Another righteous letter, I'll get back to grumpy dad, I promise.

 Oh hi Jake!

Sorry for missing my letter last night. I enjoy writing these to you, even though our days have been more mundane since the holidays, not as many fun uncle Tim stories either.

I’ve been thinking about you a lot, about your quest for boldness, about your comp’s condescension. On boldness, just keep going and keep listening ,and keep looking, and mostly keep doing, that’s boldness. I think of President Howell, how I would like to be so respondent to the Spirit like him in the way I do things. Sometimes when I’m conscious of it I do it, in spurts. Mostly I sit back and think about what the Spirit is telling me until it fades away. 

On your comp, now that my frustration has cooled, I wonder how strong his belief in the Word of Wisdom is. I don’t mean that in a judgy way, but if he’s avoiding covering the promises given at the end of section 89, It may be because he doesn’t want to disappoint people or set wrong expectations because he’s not sure of them for himself. Which as you know is wrong. The Lord has blessed me with the exact blessings in those verses, even though I’m not athlete. I often wonder what addictions I may have or what diseases I may have if I had experienced those things we’re warned against in the Word of Wisdom. I wonder what choices I would have made if I had been under the influence at certain times of my life. I wonder what I may have turned to other than prayer when life gets hard or scary nor challenging. I am so grateful for the Word of Wisdom and my blessing from it, even if I have to be better at the eating in moderation part of it.

Artie and I were texting the other day. He was saying such kind things about me and mom and you guys. I told him often think that I was just plopped down in this world surrounded by blessings, like my parents, my family, mom, you guys. My goals is just not to mess up. More than that, it’s to try to always live up and be worthy of these blessings, and of you guys. It occurred to me that you boys are warriors, and that’s what I told Artie. I’m so impressed and so proud how you guys were so willing to man up and go on your missions. I know you have fears and weaknesses, but you face them and you work hard to overcome them. Joe is so anxious to go, you and Ben have been such strong examples to him. Now that I’m in the young men I see the fear in those boys. It’s fear from loosing their comforts and luxuries. I understand it, but I don’t endorse it. I worry that even a lot of parents and leaders have deemphasized missions. Maybe mom and I are too old school or too out of touch. Your missions are the time you serve the Lord, and as the way of everything with Him, what we get back is so much more than we can possible give. I feel bad for those kids that can’t get over themselves and go. Isn’t that what we’re all here for, I think that’s what God is, all about his creations, not about himself.

It seems your grumpy dad from last week has been replaced by righteous dad this week, sorry.

The Utes hires Luther Elliss as their Defensive Tackles Coach. That guy was a beast. At a time when the Utes were still struggling, just starting to get good, he was a Consensus All American. I literally remember seeing fear in the offenses he’d face. He has 12 kids, 7 adopted. He was last at Idaho, but his players were all conference. What a beast.

The Basketball team still sucks. I was offered tickets for tonight, but Ii wasn’t really interested. I would trade the jazz any day for the Utes to be good again.

Mom and I are having our anniversary this weekend, 23 years. It went quick, I hope I get at least that many more. Things are closing down again for covid, plays and stuff. So we’ll probably just go to lunch or something. Your mom is the best person I know. I wish I could be more like her. She works so hard. She’s starting to get up early to do her elliptical, I hate that thing. So I decided to go for walks. This morning it was cold and foggy and I was listening to the Two Towers on Audible. It was the part where they were going through the dead marshes and good old Perry farms felt that much colder and creepier. It was awesome.

Last night I premiered the new trim work in the living room. I made the mistake of telling mom everything I wanted to do in there. But I’m already sick of working on it. I’ll send a pic when this portion is done, you'll be enthralled.

Well, better get back to work. I sure love you kid.

pops