If not, no biggie, I’ll see you later on that night anyway. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.

So are you going to write back before you come home? Or have we heard the last from you until you come home? I haven’t gotten a personal letter from you in several weeks. I’ve just been going off of what Mom and Pop get. This may be the second to last letter you get. If not the last. I’m not sure if you will get to the library or wherever you get e-mail that last week. So maybe this will be my last e-mail. That is weird huh? If you write back and let me know that you will have time to check e-mail one last time, I’ll write you one last time. But I’ll wait to hear back from you. If I don’t hear back from you, I will just let this be my last e-mail.

With that in mind, this could be the last quote of the week you get…

“The missionary work of the Latter-day Saints is the greatest of all the great works in all the world.”

- Heber J. Grant

You know this to be true now. You have a firm testimony of this now. Everything you do from this point on will, unfortunately pale in comparison. But you have had the experiences now at the most opportune time of your life to take those experiences into the most challenging of life’s hurdles and find yourself graciously prepared for all of them. What a glorious thing, missionary work. I draw from the deep pool of experiences and knowledge gained from my mission still on a seemingly daily basis and am grateful every day for what my mission brought me in life. I am so much more blessed than I ever could have imagined from the people I met on my mission, the experiences gained, the testimony built, and the relationship established with my Lord and Savior. I am like Joseph in a way where I cannot ever deny what I know to be true. You had the most amazing mission experience that I could have hoped you’d have. I hear from your testimony that you write home with, that you will take these things into the rest of your life now and utilize those talents and gifts you have been given to the best of your abilities, you will use the talents given you to maximize your potential to fulfill all that the Lord has prepared for you. I know that He has a lot in store for you and you will need to use each and every one of those gifts at some point. Always be prepared to give those gifts freely when you see the perfect moment. You’ll have moments in school, you’ll have moments at work, you’ll have moments in courting and dating, you’ll have moment after moment after you are married, and you’ll have moments in social gatherings and of course moments in your future callings to pull from the wealth of blessings you’ve now been given to give back and lift up your bretheren. (see Luke 22:32 & D&C 108:7)

I hope you know that I feel blessed to be your brother for eternity. I’m blessed to be sealed to you and have not only a family and brotherly bond with you, but a spiritual one too as that can be the strongest kind of bond. I can’t wait to have our great talks again soon. I can’t wait to play tennis, Xbox, football, etc. with you again. I can’t wait to see you move on with life and go through the next levels that come naturally (dating, marriage, completion of your education, career, and callings, and of course a family of your own).

Well, I’m getting into stuff I said I’d wait till you are home to discuss. So I’ll call it good. I’ll sign off now and hope to hear from you tomorrow. Let me know if you’ll be checking e-mail or if I should just let this be my last letter. I’ll talk to you soon. And see you almost as soon. Work hard this week. Stay focused. Bust our butt for just another week and a half or so. Work as hard as you can. Leave it all out there. You will have plenty of time to rest when you get back home. Even though I’ll make sure to get you busy again right away, but still… work it all out of your system while you can now. You will be Jonesing to do more missionary work for a while after you are home, so try to exhaust all of your energies now.

I am excited to have you back soon. I love you.

Trav

Potential?

Mike always did see the potential in old beater cars. I think this is a classic Camaro, just rusting away in someone's yard. He probably never saw the rust on this car. Just the potential of what it could become some day. That's what makes him such a great leader.





This explains his love for his car before he went on his mission. Check out the Caprice Classic:



I think he's sad we sold that when he left. I wonder what he'll pick up when he gets back. Maybe he already made some arrangements for that rust bucket up above.

The Giant Peach

Ever read James and the Giant Peach? Well, here's Mike and the Giant Peach...

Pie Eating Contest?

Looks like Mike pounded a pie. Not sure if he won the contest, but hey... Free Pie!!

Humble Missionary Christmas

Just a glimpse into a typical, humble missionary Christmas. The signs of a real missionary Christmas are the Charlie Brown mini tree, the two or three total gifts, the dozens of pairs of G's, and of course the smiles. There really is no better Christmas than a missionary Christmas.

Driving around the mission

Just a collection of driving around pictures.

7/19/08

Whats up witchu Boyo?

How’s the week been? Busy as usual I presume. I’ll keep this short as your time is short to get it all done in. Did you get the video John sent out? He over-nighted it even though it was going to the mission home, so it was probably not that important to do that. But oh well. Did you get it and watch it yet? Sorry it took so long to get that transferred from video to DVD and send it out to you. Did you get that test to correct our deals and send us back the results? We are all still anxiously waiting on that.

It’s been a busy week on the home front, also as usual. I mowed my lawn for the first time and it was too little too late. Man, it was a jungle out there. My weak lawnmower stalled out every foot. It is ridiculous that it took me 3 hours to mow it all and edge it and I still have at least 45 minutes of mowing left to do. I can’t believe it. I also mowed over one of my brand new sprinkler heads. I’m REALLY happy about that! It either wasn’t recessed enough or it was too much of a bog from how much watering I’ve been doing to make sure I don’t have any dead spots and the mower sunk too low. I actually liked yard work back at the old house but now I’m thinking I won’t like it as much here. We still need to go get some shrubs and bushes to put in and I’ll get some trees this fall so they aren’t in as much shock when I plant those right in the middle of the hot summer.

I’ve been enjoying the new job. I worked from home yesterday for the first time and loved it. Suzanne did too, so the whole family was here. It was kind of weird. I need to get ready for my week in Denver. I fly out Monday at 6:00 AM. I’m supposed to be at the airport at 4:00 if I’m going off of their 2 hour recommendation. But we’ll see about that. Since that would be way too much burden on Suzanne and the girls on a work/school day, I’m going to stay at John’s house Sunday night and have him take me in all early. I’ve never been to Denver, so I hope I can find my way around OK. I wonder what kind of car I’ll be hooked up with. Hopefully it has a GPS unit in it. That would make it nice.

Well, this will have to be the abrupt end to the letter because I just burned my left hand good while adjusting my mower back down after finishing the yard. I have big blisters and slathered on burn gel so I can’t type w/ both hands. Sorry so short but I guess I said it would be at the beginning. Have a great week. I’ll look forward to hearing from you on the previous stuff I wrote about here.

Have a great week. I’ll talk to you again soon.

Love,

Trav

Enter your own caption

Again, I'm at a loss. I have no idea what this is or if it's even appropriate to post. hmmmm. Anyway, add your own caption with the comment link below...

Follow up to Letter update 7/15/08

This letter came to Mike's Mom and Dad this week and is much more detailed than the previous one a couple of days ago. It's great to feel his love for his mission and to hear his testimony in these letters.

We did have zone Conference this week. I was able to bear my testimony there. It was rough, out of two years and everything thats been hard to do on my mission that was the toughest. I just about bawled my eyes out. I didn't, but just about, i told myself i wouldn't, so i didn't. i just about do almost everyday though, sometime during the day, so we stay busy to keep it off my mind. I'll start getting more mail from the mission for things about the travel home and whats expected of me and all that soon. Its really tearing me up. I'm working harder than ever, and more focused than ever, but little creepers sneak in there and even the thought of leaving my mission hurts me. I have interviews with President Hobbs on the 24th and I'll probably just pour my heart out to him. it'll be my temple recommend int. too.
On another subject though, we will be having a Baptism on the 26th. So thats a nice little B-day present from the Lord. Its the young lady that showed up at church on Sunday, that was awesome. We've met with her a few times now and she is absolutely Golden, so Solid. plus, the lady that i baptized when i was in Matthews as an AP that never got confirmed is now getting confirmed, so thats cool too. We are excited about how much the Lord is really blessing us and the work which is progressing here in carmel, the entire area is already turned around and the District is already improving greatly.

How Awesome for him to already have that lady who showed up for church to investigate already committed for Baptism. He's had some amazing experiences over the last couple of years!!

Companion Bio for Elder Boothe

Since Mike has a new companion, I sent out one last companion bio for him. The answers to my questions are as follows...

Full name: Kenneth Vardell Boothe

Where are you from: Kaysville, UT

Where did you work before your mission? for qualified electric

What are you going to do when you grow up? Contractor

What is your favorite thing about your mission? Baptisms

Favorite Scripture? D&C 1:36

Favorite thing to do when you are not a missionary? Swim

Girlfriend back at home? No

Favorite TV shows? King of Queens

Favorite cold cereal and why? Cinnamon Life, they're wonderfully delicious

Play any sports? F-ball and Baseball

What do you think about Elder Alexander's short tie syndrome he seems to
suffer from? its a cure to the ugly and defective long tie syndrome

(editor's note:) I'm not entirely convinced that Mike didn't just answer that last question on his own, or at least coerced him into answering one way or another. Hopefully he has not corrupted another young missionary to wear his ties as short as he does.

Letter Update 7/15/08

The new calling is going good, the district is moving onward and upward. The Area has turned around and is doing amazing, we will be baptizing on the 26th and confirming on the 27th. That'll make it so that I've found, taught and baptized someone in every one of my area's.
The Mission Leader here has actually improved a lot. Since i don't have a lot of time here i've been taking every opportunity to teach and train, whether its members or missionaries or inv. its every opportunity. This could be the only chance Carmel has to make some changes and they are really making them so far. Coordination meeting is now running almost the way its supposed to run, and PEC yesterday was awesome, Bishop Tousa asked us to explain the Key Indicators... (It helps now that the Seventy are holding the Stake Presidents accountable for those, and they hold the Bishops accountable and they hold the ward mission leader accountable, and now its finally trickling down where it needs to be and we're taking full advantage of it. Its nice. So the ward, which was said to be one of the least supportive is now fast becoming very supportive and we are now teaching almost as many Member Present Lessons as we were when i was a ZL about to baptize like 10 people, so the War here goes well, mainly because the Lord is just taking care of us. We are doing what we can to be Diligent, Obedient and Meek, and the Lord is just taking care of the rest.

Artistic Fountain

These shots looked like there was some artistic intent...

Pondering some deep thoughts at the reflection pool.

good thing he has a water proof camera. This is shooting up from the bottom of said fountain.

Letter update 7/13/08

Another snippet from his last letter:

Its been great this last week. Yep, Preparation Days are on monday still. They always were, but when i was an Assistant, we didn't have time on mondays to do it so President Hobbs said to do it whenever we could. So now, its going to be on mondays only. Well, this last week i had a mantle lifted from my shoulders, President called and told me that the missionary that was going to come out decided to come home and wasn't going to come out, so he released me from the calling of Traveling Assistant and called me formally to be a district Leader, he said it wasn't his first choice but that i was helping a few missionaries and district in great need, which it is and we knew that for the last while. so Its good and i'm excited as can be to be here in the Carmel area. Its so much fun proselyting full time again, i know how to do it way better and we have been busting our tails off trying to get the work going, and it has picked up a ton, but sunday we were shown that its not our works that get people, its the Lord. Most of the people we had coming to church had things come up at the last minute, and didn't come, but the Lord sent us a miracle, an absolutely Golden young lady to the church on her own who we've never met and she is so prepared. We're going to teach her tonight and a ton of other people, today and this week are going to be awesome.
This week is also my last Zone Conference, it will be nice to sit back and learn and soak it in, rather than conduct the meeting and instruct and worry about a ton of other details and whatnot.

7/13/08

What’s new young one? You found the results for those tests yet? We are eagerly anticipating the results to those! How is your new calling? Area? Companion? District? We better get another companion Bio for this new guy. I don’t remember his name even. Here we go:

Full name:

Where are you from:

Where did you work before your mission?

What are you going to do when you grow up?

What is your favorite thing about your mission?

Favorite Scripture?

Favorite thing to do when you are not a missionary?

Girlfriend back at home?

Favorite TV shows?

Favorite cold cereal and why?

Play any sports?

What do you think about Elder Alexander’s short tie syndrome he seems to suffer from?

That should do for now. It’s kind of cool that this will be your last companion bio. Wow. I am updating your blog as we speak and I’m looking at some of Preston’s shots. I can’t believe that total poser car that’s all hopped up on massive rims and tires. Ha ha. Then there are the pics and video of his dog. Is that seriously his dog?

Well, I started my new job this week. 5 days at the Sandy store to get the know the ins and outs of store management, store operations, logistics, stocking, inventory, etc. It was a busy week, but informative. This next week I’m setting up my office at the downtown location, then setting up my home office, then Wed,Thurs, Fri, I’ll be down at the Orem location. It’s a busy month. Suzanne and I also went on a date to dinner and a movie. That was fun. We only do those like every 3 months. It’s crazy how we can only get out by ourselves that rarely. But we had a good time.

It’s Sunday afternoon now and we went to Stosh’s ward for Maddy’s blessing. It was nice. Good food afterward. I was pretty full after plowing down some serious grub. Then we came home and took a nap, it was a nice Sunday. First semi relaxing Sunday in a long time. Now I need to get ready for the week. I’m mostly just setting up shop at my new office downtown. I get to cruise through the store loading up on whatever I need for home and work offices and expense it all to my department. That will be fun. After I set up, I’m just doing some online trainings which are easy enough. So that’s Monday and Tuesday. Then down to check out the printing facilities in Orem for the rest of the week.

The girls went to Lagoon this week too. They had fun of course. Just rode the basics, but had a good time. Wait, that was last week, because it was my last day of work and I worked super late to get everything done and wrapped up. So that’s why I didn’t go.

Sounds like you have a good challenge ahead in Carmel. How is that coming? How are things working with the mission leader there? How is that golden lady you got set up with? How about your other teaching appts? Sounds like you had a bunch happening last week. How was your last Zone conference soaking it all in? you are probably feeling the pains of short timer syndrome now. It’s tough when you know you only have such a short time left. But it’s awesome too. I had some of the best weeks of my mission in my last month.

I just fixed your countdown timer. It stopped working a couple of days ago for some reason. But it’s all fixed now. You will have to write back and fill me in on your week, send the test scores home, answer my questions and send back the companion bio.

Here is your quote of the week…

“You have been set apart; you have received your errand from the Lord. Go to, and may God bless you. I have no fear whatever that the candle lighted in Palestine years ago will ever be put out. It will shine more brightly always. This is the work of the Lord. We are doing His service. It is time now that we gird up our loins and go forward with a new dedication to this great work.”

- Spencer W. Kimball

Now as you get to this point in your mission, you should go forward with a new dedication to this work. You have the testimony that this is the Lord’s work, it is his errand you are on. Make haste as your time is so near to an end. How many of my letters have I ended with the exhortation to work harder, go faster, leave it all on the field? I know you have the urgency. Use it well in these last fleeting days. Have no regrets.

Love you. Talk to you soon,

Trav

Missing Video

Sorry to everyone who has been eagerly anticipating the hilarious video of Mike choking down the hottest hot wing of his life. The video is 182 MB in size. That is Huge! It's 82 MB bigger than Blogger will let me upload. I will work on compressing it so that I can still upload it or find a different host to upload it to so we can still show it. In the mean time, you get a different update...

I was seeing a weird theme with some of his latest pictures... the fact that he appears to believe he's tough. Ha ha. Here are just a few of his poses (yeah, there are plenty more that I won't show!)

Hot Wing Experience

This first video dares anyone to try it out.


This second video reads off the waiver and tells what consequences could come from eating one of these bad boys.

HOT Wings!!

Mike and a group of fellow Elders went to a restaurant that served some MEGA hot wings. These pictures leading up to the moment show the moments leading up to the moment of truth.
You will need to click on some of them to enlarge and read more clearly.

The Menu

Signing the waiver

Second guessing his decision at the fact that there is... a WAIVER!

All rights and liabilities are signed away

Paying homage to those that have gone on before them in this quest.

To be continued in the next post...

7/06/08

Whatsupatchu this week? How is the traveling? Or are you in one place doing the temporary DL thing still? It will be interesting to hear what they have you doing now, all depending on what that dude decided to do. You’ll have to send us the update. Well, it was an eventful week, as usual. This week was my last week at FranklinCovey. I start my new job with OfficeMax tomorrow morning. I’m pretty excited. It should be a good job. I just got my phone transferred over from AT&T to Verizon, so now I get all the free in-network calls to Suzanne, Mom, Dad, Shelby, and you when you get home. Staci is an outcast with T-mobile though. So to heck with her. Ha ha. It was kind of sad at work though since I had all the goodbyes and free lunches and stuff with the HR team and the Management team in my Division. I made some good friends working there. But this will be a good chapter in my life too. So I’m looking forward to beginning that now.

So you are now the best kind of AP huh? A Traveling AP has the coolest gig in the mission. You not only have the exposure to the President and other Assistants, but you are still out in the trenches where the dirty work gets done. You get the best of both worlds. I loved it!! Even if you are staying in one place, you have a great challenge to turn a struggling area around into one of the best areas and districts in the mission. That is always a fun challenge to take up and see how far you can get it in on transfer. So good luck with that too. You will have your hands full.

What did you do for the 4^th of July? Did you go see fireworks anywhere? I was never in an area during the 4^th of July that had any fireworks displays. I was in the Bronx the first year and just had a bunch of crazies firing off their guns into the air since everyone had bullets and guns, but no one had any fireworks. Ha ha. Then I was in Greenwich CT the second year and probably could have figured out a good area to drive to and see since they would have poured a million bucks into a decent display, but that wasn’t on our priority list. So we never saw any fireworks. This year, we went to the Emery’s for their traditional BBQ and we were going to go to Grantsville’s fireworks at night, but our friends we were going to go with flaked, so we ended up going to Murray Park with the Emery’s. They were weak!! After going to Taylorsville Dayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, it kind of spoils you. They kick any park’s butt on the 4^th of July by about 3 times. So I was disappointed by Murray, just like I am every year we have done that. But the girls had fun and that’s what matters.

I had a busy day yesterday (Saturday). I woke up early, took the CR-V to the dealership to get the AWD fixed, the door locks fixed, and to get a new key cut. I was there at 9:00 and didn’t leave till 3:00. That was one long day in the waiting room. I read an HR magazine, a Utah Business magazine, and about 100 pages in my book. Not to mention, listened to a bunch of crazy characters in the waiting room discussing random things and watched CNN headline news about 3 times through with every story. Nearly $300 and 6 hours later, I was out of there and on my way to Costco to get new tires put on, since they are way cheaper than the dealership. I was told it would take an hour, so I grabbed a hot dog and coke combo there for $1.50 and was on my way across the street to my favorite store… Best Boy. So I was walking up to the store and this lady and her two kids got out of a car I was walking past and we merged awkwardly. I felt like I was walking with her family. I tried to distance myself but it worked out because she seemed bent on getting in the store before I did. As if I were going to take the last of whatever item she was there to buy on sale. So I let her gain some ground on me and just before she hit the doors, this overly aggressive dude runs up to her and says, Hey, stop, I need to talk to you, then he looks at me and says you stop too. I could tell he was about to hit us up for money, so I just kept going. Since she had that head start, he blocked her way into the store and had her as a captive audience. He kept telling me to stop and was speaking way to loud. I was half expecting a confrontation, but I walked on in and had no intention of talking to him. So I go in even with his yelling and went up to the phones to get a head start on the Verizon collection before I would go to the Verizon store. I kept checking outside since I was still close to the front to see what was going on. He had that lady pinned for about 5 to 10 minutes it seemed like before she finally gave him money and walked frustratedly into the story. I bet she wished she had let me get the head start after all. Ha ha. But when she came in, she complained to the dude at the front desk thing and he got on the phone. I went on to look at some iPods to see what I will buy when you come home and collect Dark Angel back again (which is fine since I have well over 14,000 songs now which is way more than 60 or 80 GB or whatever it is can hold. I have to set up a playlist of what I want to sync and only sync that playlist because I have too much. That doesn’t include any pictures, movies, TV shows, etc. That’s just music with about 6 GB over Dark Angel’s capacity to hold. So I will definitely need 160 GB when you get home. After I browsed everything I wanted at Best Boy, I was on my way back to Costco. I got all 4 tires replaced there. So after 1 hour and over $400 later, I left there to go to the Verizon store. I got my phone and my plan and was out the door. Then it was across the parking lot for a hair cut. ½ hour and $15.00 later, I was out that door and on my way to Ma’s and Pa’s (since I was in Jordan Landing). My sphincter hurt from forking out so much hard earned scrill in one day. I needed a place of refuge to rest and recuperate before dropping $10 bucks in gas just to go home. Gas is killing me. I have to fill up my truck every 4 days and it costs $65.00 each time since it’s $4.10 a gallon now with no signs of letting up. It’s depressing!!! That’s where I saw Jukka’s new hair cut. Ha ha. He looks hilarious. Shelli trimmed him up like a poodle. He looks way funny. Way smaller too. But he’s cute! He seems to like it sort of. At least during the hot summer.

Well, I have to get all of my office stuff organized and put away. I need to set up my home office here for work soon, but I’ll also need to set up an office at the home store downtown too. So I’m going to be busy for a while getting established. My first week this week will be at the draper store. My second week will be at the downtown store getting set up. My third week will be in Denver for some introductions to the other team members and some training. My fourth week will be back here at the downtown office with my manager who’s coming in from Wyoming. So my whole first month is laid out for me. Hopefully I can get some time off to come see your bones when you fly home. Not to mention I don’t know what I’ll do for the Olympics since I always take time off of work for that, but that won’t be possible this year. I’ll have to max out my TiVo on that this year I guess. Well, I think I’ll get this sent off and go get in the shower. We get a reprieve from our kids today so the Bishopric can talk to us about a ward goal setting program. That will be nice. Then next week we have Maddie’s baby blessing. So we are lucky enough to have two weeks off. Hallelujah choirs are singing in my head right now!!

Here is your quote of the week.

“Spirituality, our true aim, is the consciousness of victory over self, and of communion with the Infinite. Spirituality impels one to conquer difficulties and acquire more and more strength. To feel one’s faculties unfolding, and truth expanding in the soul, is one of life’s sublimest experiences.”

- David O. McKay

I think by now you have found how to lose your “self” and to enjoy communion with the Infinite. As you increase in your spirituality, you can conquer any level of challenges and gain more strength with each challenge that you face. It truly is one of life’s greatest experiences to expand in spirituality, closeness to the Lord, and to lose the natural man. Enjoy it for but a short time more. And then as much as you can maintain it afterward. How awesome is a mission? Work hard. Leave it all out there! Give it your last ounce of strength and hustle!

I’ll talk to you again soon.

Love ya,

Trav

Plug in your own caption

Not sure what the artistic interpretation is with this picture, so just plug in your own subtitle with the comments link.

Most ridiculous car ever!

I know this isn't Mike, but this is his friend Preston on his mission in Portland Oregon. These pics came over on Mike's last picture CD and is the silliest looking car aspiring to be "gangsta" that I have ever seen. Then to contrast these two Elders standing next to it is hilarious. I had to post them.

Posing next to the Poser-mobile