Zach and a sting ray
Scary Jelly Fish
Zach took this photo of Ross, not bad for a 2 year old
January 3, 2010
Dear Bret,
Its hard to imagine that it is 2010 and almost a year since you left. I am looking forward to your return so that I can stop writing letters every weekend. Friday morning I went out and retrieved the newspaper. The front page of the newspaper had a short forecast for the day – it said partly cloudy and frigid. The frigid part seems pretty accurate the high is supposed to be about 10 degrees and the low is supposed to be around minus 3. I was debating whether or not to go cross-country skiing. I thought I should go but the temperatures seem kind of cool. I decided to wait until afternoon so the temperature hits double digits and start on your letter instead.
We left Brooke’s house early Tuesday morning. Monday we had a nice day. First, we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. It is a nice aquarium right on the coast. Zachary made it a lot more fun. We saw Nemo and Dorey lots of times and some big sharks and puffins. Everything went smoothly until Janice dumped her cell phone into the tank where you can pet the sting rays. My blackberry also crashed on the trip so the only phone we had was your old cell phone. I kind of liked having the excuse that my phone broke and I couldn’t check e-mail or get messages. After we had enough of the fish we went outside and ate our lunch on the lawn while fighting off sea gulls and pigeons. The temperature was in the 70s and more than once Janice asked why we moved to Wisconsin. I do love the weather in Southern California but I also like the fact that I haven’t driven on an 8 lane freeway with traffic backups at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon since I left California and Houston. Monday night we went to dinner at the Claim Jumper restaurant then went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We went to the movie a half hour early and waited in line to get tickets - another thing we do not do in Wisconsin. Aaron and I enjoyed the movie and Janice hated it. Brooke was silent (an unusual position for her). Our flight back to Wisconsin was uneventful and the cab was there waiting for us to take us home. It pretty funny that the cab driver was an older white guy with his wife in the car, we knew we were back in Wisconsin.
I went back to work on Wednesday and Thursday. It is nice to be in the office when so many other people are out. I had very few phone calls and interruptions so I could just work on some projects that I had and make lots of progress. I already have 6 meetings scheduled for Monday which means that I will have very little time for work and instead will simply receive more work and fall farther behind on what I need to get done.
We had a pretty wild New Years Eve. First Janice and I went to see a movie with some friends from the Ward (he is the institute director and interesting guy). We went to see a movie called Invictus. It was the story of how Nelson Mandela used the South African rugby team and its road the winning the Rugby World Cup to unify South Africa after the end of apartheid and his election. It had a nice message about forgiveness and not seeking retribution in order to move forward. The poem Invictus by William Earnest Henley which gave the movie its title was something Mandela gave to the rugby team captain saying that it had inspired him while he was in prison for 25 years. It has long been a favorite poem of mine.
Invictus
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.
One reason I like going with the friends we were with is that I could ask him if he remembered the poem Orson Hyde (an apostle from the early days of the church) wrote in response to Invictus and he knew what I was talking about. Orson’s response is kind of corny and talks about how the Lord is the Captain of our souls. I think Orson missed the point that we decide how we will react to the world around us. I assume when Mandela was in prison with no control over what happened to him the poem motivated him because it reminded him that he was responsible for how he reacted to the situation and the guards could never take away his agency/soul. An interesting side note is that your uncle Kent wrote the words “bloody but unbowed” on his helmet in Viet Nam.
After the movie we went to the “Music Conservancy” in the booming metropolis of Mazomanie population 1450. We were originally going to a restaurant in the town but the wife, who is from the area, was looking for someplace with music and she heard that we could go to the conservancy and get all you can eat barbecue and live music for $20. The conservancy is an old converted church. The barbecue was good meat but the just had chips and coleslaw to go with it. The music, when it finally started, was a blues band that played Rolling Stones, BB King and Jimi Hendrix. I thought the band was pretty good but they spent a lot of time jamming on each song so it took about 30 minutes to play three songs. In addition, the church was not very big and we kind of got blasted out by the band. We left after the first set and were home before midnight. I thought it wasn’t as successful evening as we had hoped but we took a chance and it was certainly a memorable experience. We took the scenic route home and the woman who had grown up here showed us where her family farm was, where her brother and mother lived, where her uncle’s farm was, etc. There was a full moon and the moonlit snow covered fields looked like postcards. It has continued clear and cold the past several days. Just as beautiful as the moonlit fields are the sunsets in the evenings. On the clear nights the sunsets are pink and red and as the sun sets over the snow covered fields and it can be pretty spectacular. Janice told me today that the cold doesn’t bother her so much as long as the sun shines. She said that on the cold and clear days she can sit in the house with the blinds up and no matter how cold it is outside it is warm and sunny in the house and she is okay.
I never made it skate skiing because all the skate skis were rented out for the weekend . The other member of the Bishopric went and he showed me a picture with icicles of sweat forming on his hat. Just because it is 4 or 5 degrees doesn’t stop you from sweating but the beads of sweat don’t go far before they freeze. Without the skiing I was forced to get my exercise by shoveling snow off our porch, doing my P90X workout and riding my bike in the basement (it all adds up to a pretty good workout). On Friday night Janice and I went to see another movie (the Blind Side about a black homeless boy befriended by white family who becomes a start football player)and on Saturday we watched more movies on TV and I finished another book. The colder weather forces you to change your lifestyle for a period of time and I enjoy the fact that I can have more time for reading. There probably won’t be any movies for us to see at the cheap theaters for a while because we will have seen them all during the winter.
Today was our first Sunday on the later 11:00 o’clock schedule. There were lots of people at church which was good but we had lots of visiting grandparents and some students home for the holidays. Janice and I came home from church then turned around and drove back to a baptism. It was a baptism for an 8 year old but they had lots of non-member family at the meeting. Even though our ward here is very spread out they support baptisms well.
I thought it was funny that last week in the Barrow’s letter to their missionaries Diane said that they took the airboat out over the holidays and got it stuck so bad on a sandbar they had to get a ride back and then get someone else to go out and pull the boat off the sandbar. I am glad that never happened to us.
I kind of feel like the holidays are completely over and its back to the regular routine tomorrow. One of the novels I just finished was called Out Stealing Horses. It was a story told by an old man reminiscing about experiences as a young man in Norway. He had some good experiences and some difficult experiences and I think one of the themes of the book was how those experiences contributed to making him the man that he became, whether he realized it or not. It appeared that some of the difficulties he faced as an adult were directly related to his reactions to what he experienced as a teenager even though he never realized that until he was older. I share this with you because I think it demonstrates why serving a mission can be so important. Even though you may not realize it serving a mission and the experiences you have now will alter the rest of your life. For those who have a positive experience and develop their testimonies that knowledge and strength can be the foundation you rely on to build your future. Interestingly, I think that even those who do not remain active in the church will still say that their missions taught them lessons that affected how they viewed the world and how they interact with others. Do your best and make your mission a n experience that will shape you in positive ways. You indicated that you and your companion have committed to be more obedient. I think you will find that when you make those commitments you will grow and have great experiences . This is a perfect example of something that will help you now and in the years to come.
Love,
Dad
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