Fat guy with short legs

Oh hi Bakey,

It’s late Saturday night and I’m not sleeping. I spent most of the day gathering up the stuff for our trip with uncle Aaron. I’m looking forward to it, more now that Joey has the days off to go with me. I wish Ben could go. I’ve packed enough food for the three of us, we’ll if you call freeze dried and canned dinners food. I seem to pack heavier than I used to. I’m not sure how I ever got the five of us stuffed into that little Cherokee back in the day. Even still, those were fun trips.

Today I only had a piece of raisin bread toast and one and a half Fat Boy ice cream bars before meeting Joe for lunch at 3:30 with grandma. I wasn’t overtly grumpy, but neither was my mood joyous. I thought of your meal schedule, I wondered if that’s how you feel. I’ve been thinking of you a lot, I always think of you a lot. Sometimes you’re pictures come up on my screen saver. One that always comes up and makes me pause is that on of you sitting next to grandma the night before you left. You look scared man. My heart goes out to you when that picture comes up. You don’t seem scared now, you haven’t for a while. Lately you sound good, even enthusiastic. But some weeks I can hear the weight of your task in your voice. Last week was like that. You have a pattern, you get that way around transfers. It’s probably stressful to think you might not get a change, it’s probably stressful thinking that you will. It’s frustrating thinking you won’t get leadership, it’s scary that you might. Those are the mini life lessons that a mission trains you for, because that’s what life is. I sent you that elder uchdorf talk. I have to say that’s one of the talks that got me through unemployment. I’m not proud to admit how low I was during that time, but I was. I used to scour conference talks for hope, any hope. Reading that talk on gratitude was a big help.

I’ve been pretty sappy for the last little while, from my ramblings in my last letter to that last paragraph. Today we were driving to go get those fat boys and I saw this little grandma crossing the street with her little grandchildren, they were all just happy. I had to stop talking to compose myself, we don’t mark joy highly enough in our life experience. Joy is simple, it’s quite, it’s humble, but it’s really deep. God gives it to us in the most basic situations. But we have to recognize it. That’s why He needs us to be humble towards Him. So we can recognize that joy.

Back to the day. It was pretty hot today, probably the hottest day so far. Here I was climbing all over my 4Runner tying stuff to the roof in that heat. I’m pretty much done packing, just my gadgets left and the load the rest of the food and gear in. I asked Joey if he wants to make a YouTube video out of this trip, it will be fun if he does, but it will just be random un edited shots if I do it. 

Spencer came over to watch movies with Ben tonight. They watched the dark knight first, not me. Then we watched tombstone later. I liked that movie. Mom made bagels tonight, they were freaking delicious.

We sent your package today, it should be the sixteenth. It’s expensive, and I hope you don’t have to pay too much in customs.

Yesterday, all week in fact, work was busy. I like busy, but I don’t like being busy because idiots can’t plan. I feel like I’m finally getting enough experience at this job to where people are starting to perceive my experience and that I’m finally feeling like I understand the company enough to talk intelligently about it. You of all people should understand that. It seems like it’s taken me longer here than at most jobs. This place is complex in terms of the products and customers. Plus, they’ve made it much more complicated than remotely necessary, I try to simplify whenever possible. 

Wednesday night we went on a hike with the priests quorum in Harriman. There were five boys and three leaders. Bishop hung back with me. I felt pretty strong and relatively fit, but I’m just slow. Brother Blake is fast, the boys try to keep pace with him. Bishop and I chatted most of the way up and down, we’re becoming friends, My respect and affection for him grows. Everyone got ahead of me on the way down because I had to tie my shoe. He called back to make sure I was okay. I yelled ahead, “I’m a fat guy with short legs but I’m fine!” He laughed, I should make a T-shirt.

I’ll pause this letter for now and tell you about our Sunday shenanigans tomorrow.

———-

Well, it’s Sunday night now. Today was hot and windy, seems to be a storm coming in but it’s still hot.

I’m sort of an idiot (I know, tell you something you don’t already know). This morning I yelled at your brothers because I thought we were all late for church. It was 10:55, church starts at noon. But at least I got an 45 minutes of hobby time. I started another fighter plane, an F-89 Scorpion. It’s not glamorous, in fact it’s a pretty ugly plane. But they flew them out of Hill afb in the fifties. There’s one outside at the entrance of the museum up there. I started it because I do like the history, it was an early nuclear interceptor, which means it’s goal was to shoot a nuclear missile into a formation of Russian bombers and hope for the best, including being able to survive the blast themselves. I also chose it because it originally had a raw metallic finish, I’ve never done a model in a realistic metal finish before, I want it to look like metal, not like silver paint. I’ve had this kit forever and I figure if it doesn’t turn out perfect I’m not out much. But I hope to get experience to do a more recently purchased kit…drumroll…I got a 1/72 scale Razor Crest from the Mandolorian. I do want that finish to turn out well.

Church was good, no drama. Joey was officially called as first assistant. He’ll be set apart in a couple of weeks. After church we has tostadas, delicious as always.

After dinner I received a joyous surprise, ben called work and asked for it off, they were fine with it. I did have to tell uncle Aaron that I wouldn’t have the extra room I thought we would. Your uncle Aaron is the example of nice, he didn’t seem bothered at all. Later we went to Camille and Zach’s house for baby Evans’s first birthday. I was acting sorry that we wouldn’t have room for Max in our car. To which Joey responded, “Wait, I thought that’s why you wanted Ben to come!” What a turd.

The car’s all packed, probably over packed. But we normally don’t go for 4 days. 

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so Aaron decided to reverse the route. I’ll send pics when I can, and the earlier you can call the better chance we’ll be in service since we’ll be following I80 for several hours. Mom said she’d make an effort to be available. Maybe by now you know your fate for transfers, I’m hoping the best for you. 

Love you kid, I figure I’ll have a few months grace period when this type of trip sounds fun to you after you get back. For now, rest knowing that you’re best day is rougher, more adventurous and probably more dangerous than our little desert adventure.

Pops