December 10, 2018
Hi Jon!
Before I tell you any news from home I want to ask you can we video conference with you on Christmas? What are the rules and expectations from your mission president? We're going to be really busy around Christmas with a lot of friends and relatives in town for the wedding so if you can give us some advance notice then we can plan accordingly. Do you want to use google hangouts, skype, or something else? What day? What time? What username do you use? Christmas is only 2 weeks away!
We have been having some fun lately. Last week we were able to get tickets to a BYU basketball game and took the whole family. BYU had lost 3 games in a row but Nick Emery one of our best players was on a NCAA suspension and this was his first game back. We played Utah State and beat them really good. It was fun to be with Maddy, Heber, Javi, Aimar, Nate, and Ashliegh.
Opening day for Sundance was on Friday but they opened on Thursday just from 1pm to 4pm for season pass holders only, and front mountain only unfortunately. There was so much powder up there it was crazy. We had some really good snow storms around Thanksgiving. I took Aimar up with me on Thursday and we met up with Nate Carr, Luke Burt, McKay Hardester and some more guys from Timpview. I was too busy on Friday to ski and I haven't been on back mountain yet but we're supposed to get more snow on Wednesday so maybe I'll go up on Thursday.
We have been working really hard on wedding stuff. Mom has me cutting and sanding wood, doing varnish, etc for some sort of decorations she's trying to put together. It's stressing me out because mom isn't so great at giving instructions and everything is an emergency or a catastrophe and I'm not sure why custom-making decorations ourselves is so important. I'm okay with spending money to buy the decorations we need but adding all this stress isn't good. I'm either the greatest guy in the world who never lets her down or the most selfish person in the world who has never helped out on any project ever, depending on the day and what mom's current mood is.
One of the things I've been spending (too much) time on is looking at houses. I've felt the desire to downsize or "rightsize" but it's hard for me to envision what a new and different life would look and feel like. So I started looking at what homes are for sale out there, where they are located, how old they are, how big, etc and we started driving around to see some neighborhoods that might be a good fit for us. Then I looked up what floorplans local builders like Ivory Homes are offering now, just in case we don't find a good existing home to buy and decide to build instead. The main goal is for mom and I to create a new "dream" together so we feel like we are running towards a house and location that are good for us instead of just running away from a home that's too big for us.
On Saturday we had a ward Christmas breakfast and a lot of people asked me about you. When I was skiing with Nate he also said he wished you were there with us.
A lot of people around here aren't doing so great health-wise. Bishop Nyman went in for surgery today for a brain tumor. David Pollei has prostate cancer. Grandpa Poulton hasn't been feeling well since Thanksgiving and had emergency surgery yesterday to take out part of his small intestine due to a blockage. In fact, Chance was scheduled to get his patriarchal blessing from Grandpa yesterday but it had to be postponed at the last minute because grandpa went into the ER. I think people are just getting older and while it's good to still have the people we love around, it definitely is hard to watch the aging process and what it does to people.
Speaking of Chance, he finished his "Into the woods" play and is now doing rehearsals for Annie. Chance was ordained a Priest a couple of weeks ago and yesterday he blessed the sacrament for the first time. He did it really well, read the prayer very slowly, perfect really. For the past year Chance has been drying his hair straight up which gives him this wacky look but just in the past week or so has been wearing his hair down a bit. To me it looks a lot better this way. I hope Chance is making a change on purpose but mom says he might just be out of hair product. Chance still doesn't have his drivers license which makes it hard when we still have to give him rides to things and he isn't really talking about when he is going to get his license. The problem is he procrastinated scheduling his drivers class and then did the class online but waited so long that he couldn't finish the class before time ran out and how I think he might have to pay for the course a 2nd time in order to finish it. I don't know what he's thinking but I just stay out of it and figure he'll get his license when he finally gets enough motivation to do it.
Christmas is a little weird this year because the wedding is so time-consuming and stressful. Chance and Javi both say they don't really want anything specific for Christmas so I haven't bought them any presents. I bought a couple of minor things for myself but nobody really wants to go out and shop much. So we might end up with next to nothing under the Christmas tree this year - not because we can't afford something just because nobody really wants anything. Who knows, having no presents could make this the best Christmas ever!
I want to share a thought with you about relationships and companionships. I know that you can get along with most any one and your personal skills are better developed than most.
I thought that I could get along with anyone in the world. My companion in the MTC was a good guy but we did not get along that well. We did not really fight but we did not really gel like we should have. I would say that we did not have that much in common and there were things that we both did that really bothered the other person. My next companion was okay but we still did not get along like “bestest” (You say that like it looks, it is best-est) friends should. He did a few things that bugged me and I am sure that I did a few things that really bothered him. Gradually I liked each companion more. Every companion was better than the previous one. In the end, after lots and lots of companions, the last one was and is one of my best friends in the whole world.
I thought my mission president was trying to teach me something. I thought, “How could it be?” My mission president was sending me companions and he decided that at the end of each transfer he was going to send me a better one! Then one day, I realized that it was not my companions that were getting better each month, it was me!
Love,
Dad
Before I tell you any news from home I want to ask you can we video conference with you on Christmas? What are the rules and expectations from your mission president? We're going to be really busy around Christmas with a lot of friends and relatives in town for the wedding so if you can give us some advance notice then we can plan accordingly. Do you want to use google hangouts, skype, or something else? What day? What time? What username do you use? Christmas is only 2 weeks away!
We have been having some fun lately. Last week we were able to get tickets to a BYU basketball game and took the whole family. BYU had lost 3 games in a row but Nick Emery one of our best players was on a NCAA suspension and this was his first game back. We played Utah State and beat them really good. It was fun to be with Maddy, Heber, Javi, Aimar, Nate, and Ashliegh.
Opening day for Sundance was on Friday but they opened on Thursday just from 1pm to 4pm for season pass holders only, and front mountain only unfortunately. There was so much powder up there it was crazy. We had some really good snow storms around Thanksgiving. I took Aimar up with me on Thursday and we met up with Nate Carr, Luke Burt, McKay Hardester and some more guys from Timpview. I was too busy on Friday to ski and I haven't been on back mountain yet but we're supposed to get more snow on Wednesday so maybe I'll go up on Thursday.
We have been working really hard on wedding stuff. Mom has me cutting and sanding wood, doing varnish, etc for some sort of decorations she's trying to put together. It's stressing me out because mom isn't so great at giving instructions and everything is an emergency or a catastrophe and I'm not sure why custom-making decorations ourselves is so important. I'm okay with spending money to buy the decorations we need but adding all this stress isn't good. I'm either the greatest guy in the world who never lets her down or the most selfish person in the world who has never helped out on any project ever, depending on the day and what mom's current mood is.
One of the things I've been spending (too much) time on is looking at houses. I've felt the desire to downsize or "rightsize" but it's hard for me to envision what a new and different life would look and feel like. So I started looking at what homes are for sale out there, where they are located, how old they are, how big, etc and we started driving around to see some neighborhoods that might be a good fit for us. Then I looked up what floorplans local builders like Ivory Homes are offering now, just in case we don't find a good existing home to buy and decide to build instead. The main goal is for mom and I to create a new "dream" together so we feel like we are running towards a house and location that are good for us instead of just running away from a home that's too big for us.
On Saturday we had a ward Christmas breakfast and a lot of people asked me about you. When I was skiing with Nate he also said he wished you were there with us.
A lot of people around here aren't doing so great health-wise. Bishop Nyman went in for surgery today for a brain tumor. David Pollei has prostate cancer. Grandpa Poulton hasn't been feeling well since Thanksgiving and had emergency surgery yesterday to take out part of his small intestine due to a blockage. In fact, Chance was scheduled to get his patriarchal blessing from Grandpa yesterday but it had to be postponed at the last minute because grandpa went into the ER. I think people are just getting older and while it's good to still have the people we love around, it definitely is hard to watch the aging process and what it does to people.
Speaking of Chance, he finished his "Into the woods" play and is now doing rehearsals for Annie. Chance was ordained a Priest a couple of weeks ago and yesterday he blessed the sacrament for the first time. He did it really well, read the prayer very slowly, perfect really. For the past year Chance has been drying his hair straight up which gives him this wacky look but just in the past week or so has been wearing his hair down a bit. To me it looks a lot better this way. I hope Chance is making a change on purpose but mom says he might just be out of hair product. Chance still doesn't have his drivers license which makes it hard when we still have to give him rides to things and he isn't really talking about when he is going to get his license. The problem is he procrastinated scheduling his drivers class and then did the class online but waited so long that he couldn't finish the class before time ran out and how I think he might have to pay for the course a 2nd time in order to finish it. I don't know what he's thinking but I just stay out of it and figure he'll get his license when he finally gets enough motivation to do it.
Christmas is a little weird this year because the wedding is so time-consuming and stressful. Chance and Javi both say they don't really want anything specific for Christmas so I haven't bought them any presents. I bought a couple of minor things for myself but nobody really wants to go out and shop much. So we might end up with next to nothing under the Christmas tree this year - not because we can't afford something just because nobody really wants anything. Who knows, having no presents could make this the best Christmas ever!
I want to share a thought with you about relationships and companionships. I know that you can get along with most any one and your personal skills are better developed than most.
I thought that I could get along with anyone in the world. My companion in the MTC was a good guy but we did not get along that well. We did not really fight but we did not really gel like we should have. I would say that we did not have that much in common and there were things that we both did that really bothered the other person. My next companion was okay but we still did not get along like “bestest” (You say that like it looks, it is best-est) friends should. He did a few things that bugged me and I am sure that I did a few things that really bothered him. Gradually I liked each companion more. Every companion was better than the previous one. In the end, after lots and lots of companions, the last one was and is one of my best friends in the whole world.
I thought my mission president was trying to teach me something. I thought, “How could it be?” My mission president was sending me companions and he decided that at the end of each transfer he was going to send me a better one! Then one day, I realized that it was not my companions that were getting better each month, it was me!
Love,
Dad
Comments
Post a Comment