Christmas Week 2008

Our Christmas week has been very busy with some great highlights. I feel sort of guilty because my volunteer work this week was so fun that it shouldn’t be called work. I got to play underwater Santa at the aquarium for Breakfast with Santa. It was crazy to fit myself into a wet suit, a large fake fat belly, thick red pants, a Santa jacket, and funny boots over the flippers. The head stuff was the worse. I had to manage a bushy full white beard and mustache with a regulator mouthpiece in the middle of all that hair. The red cap had built in long stringy white hair and my mask held it all in place. As I entered the water the wig hair covered my face such that I couldn’t see well at all and the hair in my mouthpiece drove me nuts…but when I would brush back the offending white wisps and look at all the children huddled up against the glass Ahhing and Ohhing about Santa’s arrival is was all worth it. They were so excited and jumping around. Parents were going crazy taking pictures and the kids couldn’t get enough of the “wet” Santa. It was a great way to serve and I look forward next year to the pain of dressing, but the joy of seeing those kids faces.

It was a calm Christmas eve with just Don, Danica, and Dave for a wonderful dinner. Mom surprised me with a slue of great gifts that we can do together. Particularly a new camera, a hefty bike rack, and a dreamed for scuba vacation to Bonaire in March and her patience with me for another year. I couldn’t ask for more. Then on Christmas Day we bounced back and forth between the McDonald’s and our place with some fun games, stupendous food, and a happy call with Austin. It was a great Christmas.

We have had a missionary weekend in honor of your nearly completed mission. Last night we had Steve and his wife over for dinner with 4 missionaries and Tiana and Preston. I will be baptizing him in a couple of hours and feel like a little kid so excited about helping this good man into the church. I hope his wife comes to the service. I think you will enjoy meeting him. Then in Sunday School class one of the investigators was asking some very pointed but good questions about “How do you know this is the true church?” His wife just got baptized in September and he is trying to understand the gospel. Mom and Tiana talked to him for about an hour after Sunday School and mom said Tiana was great in bearing testimony to him. Church felt particularly good today with the sweet taste of missionary work.

Family Picture 2008

Busy Weekend Con't

A fun short video from Thanksgiving.

Busy Weekend

I didn’t get to tell you all about our Thanksgiving week in Utah. It was fun with food and family and we missed you. I visited a client company in Orem that was employing 128 people last year and they now have one person. They are a home builder and that market has collapsed and so everyone has lost their job. It made me so grateful to be self employed even though there are some rough days, if things go bad I have no one to blame but myself.
On the way home we traveled with Dave and Danica. Everything was fine until Vail and then it took two hours to get to Frisco. It was snowing a little bit but the traffic was horrible. The electronic reader board said that is would take 7 hours and 40 mins to get to Georgetown which is normally 30 mins. We were moving so slowly that mom was walking back and forth between our car and Danica’s exchanging food and movies. We made a smart decision and drove down to Breckenridge and stayed the night in the condo. So instead of sitting on the freeway going nowhere for 8 hours we sat in the hot tub, ate delicious burgers, played with the grandkids, and watched a movie. Once in a while we do things right.
Thursday night I met with the missionaries and Steve Wilburn and he moved his baptismal date to Dec 28 and asked mom to speak and me to baptize him. What a neat honor. His wife jumped right in and was helping plan the program. I think she will come around someday. I think Don and Melissa will be here for the baptism which would really be sweet. It is so exciting to see the change that has come over Steve – he stopped smoking in Aug and stopped drinking in Oct. Not even the Thanksgiving festivities tempted him. He is saving enough money to pay tithing.
Yesterday was crazy around here. We are selling both the Explorer and the Lexus and so mom was working like crazy trying to clean them up. I picked up my new wheels on Friday (a Nissan Murano) and so we had 4 cars in front with hoses and buckets. We also got a new hot tub cover and so all the packaging was out for the garbage. Plus the rest of the raked leaves were piled up. Then we had a contractor guy over to fix up the basement for the missionaries. His truck and all the left over construction material made the garbage pile higher and added cars to the street. Then you throw in Dave and Danica visiting and me trying to put up the Christmas lights it was one wild, busy, and crazy day. The best news is the basement of now almost ready for the missionaries to come live in. We have a refrigerator, sink, cabinets, table, fixed shower, and disabled TV for them. We just don’t know if they will be sisters or elders. It will be simple if they are elders and cleaner of they are sisters.

Happy Thanksgiving!!! The Greatest Holiday of the year, in my humble opinion, but you know that already. We have so much to be thankful for, mom and I are in Utah for the entire week to conduct some business, set Tiana’s wedding plans and celebrate being with the family. The world has tried to reach up and snatch my happiness this week but I’m not going to let it. Such as: the market keeps falling and my income drops, I got into an car accident with the Lexus we’re trying to sell, and BYU loses big to Utah, nevertheless the sun is up, we’re with family we love and the church is true. Those things all weigh more than any bad news I heard this week.

Our missionary experience is still going well. The missionaries, Steve, and I met last Thursday and finished up the Commandments lesson. He has now stopped smoking and drinking and is pretty much cleared to get baptized. We’re hoping for a late Dec date. His wife worries me because she doesn’t seem to be interested at all.

I hosted a dinner seminar for about 65 people at CB&Potts on Monday night to try and drum up some new business. Wed night I had a great night at the temple. I was doing initiories and all the patrons were doing their own family names. One guy was doing work for his brother-in-law and was telling me stories about his deceased relative. It brought tears to his eyes to do his temple work. Thursday was the missionary lesson. Friday I babysat Jenson and Lily all alone for 3 hours. I felt lucky I only had to do one diaper during that time.

Saturday I was attacked by a bamboo shark as he chomped down on one calf and I knocked him away and he went for the other calf and bit through the wetsuit. As I was hitting him off my 2^nd leg the puffer fish came to his rescue and bit at my head. It kind of freaked me out, but was still fun.

The big trouble happened on the way to the aquarium. I was in a merge lane with a yield sign and I glanced back to make sure there was no traffic and the lady in front of me came to a dead stop in the middle of the road because she wanted to be safe and didn’t realize there was anyone behind her. Well the police gave me the ticket and it smashed in the front of the Lexus we are trying to sell and drive to Utah. It will cost hundreds of dollars to fix this little problem. Then Utah destroyed an embarrassingly poor BYU football team. So there are my weekly woes and as you can see they are a mere speed bump on the road of life. The really important things like testimony and health are doing great.

General News

Well our little attempt at missionary seems to be working out well. I had another lesson with Steve Wilborn and the elders on Thursday night. The elders did better and Steve has set a baptismal date for Jan 7. We will be in Costa Rica at that time so we hope he can move the date forward to the last week of the year when we will all be here. He has asked me to give him a blessing at this week’s lesson and I’m praying for the spirit. Pray for him and his wife Melissa also please. Investigator class was so good today because we had Steve plus two other non member fathers there with their member wives and we talked about how the gospel blesses our family. It makes me so thankful for the church.
Well it is official – Preston (Elder Van Dyke) proposed to Tiana Friday night. They already had the date set – Feb 20; the time 11 am; and the place Salt Lake Temple. All that was needed was the asking. Preston was going to wait until he could ask me face-to-face at Thanksgiving but he ran out of patience (he lost a few points for lack of patience, but who is keeping score). He called me on Friday and after a few minutes of medium grilling him I gave my permission. He took Tiana to a fancy restaurant overlooking the temple in SLC and then walked around temple square, but never asked her. That was his plan to make her think it was coming but never ask to make her wonder what was going on. I suggested a few things to spice up the anticipation and Preston and I were suddenly in cahoots to frustrate Tiana – I like this guy. It all worked out great and Tiana was surprised. We’ll finally have someone in the family that can challenge the hulk Austin (other than Don).
Don is bringing home a girl for us to meet at Christmas time. Her name is Melissa and she is a non member, but has been to church a few times and may take the lessons. She wants to keep the commandments and is helping Don as well. I like her too, even if I haven’t met her yet. They will probably get engaged just before he leaves for Iraq in Feb and get married when he returns.
Well we have survived the first week of the projected Obana presidency and the stock market only dropped 1300 points. We're in for a long 4 years.

Change vs Improvement

It is like watching an approaching train wreck in which your kids and grandkids are in the way of a horrible disaster. It appears that this country will elect a candidate who according to his words, “will fundamentally change America”. Wait a minute, this country doesn’t need fundamental change. To quote Dennis Prager, “We change things that are bad and improve things that are good”. Our country needs improvement, but not fundamental change. McCain wants to change Washington and Obama wants to change America. We are in for a storm with the entire mechanisms of government geared to move us in a dangerous direction. Especially with the dangerous ideas of Obama as “The One” leading the charge. The fanatical following of the media towards the left removes the opportunity for intelligent debate and drives us towards one party rule – that is not the definition of hope.

The newspaper quoted a verse out of the book, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It described how the majority of ancient Athenians, in a very short time, moved from contributing to society to expecting from society. When their focus was on what they would get as opposed to what they could give they “lost both their security and freedom.” We are headed in the same direction.

The paper also had a quote from Thomas Jefferson which said, “A government big enough to solve every misery and problem is strong enough to take everything you own.” I see the difference between this election and the one four years ago is that a majority of Americans think and want the government to solve their problems instead of their own resources. If we have rounded this “dead man’s curve” of the expectation of our Federal government then the future is indeed bleak.

If we replace; rewarding hard work, optional charitable service, and faith is a divine higher power with governmental institutions we are a people and country in peril. Improvement yes, but no to fundamental change.

God Bless America and America Bless God.