December 3, 2018
Hi Jon -
This week was fun. I had a job interview on Friday - not a great match so I'll keep looking - and Maddy had a bridal shower at our house on Saturday. Mom and I went to see some of our oldest friends - Dan and Karina McDonald - and had a good time catching up with them. I went to Crossfit every day except for Thursday when mom's van was at the tire shop overnight and she went somewhere in my car so I didn't have a car to drive. So I skipped Crossfit but later realized that we own a truck and should have taken that to Crossfit only I had forgotten about it. I stayed up too late Friday night and didn't feel like going to Crossfit on Saturday morning so Aimar and I played rock paper scissors and I lost so we went. Unfortunately we did a ton of burpies and side planks and my sides hurt all weekend!
It snowed Saturday night and all day Sunday so I had to shovel snow at church from 8am until 11am and I didn't even get to take the sacrament because I went home to take a shower and change clothes for church. I'd shovel the south side of the building and then the north side and when that was finished the south side had another 1/2 inch of snow to shovel so I just kept on circling and circling.
Mom said she wanted a cutout picture of you that we could use for Maddy's wedding photos so I ordered one. I had to tell them exactly how tall you were so they could size the cutout right but you are crouching down in the photo so I had no idea. I tried crouching down to about the level you were at and had Mom measure to my head and it was 4 feet so that's what I told the cutout people, But when the cutout arrived you are so big! Your head is like 13 inches from top to bottom so obviously I didn't size it very well.
You know the game Elf on the Shelf where you move an elf statue to different places around your house all Christmas season? Well we're playing a similar game called Jon on the Lawn! We took some pictures with your cutout and since then everyone keeps moving it to weird places like on the landing of the stairs, playing the piano, and in Chance's shower. I put it in the living room next to Christmas tree #2 and every time Javier comes down the stairs it freaks him out. It really does mess with your mind when you walk into a room and see you there crouching in the corner and for a split second your brain says "What is Jon doing home???" until you realize what is really happening.
I want to say a few things about keeping your journal.
Write in your journal. Write in it differently than other people do. First, always write in it every single day. You think that you will forever remember all the things that happen to you but you will not. Trust me, if I had not written things down, they would have been lost forever. I read things now and say to myself, WOW, I completely forgot about that! Write about how you are struggling or not. Write about your feelings for your family and others that you left behind. Write about specific items in your testimony. Write how and which scriptures touched you. Write in detail about the people you are with. Write as much as you can. Be very disciplined in doing this every single day. You will reap the rewards of this for years to come.
I saw many, many, people write in the journals as if they knew others were going to be reading it. That's a bunch of BULL! Write in it for you and you only. If someone later reads it, that is fine (as long as it is OK with you). It is just better to remember that you are writing for you and you only. Remember that in a lot of ways you will use the journal later to bring back details and feelings and even spiritual experiences. You may use it to motivate yourself later when you are down and struggling. I wrote even the most secret/sacred things in some weird reformed Spanish. Things like what my temptations were and how I got over them. I say this because I have since gone back and read and appreciate the details even more.
In some cases I can go back and read what I wrote and I can even smell the fires burning or food cooking. It is kind of neat to be able to go back and read how I wrote in Spanish. I thought I knew how to speak it and write it but now that I really know it I can see that I was really was not that good. I would say that the journal is something that you will use for the rest of your life. You will or at least should refer back to it for the rest of your years. You have a lot of those left so write well.
Use your journal to ask yourself questions and to challenge yourself 10, 20 or 30 years later. I remember writing in my journal, "I hope you are still fasting so intensely later in life as you are now and with real purpose” and then reading it 20 years later and saying to myself , “You know that is something I can do better and it is now almost 20 years later!” Also, if you can, get the journals that are like books and the pages are thick paper instead of the mini 3 ring binders that say “Diary” or "Journal” on them. They have papers that get weak or ripped out after a few years. Remember this is for your lifetime and you got plenty of that left in you. You will keep your journal your whole life and pass it down after you die. You may even look back in it after your first year and see all the changes that have occurred in you. Get the best journal that you can find and write in it every day.
Love,
Dad
This week was fun. I had a job interview on Friday - not a great match so I'll keep looking - and Maddy had a bridal shower at our house on Saturday. Mom and I went to see some of our oldest friends - Dan and Karina McDonald - and had a good time catching up with them. I went to Crossfit every day except for Thursday when mom's van was at the tire shop overnight and she went somewhere in my car so I didn't have a car to drive. So I skipped Crossfit but later realized that we own a truck and should have taken that to Crossfit only I had forgotten about it. I stayed up too late Friday night and didn't feel like going to Crossfit on Saturday morning so Aimar and I played rock paper scissors and I lost so we went. Unfortunately we did a ton of burpies and side planks and my sides hurt all weekend!
It snowed Saturday night and all day Sunday so I had to shovel snow at church from 8am until 11am and I didn't even get to take the sacrament because I went home to take a shower and change clothes for church. I'd shovel the south side of the building and then the north side and when that was finished the south side had another 1/2 inch of snow to shovel so I just kept on circling and circling.
Mom said she wanted a cutout picture of you that we could use for Maddy's wedding photos so I ordered one. I had to tell them exactly how tall you were so they could size the cutout right but you are crouching down in the photo so I had no idea. I tried crouching down to about the level you were at and had Mom measure to my head and it was 4 feet so that's what I told the cutout people, But when the cutout arrived you are so big! Your head is like 13 inches from top to bottom so obviously I didn't size it very well.
You know the game Elf on the Shelf where you move an elf statue to different places around your house all Christmas season? Well we're playing a similar game called Jon on the Lawn! We took some pictures with your cutout and since then everyone keeps moving it to weird places like on the landing of the stairs, playing the piano, and in Chance's shower. I put it in the living room next to Christmas tree #2 and every time Javier comes down the stairs it freaks him out. It really does mess with your mind when you walk into a room and see you there crouching in the corner and for a split second your brain says "What is Jon doing home???" until you realize what is really happening.
I want to say a few things about keeping your journal.
Write in your journal. Write in it differently than other people do. First, always write in it every single day. You think that you will forever remember all the things that happen to you but you will not. Trust me, if I had not written things down, they would have been lost forever. I read things now and say to myself, WOW, I completely forgot about that! Write about how you are struggling or not. Write about your feelings for your family and others that you left behind. Write about specific items in your testimony. Write how and which scriptures touched you. Write in detail about the people you are with. Write as much as you can. Be very disciplined in doing this every single day. You will reap the rewards of this for years to come.
I saw many, many, people write in the journals as if they knew others were going to be reading it. That's a bunch of BULL! Write in it for you and you only. If someone later reads it, that is fine (as long as it is OK with you). It is just better to remember that you are writing for you and you only. Remember that in a lot of ways you will use the journal later to bring back details and feelings and even spiritual experiences. You may use it to motivate yourself later when you are down and struggling. I wrote even the most secret/sacred things in some weird reformed Spanish. Things like what my temptations were and how I got over them. I say this because I have since gone back and read and appreciate the details even more.
In some cases I can go back and read what I wrote and I can even smell the fires burning or food cooking. It is kind of neat to be able to go back and read how I wrote in Spanish. I thought I knew how to speak it and write it but now that I really know it I can see that I was really was not that good. I would say that the journal is something that you will use for the rest of your life. You will or at least should refer back to it for the rest of your years. You have a lot of those left so write well.
Use your journal to ask yourself questions and to challenge yourself 10, 20 or 30 years later. I remember writing in my journal, "I hope you are still fasting so intensely later in life as you are now and with real purpose” and then reading it 20 years later and saying to myself , “You know that is something I can do better and it is now almost 20 years later!” Also, if you can, get the journals that are like books and the pages are thick paper instead of the mini 3 ring binders that say “Diary” or "Journal” on them. They have papers that get weak or ripped out after a few years. Remember this is for your lifetime and you got plenty of that left in you. You will keep your journal your whole life and pass it down after you die. You may even look back in it after your first year and see all the changes that have occurred in you. Get the best journal that you can find and write in it every day.
Love,
Dad
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