Back to work

 Oh hi kid,

Sitting with your brothers in your grandma’s basement uninterestedly watching nfl games just to escape the press of humanity that is your cousins. Grandpa is in his office with a disturbingly bruised face due to a recent fall. There are in-laws and babies that look like they are all straight from an Argentinian nazi cloning colony. Please don’t share this part of my letter with your mother.

Grandma made her worlds best chili. Mom forgot the pies she made for dessert. I’m sure grandma will still be prepared with something.

Fast meeting today was one of those awesome ones where the ward members that bore testimony were are solid, all testified of Christ. Brother Stevenson is a giant, I love it when he speaks.

I taught the Priest quorum today, it has been over a month since we met and no one was assigned the lesson. I started by calling out the boys not engaging with me, then I lectured them on not performing their priesthood obligation of blessing the sacrament, then I told them that they are expected to serve missions, then I did the lesson. I consider it a simple miracle that they didn’t all walk out on me after that, I may have. My lesson from Come Follow Me was about how we can bless others with our testimonies of Jesus Christ. It was a good lesson, and I think there was some engagement with the class. I use your experiences a lot in my lessons, I hope you don’t mind. 

When we got home I was exhausted, I was up for a while last night because of my acid reflux. I ended up taking a two hour nap, which was needed. Not long after I got up we came to grandmas.

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Well, we’re home from grandmas. She came through with cookie casserole and big scoops of ice cream. I thought of you.

After Monday, this week was back to normal. Tuesday still had the affects of the big snowstorm, so I worked from Home. Wednesday was the same, the youth activity for the night was another completely chaotic combined activity. I still have so far to go in my calling. The new episodes of Bad Batch came out. It was enjoyable to watch with your brothers.

Thursday I had to go into the office because the new big boss came in. There’s a lot of political posturing going on, I’ll look forward to that settling down.

Friday was a pretty busy day at work. Ben and Joey disappeared for a while in the afternoon and Benjamin came home with a beautiful Orange Amplifier. I’m not qualified to describe that very well, but he must have paid his tuition and had a little left over. Oh, and that amp sounds amazing! After work we all went shopping at Costco and got pizza. It was fun being together. We watched the recent Jurassic Park movie. It was okay, but it just felt like we’d already seen it.

I kept busy on Saturday. The little white Jeep has been making a noise that I’m obsessing over. Actually two sounds. One I a squeal that I’m sure is from the belt drive system. I even bought a little stethoscope to pinpoint it. The other noise is potentially more serious. It’s either a bad wheel bearing, which will be moderately difficult to change, or the brake rotors rubbing. When I changed the brakes that time before you left, I was too cheap to change the rotors. They’ve developed a thick bark of rust on the edges that may be causing it. I’ll need to keep an eye on it. After that I changed the oil on mom’s car. Last year she had it done to save me the work. But the weather was nice and I felt like I wanted to get a better look at her car. The place that did the oil change last time tightened the drain plug super tight, I was mad. Then I struggled to get her filter on. I even went to get a new one. Turned out that I was trying to put it on slightly crooked. Oh well, I finally got it installed and at least l have a filter for next time. As I was rotating her tires, I noticed a rusty nail in one. So I took it to get fixed at discount tire, I’m glad it wasn’t found by stranding your mother on a cold snowy night with a flat tire. Doing the basic service on the cars is probably a waste of time, but I find it gratifying when it’s not too frustrating. And I like to feel like I’m keeping the cars safe.

We met Joe for his lunch break at in-n-Out. Then we went to grandmas to take her tree down. Of course a bunch of your cousins were there laying around while Ben and I got the tree put away. It amazes me how your cousins are completely blind to serving your grandparents. I think it’s visible on me because I get the sense Mark gets a bit nervous around me. He was bragging about what a great dad he was, I almost said “dads have jobs.”, but then I caught your mom’s eye, she can read my mind you know and her eyes command a strong rebuff.

Well that’s my week Jacob. I’m interested I hearing about yours, your trip to town, the changes of transfer, the people you are teaching. 

As an aside, your girl cousins have commented on your handsome good looks, I can’t disagree. But I think the opinions of young ladies is probably more credible that your dad’s in that department, even if they are your cousins.

I love you kid, talk tomorrow.

Pops