Elder Alexander's Mission Blog

Mike's Homecoming Meeting

2008-08-16T15:19:00.003-06:00

Everyone is invited to come to Mike's Homecoming on Sunday the 24th of August, (a week from tomorrow) at 11:00 AM. The address is 8035 South Leslie Dr. (3800 West). Just right around the corner from their house.

Following Sacrament meeting, there will be an open house at the Alexander's house with some food, snacks, and drinks.

We hope to see you all there.

Pictures from the Arrival

2008-08-16T14:56:00.007-06:00

Some pictures from Friday, Aug. 8th when Mike flew home.

How would you like to come home to these signs?

Jukka getting in on the festivities with his own missionary tie that's short just like Mike likes to wear it.

the theme was Billy Bob teeth and super short ties. Look at the driver in the background looking at us. ha ha

The happy siblings and their happy smiles

Nephew Alex, holding his "I want to be like Mike" sign

Brinlee and her Gingivitis filled smile

Aynslee holding her Mike Who?? sign. She's one of two nieces that Mike hadn't met before then

Brinlee, happy to see Uncle Mike back home

Alex too

They couldn't stay away from him for very long.

The whole family back together

Arrival at the Airport Video

2008-08-08T23:13:00.002-06:00

It has been a fun filled day of just hanging out with Mike and the whole family. We have been able to partake of his spirit he exudes still and had a wonderfully spiritual meeting with his Stake President as he was released.

We were all there at the airport in true Alexander fashion, to see him arrive. For me in 1995 it was the Groucho Marx glasses, noses, and Mustaches. But for Mike it was the short ties and Billy Bob Teeth. We had plenty of stares from people for the whole 45 minutes we were waiting for Mike to get off the plane, say good bye to his fellow Elders and make his way down to the baggage area where we were waiting, but it was worth it. Thanks John for coming down to the airport to play videographer, capturing this for us while we were busy greeting him, and piecing it together to host on your site again. It will be great to share with everyone who couldn't make it. To watch the video, click this link below...

http://www.johnwjacobs.com/ea/home.html

There will be plenty of pictures to follow and updates on his homecoming he will give soon. Good to have you home Mike.

Parting Testimony

2008-08-08T07:50:00.000-06:00

I have enjoyed doing Mike's mission blog for the last two + years now and have considered it a labor of love. I think he's going to really like looking back on these pictures, letters, memories, and comments from all of you in the coming months and even years. Thank you everyone, for your support of Mike while he's been gone. Although I will have a couple more posts on here to follow up his arrival at the airport and detailing some of the rest of his homecoming experience, I wanted to end his mission time posts with his last e-mail home, in its entirety. It is a beautiful testimony that we as his family were deeply touched by. Although we consider it personal and even considered if it was too personal and/or spiritual to put out here on his blog, we decided that it is after all, his testimony and that it was meant to share with anyone who would care to hear it. I'm proud of Mike beyond words. I respect him like no other and though I can't speak for our whole family, I know we all look up to him and his example over the last two years. I'm humbled by his personal relationship with the Savior and am inspired to work harder, be better, and develop that kind of close, personal relationship with Him myself because of Mike's example. Thank you for setting that bar a little higher for all of us, Mike and giving us a light to look to as you worked so diligently these last 2 years. We love you.

HI there,
Thanks for your e-mails this week. I'm not going to respond to much of anything from your e-mails although I thank you for your support and for your words. Rather, my desire is to share with you in letter format the knowledge that has been burned into my heart forever over the past two years. I am not the same Elder Alexander as the one that reported to the MTC on 2 Aug 2006. My personality is the same, my physical apprearance has not changed much, but the knowledge of the Savior is what makes me different now, than I was two years ago.
Its amazing the change giving all your time can bring when you're in the service of the Lord and striving with all your heart to not let your Father in Heaven down. I cant say that i've been perfect, but i've given it everything I have, wearing myself out in the service of the Lord.
After teaching and testifying of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Bible belt, I have gained in my own heart the knowledge of its truthfulness. My fledgling testimony has been tried and challenged again and again, by many who appear to know the Bible and who claim to preach the 'truth' about the Mormons, causing me to plead with the Lord to answer the questions that I could not. As i studied and prayed over the Restored gospel, and mainly while I was out beatin the streets I gained a sure witness that the Father and the Son actually appeared to the boy Joseph. That he was and is the Prophet of the latter days, the head of the Dispensation of the Fulness of times. Through him, the Lord restored that which was known anciently, the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, the Priesthood Authority, and the Church of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is convincing evedence of this. Our Father in Heaven is so loving, and kind to have spoken to the peoples of the ancient America's. The Savior did appear to the people here, and they did feel the wounds in His hands and feet. The Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth, and through it and abiding by its principles, i have come closer to God, than i could by any other book. It has taught me the Plan of Happiness, which is a fair and just plan. Father has provided it for that purpose, Happiness. I know of no other way to attain to so much happiness, than to learn and live the higher law as revealed in the Restored Gospel.
I testify that God is our Father, and that he knows us each very personaly. For we were in His presence before this life and our relationship with Him was and is real. What an empowering knowledge that is. I know that he speaks to us, for as i awaited my turn on earth, he spoke to my dear Mother and let her know of one more belonging to the Family. I am a living witness that Father speaks to us. I have heard His voice and felt His love. At times on my mission my faith in that has been tried by fire, but only to purge the dross. He has spoken to me at the times when He knew i needed it most, when no other soul knew. And has bouyed me up when i could carry myself no more. I am thankful that he blessed me with a family that is loving and supportive, and is a part of the Restored Church. I am thankful for a Mother who listened to the voice of the spirit and through much trial and tribulation brought me into the world. I am thankful for a Father who taught me the wasy of the Priesthood, and honoring and respecting the authority granted to us. For an older Brother who has lead the way for his siblings and taken me under his wing to teach and train me. For an older Sister who has begun her young family and always set an example of Scripture Study. And another older Sister who has always been my friend and has endured more teasing from me than any other in the Famliy.
Most of all, I am thankful that over the course of two years I have gained for my own self, independant of my parents and brother and sisters and companions and mission president, a sure knowledge of Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and His infinite Atonement. I know for SURE, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I know that He suffered in the Garden, sweating great drops of blood. That He died on the cross and three days later broke the bands of death, rising in the Resurrection. He opened the door for all the over come the effects of the fall, Death and Sin. The Resurrection will pass upon all mankind, but overcoming sin requires our valiance in following the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity. "The Kingdom of God or nothing!" is right. Through Him, is the only way we can return to our Father in Heaven. I Testify and bear my witness of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
As I have said as Nephi of old, I am not mighty in writing. "But I, Elder Alexander, have written what i have written, and I esteem it to be of great worth, and epescially because of my people. For I pray continually for them by day..." (2 Nephi 33:3)
Read 2 John 1:12.

Love,

Elder Alexander

Sun sets on NC

2008-08-07T17:46:00.000-06:00

As the sun sets on the horizon of NC and the day ends, so does the short two years of Mike's mission. He is really going to miss it out there! See you tomorrow Elder A.

Some friends he'll never forget 2

2008-08-06T10:09:00.000-06:00

The World's Hottest Chicken Wing

2008-08-05T06:57:00.001-06:00

Thanks to John Jacobs for hosting this big Mamma Jamma video since Google and all it's mighty resources can't handle a video this size.  He even compressed it down further for slower connections.  Follow the link depending on what kind of connection you have to watch this video.

click this link for Hi-speed: http://www.johnwjacobs.com/ea/hi.html

click this link for slower connections: http://www.johnwjacobs.com/ea/lo.html>/a>



Some Friends he'll never forget
2008-08-04T08:49:00.000-06:00













Saying goodbye to some friends 2
2008-08-03T09:22:00.000-06:00











8/03/08
2008-08-03T01:31:00.000-06:00
Hey Elder,
  I was talking to Shawn Challis in our Fantasy football league, and my longest roommate on my mission and this was our conversation on messenger:
  Challis: Did I tell you that I met a missionary from his mission. My brother in-laws had a brother-in-law that just came home last month.  He came here to ATL for his nephews baptism before going home.
  Travis: so I guess we'll set a date and try for a live draft when we think most everyone can come. If you out of towners can't make it, then we'll get you all on a conference call where you can have your own lappers set up there and follow along. it seemed to work pretty well with Kyle 
  -       oh really? did you ask if they knew E. Alexander?
  Challis: he said he knew your bro. it was kind of a cool connection, but then i told him i only knew him through fantasy football.
  Travis: what was his name?
  Challis: Elder Stream, not sure of his first name but i think it is Steve.
  from Huntington UT.
  Travis: I'll have to tell Mike about that
   
  So do you know Steve Stream?
  Small world!
   
  What do you know?  It’s your last letter from me as a missionary.  That seems really weird, eh?  The two years has gone really fast for me.  What about for you?  Probably too fast for you.  I would ask you what some of the highlights were and what you learned most or gained most from your mission, but I’d like to hear it all in person later on this week.  But keep that in the back of your mind and get ready to give us a full report.  I think that Friday will be awesome gathering as a family and bonding with a spiritual theme and feeling all day.  Not that we are heathens, but we don’t have the level of spirituality that you have had for the last two years and it will greatly edify us all and I really look forward to it.  
  That really is something you will have to keep in mind as you return… As much as I’d like you to look forward to everything, and you should, but it will be in most cases… disappointing.  It’s awesome to see your family and friends again, but it’s a different world.  A different setting.  You have the mantle and stewardship removed from you, you no longer have a companion that increases that level of spirituality, and it can be a lonely and disappointing feeling for a while.  I remember feeling the lack of urgency.  I always felt it for the two years and all the sudden there was no need for urgency and it was weird.  One of the main things I remember too was how slow everyone walked and did things.  That might be a NYC thing because life is in fast forward there in the hustle and bustle of the big city, but I was frustrated by how slow everyone got dressed, walked, drove, did things in general.  Not sure how you will feel about that.  But the bright side to all of this, is you have so much to share as you get back that will not only edify all of us as your family, but you have your report to the Stake which will invigorate them to hear your testimony and accounts of your mission.  You have your home coming which will edify the ward members, extended family, and friends who attend that.  You will have a powerful testimony to share with everyone around you which was built up and put in your for a reason.  One of two reasons you are given a testimony, to build your own faith and to share with others to help build theirs as well.  So your challenges will be to 1^st, not let the disappointment get to you.  It is a natural progression to go from mission – being on the Lord’s errand – serving your fellow man in a way that only those two years provides; to coming home and having a lack of direction, urgency, and structure.  I think that there are so many opportunities waiting for you when you get home though, that you won’t have time to get lazy or idle.  There are plenty of things people are waiting to put you to work on when you get home which will occupy your time, so being idle won’t be a real problem for you.  But that is one of the dangers of some returned missionaries is that they come home and just want to chill forever and not get into school, work, or callings and they stagnate quickly and the adversary gets a hold of them quickly in those lonely, idle moments.  So keep yourself busy.  Your mission president will have some great advice to give you on that and may have already given it to you in your final interview.  I can’t wait to hear your recap of that as you mentioned in your last letter that you would share that in person.  
  I don’t want to bum you out or make re-entry sound really crappy, it’s not.  But the more prepared you are for a little bit of disappointment, the better off you will be.  If you go to a lame movie already knowing that it’s pretty lame, you won’t be disappointed.  But if you go to a summer blockbuster that all the critics raved about and it turns out lame, you are very disappointed.  So I’m just trying to give you a heads up on certain feelings that you may experience.  Every missionary is different during re-entry though.  Some handle it well and some don’t.  My friend Matt Ashton I don’t think did very well with his re-entry.  I think I was midland.  I had a hard time adjusting for about the first week maybe two.  But Mike Sims put me right to work at the Church Office Building and it was good to have a job to focus on getting to every morning and start saving for school.  It turned out to not be quite enough to occupy my time since I was used to working from sun up to sun down and beyond, so I took that second job and earned twice as much money until school started and then I quit the lower paying job to attend school.  So I was busy with work, school, social aspects as much as possible with friends, chicks, etc.  I got involved with the Institute at the college as the Sports and activities chairperson on the institute council and that opened up a whole new avenue for socializing and chicks.  That’s how I met the girl I was dating before Suzanne (which happened to be her neighbor across the street ironically enough, ha ha.  But then after that ended, I hooked up with Suzanne because I had to have a date and I had no prospects.  But as council members  we had to attend every dance, activity, etc.  so with no prospects and a dance in two days, I had to go to the black book and called up Suzanne who I thought wanted nothing to do with me.  I think you know that whole story of how our relationship started, ended, then when the courting began afterward.  So that’s your second challenge:  to keep yourself as busy as possible, don’t get idle and lazy, and keep yourself as social as possible with as many people as possible.  
  Your 3^rd challenge and then I’ll shut up with the challenges, is to keep up with your study of doctrines and scriptures and keep after your level of spirituality as much as you possibly can.  You will think that will be an easy thing out there.  I swore to myself right before I came home that I would never have a problem with that, but it’s never as easy as you think it will be as you are out there in the field.  They don’t call it enduring to the end for nothing.  Just put this challenge in the back of your mind, let it stick in your craw, and hopefully you disagree with me and think you won’t have any problem with this.  Because it will last and stay with you the more you disagree.  I want this to be the main challenge you work on, because the more you can stick with this challenge, the easier the other challenges will come.  It’s the adversary that wants you to think it’s a cake walk to keep up the levels of righteousness, testimony, spirituality, activity, etc. as you have now.  The more someone thinks I am just fine, I won’t ever have a lack in any of these areas; the more they are being led carefully, slowly, and surely down to hell.  It’s that level of pride that someone takes when they are still on a spiritual high that can say “my testimony can never be shaken, I’m still in a close relationship with my savior, so I guess I can go ahead and work this Sunday since the boss really needs me.  Being away from church one time isn’t going to effect my spirituality.  And you now what?  It’s not… too much.  But the adversary is good.  That is just one little link in his many chains.  You won’t even feel the weight of it as you carry it for a little while.  But that rationalization becomes one more and soon the two are linked together.  You still don’t feel the weight of it as you carry them both, but he’s careful, he’s strategic, he’s patient, and he’s smart.  Don’t ever underestimate that power, and I know you don’t.  these are just reminders to sit in the back of your mind.  I know so many good missionaries that fell away that it makes me sick to think about it.  I know that this won’t happen to you, because I won’t ever let that happen, your FAMILY won’t ever let that happen, and you won’t ever let that happen, but as a precaution, I’m putting it in the back of your mind because that is a prideful statement in and of itself and I DON’T underestimate the adversary, EVER.  So the working on Sunday thing is just one example.  That in and of itself won’t hurt you a ton, but just be careful of every little thing.  That was just one I pulled from a hat as a little point to put out there.  That’s all.  
  You know, this stuff is heavy and I don’t want to go there.  Let’s make the rest of this letter light and bright.  I hope you get into a bunch of good books when you get back.  I have a full library that you can borrow from, so come check something out anytime.  Dad has a full library of good books and so does Grandpa.  So use those resources and read as many good books as you can.  Keep yourself active and physically fit too.  Do as I say and not as I do on this one,MmmmmmKay?  I can’t wait to play some tennis with you.  I haven’t played a single match since you left.  That was the last I played tennis was with you.  My racquets have been in my truck this whole time too.  That’s probably not that good for them.  I should have probably taken them out after you left.  I guess I just held out hope that I would use them sometime and I’d have them ready.  I can’t wait to get ready for the Turkey bowl and have you “whip me into shape” as you put it.  That will be a blast as always.  I can’t wait to kick off the fantasy football season soon after you are back.  We are just waiting as a league to set a draft date a week or two after you get home to go to John’s work and draft live as a league.  This is an awesome event.  You will like the draft live as opposed to the computer doing it.  It’s so much more fun and interactive.  I just secured your spot yesterday.  You already have players and a full team, but they are yours to do what you want with them.  You can drop them all and start from scratch if you want and the way I run this draft, it won’t hurt you at all.  You will see how it works.  I can’t wait to play a little halo with you again.  You will still beat me.  I haven’t hardly played in nearly two years.  I played some with Austin for a while after you left and at that point I would have whooped up on you.  But have since gone rusty on that again and we are even if not you still having the edge.  So I won’t talk any smack about that.  Actually, I just can’t wait to hang out with you in general.  I could list all of the activities I look forward to, but it would take another 10 pages.  Fishing, Hunting, shooting, you name it.  I just look forward to our talks, time to hang out, bonding in general.  Awesome!!
  We are all getting together as a family today for Gramps Birthday which was yesterday and going to eat at Mimi’s Café.  That will be fun.  That will be the last family get together we have without you.  That’s a cool thought.  
  Even though this is the last letter, it wouldn’t be complete without a quote or two of the week, don’t you think?  
  Genesis 31:3 -  And the Lord said unto Jacob (Elder Alexander), ^aReturn unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and ^bI will be with thee.    Don’t worry Mike.  Even though it may not feel as if you are as close as you are now with the Lord, once you are home, He never forgets you.  He never forgets the service you rendered so diligently for Him and those you served.  Strive to keep him close at all times.  
  “May we be faithful in all of our labors, having the motto indelibly stamped upon our hearts, ‘The kingdom of God or nothing.”    -Lorenzo Snow
  Keep this motto stamped in your heart.  It’s not just missionaries who can keep this motto in their hearts.  Whatever your labors are, whatever your calling, whatever your situation in life, if you have this motto, your priorities will always be kept straight.  
  Good luck in your last week.  Say your goodbyes and enjoy that.  Give your parting testimony to everyone and enjoy that.  Give your companion and your former companions a hug and especially your Mission President and thank them for the growth and wisdom that they helped you gain.  But most important, get on your knees everyday from now on and thank your heavenly father for the blessings you have received daily for the last two years.  Thank them for the opportunity you had to serve the Lord in this capacity.  Then get off your knees and go out there and work your can off the rest of the week.  I’m not going to end this letter any different from any other just because it’s your last week.  All the more reason to work your keester off and show the Lord your gratitude.  As you realized early in your mission, you can never pay Him back for the blessings.  You will just have more heaped on you for your hard work, but you can show your gratitude by putting in your best 110% effort.  So hit it hard and leave it all in the field.  Focus on that which is most important and then you will have plenty of time to focus on us starting on Friday.
  I will see you in less than a week when I’ll slap a big hug on you.
  Love you.  See you soon.
    Trav



Saying goodbye to some friends
2008-08-02T09:03:00.000-06:00
As time gets closer in his final week, here are some pictures of some people he will certainly miss:












Mike's Arrival (one week from today)
2008-08-01T06:29:00.000-06:00
Just in case you didn't get the e-mail from Mike's Sister, Staci... here is the information about his arrival and homecoming:

He will be arriving on Delta at 10:23 am on Friday August 8th, 2008. Everyone is invited to come to the airport and join us for Mike's homecoming. If you are coming to the airport, the guys are welcome to wear whatever ties they want. But try to make it obnoxious and obviously short to make fun of his way of wearing his ties.  Just wear whatever shirt you want, no need for dress shirts. We will also provide you with your own set of Billy Bob teeth but we need you to RSVP in the comment section here or e-mail me at TravsBox@gmail.com to let us know how many we will need to get.  The sooner the better. And if some of you girls want to wear your brightest lipstick to kiss Mike's cheeks, this is a family tradition!  After the airport, we will be having some cake at Mike's parents house.  If you need the address or phone number e-mail or leave a comment with your e-mail address.  Then on Sunday the 24th of August, Mike will be speaking at church at 11:00 am. The address is 8035 South Leslie Dr (3800 West). Just right around the corner from his parents house. Following Sacrament, we'll have a little open house at the Alexander's house again. We'll be doing small snacks such as crackers, fruits etc.  Let us know if you are coming to the airport.  We hope to see you all there and at his homecoming!


Missionary work in the South
2008-07-31T06:24:00.000-06:00
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!
2008-07-30T08:38:00.000-06:00



Don't try this at home!
2008-07-29T07:58:00.000-06:00



Scenic Overlook?
2008-07-28T11:04:00.000-06:00
Why do I get the impression that there is more to this Scenic Overlook than just the scenery?




7/27/08
2008-07-27T13:26:00.000-06:00
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?
2008-07-27T10:25:00.001-06:00
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
2008-07-26T00:06:00.002-06:00
Ever read James and the Giant Peach?  Well, here's Mike and the Giant Peach...




Pie Eating Contest?
2008-07-24T00:50:00.000-06:00
Looks like Mike pounded a pie.  Not sure if he won the contest, but hey... Free Pie!!







Humble Missionary Christmas
2008-07-23T00:21:00.001-06:00
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
2008-07-21T22:23:00.000-06:00
Just a collection of driving around pictures. 









7/19/08
2008-07-19T13:25:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-18T18:10:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-17T20:00:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-16T18:00:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-15T18:32:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-14T18:01:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-13T19:22:00.001-06:00
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
2008-07-13T13:24:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-12T17:32:00.004-06:00
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
2008-07-10T22:03:00.000-06:00
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!!
2008-07-08T09:00:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-06T13:23:00.000-06:00
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
2008-07-06T09:04:00.000-06:00
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!
2008-07-04T12:49:00.002-06:00
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



Transfer update 6/30/08
2008-06-30T21:09:00.001-06:00
I did get transfered. President Hobbs called me to be a Traveling Assistant, but i am also acting as a District Leader and have an area at the same time. I was going to go traveling full time, but one of the new missionaries that was going to come out, didn't come, so i had to go to the area he was going to go to. So my companions name is Elder Boothe, he's a great Elder and was going to train but couldn't this time due to the circumstances. So, i'm kind of a Traveling, but kinda not. I don't teally know whats going on totally. The new missionary could still come out, but he might not at all. So if he does, then i'll go out full-time as a traveler, but if he doesn't President might leave me here, or Emergency Transfer me to another place to get some work done there too. So my last little while is kinda crazy, i don't really know whats going to happen and how this is all going to work out. But i am in a Car share area, so i've been able to bust out my bike again, so thats been fun, although my pelvic bones are sore from it. My Area is called Carmel, and i go to the same ward as President Hobbs...  i'm so excited to be here, i am just smiling when we ride the bikes because i'm so excited to proselyte full time again, and the Fire in the Belly just continues to grow. I Love it, a lot of times these areas are the best because the haven't been worked very effectively for a while so there are a ton of people waiting for the gospel. So thats the story of transfers.


Letter Update 6/24/08
2008-06-30T10:17:00.001-06:00
From his last letter:
On the mission front, we have transfers this week, on Thursday. So… that should be interesting. I can’t believe it’s my last transfer. Its like a dream, this can’t be happening. The urgency is growing within my heart, I’ve got fire in my belly.  Just when I start to figure out how the work is done, I’m going home, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I hate this feeling, it tears my heart out. I’ve started scaring people because I run down the street after them if I don’t get to them in time. The work is so important, now more than ever. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I just want to keep serving. Elder Coleman says the word “extend” isn’t even said in the church anymore, they wont allow them anymore. Its crazy how it works, a mission. I still feel like a new missionary, I don’t feel like I know how to do it all that well, I just try my best, and leaders like Elder Van Leeuwen and Elder Lee and others took me under their wing and taught me how, and trained me, and I’ve tried my hardest, pushed myself and stretched myself and yearned to bring souls unto repentance, and along the way, the Lord has changed and molded me, helped me to become more like Him.  And now its almost time to go, I can’t believe it. It kills me to think about it, so I just try to work harder and harder every day I’m out there, it keeps me from thinking about it. The only bad thing about it, is that it makes time go by faster.


6/29/08
2008-06-29T13:21:00.000-06:00
What’s happenin’ young Babby the Babs Babco?  How was your week?  Sounds like you are still rockin’ harder than ever and will leave it all on the field when it’s time to be called home.  Keep that up.  What happened with Transfers?  Did those happen last week?  I can’t really remember.  Actually, I should turn to your e-mail and respond to that before I get into anything from my week.
  It is crazy what has been going on in the health department around here.  We added to that this week with Brinlee having a bike wreck and getting sick from bruising her intestine and getting some medical term that I can’t remember when you have trauma to your intestine or bowel and it rejects any food passage through it, so if you put anything in your digestive tract, it kicks it back up and out of there.  My day actually started pretty bad when I woke up late since I had to take the girls to school and get to work after the commute downtown and then back to my work.  So I’m haulin’ up I-80, going cruising speed of 80 like everyone else around that stretch of 75 MPH road.  And I hear this weird noise like someone whacked my spare tire on the rear door with a stick or something.  A second later the car started vibrating weird. Brinlee was saying what’s that noise dad?  I look at my gauge and see that my RPMs are revving higher and my speedometer is falling.  I’m like Oh crap, I have a flat.  So I signal to get over to the right lane and start looking for a good place to pull over to check it out.  I’m wondering if I can make it to the Salt Air exit coming up than all the sudden, BOOOM!  Loud noise, the car starts fish tailing like mad, I’m swerving to get off the freeway and NOW.  So I pull off as far as I can on the shoulder and get out.  Sure enough, my rear drivers side tire is obliterated.  I left black alligators on the road behind us.  It wasn’t just a flat, it was a tire bomb.  I get in the back area and look in the spare tire area and I’m sans jack.  I have the spare tire mounted to the door, but I can’t get it off because not only is there no jack, there’s not lug wrench.  So I call Suzanne and tell her to get in the truck and head out to meet us so I can use the lug wrench in there.  I realize a while later that I could really use my floor jack in the garage that would make it way easier to lift the car, my mechanics gloves so I don’t break the first rule of management and get dirty, and my socket set so I can get the lugs off even easier than using the lug wrench.  So she turned around, got those things and got there in about 20 minutes from my first call.  Now came the fun part of changing the tire.  I couldn’t get the jack on a good spot since I was so far off the shoulder.  I thought I had a good support point under the car, but after going back to the truck when it was jacked up, the car fell and scared the girls because it was on a guard that protects the gas tank.  It collapsed after a minute of being up on that.  So I had to back the car up closer to the road so I could get the jack on cement and a good central point to heft it up.  Now my butt is right on the white line of the freeway and I have truckers going past me at 80 MPH + and knocking me over with the gusts of wind.  It was ridiculous!  I was scared.  I kept thinking about these images I see on the news of a trucker hitting a cop car and blowing it up because they drifted a little or snoozed off or something.  I could only imagine me getting crushed at 80 plus with 140 tons of payload.  Well, I got it changed and it’s all good, so Suzanne goes back home and I’m heading on downtown.  I’m on 600 South in rush hour morning commute traffic and Brinlee says Dad, I’m sick.  I’m like what kind of sick, throw up sick?  She said yeah.  I said can you wait till we get to school?  All the sudden – gurgle, gurgle, spewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!  She blew chowder everywhere.  So I took that for a no.  Now she’s crying, I’m speeding to the school and calling Suzanne to come meet me at my work so we can make the switch.  Since no way can I leave her at school.  So I get to school, clean her up while Aynslee is in her class for a minute.  After I get all the throw up off Brinlee, I went out and cleaned the car up.  The smells tempting me to toss my frosted mini wheats.  After I got it all cleaned up, I went back in, cleaned myself up, then went and got Aynslee who was just given a yellow popsicle.  So now that’s dripping all over me and her car seat and herself while I’m loading her into the hot car.  I’m a really happy fella right now.  We make our way back to my work and Suzanne is there just before me.  So we get out and start talking and Brinlee says, Mom, I’m sick.  She says, I know, Dad told me, then all the sudden, she hucks again.  So now we are concerned that it’s coming from her bike wreck the day before and the sharp pains in her tummy the night before (Wednesday night) and in the morning when we were getting her ready.  So Suzanne takes her to the instacare who tell her to go to the ER since she might have internal bleeding.  So she takes her up to Primary’s.  They run all these tests on her and admit her to stay the night for observation.  Aynslee was going stir crazy in the hospital, so I had to leave work again, go get her at Primary’s, take her to school and get back to work, which is already extremely busy just trying to replace myself with a good person, wrap up all my projects, etc. since I only have 5 days left.  After work (Thursday night) I went and picked up Aynslee, then to Rubio’s Grill for some grub to take up to Suzanne but Brinlee can’t eat all day, so she’s starving and going crazy with the food smells.  Suzanne stayed up there with her that night and I came home with Aynslee then took her to school and came up to meet Suzanne again to spell her and let her go home, get a shower and a few things to bring back to the hospital.  When she came back, I headed in to work and got there around 2:00.  So I worked till almost 8:00 PM.  They were awesome at Primary’s.  They treated Brinlee like a princess. Gave her gifts, room service for what she wanted to eat that next day once her eating restrictions were lifted.  So she was discharged and put on activity restrictions.  We were glad she didn’t need surgery which was at least 50/50 that first night.  Ron and Patt came up with Austin that first night and Ron helped me give her a blessing, so that had a little something to do with it too, I’m sure.  But now she can’t run, jump, tumble, etc.  that’s all she knows how to do.  I’m not sure how to keep her from doing all that stuff.  
  It looks like transfers were this week, so I’m excited to hear what happened.  
  I gave my talk in Church last week.  Maybe I already wrote about that.  Not sure.  It was a good topic.  I liked speaking on it actually.  We had the fam over here yesterday.  By fam, I mean Mom, Gramps, Shelli, Staci, A-Jax and Maddie.  Mom stayed her usual 5 min. and wanted out of here.  So that was short and sweet.  Staci stayed while everyone else left.  So we went out to eat at this Mexican Restaurant called El Paisa.  They had a live Mexican band playing there which was kind of cool.  Then I got the bill for $40 bills for just my family.  I’m not sure how much Staci’s was.  But $40??  Get out of here.  It wasn’t that fancy.  They charged us $3.50 for the entertainment.  I think I should have been the judge of what I paid for that.  Oye!  Oh well.  That’s the last time I’ll hit up that joint.  After dinner, Staci went home and we went to Taylorsville Dayzzzzzzz.  I’m not sure how many z’s are at the end of that, but it’s at least 2.  So I always exaggerate it when I say it aloud.  I think it annoys everyone as much as the double zz’s annoy me, so I call it even.  We always like that because I bump into all kinds of peeps from back in the day and get to catch up with old friends.  Plus the fireworks are better than anywhere in the valley on the 4^th of July.  Sure, the music is the same every year, but the fireworks are awesome.  I spent the rest of my day before the family coming over ripping apart pallets from my work for firewood in our fire pit when I finally get that set up in the back yard.  That is hard work ripping down those pallets into chunks of firewood.  I’m sore!  I also stained half of my deck in the back yard.  I’ll finish that up sometime soon, hopefully.  I still have a ton of pallets to finish ripping down too, but Dad called after hearing what I was doing from Mom when she got home and said that he has a pallet taker aparter.  He apparently invented it.  But he said that it works like a champ and not to do any more pallets until I can get this bar from him.  So I’m excited to see what this thing can do.  
  I’m still waiting the scores of our tests.  I know you aren’t waiting till you get more scores, because I’ve been assured that they will NOT get done and sent in.  So get those scores back to us and break down the answers for us.  I’m sure there are some interesting answers in there.  
  I liked your testimony to close out your last letter.  So here is a Quote of the Week that is similar to your desires…
   
  “The question will arise, “what am I here for?”  To sow the seeds of life in the hearts of the people of the world; and the prayer should arise in your heart, “O Lord, may it be so; may I have power through thy Spirit to touch the hearts of these thy people.”  That very short prayer is all that a missionary needs to make.  “may I say something to save these souls.”
  -          Lorenzo Snow
   
  Well, I’ll get this sent.  It’s 10:49 AM right now and I’m hoping that you haven’t checked e-mail yet, so you can get this fresh.  
  Write back and let me know about transfers and hook us up with scores on those tests.  
  Have a great week and bust some tail.
  Love you,
    Trav



A little sugar from home
2008-06-29T09:05:00.002-06:00
This is a candygram that Mike's Mom and Sister put together for him a while back.  This is kind of a tradition now since I got one of these from them 13 years ago myself.  Pretty creative minds to incorporate all of these different candies.  It makes it kind of tough to eat those after you see how much work went into it.  If you can't read the first one all the way through by clicking on it to zoom in, the following two blow it up even more.






It's Joe Albertson's Super Market...
2008-06-22T20:30:00.002-06:00
Welcome to Albertson's, can we help you?


Or add your own caption in the comments section


6/22/08
2008-06-22T13:19:00.001-06:00
Hey Chochy,
  Another week gone by.  Where do they go?  They go by so fast.  I’m about ready to start writing my talk for tomorrow.  I have to talk in Sacrament meeting.  It’s on Richard C. Edgley’s talk in last October’s conference on enduring together.  It’s a pretty good talk and I’d have no problem doing it normally, except they assigned another dude in the ward the exact same talk and told us to coordinate with each other so we are not stepping on each other’s toes.  What the heck?  Why would you assign the same talk to two people?  That’s just weird.  That almost bugs me as much as the 6 person rule in every circle up front.  With two of those spots going to you and the Bishop.  
  We finally got your picture and video CD.  That will be great to keep your blog busy until you come home I think.  Plenty of good stuff on there.  So thanks for sending that home.  So what news from the east this week?  You never commented on your thoughts on the new job.  
  Yesterday was a long and somewhat tough day.  Clint and Rachel lost one of their triplets on Monday and the funeral was yesterday.  That was pretty sad.  I gave a prayer at the graveside and the service was nice.  They had a nice family luncheon too afterward.  Their Stake relief society did a really nice job. The food was awesome and plentiful.  Clint and Rachel took home a ton of left overs too.  
  So are you going to grade those tests and send them back.  I hope you are not holding out for more, because everyone else has made it perfectly clear to me that they are NOT going to do it.  It’s funny how not into it some are.  I thought everyone would have a good time doing it.  So anyway, grade those and let us know what happened.  We are probably going to look dumb.  But oh well.  
  Any suggestions on talking points on the subject of enduring together?  Do you have access to that talk last October?  Let me know if there is anything you would say.  I’ll probably get your reply before I go to church and will have time to put some stuff in.  Well, I’m going to start on the talk, but I’ll drop some stuff in occasionally here so that the letter is finished and sent by tomorrow morning so you have it waiting for you when you check it.  
  Ahhhhhhight, I’m back.  I prepared my talk, it’s now 1:38 AM Sunday morning.  Ha ha.  That’s how I’m livin’ and you know.  I’m always preparing my stuff last minute.  But I do a lot better under pressure.  I’d always do my homework last minute, I’d always finish my work projects just before the deadline, etc.  that’s just me, it’s how I roll.  We had a busy day today.  Went to Target, picked up some prescriptions, did a little shopping, etc.  Then went to Clint and Rachels and took them dinner.  We made some IKEA meatballs and rice.  Mmmmmm.  So good.  So ate there with them and hung out a couple of hours, then went to Ma’s and Pa’s.  Hung out there a couple of hours.  Grandpa was there, I guess was having some weird inner ear issue where he can’t stand up without falling down dizzy.  So mom was taking care of him in your room.  Shelby Lynn came home and hung out with us too.  So that was fun over there.  Then we rolled out to the Emery’s house and chilled there for a couple of hours.  Good times all around.  But got home late and got started on my talk late.  Wow, almost 2:00 AM.  That’s not going to be good on the tired factor tomorrow when it’s time to talk.  T’all good though.  
  Not sure if I told you that they got all of our grass laid in the yard.  The sprinkler system is laid out and on the automatic system.  I got a deal on the sod, ordered it all from Chanshare where we got the 2000 sq. feet already for free for moving in, but our yard is 6500 sq. feet, so I had the 4500 extra sq. feet covered too for less than or equal to what it would have cots to hydroseed.  Sweet.  Not sure if I told you that a manager I work with, that Chanshare sod farm is his inlaw’s business.  So he hooked me up way better than contractor rate.  Then my guys had it all laid out in the yard before we even got home yesterday.  Pretty happy about that.  So most everything is done now.  Just a couple of little additions to wrap up and we are complete.  Well, I’m going to crash.  I took some  Excedrin PM a while back when we got home and it’s kicking my trash now.  I’ll finish this up in the morning before I go over my talk one more time.
  OUT
  K, wow, it’s later than I expected it to be.  It’s 10:21 now, I just woke up a little bit ago and had breakfast.  So those pills hit me hard.  So now it’s time to finish this up.  I’m kind of excited to do my talk today.  I had this wave of inspiration last night that just carried me from beginning to end and gave me some awesome material.  Isn’t it great when that happens?  I love it!  I always acknowledge those things in my talks to, since I’m never one to take credit where credit is not due.  That leads me to the quote of the week:  
  “Teach by the Spirit when you go into the home and have the Spirit so strong that it shines in your face, then investigators will feel it so strongly they will say, “I know what you say is true.”  When this occurs you can teach all the lessons in ten minutes time.”
  -          Alvin R. Dyer
   
  Good stuff.  I love when the Spirit not only gives you good material and guides the pace and the information you teach, but also prepares a room for you, prepares the hearts of those you will talk to for you, and then lingers and testifies to them for you.  We are just weak vessels that physically go where we need to go and open our mouths when prompted.  We are nothing!  And what a marvelous thing that is sometimes!  Well, I best be for sending this off now.
  I’ll look forward to your e-mail soon.  Have a great week.  I’ll talk to you again in another 6 or 7 days.
    Love,
    Trav



Elder Coleman
2008-06-18T20:50:00.000-06:00
It sounds like Mike had a really great time being around Elder Coleman during his visit to the mission.  This was a great letter!  I think it was the longest one he's ever sent home.  It's still just a portion of what he sent, but it's good enough to include this much of a portion.  Enjoy!!



Well, it all started last Sunday night when Elder Gary J. Coleman flew into Charlotte from Nashville, TN at about 5.  We went to the Charlotte South Stake Center to get things all set up for the Fireside for Investigators and Recent Converts and Less-Actives which would be starting at 7:30.  All the while we had a few members all hooked up with our investigators to make sure they got there ok and make sure they were all taken care of. We greeted Elder Coleman and President Hobbs at about 7 and talked with the both of them and their wives for a few minutes and then headed into the chapel. The Fireside was amazing, Elder Coleman threw down with the spirit and blasted everyone there with it. He described his experience as a young man with being an active Catholic and then going to Washington St for school and meeting a few Returned Missionaries and becoming friends. He slowly learned about the church and then he met a young lady who later became his wife. They talked about the church often and one thing always stood out to him, was that she had access to more prophets and more scripture than he did, and he wanted more. Finally someone gave him a Book of Mormon and marked 87 Verses in it for him, he read them, Moroni 10:3-5 being the last one and knelt in prayer knowing that if he came to know it was true he would have to give up the Catholic Church and be Baptized in the Church. He prayed and Felt the spirit confirm powerfully that the church was true.  He then joined the church and quickly received the Aaronic Priesthood, and moved up in the offices thereof and Very soon was made an Elder. Soon after that the young lady that he was dating told him she would marry him if he took her to the temple, he didn't know anything about it but wanted to do it because he knew it was what the Lord wanted. So he took her to the Temple and Married her. Anyway, he told his whole story and layed it down on the people in attendance, our investigators loved it, and actually, one of our investigators wives wasn't interested in being taught by us, but halfway through the Fireside she showed up and she loved it and we are now going to teach the whole family, Their names are Cary and Tracy. Glenn came too and really felt impressed by the spirit. That was the strongest I’ve felt the spirit at a meeting in a long time.  So that went way good for us. We were excited about it.
Monday Morning was an early start at 5:30. We had to wake up early and get going because it takes about 2 hours to get to Winston-Salem where the first Zone Conference was going to be. So we left about 6:30 to get there by 8:30 to make sure the Zone Leaders got it all set up right and so everything would be in order for when Elder Coleman got there with President Hobbs.  One of the Sisters had a seizure the night before so she showed up all disoriented not knowing what was going on, so we were dealing with that, giving a blessing, and getting white boards set up and making sure all preparations were made.  On top of that, I was conducting the meeting and only had a general outline of what the meeting was going to be, all I knew was that I would be turning the time over to Elder Coleman for instruction.  So I was clueless and just kinda got up there and did my thing.  Elder Coleman started out with having all the missionaries come up and meet him and shake hands.  Then he had Sister Hobbs get up and speak to us which was good, then he had Sister Coleman do that as well and that was good as well.  Then he got up and talked about what he had studied that morning, which was Alma 38. He went through the whole chapter and likened it to our mission and what we are doing and taught us that way about studying for the needs of ourselves and our investigators.  He then instructed about the Key Indicators and the power of obtaining Names from members and about establishing the church, using many scriptures and sharing personal examples. All the while, he was calling Elder Gillett and I up to do things we didn’t expect.  I don’t think I’ve been put on the spot more in my whole life than I was during the course of this mission tour, whoo, it was an experience.  It would take way too long to type out all the nitty gritty details of it all so I wont do it now, but I did keep copious notes and I have it all in detail in my journal so maybe I’ll let you read that portion of it at least when I bust out.  Which reminds me, my journal is full and I haven’t been able to finish my documentation of it all so I was wondering if you or Travis could send out one of those extra journals I have this week so I can get it all down before I forget it all.   Anyway, that one finished, the Sister that had the seizure went to the hospital during the conference so things were hectic. We’ll come back to her later in the week… The Winston-Salem/Greensboro Zone Conference ended at 12.  We then had to chow a fast lunch and bust our butts to Hickory, for the Hickory/Asheville Zone conference.
This one started at 2 and was similar, but different in a lot of ways. Elder Coleman didn’t start with his study, but did something else instead. Later he had Elder Gillett and I and President Hobbs get up and think of the toughest doctrinal issue we’ve had to deal with and explain how we dealt with it and resolved it.  And had the Missionaries judge how well we did.  So I explained an experience I had when I was a young missionary and didn’t know anything, (I still don’t know a whole lot), and an investigator whipped out a stack of Anti-Mormon Literature.  One of them was a fat book that had 10,000 changes that had been made in the Book of Mormon since the original 1830 copy. At that time I had never heard that before so I didn’t really say anything, but my companion started haggling with him and as they were talking I looked down at my scriptures sitting on the table and felt the impression come to look at the Title Page of the Book of Mormon, and I read it, and particularly the last sentence stood out to me.  So I read that to him and said that it was one thing to have historical or scientific “proof” of something, but it was something far more profound to have spiritual confirmation of what’s true. And I then bore my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how I knew by the Power of the Holy Ghost that it was true and that he could come to know by the same power that the book was true despite the anti.  So he liked that and built more teaching off of that.  He says that hundreds of changes are made every time they come out with a new edition of the scriptures… hahahaha, it’s a good thing we know its true.  He is on the Church’s Scripture committee and said they are going through and cleaning up all the references in the topical guide and the Bible Dictionary, and that’s where most of those changes are being made.  He also said that one thing doesn’t change and that’s the Doctrine. So, I’m down with it. Once again we were put on the spot, but this time a whole lot more.  So that kept us on our toes, he opened up to the scriptures a little more this time too.  It was way cool when he did too, he would just teach us the doctrine out of the scriptures, it was amazing. Elder Gillett conducted this Conference. Elder Coleman taught about establishing the church again in this one.
After that one was over we had to bust back to Charlotte to work on the mission stats so we could send them to SLC on time. Usually we do it early Monday morning but since were were driving all over the mission we couldn’t really do it then.  The stats have to be sent in Monday too or we’re screwed.  Elder Coleman said most Mission Presidents just do it themselves but President Hobbs trusts us to do it for some reason. Anyway, the pressure was on too, because Elder Coleman was having us share our experience at the Fireside with how we had Tracy show up unexpectedly and how we got her name and are now going to start teaching her now, at all the Zone Conferences, but he said to get him some new stories for the Tuesday Zone Conference. Hahaha, he said he didn’t want any 48 hour old junk, hahaha. So not only did we have to do the mission stats accurately but we needed to get some finding in and get some names of people to teach. Luckily when we parked at our apartment,  the Lord put someone there for us to talk to and he said he would like to learn more. Hahaha.
Tuesday morning we had another Zone Conference in the Morning.  The Zone Leaders were late to get things set up so that added to the stress. But it all worked out ok.  I conducted again which was fun with all the funny little quirks to the meeting that Elder Coleman liked to throw in there.  He put us on the spot even more this time and kept us busy the whole time.  Hahaha, anytime he couldn’t see where we were he would ask, where my Assistants go, oh, there they are, come on up here… hahaha.  We weren’t trying to hide in the back, but there wasn’t any seats in the front so we sat on the front side row. So he would always make other people move to have us sit right in front of him.  This time he asked us to come up and teach about establishing the church, but he didn’t warn us before hand so this was again, on the spot. Hahaha, that was fun, I was surprised, neither Elder Gillett nor I got nervous but just jumped up and threw some junk down. Hahaha, I was glad he didn’t interject and re-teach anything, hopefully we got it all right. In the first two Zone Conferences he and President Hobbs would close with their remarks.  This time, he looked at us and said: “Alright Brethren, its time to wrap this up, come up on the stand with us and bear your testimonies.” So we did and then he and President Hobbs did their thing to close it out.  It was a neat experience.
That evening he took us and President and Sister Hobbs out to dinner at the Olive Garden, and did some training with us and just talked to us openly.  It was great. The picture of us two with he and his wife with the tan background was just after dinner.  He talked to us about our responsibilities as Assistants to President Hobbs and shared with us some ideas for improvement, which were greatly appreciated.  President Hobbs invited us to the Priesthood Leadership meeting that was right after dinner and Elder Coleman asked if we would be willing to do some more stuff for him there for that meeting.
For this meeting we were at the Charlotte Central Stake Center, which was filled with Priesthood Leaders from the whole mission, some of whom I recognized from my previous areas.  But he had us get up in front of all of them and he asked us questions and had us speak to the Leaders.  Hahaha, that was fun, a little more pressure than Zone Conference.  But it went well.
A couple things I noticed about him as we spent time with him and got to observe his teaching was that he was very dynamic, very outgoing and enthusiastic.  He mixed in humor and doctrine and testimony, and definitely the spirit.  Another thing I noticed was that he made us feel needed.  He gave us his portable clip microphone, and gave us the responsibility to set it up at each meeting, which is such a small thing, but he trusted us with it and it helped us feel so needed.  One other thing was that he taught the missionaries in zone conference, but it almost seemed as if he was directing his teaching at President and Elder Gillett and I.  He knew we would remain to instruct, and he would move on to other things, but he taught us so we could teach the missionaries continually. It was incredible. What a great opportunity for me, I really don’t know why I am so lucky, I’m just grateful. I can’t believe how blessed I really am, it drives me crazy because I can’t repay, or I feel so inadequate or any number of other feelings, but gratitude is definitely one of them.


6/15/08
2008-06-15T13:19:00.000-06:00
Whasupatchu Poppi?
  It’s Saturday, and I have a little time to write your mug before we head out for our block party here in the hood and then up to Gramps house for Father’s Day festivities.  I got up early this morning and went and got a gun safe and loaded the arsenal in there after I got it set up.  That was high time.  So now everything is safe and sound, out of little kid hands, and where they won’t collect dust.  I’m pretty happy with it.  I got it on the super cheap, so it’s a welcome addition.  I got my .40 too.  You will have to check it out when you get back.  VERY cool!  Last night after work, me, Suzanne, Brin, Ayns, Staci, Squash, A-Jax, and Shelby Lynn got together down at the Gateway and went to see the chalk art.  A bunch of street chalk artists doing their thing out in the street.  They let little kids take some chalk and do their own art in other sections of the street.  So Brinlee and A-Jax had fun doing a little chalk art.  They got all dirty though.  We went to the food court and got our grub on and we did some splash pad fun out in the Splash fountains.  The kids had fun.  I was a little grumpy since I’m not a fan of big crowds, navigating my family with stroller, diaper bag, and our various sundry items we have to have to leave the house with two little kids in tow.  I was too hot in the sun in my black shirt too.  Plus, for being free, I had to drop duckets on two cars paid parking, $25 on food (with no validations for parking) $4.00/gallon gas to get two cars down there and back, and a couple of $2.00 per bottle waters.  So the grumpiness could not be quelled.  But you gotta do it.  It’s familial obligations.  
  Thursday, I went bowling with Brinlee for Father’s Day with her school.  It was dad’s and bowling day.  I took her in a little later and we piled on the “fun bus” and headed to Classic bowling on 21^st and State.  There were a bunch of dad’s who got out their custom bowling balls, shoes, and ABF endorsed wrist guards.  They chalked up their hands and got to some serious bowling.  I saw their poor little bored kids running around trying to amuse themselves while their neglectful dads were all trying to go for a personal best and get that elusive 300 score.  I wasn’t about that, so I had Brin, her 3 little girl friends there who were all clammering over me and we got to some serious bumper ball style bowling.  The all had a good time and I threw one or two balls down lane all day, and I was happy with it.  It was a good time spent with Brinlee and her little friends.  I took some pics and will put them on my blog.  It was Brinlee’s first time bowling and made me think we are going to have to do that a little more often.  Just her in those funny little bowling shoes from the place was too cute!
  On the breaking news front, I took another job.  Ha ha.  Yep, I’m leaving FranklinCovey and moving over to OfficeMax.  I’ll be over HR for every Utah location they have.  So it will be a good step up for me.  I’m pretty excited about it.  I negotiated 3 weeks to give to FranklinCovey.  It’s going to be rough for them to get a replacement and give me a little time to train and transition them in that length of time.  But it will get done.  Hopefully, we can find someone in that amount of time.  I can work from home more often than not in this job, so that will save me big gas monies.  Plus with the product discount, I could set up a pretty sweet home office.  Sweetness!  
  I get to talk in Church on the 4^th Sunday.  I haven’t been given my topic yet, but I’ll let you know when I do and how that goes.  Maybe you’ll have some suggestions for me to throw in there.  Well, it’s 3:24 now and we need to go do some Padre’s day shopping before our block party that we need to go to before we go up to Gramps house.  So I best be on my way.  I’ll check back in and finish this in a while.
  Ahhhhhight, it’s Sunday morning now, time to start getting my lesson ready.  But to update you on last night.  We had a good Father’s day celebration up at Grandpa’s house.  Everyone was there.  We managed to hit up our block party for almost an hour still too.  So it was good all around last night.  I broke the news about the job to everyone last night and everyone is excited for me.  
  We have had a nice and cool if not sometimes cold spring this year and I’ve been loving it.  But it just went from spring to summer officially as of yesterday.  It’s down right hot now.  At 10:00 AM this morning, with all of our windows open in the house from last night’s not so cool air coming in, it’s already hot enough to have everyone sweating in our shorts and T-shirts.  This is the season I hate!  But it’s going to be here for a while, so I might as well get used to the constant sweat.  
  So how did your week go this week?  What new and exciting things have you done?  I guess ma and pa got the DVD from you.  But last night, forgot to give it to me at the party, so now it’s going to be at least another week before I see that again to start putting that stuff on the blog.  Maybe I’ll bust a $25 round trip over there to get it today.  That sucks!  The gas prices are just killing everyone.  Well, let me put in your QOTW in here and send this off.  You might actually get it today if I do.  There seems to be some delay though for some reason and you don’t get it till next week.  But let me know if you do.
   
  “When men go forth in the name of Israel’s God, there is no power on earth that can overturn the truths they advocate.”
  -          John Taylor
   
  Just remember the power you carry and convey in your message.  It’s such an amazing thing.  Use that to testify boldly.  The time is short.  The message is so important that you need to exhaust every last effort to accomplish what you have been sent out there to do.  Tear it up in these final minutes you have.  I’ll talk to you soon.  Write when you can.
  Love,
  Trav



Letter update
2008-06-13T09:17:00.002-06:00
Some more testimony from Elder A.  It's always good to hear his testimony.  The folks he's working with in NC get to hear it all the time, so it's nice to get to have a taste of it now and then in his letters.  We should be getting a DVD full of pictures pretty soon, so stay close and hopefully I'll have a bunch of new pictures to start posting next week.

I love sharing the gospel, its the most amazing thing, its such a rush sharing the gospel with people, and its the biggest testimony builder to see the way the atonement transforms lives. Thats what really gets me going, thats what really puts the fire in my belly, the Savior. Its not only rewarding to see the way the atonement shapes the lives of others, or those we teach, but my own life. I am not the same as I was before my mission, its changed me forever, right down to the core. My motivations are different. Thats been one of the biggest changes, is the reason i do things, before it was because i was looking out for #1, i was making sure i was taken care of. But through much opposition and many blessings i've come to know it not about me, its about Him, it has nothing to do with me. I think we all have a natural tendency to think about our own selves first, but thats part of overcoming the natural man. And i am definitely not perfect at it, because i still think about myself way too much, (i caught myself recently), but I'm trying. I'm so grateful for that, so thankful we can repent and do better, because there is always a better way, we can never stop looking for that better way. Apathy and complacency are the biggest downfalls for the members of the church in the US i think. So if you ever think i'm getting complacent or apathetic, punch me in the head of something... wake me up. 
Anyway, the scriptures are amazing, I recently read through Doctrine and Covenants 6, whoo, what a powerhouse. That section smacked me in the head, the last 4 or 5 verses especially. I invite y'all to read it for your selves. I promise you a greater understanding and a deeper meaning of the Atonement for each of you. I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He took upon himself our sins and all else we suffer. In the Sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.


6/08/08
2008-06-08T13:17:00.001-06:00
It’s another week and another letter.  They just keep ticking by.  You only have 2 months left as of today.  I don’t mean for that to make you trunky, I mean for that to make you even more urgent.  So what’s new this week?  I’m going to see if I can crank this out and get it to you before you check and send e-mails today.  You seem to be doing it on Sunday mornings now.  I can never remember what is news worthy on my end from week to week.  But let me rack my brain here a little.  
  Yesterday was cool.  It was our annual golf tournament at the Homestead up in Midway.  It was fun as usual.  It was snowing on our way up the canyon.  I mean, c’mon, it’s June 7^th.  What’s up with the snow.  It rained on us the rest of the morning as we got checked in up there and had our bagel and got ready to get in our carts and head off.  I was thinking this is going to stink if it’s raining the whole time.  I had my rain jacket, and another light jacket, but I was also in my shorts.  Ha ha.  Well, as we teed off, it was just sprinkling and as we went to put on that first hole it stopped. And it was nice the rest of the time.  It was great.  It was just a little cool in fact as we went along and it was perfect.  I’d much rather golf in my light jacket for 12 of the 18 holes than be hot.  I took it off at 13 and it was perfect weather.  We had a good lunch, had the prize drawing, which I didn’t win anything again for the 2^nd year in a row. And then we headed home.  I know you haven’t accepted the sport of golf yet, but as you age and your wisdom grows, you will learn to accept that it is a good time and necessary to be decent at if you want to succeed in your future career.  They should just teach it as a mandatory college course.  You will need to know golf better than most other principles they teach in college.  Kind of stupid, but true.  Here’s something else you do not approve of, but So You Think You Can Dance is back on and all of my minions of converts to that show and I are all geeked out on it.  They had a tryout in SLC and there were a lot of Utah representation in this season.  We are already down to the top 10 guys and top 10 girls, so they will get paired up this week and compete.  So good.  Ha ha.  It’s funny how much you don’t like that show just like it’s funny how much you don’t like Brett Favre.  Both unfounded in nature.  No reasonable explanation for it.  In fact, I dare say, that of all of the people I have tried to convince that it’s a good show, 99% of them have accepted the truth.  You are the only stubborn hold out.  I have easily converted about 50 people to that show and from those converts stem many others.  The branches of converts coming from the root of Travis will go out like a massive globe willow by the time I’m happy.  It will still be on when you return, so maybe then you can watch, ponder, and pray.  If you will do these things, I know that you will receive a testimony of the coolness of this show.  Will you make a commitment to watch and seek after the truth of what I’m telling you?  I will follow up with you from week to week after you have returned and started watching.  
  I also realized that I have not told you that story I was going to tell you about on the phone since it was so long.  Let me recap it here.  It will be easier if I copy and paste it out of an e-mail I sent to Ryan Sims after it happened…
  On Tuesday, I’m sitting in my office (which has a window right over our front porch that overlooks the street in front of our house.  It’s right by the front door.  Well, I hear this car hauling bawls around the corner and comes screeching to a stop in the road in front of my house.  It was a blue, lame, new style VW beetle with its bass bumping hard and loud.  Dude hops out, leaves his door open (making his music exponentially louder), runs up to my neighbor’s house across the street and rings the doorbell repeatedly until the mom comes to the door.  I’m watching this like what is wrong with this dude?  Normally, this would have been a common occurrence when we lived in West Jordan on the street we lived on, but I take great pride in the quiet top of the circle we live on.  I don’t like cars driving fast in front of my house, and I don’t like red headed white kids wearing gangsta wear laying a 5 foot patch of rubber from screeching to a halt in front of my house, and worst of all, I don’t like bass bumping for more than 10 minutes while he stands in their door way talking.  I was getting grumpier by the minute.  Than after about that 10 minutes, Aynslee wakes up and she is hard to put down at night.  She feels like she’s missing something and cries until we come get her out of her crib.  So when that woke her up and Suzanne yells down to me, who’s playing that music, I put on my shoes, went outside, whistled loud enough to get a jet pilot’s attention during take off and yelled across the street for him to “turn that S*** down!”  He stood there like he no speaka the ingles.  I started walking back toward my door and turned back around and he still wasn’t moving, but puffing up his chest and posturing like he was going to come discuss the finer artistic merits of the “insane clown posse” at 2,050 decibels.  I turned and started walking back toward the street but he neighbor lady over there broke away, ran for the car and turned it down for him.  I started walking back in my house while still looking back and him and said “punk A**” and went back inside.  It wasn’t the most Christlike conversation I could have had and the lady across the street is in my ward, so I’m sure she has a new understanding of her new neighbors now.  I still don’t know many people in the ward.  Well, anyway, that was that.  I had my peace and quiet again, Aynslee went back to sleep in about 20 minutes after that and all was well.  
  Yesterday, I went to a guy’s house from the ward to watch the Jazz game on his home theater system.  I apparently home teach this guy, so I’m getting to know him a little bit before the game.  I was telling him I still don’t know too many people in the ward since they put us right in the primary after we moved in.  Well, in walks dude from the previous day and the host says, Oh, Travis, this is so and so, he’s your home teaching companion.  I thought I recognized him and we started shaking hands and I said, nice to meet you and he said, yeah, you yelled at me yesterday.  Then I said, Oh, that was you?!  He walked over to the opposing couch and sat down and the whole room went quiet.  All the guys were looking at me and him like why did he yell at him?  The tension was pretty thick.  Needless to say, that was THE most awkward introduction to anyone I have ever had.  At the end of the 1^st quarter he went upstairs for some snacks and I went up a minute later and gave him a proper introduction and apologized for my behavior and language the night before and said I get a little grumpy when someone wakes up my baby with a lot of noise.  He apologized for the music and what not and we had a better introduction to each other at that point.  But yeah, it’s still just a little awkward.  Hmmmm.  Oh well.  What can you do?  He’s 19, came home from the MTC recently and I guess is in a “gentle state” of his testimony or something.  So he’s kind of coddled in the ward because of that.  Maybe I have something to learn from this experience.  We’ll see.  
  There you go.  Pretty awkward intro to our home teaching companionship.  But I’m comfortable with awkwardness.  So I’m sure you have heard from or about Riley by now.  Let me know your thoughts on that.  Pretty cool!  Actually, I just got your letter forwarded over from Ma, and now I know you know.  So Melbourne is awesome!  I love that city!  Even in the winter, it’s not very cold.  Very temperate.  Traffic for a big city is not bad, they have a cool light rail system they just call the tram, kind of funny.  And they set up their roads so that it’s reversible flow to accommodate rush hour traffic.  Where it’s like 5 lanes for the whole road.  Where it’s 3 lanes going into the city during morning rush hour and 2 lanes going out of the city and then it reverses for rush hour after business hours.  3 lanes going out of the city and 2 lanes going into the city.  It keeps traffic from getting congested.  We could learn a lot from these cities here in Utah now that we are growing up to a big city pretty fast.  
  Well, I didn’t get this off when I wanted to.  Now it’s 6:00 PM on Sunday night.  We went to church and I never finished and sent it off.  But anyway, now I’ve gone and done my home teaching with my companion.  It wasn’t awkward, and we even discussed it again, since his neighbor is a friend of mine in the ward and he told him that I was afraid that he still had bad feelings about it.  I told him that’s not the case.  I said that I’m usually not like that, but I wasn’t feeling like I was walking on eggshells around you or anything.  So we had a decent discussion about it and I think it might be close to being totally behind us.  Ha ha.  It’s all good.  
  Let me go off of your letter to Ma and Pa and reply to that…
  I guess you will get the DVD out soon then huh?  Not to expect it anytime this week I guess.  Just whenever you can send it.  You should just have it in the mailer and address it to me and have it handy in your scriptures or something so that you can send it if you come across a post office in your travels.  You have my mailing address right?  
  240   West Holland Drive
  Stansbury   Park, UT  84074
  It’s good to hear your testimony in your letters.  Keep it up.  Well, nothing more to say I guess.  We are heading to ma’s and pa’s now, so I guess I’ll catch up with you next week.  Oh, I need to give you a quote of the week…
  “The gospel breathes a new life and a new hope and a new and unknown holiness into a troubled world.  This we see, and we see the work grow and increase and become more and more irresistible as it spreads like the gentleness of a sea that refreshes the shore upon which it flows.”
  -          David B. Haight
  I know that you see how troubled the world is.  Mostly through our letters I think since you are so detached from the world itself.  What a great place to be for a couple of years.  But being in your position, you also see how much the Gospel really does give the world a new hope, a new life, and actual holiness to a dark and dreary world.  It really can be irresistible once a person who’s been lost in this world for so long to get a feel of the peace that it brings.  It really does spread over a troubled soul like this quote says.  Great and wise words from a former apostle of the Lord.  David B. Haight happens to be the late father in law of John Huntsman.  I’m reading his book right now called “Winners Never Cheat”.  It’s been great so far.  I’m almost half way through it and I just started it not quite a week ago.  So I think I’ll probably take it down pretty quick.  
  Well, off to the natals house.  Take care and work hard this week.  I’ll talk to you next week.  Get those pics sent off soon.  Oh, speaking of sending stuff, I’ll check in with John to see if he’s done with that DVD that I can send you.  Talk to you later on.
  Love,
  Trav



As of today...
2008-06-08T08:24:00.001-06:00



Newsletter article on Leadership
2008-06-04T20:08:00.000-06:00
Mike wrote an article for a ZL newsletter.  This is the first we have seen as far as this kind of written article, so I thought it might be good to post it.

In the 46th chapter of Alma we are told of two differing examples of leadership.  The first example is Amalickiah, “a dissenter from the church” who aspired to be king.  Many of the lower judges desired power as well.  Amalickiah inspired them to support his cause by using “flattering words” and “cunning devices” to satisfy their hunger for power.
        The better example is Captain Moroni.  Being angry with Amalickiah, he rent his coat and wrote upon it, “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”  After fastening it to the end of a pole, he put on his armor, “and bowed himself to the earth and prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren.”  Moroni then went forth among the people waving the Title of Liberty, and cried with a loud voice: “Whosoever will maintain this title upon the land let them come forth in the strength of the Lord and enter into a covenant.”  “When Moroni proclaimed these words… the people came running together… covenanting that they would not forsake the Lord their God.”
   Later in battle Amalickiah “saw that his people were doubtful concerning the justice of the cause in which they had undertaken… and departed into the land of Nephi.”
   Why were Amalickiah’s followers doubtful and Moroni’s followers steadfast?  Because of the cause in which they were engaged.  In Amalickiah’s case it was about him and his glory.  In Moroni’s case it was about the Lord and His work.  The work in which we are engaged is the cause of the Lord.  Let us be like Moroni as leaders and raise the standard, prepare ourselves by putting on the armor of God, praying mightily unto the Lord, and going amongst the missionaries to rally them to this great cause.  
   We invite all to rise as Captain Moroni did and rally your zones to this great cause.  We promise you the missionaries will rise to the standard.  They will be faithful to their call and purpose and, as a result, baptize.  We know as we rise the mission will rise with us. The Savior lives and guides this work.



6/01/08
2008-06-01T13:15:00.001-06:00
Que Pasa Chochy?
  How are things going this week?  Does it feel like your mission is just quickly slipping away from you?  Your time is waning short now and it’s time to kick it into high gear for your final lap.  There’s no cool down period like if you are exercising and you need one lap of cool down walking.  This is a sprint to the finish line to see if you can break the record.  So step it up even harder in the short remaining time!  So I talked to everyone about the tests and I think you’ve got all the tests you are going to get, unfortunately.  Dad said he was doing it on paper and wasn’t sure he’d do anything on the computer.  He already took way more time than the test allowed though and Mom said she took it but had some user error and lost it somehow in her e-mail and she wasn’t about to take it again and was pretty grumpy about it.  Shelli won’t take it and Stosh keep saying they will do it, but it’s pretty certain that if you haven’t received them by now, you won’t ever.  So just go ahead and grade them and send them back.  It’s like herding cats over here.  
  So have you sent home the pictures on DVD yet?  
  I think I might have told you this last letter, but maybe not.  I went to the Asian star for lunch a couple of weeks ago before a training that was right next to their new location on 1300 East.  So Clark and I hit up the Asian Star for lunch before that training and I put my business card in a thing for a prize entry.  Well, this dude from Ameriprise financial called me and told me I won a free lunch for me and up to 15 guests.  I’m like and why are YOU calling me?  Well, he does it because he pays for you but you have to listen to a financial planning pitch by him first.  I see how this works.  Well, it’s worth it for free Asian star.  However, he never saw us coming.  I brought our whole management team and we ordered the Gilly Special which isn’t even on the menu and comes to around 200 bucks.  Plus we through in an extra plate of the walnut shrimp which is 17 bucks a plate.  So  he probably won’t ever tell people he treats to this thing that they can order whatever they want again.  He will probably limit them a little more next time. Poor guy.  But it was super good and he was way low pressure and after 5 minutes he was out of our hair and on his way.  So that worked out pretty well.  I love me some Asian Star.
  OK, well, I just got answers to all these questions since I just got your e-mail.  It’s Sunday morning now.  I had a good day yesterday after I got going on your letter.  I went to John’s to drop off his Dolly that we used when we moved since he needs it for his jumbo project he’s working on in his back yard right now.  You won’t even recognize his yard when you get back.  He has done a ton to it.  He built that shop in his back yard, put in a new sprinkler system, tore out his deck and dug out huge footings for a new double layer deck.  He poured his first cement pillar for it yesterday.  It’s going to look great back there.  I haven’t done much with it.  You and I helped with his vinyl fence, and I put the roof on his shop, but other than that, he has done the rest.  I will put in a slate floor and faux slate wall on his lower level deck.  It will look good when it’s all done.  Anyway, John has bought a ton of toys which are all justified in the project, so he has a new big ol’ machine driven cement mixer.  All kinds of new landscaping tools like specialty shovels, masonry tools, laser levels, drills, wheel barrow, etc.  So when you get back, he will have some work for you if you want.  Everyone will want you to come work for them.  You won’t be wanting for work or money when you get home, that’s for sure.  Snowbird wants you back, Dad can put you to work, John can put you to work, I can get you a good paying job no problem, the possibilities are endless.  Good to have a few fall backs there or even to work what you want when you want.  I jumped on that job with the church the first Monday I was back.  Then I got into that security gig a month later and worked both jobs as long as I could before School started back up.  But I was bustin’ out some serious money during that time trying to save for the next year of school.  
  Oh, Brinlee is here, so I’ll let her type to you…
  B;f’xkh ‘tk’;
  ]pz[ot/789456123fgrouoi0r[euro-pst09e69i0e89n0856ljdiio inbkg hji u..n,n ,hv,jkj kyp tyh[po[oypt[oypt[oyiiif;h
  Ohophop[fopo0pty009t-0t90-9ty-090opgpol[pooo6ou-69086]]r8ueyr7e tnup]yuo0t09ptyo0oryoy0o0tklkgfghgfkfgjklffkljkfg ittljgljhioyiuyijiji /u8ry8sy87eyesieyeuiryuiyeruyeyiuiityiitgy7yttttttttyyy7ytyypdofiite787846467/7457/iohiotpi otp io9iroturouyhtuiyhutiuiyihlxg ; khglklghklhglkhkgkflhlfkhoogiofprgtofgf gj kidf pgdgodfirjgfjfl;kgfhoiy9p585y905opto;khogkohooootitoiotopiopyioitiokhohkociocoootipopiorpopdtpotr pippoioptridpr iopioiopiopiioioikoptiopgtoiigopirtpriko;;;;kgoiij lijgvf86747684454
  Here’s what she said she typed to you…
  I want to see you when you are done with your mission.  And I hope you can jump on the trampoline with me.  And I love you Mike!
  Not sure what trampoline she’s talking about.  As far as I know, we don’t even know anyone who has a trampoline.  Interesting comments from these youngins sometimes, eh?  
  OK, back to my day yesterday.  After hanging at John’s for a bit, I ran over to the Jordan River temple and picked up some new garms.  After that, I ran over to Harbor Freight, a sweet place for super cheap tools, power tools, garden supplies, etc.  normally, they have just been on State Street and 3500 south.  That’s where I got my 18 volt drill, sander, circular saw, and flashlight combo for 29 bills.  Anyway, I went there for some paint brushes to stain my deck with.  I needed some big bounders.  So I found some for 3.00 each that would have easily been 20 bucks each at Home Depot.  So I grabbed a couple of them.  Well, the dude at the counter told me he had a coupon in the circular for these paintbrushes and after pulling one out, he zapped the coupon sku with his laser and it came up 33 cents each.  I’m like, ummm… at that price, I’m going to get a couple more.  So I grabbed two more and all 4 didn’t even come to 2.00.  What the heck?  I’m livin’ right I guess.  That was a pleasant surprise.  Then I went to the D.I. right next to Harbor Freight since I was in the same parking lot and did a little thriftin’.  I was cruisin’ all over that store with my head held high.  I bought a new queen size sheet set still in it’s brand new packaging for 20 bucks.  That’s great for a full set that’s brand new.  Our sheets have been a little haggard lately.  Then I found some sweet lucky brand khakis for 6.00 bones.  I was pretty excited about that action too.  So it was a productive trip to the D.I. for me yesterday.  I called Ma and Pop to see if they were ready for me to come over and tile their bathroom or at least lay down the backer board but they still aren’t ready.  Not sure what their hold up is.  The cabinets and everything are all out of there and the walls are all painted.  So they should be ready to go.  But not yesterday anyway.  Then Suzanne called and said she and the girls were over at Target in Jordan Landing, so I met them over there for some dinner at the KFC.  After that we ran over to the Emerys and hung out with them for a bit.  I guess I didn’t tell you yet, that Clint and Rachel had their triplets last week.  They were only 26-28 weeks along, so they are way super tiny and have to be watched for a while.  They will be in the hospital for 3 months.  Pretty crazy.  One was 2 lbs and the other two were under two lbs.  crazy, right?  So we are fasting for them today.  Poor little fellas. The Doctors seem pretty optimistic though, so we are too.  Let me get into your letter here and respond…
  I can’t wait to get your pics.  That 2 GB should get me by just fine accompanied by your letters till you are done.  So I’ll look for those.  Are you sending them to me or to Ma and Pa?  speaking of burning a DVD, I dropped off the video tape at John’s yesterday when I was dropping his dolly off.  So he is going to get that transferred to DVD soon and I’ll get that sent off to you.  
  Way to go with the no nail biting.  I just took a few down yesterday, so I’m not cured.  I do pretty well for a while and then something happens that gets me jittery or something and off they go.  We’ll see if you keep the short tie tying going your whole life.  I don’t have any problem with my belt buckle tie getting in the way of anything.  It suits me fine and dandy.  
  That’s great that Pres. Hobbs has so much trust in you with what he relies on you two to do.  That will be such invaluable experience as you get on with life.  It’s amazing the way the Lord prepares you for bigger and better things to come all in this awesome training ground of the mission field.  Bask in that experience you are gaining and gain everything you can from it.  The Lord obviously has great things in store for you.  You have been the beneficiary of some crazy awesome experience while you have been there.  How cool will that be to be interviewed by Elder Coleman?  You’ll have to let us know what that experience is like.  
  Well, I need to prepare my lesson for today and get in the shower and change still too and church starts in one hour.  So I have left myself about no time.  Let me find a quick quote of the week and close it up and send it off.  This stands out to me because of what you wrote about in your last letter or two…
   
  In the day of wickedness just preceding our Lord’s return there is to be a great harvest of souls.  We live in that day, the day when the harvest is ripe.  We have deluded ourselves long enough with the thought that this is a day of gleaning only.  This is not a day of gleaning, but of harvest.  Now, this work is going to succeed.  This is absolutely guaranteed, it is the eternal decree of the Lord.
  -          Bruce R. McConkie
  That’s pretty good stuff right there.  And goes along with what you seemed to be eluding to in your last letter.  So go ahead and send me your thoughts on that.  I also haven’t have your epiphany you have had this week.  What have you learned that was the big aha moment this week?  Write back on that.  
   
  I got back from church.  My kids were way better today.  I reasoned with them and struck a deal.  I figured if I can’t beat them… just hit them softer.  Ha ha.  No, I joined them finally and told them they can talk among themselves still, but they needed to keep the volume level way down.  I still had a 15 min. lesson, but I just can’t make them pay attention to a full hour long lesson and I had to accept that.  So it was good today.  I also stood in the blessing circle of Travis Hill’s new baby.  Get this, in our ward, you can only have 6 people in your circle no matter what.  You can never exceed that number.  The 2^nd counselor came down 3 times.  The first time to make sure Travis didn’t have more than 6 people in his circle.  He confirmed he had exactly 6, so we were good to go.  He smiled and went back up.  A minute later, he came back down and asked, were you including the Bishop in that 6?  He said yes, the Bishop is one of the 6 total number, so not to worry, we would be at the limit and not exceeded by one with the Bishop.  I was actually quite stunned at this conversation.  He smiled and went back up.  A minute later, he came back down and said, I just needed to check one more thing, were you including yourself in that total 6?  Travis was like YES, it’s me, the bishop and 4 others, so we have not exceeded the 6 and millions won’t die.  Travis’ brother in law said, he’s like the Soup Nazi… No blessing for you!  He dropped that right in front of the 2^nd counselor.  He just smiled at his brother in law and went back up.  I was like this is a joke, right?  I asked Travis what if you went up there with 6 people already and the Bishop came down to stand in, would he actually excuse one person?  He said he’s done it before where he told 4 family members to go sit down because they could only have 6 in the circle total.  Can you believe that?  I have never heard of such a thing.  If something were to go awry and we had another baby somehow, I would totally go the route that Rick took a few weeks ago and do it in Ron Emery’s ward, let him conduct it and do a family only circle.  I mean I came up with 10 family members who would be in my circle and that was without even thinking very hard as to who I’d have in there.  Craziness.  But it’s this Bishop’s ward and he can make that call I guess.  But I can’t imagine if I showed up with all my family who made a half hour drive to get to my ward and having 6 of them excused because I could only have 4 of my invitees up there before exceeding the 6 because of counting me and the Bishop in there.  I think I would call it off and say you can scratch it off the program then, I’ll take it to another ward because it’s important for me to have these family members in the circle.  I’m not sure what I’d do.  Oh well.  Not something I’m going to lose my testimony over by any means, but it’s definitely a strange policy.
    Thanks for your longer letter this week too.  It’s great to have some good personalized info and helps drive my letters a lot longer too when I have more substance to sink my teeth into.  I appreciate your words coming from a true and worthy servant of the Lord and it makes me proud to be your brother.  I love what you are doing.  I know that it’s the work of the Lord and that you are closer to Him than the top 1% of the world right now.  It’s a crazy thought to think just how closely you work with Him and for Him.  Keep up the good work in His name.  You make us all proud.  
    Love you,
    
Trav



Repost of the Church Website Article
2008-05-29T08:33:00.000-06:00
Someone left a comment requesting the hard link for the Newsroom article the Church ran on it's website that featured Elder's Alexander and Gillett walking down a Charlotte street.  The Church pretty much made it disappear and you can't even Google it to find it anymore.  It's basically a ghost from the past.  Not even in the Church Archives on its website anymore.  However, where there's a will, there's a way.  You will be able to access it still at this link, hopefully for good...

CLICK HERE


5/25/08
2008-05-25T13:14:00.000-06:00
Hey there,
  I got your e-mails lately and it is much appreciated.  Even though they are like 2 or 3 paragraphs long, its WAY WAY better than nothing.  So thanks for dropping me a note.  It will be great to get those pictures and have some blog updates to last for quite a while.  The newsletter things are great too.  Anything you can send, it will be great for you to always have just to remember right there on your blog, but it’s so awesome for all of us to who read it to live vicariously that kind of awesome spiritual life you are living.  So keep at it.  I’ll look forward to getting the DVD soon.  Did you send it to ma and pa’s or to my address?  If you sent it to ma and pa’s just make sure they know to get it to me right away.  Well, let’s see, what can I update you on this week?  The sprinkler system is going in and the pipes are pretty much ready to connect in the yard.  The curbing should be going in this week too.  So things are still taking shape, just took a while to get things actually rolling.  You had people all kinds of excited about your article on LDS.org.  Here’s a comment from Aunt Sue on that particular post… Amazing....you remind me of your Dad when he was on his mission...except he was a little thinner...HA! I've enjoyed your Blog all this time. I am so proud of your excellent work...see you in a few months :) !!!  Among others.  You will get all of the comments that get dropped on there when you get home and take a look at it.  Sounds like you had a great ZLC.  Pretty powerful huh?  So you threw down the gauntlet for the ZL’s to step up and start baptizing a little more huh?  The newsletter was good.  Good articles, but I’m sure that there was much more to it with the actual conference and talks given.  Sounds like you have a huge loss of leaders coming up and a lot of Nubes will have to step up and show what they’ve got now too.  That’s always a fun time.  As much as you lose with the seasoned veterans, you always get guys hungry to prove themselves and out of their comfort zones for a while that can really rip it up and hit the bricks running.  So with a little guidance, they will be awesome.  Good times ahead!  What’s the update on the tests?  Who do I have to get after around here to get the results back on that bad boy already?  
  Pretty funny message your investigator left about what’s going on, Jesus, that’s what’s going on.  Ha ha.  So you haven’t bitten your fingernails for a while and they are growing long now?  Maybe you should let your tie do the same thing and let it grow longer as well!  What say you?  Check this comment left on your blog by Rod’s wife:  Mike, you need to get a big boy tie!!!! At least one that is a little longer. Go back to the tie tying posts. It was great to see your mug smiling out of my computer at work. Keep up the good work, and be safe!
  Did I talk about the bike that Dad gave Brinlee on Mother’s day while we were down there?  She loves it!  I put training wheels on it for her yesterday and she couldn’t get enough of cruising around on it.  She is getting pretty cruisy.  We’ll have to work on actually teaching her the fundamentals and balance and stuff soon so she can really start riding it for real.  We went to the lake just by our house here (stansbury lake) and fed the ducks and the carp.  I think I’m going to go down there and see if I can catch me a big carp just for the fight of it.  There’s bass in this lake too and I’m not sure what other kind of fish, but you can take a bass boat out on there which would be cool.  Oh, the bad news is… John sold his boat.  That sucks pretty bad right about now.  But it was fun hanging out over there.  The lake is just a block away, so that’s pretty cool.  The golf course is just a block away too and I need to get out there and play it soon.  But Brinlee’s friend Anna came with us and they played on the playground right there by the lake too.  So that was fun for her.  We had some seagulls come over to see what all the ducks commotion was about and so I started luring them in with a piece of bread in my hand.  They would swoop over and hover right above my head and I could toss them a piece of bread and they’d catch it in their beaks and fly off.  It was pretty cool.  Suzanne and Anna were a little freaked out at the swooping and hovering gulls though.  It was funny.   Did I tell you too that I started running 2 miles a day?  I seriously am and I’m pretty staunch about it too.  I need to do 2 miles in the morning and 2 miles at night and I’d be golden.  But so far all I can muster is 2 miles at night.  I’ve been tracking my progress though and I’ll up it more and more as I can handle it.  Hopefully by the time you get home I’ll be back in game shape for some hard core tennis, hiking, hunting, football, whatever you got!  
  Let’s jump to your quote of the week right now…
   
  “A leader is someone who dreams dreams and has visions and can communicate those to others in such a way that they say “yes.”
  -          Michael Murray
   
  I can’t remember what you said in a letter a week or two back, but it made me find this quote because the best leaders I know have a way of relaying their message and having everyone get on board and not only agree with what was said, but they are motivated to action and want to get out there and do it.  I think it was actually your message in the newsletter for that ZLC.  So I thought you might like this quote since that is the main goal of that meeting it seemed like, to motivate those ZLs to step up their game and get it done.
  Well, we just got back in from hanging out at the Hills with another couple from the neighborhood.  It’s kind of a cool social type neighborhood like that.  Brinlee was out riding her bike again and can’t get enough of it.  We talked to Dad on the phone tonight and Brinlee thanked him again for the bike and couldn’t talk enough about her riding skills.  Ha ha.  
  So now it’s almost 11:00 PM and I better call it a night.  Not sure what we’ll do for the holiday tomorrow, other than stain my deck, repot some plants, and take it easy.  Maybe BBQ some stuff, we’ll see.  What are you doing?  Oh yeah, probably some proselyting and some AP stuff.  Your days are far more structured and pre arranged.  That’s nice though sometimes.  I could use a little more structure honestly.  While talking to pops on the phone I told him that he and Ma need to get their tests done and sent back to you right away.  I don’t think you are going to get one from Stosh, maybe you will, but they are so busy with new baby that I wouldn’t expect it.  And I really doubt you’ll get one from Shelby.  So once you have ma’s and pa’s just correct them and send us back the results, unless you want to follow up with Stosh yourself.  What else is happening out there in the missionfield?  How’s the business of running a mission?  Are you learning a ton from working side by side with Pres. Hobbs?  Do you think you’d like to go back out in many years from now and become a mission president?  Well, I’m getting sidetracked again.  I better just call it quits and head to bed.  It is always good hearing from you though.  Thanks for the e-mail today.  I’ll watch for those pics soon on the DVD.  Talk to you again soon.  Keep up the hard work.
  Love ya,
    Trav



Add your own subtitle
2008-05-23T20:35:00.000-06:00
Here's another picture Mike sent me that didn't have any captions.  So he's leaving it to us to put in our own.  Click the comments link on this post and put down whatever comes to mind...




Being about his Father's business
2008-05-19T08:27:00.000-06:00
Just a couple of shots of Mike attending to his business.  They didn't come with subtitles or any help, so I'm guessing here...  The Soccer Mom van full of new missionaries.  I'm guessing this from the young, happy, but a little bit timid faces, and the glitter on the shoulders of the front row Elder's suit. 
Elder's Alexander and Lee behind Pres. Hobbs.  The mission is in good hands with this bunch!



5/18/08
2008-05-18T13:12:00.001-06:00
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



Elder Alexander Gets Church Wide Publicity
2008-05-14T16:14:00.004-06:00
It's been a while since I've put up some kind of update, but Mike has just been so busy, he doesn't write as much or send any pictures anymore.  But we got this little snippet in the e-mail today saying to check him out on the church website...

You'll have to check out the Church Website website today, Elder Gillett and I are on there, so the whole world can see our ugly mugs. Its under News and events, and then newsroom, its a story about Charlotte, and it should be the first story. 

Or so you don't have to drill down through the 3 or more clicks by his instruction, here is the direct link... Click Here

And after you have read the article and seen the picture, here are the rest of the pictures they took...




5/04/08
2008-05-04T13:10:00.001-06:00
Elder A:
  I just got your letter, it’s Saturday night at 10:00 PM.  Wow, kind of late, but I filled out your test right away.  That was just barely enough time, but I got through it and had a harder time with some questions than I thought I would, or at least should have had.  Kind of embarrassing, but here is my test.  And I upheld the honesty code, so don’t worry about that.  I will be interested to see how we all stack up against each other.  Dad might be my biggest competition.  I will have Suzanne take it too, but make sure that Stosh and Shelby Lyn all take it too. Don’t let anyone weenie out.  And I want to see how every one did.  Not making it like a competition or anything, just showing where everyone falls to keep each other accountable on our PMG study and what not.  It will serve as a good accountability tool to see where some of us may need to step up our study.  Maybe that’s what you should do after you grade us, is tell us where we should focus our efforts after the scores are in.  That would be useful to me.  I would appreciate it anyway.  So I’m excited to see the outcome here with everyone.   Here is my test…  Oh, and by the way, I’m putting some talking points by each one of my T or F answers just as an added explanation if needed.  
   
  Preach My Gospel Knowledge Test
  Name: _____T-Ravage_________.
  Read each question carefully, and then write T (true) or F (false) on the line next to the question.
     
  
  1.                    T  God speaks to His children through prophets  and other ways too, but this is the main channel of communication
  2.                    F  Jesus Christ restored His church through Joseph Smith in 1820  I think it was later than 1820, so I’m saying false
  3.                    F  The baptismal commitment should only be extended after the third lesson  I’m going to say it should be extended earlier
  4.                    T  We had agency in the pre-earth life this was so easy, I’m nervous it’s a trick question
  5.                    F  God the Father created the earth  Jehovah and Michael specifically did this under the instruction of the Father
  6.                    F  To restore is to make changes to something in order to improve it  Not necessarily to improve, but to bring back as before
  7.                    F  We must be baptized to enter into Spirit Paradise  Oh boy, I’m not sure, but I think anyone but REALLY bad peeps will go to spirit paradise to await judgment and resurrection.  I think you pretty much have to be like a son of perdition or close to it to go to spirit prison.
  8.                    T  The Atonement included Jesus Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane, His death on the cross, and the resurrection  This rings true to me, I’m saying true and that it was the whole process of the afore mentioned.  
  9.                    F  Faith requires that we ask and wait  This is tricky, but I’m saying that it requires some action as well.  This seems slackerish to simply ask and wait.  Anyone can do that even those without faith.  So I’m feeling good about my false answer here.
  10.                 F  The Aaronic Priesthood holds the authority to baptize and give the Gift of the Holy Ghost  I think giving the Gift of the Holy Ghost requires Melchezedik.  I feel foolish that I’m kind of shaky on this answer.  But I’m sticking to it.
  11.                 F  If you are financially unstable you do not have to pay a full tithe  Ha Ha, if I’m hyperglycemic can I skip fasting too, if I have a headache, can I drink a coffee?  If I’m relationship challenged, can I hire out for some lovin’?  this question is easy.
  12.                 T  Family History is an effective way to find  This one feels tricky.  But I’m sticking with T, because in NYC, we had the largest family history and genealogy research center in New York and we got referrals from there all the time and it WAS effective.  So this has to be true.
  13.                 T  Enduring to the end includes partaking of the sacrament weekly  Sure it does.  Among a lot of other things.
  14.                 F  The Spirit will always help us in missionary work  There should be a disclaimer on here… If we are worthy of it’s help.  If that was meant to be in the question, then the answer is T.
  15.                 T  The Book of Mormon is the cornerstone of our religion  Boo Yeah it is!  It’s the cornerstone of my testimony too.  I almost wonder if it means Keystone though.  For some reason, I think the saying is Keystone of our religion, but I’m sticking with true, it’s true regardless of how this question is worded.
  16.                 T  Diligence means to work hard every day  Among other things
  17.                 F  The gift of tongues is not needed in this day  Maybe not in the sense of the term that Pentecostals and what not may refer to it
  18.                 F  Planning is a way to fill your time day to day  Planning shouldn’t just fill your time.  You should have a set time per day to plan, but it shouldn’t be used as a time filler.  Or am I misunderstanding this question?
  19.                 T  Media referrals should be contacted within the first 48 hours  I’m saying true since you want it to be as soon as possible, I think it’s a good rule of thumb, but it may not be a specific policy.  I may have missed this one.  
  20.                 F  Scriptures are only needed to prove points  Ha ha.  That’s pretty much the only time I get out my scriptures.  Ha ha.  Just kidding
  21.                 F  Obedience is the first law of heaven  Tricky Question.  I don’t know if there’s a set order to things, but it’s obviously important and necessary, I just don’t know if it’s the “first law”, so I’m playing it safe and guessing no.  
  22.                 F  When investigators don’t keep commitments we should tell them we’re disappointed and invite them to repent  This is a bold approach and should probably be used to some degree, but this is a little harsh.  I think we are missing a step or two here, so I’m going with False.  
  23.                 F  Direct questions intimidate investigators and should not be used  FALSE!  You should always use Direct Questions.  Don’t lilly lag and pussy foot around, get bold, get direct!
  24.                 T  Follow up is essential to holding people accountable  Absolutely!
  25.                 F  Once your investigator is confirmed responsibility toward them is ended  Hmmm, tricky again.  I know you should turn them over to member missionaries and member lessons, but you probably have a little more responsibility to them shortly after to encourage them to keep coming to church, following their commitments, sticking with the member discussions, etc.  I’d say False here.
  26.                 F  Missionaries should create a ward mission plan  Wards should create the ward mission plan and maintain it.  Missionaries should play an active role in it however.
  27.                 F  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the what and the how  This one may bite me, but I’m thinking this is technically true, but if we are looking Literally, I think Jesus Christ Himself is the what and the how.  This is a tricky one.  I may miss this one too.
  28.                 F  A missionary’s success is based on whether you baptize monthly or not  Not Even
  29.                 F  It is necessary to create a lesson plan to be guided by the Spirit  I’m sure it helps things, but it’s not the necessary step.  You can be guided by the spirit in any manner of ways and reasons.
    30.                 T  Studying Preach My Gospel daily will help you to become a successful missionary  Among other things
  
  Read and answer the following questions or fill in the blank.
  1.        State your missionary purpose:
  2.        The first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are first ________Faith______, second ______Repentance___, third _______Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins___, and fourth ______The laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost___.
  3.     Quote “The First Vision”  Oh boy, it’s been a long time…  “I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually, until it fell upon me… when the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, who’s brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air.  One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, this is my beloved Son, here him.”  I’m not sure if you needed more, I only remember most of this part of it.  And I probably left something out.  I should still have that memorized verbatim.  
   
  4.        What is the difference between the power of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of the Holy Ghost?  Anyone can feel the power of the Holy Ghost, and even benefit by feeling what it can offer in confirming truth, etc.  but only those who are baptized and confirmed to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost have the “Gift”.
  5.        The Kingdoms of Glory include, in order from top to bottom are, the __Celestial_ kingdom, the ___Terrestrial_ kingdom, and the ___Telestial_ kingdom.  I need more questions like this one!
  6.        Why was The Fall of Adam and Eve essential to Gods plan?  It was essential to get the ball rolling and get these spirits to earth with some bodies and start proving themselves with what they’d do with their agency.  
  7.     What is a dispensation?  Oh great!  I just studied this a while ago and had the full text book answer.  Now I don’t think I can spit it out very well again.  But this is what I think…  It’s a period of time when the church is on the earth and associated with the prophet that ushered in that dispensation.  There are a few different dispensations that were brought about by the prophets, Adam, Noah, Moses, ummmm… Jesus, and Joseph Smith being the last dispensation since it won’t be removed from the earth again until the second coming.
  8.        What is an apostasy?  It’s when the church (in it’s correct form) and the authority is removed from the earth.  When no one else holds the keys to keep the church going in it’s true structure.
  9.        What is the difference between immortality and eternal life?  Everyone will experience immortality simply as a result of the resurrection.  You will never die again.  Eternal Life is the same, but with the added benefit of living in God’s presence and experiencing all of the added benefits that come as a result thereof.  
  10.     What is a covenant?  A sacred promise and/or agreement made between you and God.  When you uphold your part of the covenant, God is bound to his part of the covenant as well.  
  11.   Moroni’s promise is found in ___Moroni 10:3-5____.  More questions like these please!
  12.     Preach My Gospel states that a lesson includes:  Oh boy!  A opening prayer, some principles taught as led by the spirit, some testimony born by the missionaries, some commitments challenged toward the investigator(s) and a closing prayer, along with a follow up visit scheduled.  It’s got to be close to that, I’m pretty certain.  
  13.     Joseph Smith stated- “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to__Share the Gospel of Jesus Christ___.”
  14.     What should we do to prepare to meet God?  Follow the example of the savior, obey the commandments, make and keep our covenants, endure to the end.
  15.     In your opinion, what is the most effective way to find?  Referrals  
  16.   What should we do to prepare members for a team?  I don’t even know what this means…  So to guess, I think it’s probably meant to mean having a member working with a missionary or two for part or most of a day.  So give them an over view of what you will do that day, give them some history on the investigators you will be teaching, help them understand their role in the discussions or lessons, help them see where they might relate to each investigator so they can use their strengths in the lessons.  Pray with them, encourage them to share their testimonies, etc.
  17.     What does the commitment pattern include:  Oh, it’s been too long…  the invitation which includes a direct Will You question.  A follow up date to accomplish the commitment by, and a follow up on that date to make sure the commitment was kept.  Bare testimony to let them know that if the commitment is kept, here are the promised results and/or blessings.  
  18.     Explain in your own words what baptismal language is  What the?...  I guess it’s using language that always points to the inevitable goal of being baptized.  Using phrases and speech that let them know this is the ultimate goal and everything ties to you being baptized when all is said and done.
  19.     As if speaking to a child, explain what a prophet is  I would play a quick impromptu game of pin the tail on the donkey with the kid(s) and tell them exactly where to walk, where to aim the tail, and when to stick it on.  After the game was over, I would ask them if it was easier or harder to have me tell them where to pin the tail.  Maybe even have the first round all unguided without me talking to see just how far off they would pin it.  Then I would tell them it’s the same way Heavenly Father guides us to right place.  If we didn’t have someone to tell us where to go, we might wander all over the place and end up in the wrong spot, way off course.  But Heavenly Father uses a prophet to tell us where we are going.  We are all blind folded, but with the help of the prophet who can see the target, he tells us exactly what we need to hear and where we need to go to all end up at the right place again.  This is God’s pattern by using a prophet to help us find our way back.
  20.    What other name is given “whereby man can be saved?”  No other  name!   only Jesus Christ alone
 
 
  I got a call from Dad who said Mom just printed off the letter and they were half way through reading it when they were calling.  I told them to get right on the test, that I was done and would included it in my letter back to you.  But they were calling to make sure we were coming on Sunday.  I told them that we aren’t even out of church till 4:00 and they said they were going to set up the call for 3:00 our time.  I told them I can miss our last meeting if we needed to, but that we didn’t necessarily need to be there for the call.  I mean, 40 min. is next to nothing for everyone to get a fair shake in there.  But it would be nice to talk to you one last time before you come home.  I kind of figure you wouldn’t want us missing our Sacrament meeting to make it to phone call night, but what can you do?  I kind of hate having Sac. Meeting last in the day.  Especially when we are on the late 1:00 schedule.  3:00 Sacrament meeting is tough, especially when nap time and lunch time have already been forgone to make it to the first two meetings.  It’s really tough with little kids!  Oh well, we’ll be on a better schedule next year.  So that will be nice to talk to you next Sunday.  
  We got a new bedroom set with Suzanne’s bonus she got last week.  So I spent most of the day putting all of that together.  It’s nice.  I’m kind of stoked on it.  It looks pretty good.  We got it on blow out sale from a store in Gardner Village for a lot cheaper than we would have spent anywhere else and it’s worth a lot more than we would have spent anywhere else, so we are pretty happy with the deal.  Shelbs and I went through our concealed class on Tuesday too, so now we just wait for up to 6 weeks for those to come in the mail.  It was really good.  Good education, good tips, good practices, etc.  I’m glad I took it.  Shelli has already gone out shooting with her BF Ryan (I call him Lefty).  But I’ll leave that for her to tell you about.  I am waiting for my permit to come before I get my “strap” just to waive the background checks and what nots that come with that sort of purchase.  
  Well, I think this is good for tonight.  I will sign off for now since it’s after 11:00 PM and I’m sleepy.  I will finish up before or after church tomorrow.  OUT
  Ahhhhhhhhhight, I’m back from Church and everything else, it’s now 9:30 PM already.  Where do Sundays go?  Oh yeah, I guess they are already gone by the time you get out at 4:00 PM and get home to have dinner.  I really don’t like this schedule.  Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get Suzanne to get the quiz done before I send this since she is getting Aynslee bathed and shortly after that, to bed and then it will be really late.  I’ll see if she can get it done this week and send it later on.  I’m not really sure what else to go over here since not much happened since I signed out last night.  
  I guess you don’t need to send me a letter this week since we’ll talk next Sunday, as briefly as it may be.  I’m not really sure if you want me to keep writing as much as I do.  You seem so busy all the time and don’t even have time to write, I’m not sure if my letters are just taking up more time that you would use differently than reading letters from home.  I can dial it back if you want, maybe write every other week or something.  Let me know what you prefer.  
    I better get the Quote of the Week out of the way and get Brinlee to bed.  
   
  “It is not an easy task to be called out into the world, but I say to you it will purchase for those who are faithful, for those who discharge that obligation as they may be required, peace and happiness beyond all understanding, and will prepare them that, in due time, when life’s labor is complete, they will stand in the presence of their Maker, accepted of Him because of what they have done.”
  - George Albert Smith
   What better way to say just how blessed you will be for your efforts in the mission field.  Keep up the good work.  
  Talk to you next week.
  Love,
  Trav



Letter update 5/3/08
2008-05-03T22:41:00.002-06:00
Just a quick letter update from this week.  He closes with some pretty heart felt testimony.  Good to hear he is loving his mission so much.  It will be tough for him to end it in a few months...

We finished up with the Zone Conferences last week, so we're all done with that stuff, but now we're going on some mad exchanges with Zone Leaders and working on Transfers and tomorrow we're teaching at the mission home fireside, which is on the first Sunday of each month, so this is number 4 for me, this time it will be on The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  The Zone Leaders have reported that 78 people will be in attendance, but its usually about half that much, so it'll probably be about 40 or so.  But we stand up on the stairs down into the common room and preach from up there, but we try to make it more of a discussion, sometimes they do really well with participating, but other times we get a shy group and then you just have to work them over a little bit to get them to loosen up a bit. Hahaha, they're funny.  Then Monday, we'll be heading up to Winston-Salem for an exchange till Wednesday.  This last week we were in Gastonia Monday through Tuesday night, Wednesday we moved apartments, and then Thursday we went on another exchange with the Zone Leaders in Kannapolis till this morning.  Thats that the Low down on the work here.

I LOVE this work, its such a time of miracles, i can't believe how much this work is guided by the Savior!  My mission means so much to me, its changed me forever, I'll never be the same...  This morning I was driving with the missionary i was on exchanges with and we were on the freeway getting to uptown Charlotte and as i looked at the skyline, and thought about my mission i almost started crying right there.  I could feel the spirit so strong in the car, and couldn't say anything or i would have started crying, hahaha, its so incredible to me.  I would just stay here forever and serve the Lord if i could. The world sucks, the gospel is the only thing i know now.  My life would be wasted if i hadn't come out here to share the Gospel, it would have been all about me, but the truth of the gospel says its not about me, its about Him, the Savior, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  I never knew that or understood what it meant before.  I hope you can feel the reality of the words i am writing to you.  I feel as Nephi, i am not mighty in writing, but the wish of my heart is that the spirit carries it to your heart.  I Love this work, I Love you, I Love the Savior.


99 bottles of ROOTBEER on the wall
2008-04-30T17:21:00.003-06:00
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
2008-04-27T13:08:00.001-06:00
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
2008-04-22T13:04:00.002-06:00
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
2008-04-20T13:07:00.000-06:00
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
2008-04-17T08:38:00.002-06:00
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
2008-04-14T23:28:00.000-06:00
Every Missionary's favorite color is white...







4/13/08
2008-04-13T13:06:00.001-06:00
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)
2008-04-10T10:03:00.000-06:00
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)
2008-04-07T09:51:00.003-06:00
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
2008-04-05T12:47:00.001-06:00
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
2008-04-04T16:31:00.000-06:00