Happy Freaking New Year!

Oh hi kid!

Sorry for the late letter. This holiday has my days all mixed up and when I got to work I realized that yesterday was Wednesday, not today. I have to admit, my joy in the holidays kinda winds down by now, and when January comes I’m ready for normality.

I name the files of the letters I compose in pages by your initials and date. This morning I realized it’s the last time I’ll update the year on these. I imagine by this point in you progress through your two years that you are feeling how fast time goes. I got a sense from our call on Christmas that you are making the most of it. You seemed really happy and that made your mother and I feel happy for you. In so many ways you’ve brought back strong memories and impressions of my time on my mission and how much that experience meant to me. I did really appreciate in Ben’s Testimony that item you pointed out about how we all may be pre ordained to affect someone directly as we answer our callings. I would guess that that applies to temple work and general ministering as well. I’d also speculate that as we go through the judgment, that any lost opportunities along those line will be reviewed. Probably not in a persecutory manner, but more from the perspective of lost joy and passed up blessings. I don think that the lesser kingdoms or outer darkness are punishment for the sins we did here. I think what we will feel is that regret.

This weeks reading in Come Follow Me is pretty short, it’s the introductory to the Book of Mormon. So this morning I read Elder benders talk from last Conference about Spiritual Casualness. When I read it this morning and when I heard it in October, I was pretty sure that this talk was written for me. Mom’s been known to accuse me of being a Utah Mormon…which means being kinda casual about things. I need to watch that as It’s easy to become comfortable and then lazy in doing my due diligence unto the Lord. I feel that starting now, though I feel that I still have so much I want to get started here at work that generates enough stress to motivate me to get on my knees often and listen. I’ve never taken that perspective before. We’ll see if I can maintain it.

Well, enough of that stuff. I worked Monday and took Tuesday off to get ready for mom’s party. I did a pretty good job at getting the house ready.We had baked potatoes. Grandma donated a brisket for toppings, Grandma and aunt Patti Brough a bunch of other delicious toppings. Watching the Utes get pummeled was kind of a downer, but otherwise it was nice. After the game we just sat around and chatted. There are always one or two people that dominate the conversations, for which I am grateful as I don’t need to contribute, or even pay attention. That night Spencer and Jordan stayed over and they all stayed up super late watching the Avengers. They had a fun day yesterday in the morning. By the time they left, we were all tired and kinda kept to ourselves.

Joe’s plane. He has a total of about seven flights so far, all less than 10 seconds long. He’s on his third propeller. He’s trying not to be discouraged. I do see improvement on this short flights. He’s impatient and wants to fly on windy days. That makes it tough with a plane that light. On the last one he got into a full on nose dive and I thought it was over. But he pulled it out for a softened landing just in the nick of time. We do have to replace a small component of the plane, but the way these are constructed, out of modular assemblies in foam core, the repairs are easy and virtually free. So I hope he sticks with it.

Jake finished his Lego, and it’s spectacular.

Tonight mom and I are going to dinner for her birthday at the Roof Restaurant. She’s always wanted togo and tonight was the first open reservation for the holidays. I’ll need to leave work early.

Well kid, I love you. Be safe and I’m already looking forward to hearing from you on Monday..

Pops

P.S. Despite the frustration of loosing, being free of the Utes football season, including listening to too much sports talk, is very refreshing.

P.P.S. Jacob is annoyed at me because we are going to miss the Utes V. Oregon State game tonight because of my dinner with mom…wahh.