I am the master of my fate

I saw a preview for a movie coming out, and it was one of those times when I felt foolish at the end because the preview has almost moved me to tears. Here is the trailer for Invictus, a Clint Eastwood film starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqKjVo-9qso

Throughout the trailer, Morgan Freeman, playing the part of Nelson Mandela, is heard to be quoting the poem, Invictus, written by William Ernest Henley. The poem goes thus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I love this poem. I know I probably should have long ago been familiar with it, but I am still wanting in my education of some of these great words of the past. I love the power and responsibility this poem places on my shoulders. I am the creator of my universe and my happiness. That is a great and terrible responsibility. When I told Trevor about the movie preview (I knew it would hit home to him having just gotten home from his mission in South Africa) he asked if I had read the poem. I told him I had, and he directed me to a poem written in response by Orson F Whitney which seems to reject William Henley's poem. Here is Whitney's:

Art thou in truth? Then what of Him
Who bought thee with His blood?
Who plunged into devouring seas
And snatched thee from the flood,

Who bore for all our fallen race
What none but Him could bear--
That God who died that man might live
And endless glory share.

Of what avail thy vaunted strength
Apart from His vast might?
Pray that His light may pierce the gloom
That thou mayest see aright.

Men are as bubbles on the wave,
As leaves upon the tree,
Thou, captain of thy soul! Forsooth,
Who gave that place to thee?

Free will is thine- free agency,
To wield for right or wrong;
But thou must answer unto Him
To whom all souls belong.

Bend to the dust that "head unbowed,"
Small part of life's great whole,
And see in Him and Him alone,
The captain of thy soul.

I see Orson's point. Certainly Christ is the captain of our soul, and we must ultimately answer to him. But I don't think that discredits what Henley is saying. Soon after reading his poem, I came across this scripture in the book of mormon:

And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.
He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you. (Helamen 14:30-31)

Isn't the prophet Samuel saying the same thing here that Henley was saying earlier? It is our duty to control our destiny. God has given us the power and agency to make for ourselves whatever destiny we choose. I love this doctrine. It reminds me that God is going to give me what I truly want in the end, whether that be to live in his presence, or somewhere else. If I am in the celestial kingdom, it is because I chose to be there and lived for it.

Reading Invictus reminds me in a lot of ways of the feelings I have when I read Emerson. Here is a (rather long) example:

Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing. On the contrary, the absence of this primary faith is the presence of degradation. As is the flood so is the ebb. Let this faith depart, and the very words it spake, and the things it made, become false and hurtful. Then falls the church, the state, art, letters, life. The doctrine of the divine nature being forgotten, a sickness infects and dwarfs the constitution. Once man was all; now he is an appendage, a nuisance. And because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury. The doctrine of inspiration is lost; the base doctrine of the majority of voices, usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul. Miracles, prophecy, poetry; the ideal life, the holy life, exist as ancient history merely; they are not in the belief, nor in the aspiration of society; but, when suggested, seem ridiculous. Life is comic or pitiful, as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend to what addresses the senses.

There is so much I would like to comment on that, but I will let it stand for itself at least for now. I will only say that Joseph Smith seems to agree at least to some extent with what Emerson and William Henley are saying. Here's Joseph Smith:

"Could we read and comprehend all that has been written from the days of Adam, on the relation of man to God and angels in a future state, we should know very little about it. Reading the experience of others, or the revelation given to them, can never give us a comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God. Knowledge of these things can only be obtained by experience through the ordinances of God set forth for that purpose. Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject. … I assure the Saints that truth … can and may be known through the revelations of God in the way of His ordinances, and in answer to prayer."

Again, I am reminded of my personal responsibility to internalize the truths I hear, and if they are true, that confirmation will come from within. This puts me in a place where I cannot passively participate in the growth of my testimony and knowledge of things that are true. I need to discover everything for myself. It doesn't profit me anything that Joseph Smith saw and spoke with God, nor does it profit me that Christ died on the cross and rose again. None of that will matter unless I personally become a part of the story, because in the end, the story has to be about me if it is going to matter to me. It sounds egocentric, but that is the way I see it.

So its been a while...

I started this thing, but I havent done the best job of keeping it updated. I will try to do a better job. To give you something maybe interesting to read, I'll post a copy of the talk I gave in church yesterday. I hope you enjoy it.

Getting the Most Out of General Conference March 22, 2009

Brigham Young and the Willie Handcart Company

In the October 1856 General Conference, President Brigham Young told the saints of the desperate situation of the members of the Willie Handcart Company. He called for 40 young men to volunteer, with 60-65 teams of horses or mules, and wagons loaded with supplies. We know of the heroic effort of those who responded to the call of the prophet and made the treacherous trek to save their brothers and sisters who had gotten caught in bad weather crossing the plains as they made their way to the Salt Lake Valley.

These brave people will be remembered for their willingness to hear and heed the voice of the prophet of the Lord.

General Conference should be a call to action

As you read the Doctrine and Covenants, you see that it was not an uncommon thing for people to be called during church conferences to leave their families to serve missions or fulfill other callings for the Lord.

I would hope that as a result of my comments, we can all change the way we look at general conference, and rather than see it as a time that we get to stay at home on Sunday, we can start to think of it as an opportunity to respond to the invitations of a prophet of the Lord.

If we prepare ourselves before we go to hear the prophet of the Lord, I know that we can have wonderful experiences.

King Benjamin’s Address

In the Book of Mormon, the Prophet and King Benjamin invited his people to gather together, much like we do at general conference, to hear his last words. Because of the power the Lord had given to King Benjamin in his address, and because of the preparation of the people, a mighty change came over them. They responded to his words saying:

Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.

And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days

(Mosiah 5: 2,5)

Wouldn’t it be an amazing blessing if we could have experiences like this as a result of listening to the prophet? I know we can, if we listen to the various sessions of general conference as prepared as these people were to apply the teachings of our prophet.

Our failure to respond as a Church

Sometimes we have done a better job than others at heeding the voice of the Prophet. I’m sad that we as a church never met the vision President Hinckley had for us to double the number of convert baptisms. That was back in 1999. At that time there were just over 300,000 convert baptisms per year. The last statistical report I could find was for the year 2007. In that year there were just fewer than 280,000 baptisms. We have gone down instead of up after the prophets challenge to double the number of baptisms. Here are the words of President Hinckley when he told us of his vision for missionary work:

Last year there were approximately 300,000 convert baptisms throughout the Church. This is tremendously significant. This is the equivalent of 120 new stakes of 2,500 members each. Think of that: 120 new stakes in a single year! It is wonderful. But it is not enough. I am not being unrealistic when I say that with concerted effort, with recognition of the duty which falls upon each of us as members of the Church, and with sincere prayer to the Lord for help, we could double that number. The big initial task is first to find interested investigators. So many of us look upon missionary work as simply tracting. Everyone who is familiar with this work knows there is a better way. That way is through the members of the Church. Whenever there is a member who introduces an investigator, there is an immediate support system. The member bears testimony of the truth of the work. He is anxious for the happiness of his investigator friend. He becomes excited as that friend makes progress in learning the gospel.

(Gordon B. Hinckley, “Find the Lambs, Feed the Sheep,” Ensign, May 1999, 104)

I love the positive attitude of our past prophet. I know President Hinckley will rejoice in heaven when we reach the potential he saw in us to increase our efforts with missionary work. We have some great examples here in our own congregation. The Nepali brothers and sisters here have had the wonderful experience of coming into the church and then later seeing friends and sometimes family follow them. I thank each of them for reaching out to each other in love and support the way that they have.

Other Ideas about getting the most out of General Conference

I would like to share some other ideas about how we can get more out of general conference. With conference a few weeks away, I hope these suggestions will be of use to you.

1. Attend all the sessions. It’s a special weekend, and it only comes around twice a year. Make the sacrifice to hear all of the sessions. If you have work or other conflicts, then go back and listen to the talks you missed on the Church’s’ website.

2. Take notes. If you at least have a pen and paper with you, you can write down any thoughts or feelings that the Holy Ghost may put on your heart. Plus, when you show the Lord that you care about the inspiration he gives you enough to record it, you are much more likely to receive even more light and knowledge.

3. Get plenty of rest the night before. I am like many of you. It can be hard to stay awake for all of the sessions of conference. I know that this year might be particularly hard; I have vowed to stay off of my roommates love sacks we have in our apartment. They’re nice, but I know they are a recipe for disaster if I plan on getting anything out of conference.

4. I’ll share one other idea with you. Some of you may not have the equipment to do this, but if you would like me to do it for you, talk to me later. One year, in May of 2004 actually, my dad and I went through all the conference talks when they came out in the ensign, and we highlighted some of the key ideas or phrases in each of the talks. Then, we used a computer program to lay down the audio parts of the talks we had highlighted, and we put them to nice soundtrack music or the Tabernacle Choir. By the end we had a CD with all the conference talks on it, and with the music in the background, it was so nice to listen to. To this day I remember the talks from that conference better than any other I have listened to. It makes sense, though, if you think about it, because I was exposed to each talk at least 3 or 4 times. First, when I heard them during the sessions of general conference. Second, when we read and highlighted them. Third, when we went through each of the talks again to find the portions we had highlighted and put to music. And then the many times after that as I have listened to them in the car or in my house. That experience has taught me so much about learning through repetition. I hope that is something I do more frequently to get more and more out of general conference.

Listening to our Prophet today

-----I would like to close my remarks by looking at some of the words of our beloved prophet on the earth today. These are just a few of the invitations to action he gave us in the October 2008 general conference. As I go through some of them, I would urge you to look at your live in the last six months, and see how you have done at accepting the prophet’s invitations.

If you haven’t given a lot of thought to his words since the last conference, then I would encourage you to go to these upcoming sessions of general conference, and to be hungry to hear and live by the words we receive from a prophet of the Lord. When you take notes, highlight the things that you are invited to do. Then write these down somewhere you will see them for the next six months. Make personal goals to improve in those areas of your life. Here are his words:

We urge all Latter-day Saints to be prudent in their planning, to be conservative in their living, and to avoid excessive or unnecessary debt.

Let us make our homes sanctuaries of righteousness, places of prayer, and abodes of love that we might merit the blessings that can come only from our Heavenly Father. We need His guidance in our daily lives.

May I suggest three imperatives for our consideration. They apply to the deacon as well as to the high priest. They are within our reach. A kind Heavenly Father will help us in our quest.

First, learn what we should learn.

Second, do what we should do.

And third, be what we should be.

Each [member] attending this session…has a calling to serve, to put forth his best efforts in the work assigned to him.

Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us.

Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family. One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.

Let us follow [Jesus Christ]. Let us emulate His example. Let us obey His word. By so doing, we give to Him the divine gift of gratitude.

Brothers and sisters, my sincere prayer is that we may adapt to the changes in our lives, that we may realize what is most important, that we may express our gratitude always and thus find joy in the journey.

Let me close with my testimony. We are so blessed to have a prophet on the earth today. The Lord will bless us as we listen to and obey the counsel he gives us. He may not ask us to cross the plains to rescue a group of abandoned pioneers, but he does invite us to repent and improve our lives. Let us prepare ourselves to listen to the words of the Lords servants, and if we do, I know the Lord will bless us and help us to come unto him. I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

NaNoWriMo

Ok, so I know it has been a while, but I just wanted to let you guys all know about my latest crazy endeavor. Even though this semester promises to be a busy one, I have decided to participate in a worldwide group called NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Last year over 100,000 people participated. The goal is to write a novel in the month of November that is 50,000 words, which comes out to be about 175 pages. That means that each day I would have to write around 2,000 words to play it safe, in case I fall behind on a day or two. The goal is quantity, not quality. It is kind of like a literary marathon. You can go ahead and tear it apart later, but for the month of November, you just vomit words onto the page. I hope you feel free to check in on me from time to time throughout the month of November to see how I am doing; I know I can use the external accountability to keep me on it. I am excited to see what kinds of things I can unlock within myself. I know this is going to be full of flaws, but I hope I can enter December with a working first draft of something I can really be proud of.

Rhett let me know he was gong to do this, and the more I learned the more interested I got. If any of you would like to learn more, check it out: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ I know my parents aren’t super thrilled about me doing this in the middle of school, but this is something I think would be awesome to accomplish, and I know that life is always going to be busy, and if I want to do it, now is as good a time as any.

Cozumel, Mexico

So i have fallen behind a few weeks, ok, more than just a few weeks, so i have some catching up to do. I thought I would start with a recap on a little trip I had to Mexico at the end of August with my dad. I'll let the pictures tell most of the story.




These are a few of the pictures of the hotel we stayed at, "Hotel Cozumel". It was quite amazing, and sadly very empty.







I am a sucker for sunsets and stuff, so I was in Heaven here every morning and evening












This is looking down from our floor into the lounge area.














And then to get to the dive shop, you have to walk all the way across the street. And then to go diving, you have to walk all the way through the show, onto the dock, where a boat the boat would come and pick us up. I know, it was pretty hard work. So we would catch an 8am boat which would take us on two dives, and then we would get back at 12, eat lunch, and run back to catch a boat at 1 to do another two dives.






This boat is bigger than the ones we would take, ours would usually only hold about 6 divers, the captain,and a divemaster. Usually there wasn't any kind of shade, so we got plenty of sun.













Here we are getting all ready to start the dive. Most everybody else was wearing at least some kind of thermal protection, but dad and i are men, and all we needed was a little lycra to protect us from coral burns. fortunately we have a few layers built in that work as our wet suit.

















































The food was amazing! And even better, it was part of our "all inclusive" deal we got. And if thats not good enough, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. And even when they weren't serving breakfast, lunch or dinner, you could still go to the bar outside and get hamburgers, nachos, a pina colada, basically whatever you want.








One night we had the most hilarious ...accident i guess you would call it. So we sat down, exhausted as always by the en of a fun day, to enjoy a delicious dinner. The waiters took our drink orders, i asked for a coke, and as i took my first sip, something happened that i can only describe as a gag reflex, and i spewed my soda all over dad, seriously, all over him, his food, everything. I knew it wasn't funny for him at the moment, but i was laughing hysterically.










Here's a better look at the carnage i caused. Luckily, he was able to scrub out the pop from his shirt. Shortly after the "incident" the most horrible thought crossed my mind. What if this had happened on a date. I am pretty sure i would have taken the girl home without finishing the meal, apologized the whole way home, and avoided her for the rest of my life to hide my shame. But as it was, it was pretty funny to me.








There were SO many turtles, as well as a lot of sharks, almost all nurse sharks and a few black tips. The angel fish, which are generally really shy though very beautiful, here were very approachable and very abundant.










My dad let me do most of the filming with the underwater camera, so that was a real treat for me. In fact, he just edited the video and sent it to me, and i love it!













What makes Cozumel a little unique is its strong current. So you jump in the water, and dont have to swim much, you just let the current take you along. This made for a very luxurious and relaxing trip as far as the diving is concerned.












The end

Good to be back in AZ

Dear Elder Tenney August 18, 2008

It feels good to be writing you from home! This has been a pretty fun week. I took most of my finals this week, and they all went really well I thought. This semester should boost the GPA a little bit, so I am really glad about how everything went. Let me tell you about it all; so Monday I took a final for my one credit class, philosophical and ethical issues class, and it was pretty much a breeze. I studied for about a half hour before I took it and got a 97% on it. I also met up with a few cool kidss from different classes and studied throughout the day. I also had to start packing my stuff, getting ready to move out. Tuesday was a big day of studying and cleaning. I also took my take home D&C final that morning. The next day I handed in my D&C final, and on my way to school I passed a few deer and I got probably 10 yards away, it was pretty cool, and I knew they would be there because I could see them from farther down the path and knew I would come right out where they were at. After handing in my test, I busted out the laptop and went over all my slides one or two last times for my anatomy final. It was exhausting, but I usually call it quits to early and just take the test to get it over with, but I really tried being fully prepared for this, and I think I was. I got a higher score on this test then on either of the lecture midterms, squeezing out a 93 or 94%, I forget which one. But I was pretty happy about that. I think I will get 2 A’s and an A- for this semester, and I am ok with that. I am still waiting to see the grades on blackboard.

After taking my last final, I went home, loaded up the last of my belongings, and headed home. I actually was only going as far as flagstaff on that day (Wednesday) and I stayed the night there with Gary and Angela. Wednesday actually also happened to be their anniversary, so I felt bad crashing their party, but then I remember I wasn’t there for the real thing, so that was kind of making up for it. No it was fun though, we went to dinner at the olive garden, and the next day we walked around the downtown which was actually one of the cooler downtowns I have seen. Then I went home, and I played one of the most intense matches of racquetball with dad. Even though I had some of the greatest games of my life, and one win in there I shouldn’t have had, dad still came out on top, 3-2. I won the first two games and it looked like it would be a sweep on the third game, but we both fought it all the way through, and he beat me in the end. Then he won the next two games. It was a blast though.

Ok, if things haven’t sounded fun already, it just kept getting better. Then on Friday night, I left to go camping with Austin, Even, Farny, Bowyer, D von, Mitch, and JT. We went up past payson, right by Geronimo and Bubby and Grandpa’s cabin. In fact on one day, we were driving around looking for this creek to swim in, and I knew that we were driving around the horn. I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t remember things well enough to find their cabin. But we had a fun old time. We stayed up around the camp fire, of course let of a couple sobe bombs, we also went paintballing, but rather than use paintball guns, we all got $10 slingshots at walmart and used those. It was seriously one of the funnest things in the world. I usually ended up being the last one in on my team, and was always outnumbered in the end. And the thing about slingshots is that once you let a shot go, you are completely vulnerable for the next 5-10 seconds while you reload. So I would usually try to get close to the other guy and get him to shoot, and then start running after him and shout at the top of my lungs, and they would normally get scared and run for it and look for cover. That proved to be a good strategy in our capture the flag rounds, helping me win one for our team. Round two wasn’t as lucky. I used the same strategy and was able to flank them because of it, but I was still outnumbered when I got the flag (which was a bandana tied to a stick), so I tucked it under my arm, would run for a bit, take cover, and try to hold them off. Mitch had my back, but then he got out, so I was on my own. I decided to run for it, and as I rounded one tree, I failed to notice the barbed wire that was hanging off of it and laying across the ground. But the next thing I knew, I was laying flat on my face with my left leg completely stuck a few feet in the air. I saw the barbed wire, an the scrapes on my legs, but I really started to panic when I saw that I was still stuck, and felt a tremendous amount of pressure where it looked like I was stuck, right at my ankle. I thought that it had grabbed me right by my Achilles tendon, and I had just not felt the pain yet because of shock. Fortunately, you boots I took with me saved my leg from a lot of pain, the fence had grabbed right at the top of the boots, and that is where it caught when I went flying, so no real serious damage was done, only a few scrapes. All in all it was a fun trip.

I left before everyone else, and met up with mom at the cabin, and we spend that night and the next day with Rhett and Sandee. We obviously had a lot of fun with them. Their kids are so cute, and it is so much fun to play with them. Sophie seemed more apprehensive around me at first, but after seeing those guys a lot this summer, she has really warmed up to me a lot and is giving me all sorts of hugs and kisses when I see them now. Sam is also a big boy, but he hasn’t been feeling the greatest lately. There were a few moments with Rhett and Sandee of hysterical laughter. One was when Rhett was telling me how I should pick up girls in the testing center, and he demonstrated a little dance I should do as I took my tests which mostly involved shimmying the shoulders, humming a ridiculous beat, and acting like I am focused on the test. Yeah, I guess it is one of those physical comic moments you have to see to appreciate, but I am sure you can reconstruct something similar in you head and picture Rhett acting like…well Rhett haha.

Well, this is probably the longest letter I have ever written, so I am going to call it quits. Oh yeah, I think you remembered it was Gary’s birthday today, or well yesterday now, Sunday anyways. I think you sent a card. Well man, I love you and pray for you a lot and hope that you are absolutely loving life right now. It is cool you are staying one more with your comp. I am glad you guys work well together. Well man, have fun.

Love

Troy

a fun weekend with a fun family

clearly i was enjoying myself during a nice game of Mafia

Clearly we are not to be messed with

I dont know what this game is called, but me and kathleen somehow managed to win a game!

What a group, right?

ahh

another copy and paste

Dear Elder Tenney August 10, 2008

So I know that my last letter was pretty pathetic, so I will try to fill you in on the last two weeks of my life. First of all, school is just about done. Tomorrow I am taking a final for my philosophical and ethical issues class, it shouldn’t be that hard. After that I only have two remaining finals, one for anatomy which I will take hopefully Wednesday if I am ready by then, if not then Thursday, and I also have a final for my Doctrine and Covenants class. That one was scheduled for Wednesday morning, but in our last class, the teacher gave us the final and told us to take it at home, but that it is closed book, and to only use the two hours we would have been given in class. If you ask me, that is quite a bit of trust on his part, but I really like this teacher a lot. He is probably my favorite religion teacher I have had. Some religion teachers here get some strange satisfaction I can’t describe or even begin to understand by making their classes seriously one of your harder classes. That is just retarded if you ask me, having your religion class pull down your gpa. But Bro Beloz is awesome. I feel like I did learn a lot, he has focused his teachings on getting us to want to apply them and change our lives, which I have felt has happened to me in a large degree with this class.

Last weekend I told you I went up to Idaho to visit the Petersen’s. We have always lived so far from them, it is really nice to be within a few hours from them for once. I really need to get up there more often though. One day we were paintballing in what felt like a very long afternoon. It was me, Jonathon, Travis, Nicole, Marley (a friend of Jonathon’s), Dane, and his friend, Jake. I was impressed with the girls, they were as tough as anyone. I got a couple of good welts on various parts of my body, some in more tender places than others. I didn’t realize how tender the inside of your arm can be, and it surprisingly really hurts to get hit on top of the head. We also went shooting. We had a few shotguns, Taylor’s handgun, and Travis brought his rife along. We mostly shot the shotguns, but my favorite was the handgun. Taylor said I was a natural with it, and that means a lot coming from him.

Of course we had to play mafia one night. It was hilarious. We were sitting around a fire pit which added to the suspense of it, and you remember how...worked up, no…ok, crazy I can get in those games. You remember the family reunion last year, man I am surprised I didn’t get an aneurism in those games, and I was no different with the Petersen’s. The best round to watch was one where I got killed in the very beginning, and so I got to watch the whole thing. Jonathon was a mafia, and it was both fascinating and a little bit disappointing to see someone so sweet be so conniving and able to swindle the entire crowd. He seriously had everyone in his hands like putty; it was like watching a master at work. But the entire trip was a lot of fun, when you get home, you have to come up here to visit me and we’ll drive up there together and pay them a visit.

I would really have to say that this has been one of my favorite semesters so far. It has been a lot less stressful than some of the last ones, and I have been able to get to know a lot of really cool people, and be able to enjoy myself quite a bit. It will be nice to go home too, but I hope that the fall semester also has some fun surprises in store. I will be living with a really good friend from my mission, which I am looking forward to. The only major disappointment has been not getting a job as a TA that I applied for. I thought it would be a lot of fun to apply to be a TA for anatomy, but they were only taking on two new people, I haven’t had the best of luck getting the jobs I really want up here, but that is ok. I can still go back and work in the locker room with Bowen washing the athlete’s dirty clothes. That is something to look forward to.

Well man, I am going to let you go. I love you and it is really always a highlight for me to read your emails, the mission is a lot of fun. Even though I am busy, I should go out of my way to look for some more service opportunities. One of the reasons the mission is so sweet is the fact that you are able to give yourself to so much service and focus on the happiness of others. I know you are touching people’s lives out there, and you will be forever blessed because of it. Take care buddy

Love Troy