Cookie penance

Mar. 20, 2011

Dear Elder Alex,

First off, happy spring! We are definitely looking forward to some better weather here. It's been a bit crazy and a very wet March. Wet being everything from rain, to sleet, to hail, to snow.

Sounds like you are doing well and acclimating quite well in Goodlettsville. (BTW, the American Idol girl from Goodlettsville got voted off last week) We were rooting for her, but she wasn't quite the same caliper as the other contestants this year.

I have to say that I was very moved by just a small portion of your last letter, in fact it brought tears to my eyes. It was your story about when Elder McDermott took his phone out of his pocket and said he needed to call Stacy and how the timing for that was most assuredly a strong prompting from the spirit. Stacy's got to know from that that Heavenly Father is very aware of her, her trials, her desires, etc. What I also learned from that was how easily Elder McDermott received and acted on that prompting. What you guys do each day to spiritually prepare yourselves, i.e. gospel study, companionship study, prayers, fasting, strict obedience, etc. reaps such immense blessings and the most powerful of all those blessings is being able to have the spirit as a constant companion. What I've been thinking about through the week is that we can all have that same blessing. We don't have to be full time missionaries to experience that. I'll admit it's tough when there are so many worldly endeavors pulling at us, but the preparation for the day is the same and should be the same. It's given me so much insight into who I am and who's work I always want to be a disciple for. It's very motivating, so thank you for sharing that in your letter.

So today I had to pay penance for something I did a couple days ago. I got a call from someone who's name I won't divulge, but he wanted to have a few minutes of my time to sell me on a multi-level marketing opportunity. Red flag! But he's a friend, so I listened for a bit and then told him I didn't want to do something like that, I'm not a good salesman and with my current calling in the stake, I didn't feel it would be appropriate either. So he eventually understood, but still sent an email with info, called back again, offered to have me just try the product in case I'd like to order it and then asked if I could give him just a name or two of someone he could call. I had already said no to him about the company, so I thought maybe I'll just give him one name. So out came Myles McKell. I didn't think much about it. Then my friend called back a couple days later to get Myles' phone number. Now I was stuck and I had to give it to him. Not 5 minutes later, the phone rings and I look to see Myles McKell calling me. I thought, oh no! Then I answered the phone and I started laughing so hard that I could barely talk, I was laughing so hard I was crying(you know how I get). Myles said, "You can't even talk about this, can you?" He was teasing me of course. I told him how sorry I was that I had sold him out. Myles hates multi-level marketing as much as me, calls them all Ponzi schemes and gets calls all the time, so he was able to hopefully say no firmly although he's not sure the message got through. I told Myles that I owed him one and we just had a good laugh over it.

So today I made some cookies and attached a paper that said "Ponzi Penance" and took it over to the McKells. Dad went with me and Myles laughed so hard when he saw it. We ended up visiting with them for over an hour and we had a great time talking and laughing. Myles is like a brother to me and I love having him here in our stake. So remember cookies always seem to soften the blow.

BYU is now in the final 16 after a great win Saturday against Gonzaga. They played the best I've seen them play. Kristina had Scott Beckstrom here to watch the game with us. They have become good friends, but I'm hoping that's all it is. Don't worry, I'm keeping a close watch on this.

This past week I spent in several doctor's offices, not fun. Nikki had an ear appointment. Looks like she has to have tubes put back in her ears again, they are just not healing properly and it will cause hearing loss if we don't do anything about it. The same doctor took a look at my vocal chords too. He said they looked good, so I need to drink a lot more water and keep them hydrated especially while singing or when I'm speaking for a long time. I tried it today at choir and it helped a little, but I still went a little hoarse. I think it's the dry air of Idaho that's doing it. Then I went to the hand surgeon so he could look at my finger. It's not healing because there's still some gauze in the wound. So he wants me to soak my finger each day in soapy water and scrub it to see if it will help. If it doesn't, he's going to have to numb up my finger and do some aggressive scrubbing and possibly a little cutting, cleaning out the wound so it will then heal. Having my finger hurt all over again does not sound very fun to me, but I'm very tired of it not being healed yet and I'd like to use it. I'll keep you posted.

This week Kristina has a couple lacrosse games and a choir concert. Nikki and Leah had a choir concert last week. Leah and Nikki both go to ward choir now, but somehow I think it's just because there's always treats there for whoever comes. We sang If You Could Hie to Kolob today and it was kind of a miracle that we were able to pull it off. It wasn't the easiest to sing.

The Pinders spoke in church today and they did a great job. I could listen to Randy Pinder speak every week. He's very funny, very real and then can also be serious when he needs to be. I loved both their talks today on agency. Sis. Pinder introduced me to her mother-in-law as the one who has a son in Nashville. Sis. Pinder is just dying that you get to be there and they would love to get there especially while you are there.

We got the letter and pictures from Sis. Truman. It was so good being able to see you in action, so to speak. She's so nice to send those to us and we really appreciated it. I wrote her back, and I'd love to get to know her better and keep in touch.

Kirk just got home from a trip to Rexburg for the weekend. He had appointments with his school counselors about his major and getting ready to start an internship, etc. He also had a couple dates, which is always good. So he'll decide this week about an internship in Uganda.

Uncle Steve called to let us know about an opening in the BYU health dept. for a doctor. His friend who is a doctor there hasn't advertised the job yet, but said if dad was interested he'd like to talk with him. I don't think this is the time to move and dad's still pretty happy with his jobs in Mountain Home and Ontario, but some of the benefits sure sound good (like free tuition for all our kids!)

I hope your work is going well there, that Stacy (hopefully baptized by now) and Rick and Jerry are all moving forward. I hope your zone is working hard, enjoying the hard work and learning how to stay close to the spirit. We learned in RS today that if we don't respond to the promptings of the spirit in our lives, then the next time the spirit speaks to us, it will be even harder to hear. So learn to listen and to act.

You're an awesome example of faith and good works. They go hand in hand. Keep sharing your testimony and your sense of humor-they also go hand in hand. My prayers are always with you, my heart is always with you.

love you much,

Mom

XXOO

Family Movie Night

March 13, 2011
Dear Elder Alex,
We just finished watching some home movies--very funny. You were aloud and crazy kid! Then we watched some of my family movies, the Trumbo's. Also very entertaining. Then right in the middle of my family when I was young, Grandpa Trumbo's mission video comes up. He was quite the outgoing missionary. He was very animated and it was fun to see him in France.Here's a picture of all of us with my Grandma and Grandpa Hawkes.
That reminds me. We got some short videos from Cameron this week too. They remind me of the ones we'd get from Kirk, just short and sweet and funny. I'll try to send one to you so you can see him in action.
Dad's working in Ontario this evening. I went to the Eagle 4th ward today and it was our last ward conference. I won't know what to do with myself going to our own ward each week. It's probably changed a lot since I've been gone. I had a nice visit with Brian McCauley today. He said he's never going back to building again so now he's training to do some kind of speculating financing, blah blah blah, something I don't understand. I sat with Bro. Kofoed too. Shalese is the chorister for the ward. All is well in their ward.

Tonight they dedicated the new building inour stake, the Floating Feather building in Star. The stake is getting very large.
Kristina's lacrosse season officially began yesterday. She played in 3 half games and won 2 out of the 3. BK beat them. We sat by the Viehweg's and every single one of their kids(I think) was there. They were all home for Jessica'shomecoming. She just returned from Malaysia last week.
We've all been glued to the TV this past week with the tsunami news from Japan. Katie quickly posted something on facebook to let everyone know they were safe but sure felt the impact of the earthquake. David sat at home watching the news and was wishing he was back on his mission. In fact, he talks about possibly going back. We'll see what happens.
Leah is loving her lacrosse team. I'm not sure when her season begins. It will be fun to watch her play. She's busy working on her Pace project for school which she presents this Friday. She's also loving playing the piano lately. She's slowly turning into a young woman right before our eyes. She definitely looks and even acts like she should be out of Primary now.
Nikki on the other hand is quite at home in Primary and loves going to Activity Days. She's mastered all her multiplication tables now and is working her way through division. Telling time or estimating time still makes absolutely no sense to her though.

Kirk is going to Rexburg this week to meet with one of his counselors, go on a couple dates and make some decisions about his internship. One of his roommates wants him to go to Uganda in a couple months to do an internship with a dentist and an optometrist. If he wants to go into optometry, it would look good on his transcript. We'll see if this happens.
Sean is doing well at school. He still loves Arabic and middle eastern studies. He made wild rice soup bowls today for a group of friends and they had a soup bowl picnic outside. It's getting warmer slowly but surely.
We had ups and downs with BYU this week. They played New Mexico Friday night and Jimmer broke Danny Ainge's all time scoring record by scoring 52 points in one game. It was awesome to watch, but the game was close and it was a nail biter. Then yesterday we went to Campbell's to watch and have a bbq and they got slaughtered by SDSU. It was painful to watch. So now they're in the #3 seed for the tournament next week.I keep busy each day even though think I just sit around and eat bon bons. Hmmm, those sound pretty good right now. I just got a call from a sister in the Eagle 5th ward and she was just called today to be the new RS president. So they released Julie Rasmussen. I'll miss working with her, but I look forward to meeting someone new. So I made an appointment with her for Tuesday to go and orient her. Today I went to the Hale's house in the Eagle 3rd ward where I oriented Sis. Hale as the new RS president. I'm not sure if you remember her, but she works in the front office at Eagle Middle school and has worked there for years. So withmy RS work, there's always something going on. This week we're working on an activity for the girls at Living the Legacy where they've asked my presidency to come up and speak for a few minutes to the girls, then have them do some kind of activity. I'm thinking of calling Pres Shaw and getting some ideas from him for some bonding acitivites.
I'm also spending a lot of time scanning my old photos onto the computer. Here's a couple choice ones:1. Steve and Carolina, the dating years
2. Me with my personal binky
3.Grandma and Grandpa Trumbo, me, Scott and David on the day we took out our endowments.

So how was your week? Has Rick Salazar progressed? How did your week of sacrifice go for you?

Also, what did you decide about your torn suit? It's kind of weird that just last week I was helping an elder here with his torn suit too.

After you mentioned Due West and the guy in your ward, I looked them up on iTunes. I hadn't heard of them before but from reading about them they sound pretty successful. I listened to a couple of their songs and I liked the messages they were getting across through their lyrics. I really liked the song, I Get that All the Time. I'm not big into country music, but I really liked that one.

I hope Stacy is doing well with her quitting smoking. I will pray for her.

My prayer for you is that you'll always have many opportunities to bear your testimony. It's the most powerful way for the spirit to testify. Also I hope you are using your music to testify and your sense of humor-all of them gifts you've been given.

I love you much. Have a miraculous week!
love,
Mom
XXOO

March on

March 6, 2011

Dear Elder Alex,

How's it going? Seems like I do this every week, but I just got off the phone with Sean. He usually calls me every Sunday evening. He's doing well, did well on his mid-terms and is looking for a new place to stay in the fall. He and his roommates want something different, cheaper and most likely a house. The Cameron's (Kelly and Melanie) want to set him up with their niece who just returned from a mission. Sean agreed to the set-up. Woo-hoo.

We had low country boil tonight and it tasted good. I can't believe how many shrimp and sausage the little girls ate. They loved it---of course. Then we watched family movies and we all had good laughs. We watched the one when we went to pick up Kirk from his mission, the one where we go to California for Maria's wedding and the one where Kirk and Sean are 3 and 1 years old.

This week went by pretty fast. March is in full swing. I had my monthly ppi with Pres. Stafford. We discussed ward conferences and the single adults of our stake. We also had to live through the news that one of BYU's starters got kicked off the team for honor code violations. We were in shock. They had just received the news that they were ranked #3 in the nation and then this blow. The next day they had to play New Mexico at home and it was a sad, sad game. They lost. But luckily yesterday they redeemed themselves when they played Wyoming for their last game and won it 102-68. It was a beautiful blowout. It will be interesting now to see where they rank, but ESPN and all the sports networks, USAtoday, etc have been commenting, writing and reporting on what happened. For the most part, people are very impressed that BYU would stick to it's principles even with so much on the line in the basketball world. Honor seems to be the latest buzz word in all these articles. So I thought I should make some t-shirts and sell them that have BYU's colors and say "Know honor, know BYU" Don't you think that's great. Ok, so you've probably thought I've lost it, but I think they'd be a big seller.

Also in basketball, Mountain View(isn't that McDermott's school?) won the state championship against Centennial.

Tomorrow Leah starts her first lacrosse practice. She's very excited. Nikki is not going to play this year because of her scheduling conficts, but I actually think it will be best for her to wait until she's 11 like Leah. Kristina is in full swing with the high school team and loves it. She considers it a personal victory that she didn't throw up after the first practice like some of the other girls.

I'm still pretty busy with typing patriarchal blessings. There's been a little run on them lately and I've been typing 3-4 each week. I've now typed over 500 blessings!

Monday was Dr. Suess's birthday which I'm sure you were fully aware of, so here's Nikki as Cindy Loo Hoo (once again). She loves being Cindy.

Dad is putting in more hours at work this month so he can take off the end of the month which is spring break. Looks like we will go to California for the week and see my family. Also last week Roxy got sick, stopped eating and was throwing up, so after a trip to the vet, found out she had some kind of virus and needed 2 days of IV fluids. After the first day, they let us take her home, but she started picking at the IV tubes which they left in her leg, so she had to wear the cone of shame. It was sad watching her run into things with that thing on. Even that didn't work too well though. Eddy chewed it off the first time, then Roxy managed to get it off her head 2 more times until we got smart and tied it to her collar. Then we realized she couldn't fit in her kennel with it, so at night I took it off. The next day she was back in to the vet for more fluids and today she seems pretty much back to normal.

We got a letter from your mission president this week too. It explained the whole facebook assignment and then he sent an attachment which was what you guys got that has all the rules and procedures for it. It was really interesting. I sent a copy to our stake presidency just so they could read through it and know what's going on. They've all been asked to establish a facebook account by the area seventy. Pres. Stafford is dragging his feet about this assignment. Technology is moving so quickly these days. The church has been doing an incredible job keeping up with all the resources and integrating them into every part of what we do. We've all been asked to make a profile on Mormon.org and to add several links to new websites which the church has recently established to our own websites, blogs, etc. I've added a few, including yours on to my blog. It's amazing how much information the church has been getting out there now. It's wonderful to be part of this, but it's also scary to see how much anti-mormon stuff is out there. Opposition in all things...

Jan and I are starting to get ready to go to spring quilt market in SLC in May. She's been feeling better and wants me to go with her like I have in the past. I'm looking forward to it and she has lots of new patterns to present. I love that it's in SLC. Makes it easy for both of us.

Jan Leifson is our new choir director in the ward. She bribes us to come out by making treats each week. So far, it's working quite well. The word is spreading. We're such a simple people. We're working on a nice arrangement of I stand All Amazed and If I Could Hie to Kolob. But after I sing for just one hour, my voice goes hoarse and it actually hurts to talk or sing. It's really aggravating, so dad says I need to get into an ENT to get my throat checked out. I also need to get into the hand doctor because my finger still has not healed completely and still hurts whenever I accidentally bump it or use it. I think I've been patient long enough with it. So I may have to break down and make some appointments for myself, not my favorite thing to do.

How was the work this week for you? How is the zone leader calling coming along? Is it something you enjoy? It was great to see the picture of Thomas after his baptism. Have you been back to teach Ifeanyi? What kind of name is that?

Also, did you get much flooding in your area? I hope the rains have subsided now. We are enjoying nice almost spring weather again. It feels so good. I hope you are enjoying full, hard-worked days. They are the best. It's something you should always remember in life, the great feeling it is to work hard each day especially when you are working hard at making others happy. Always a good night's sleep after days like that.

We all love you very much! Seeing you in the family movies made us laugh, made us miss you, but also made us proud of you. You're a great son, brother, grandson, nephew, and cousin.

love always,

mom

xxoo