Day 1

First day

I’ll bet today was about as different from the last 70 as possible. We got a note from your mission secretary that you had arrived, that your companion was Elder Carns, and that we’ll get a picture of you in the next few days. Because of that note, I check my email every 5 minutes, it’s torture. I assume you’re flight was fine. I wonder about security. Mr. Trump has closed down the government, so I imagine that security was an issue. 

You can be sure that your mom and I have loads of questions, just try to send as much detail as you can think of. About your comp, your area, your ward, your district, your car, your investigators...you know I can keep going. I also hope you can express your feelings, if even to a small effect. We pray for you constantly, we’d be happy to pray for specifics. Also, photos please.

Okay, enough nagging. Last night Joseph was exposed to a potential life-long addiction, and it has me worried because he’s already showing signs of dependency. That vice? Skiing. The TQ went night skiing to Brighton. It was cold and snowy and he was apprehensive. But you know that you’re little brother is fairly fearless so he went on with the others. While I was tempted to go, I thought I had beat my own addiction for these last 21 years, I was clean. So Brother Blake gave him some basic instructions, and he was off. I stayed in the lodge, which is more of a crappy cafeteria. I felt no sense of relapse at all, I was warm. Some of the boys, including Joseph came back about 40 minutes later. I played it cool, but I assumed maybe Joseph wasn’t having a great time, so I bought him a hot dog. Low and behold he headed back out as soon as he finished it. I walked him to the lift, none of his buddies were around, but he went up boldly and fearlessly all alone. I sat in the lodge again by myself for nearly an hour and a half. Then the others started coming back and no one had seen your brother. I played it cool, but racing through my mind was that I was the guy who sent his kid off to freeze to death all alone. So I said a little internal prayer and played it cool. I do have an enormous amount of faith in you boys, but that confidence is often at odds with my innate over-protective nature. Well, all the leaders went to look for him. I walked out to the bottom of the lift and there he was, skiing down confidently and happily as if he’d been doing so for years. I said another quick internal prayer, this time just to say thanks. You know that you can tell when joe is happy by how chatty he gets. He talked non stop all the way down the canyon, which was a snow packed blizzard all the way down. Today he had a bad craving for his new addiction, I’m going to need a better job to support that, then maybe I can return to skiing too.

The Utes just finished beating Stanford, they are now 4-2 in conference play. They play Cal on Saturday, maybe you’ll be close. If the got to 5-2, they’d be sitting pretty well in conference.

Mom just came down, so it’s time for scripture study. 

Love you kid,

Pops