Budgie Buddies

We've been having lots of fun with our pet parakeets (budgies).  The green one with the yellow face is named Mel Gibson.  The blue-white-gray one is Russell Crowe.  The white-sky blue one is Hugh Jackman.  We've been training them to do stuff by rewarding them with millet seeds a treat that they just love.  Anne especially likes to be involved with these cute little birdies.

Just some random updates...

I had five days of vacation time to use up so I've taken two long weekends.  Last week I went elk hunting up at Avimor in the Boise foothills with my father-in-law, Lynn Davenport, and my uncle Dave Mortensen.  We didn't get anything but it sure was nice to be up in the hills and cruising around on four-wheelers.  We could use the meat, so maybe we'll get another chance.  We saw lots of wolf tracks along with bear scat.  Pretty cool!

Yesterday we took the kids up to a great sledding hill at Avimor right off of Pearl Rd.  My dad, Wayne, Sherstine, and Liv joined us, along with our friends the Jensen's.  Being able to have a four-wheeler haul kids up to the top of the hill sure does make it more enjoyable.  The kids last longer than when they have to trudge up the hill and get worn out after just a couple trips.

The other day I started adding friends to my facebook account.  I really enjoyed the short-term popularity I felt as all of my friendly acquaintances and family members responded.  What a great way to network.

On politics...I wish Obama and Biden would quit trying to save their political-backsides by stating how this economy is so awful that they might not be able to fix it.  I wish they would continue with their campaign message of "hope".  We need a leader that will help restore consumer confidence along with restoring some much needed morality to our nation.

This whole Illinois-Chicago political mess is disturbing.  I think Obama cannot help but to have been tainted by what has been going on there for decades.  I think Blago really does think what he was doing was fine...because really it was just typical Chicago-style politics.   

...on meeting Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is in Boise today for a live presentation of his "The Christmas Sweater" stage show. Jessica and I are going with my mom and dad. He was also doing a book signing as well. I'm not one to get too impressed by celebrity, but I thought, what the heck, I'll go and get him to sign my copy of his book.

Never having been to a book signing, I learned quickly that I'd have to buy a new book from this particular store in order to get a pass to stand in the book signing line. I was fortunate to be in the store before the huge crowd arrived, that had to wait outside and not be guaranteed a signed book. I was standing in line directly across the isle from where Glenn stood to sign the books. He spoke to the crowd for a few minutes telling us that its people like those in Boise that will save this country. It was fun to watch him interact so genuinely with the people, albeit briefly. They have that book signing down to a science where the assitants have the books opened for him and Glenn signs them with his right hand and shakes hands with his left. At one point he was holding a little baby boy and making pouty faces with him as the mom took a picture. Very charming.

I had made myself a cardboard sign to hang around my neck with a message on it for Glenn. I figured there would be other nut-jobs with similar things, but nope, I was the only nut job. When I got to Glenn he busted up laughing and said "What can I say?..." I said "We love you brother. Thanks for what you do." He said, "I love you too brother" then came around the table and pulled the sign to him, with me still attached, and signed it "One Show at a Time".

Here it is!

'Tis the Season

The true meaning of Christmas is under attack on many fronts.  We all know that Christmas is way too commercialized in the media and retail stores.  We know that kids selfishly only think of what Santa Claus is going to bring them.  We hear regularly about businesses that ban the salutation of “Merry Christmas” for the more politically correct, “Happy Holidays.”  

We hear every year about Christmas trees and nativity scenes trees being removed by the force of law.   We know all this is happening, but there is more.  Now even “good Christians” are taking Christ out of Christmas (and I’m not including Jehovah’s Witnesses).  They claim that Christmas is pagan holiday and that there is no Biblical foundation for celebrating Christ’s birth.  Nevertheless, they fully celebrate Christmas as a purely secular and cultural holiday.

 I declare boldly before one and all that Christmas is indeed the celebration of Christ’s birth.  It has been since its inception a purely Christian holiday.  We know that the baby Jesus was not born on December 25^th.  We know that the date for Christmas was changed by political leaders to coincide with a pagan holiday to help conquer/transition these new cultures into the Christian culture.  We know that many of our Christmas symbols have pagan roots.  All this does not mean Christmas is a pagan holiday.  Christmas and all of its symbols are what you decide to make of them! 

As for me and my house, we choose to have Christ in Christmas.  We choose to make every symbol of Christmas one that reminds us in some meaningful way of our Redeemer.  We choose to view Christmas as a celebration of not just Christ’s birth, but of his perfect example and of his atonement.  “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ…that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” (2 Ne. 25:26)  “For why not speak of the Atonement of Christ?” (Jacob 4:12)  

Why not celebrate Christmas?  We don’t need a Biblical mandate to celebrate our Savior’s birth.  The Lord expects us to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause” of our own free will (D&C 58:27) and I for one know that Christmas falls into that category. 

Christmas reminds me of eternal principles and of God’s plan of happiness for me and my family.  In the pre-mortal world, Jehovah, our elder spirit brother had already attained the title of “God.”  Under the direction of the Father, he created the universe and the world upon which we live.  In his love for us, Jehovah condescended below all things by becoming like us, yet even lowlier.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born in a stable among the flies and manure.  He was called “Jesus”, one of the most common and ordinary names of that time in Jerusalem.  Yet Jesus was no ordinary man.  

His father being God the Father and his mother the humble mortal Mary, Jesus the Christ had the ability to die as man, yet power over death as God.  He had the power to overcome all of Satan’s temptations.  He lived the perfect life of service and placed his own will fully on the altar of sacrifice to the Father.  He had the power to suffer infinitely for my sins and for all of yours.  He gave his flesh and blood for us.  He had the power to break the bands of death and he did so once and for all allowing us also to triumph over the mortal grave.  My faith in what Christ did for me personally leads me to desire to serve him better by loving him and my fellow man.  This is what Christmas truly is about! 

Is Christmas really sanctioned by the Lord?  Does He really approve of this holiday?  “Every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.”  “All things which are good cometh of God” (Moroni 7:12-13).  For all of those that choose to make Christ the reason for the season, that give to others because He gave, that walk before the Lord with thankfulness of heart; for those that love “the most wonderful time of the year” because he was called “Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6); for all of you, I am absolutely certain that God will consecrate your celebration for your good.  And to all of you I say with all of my heart Merry Christmas and ¡Feliz Navidad!

Mission Memory: Rincón

The first area I served in was the quaint little pueblito of San Jose del Rincón (map), province of Santa Fe, Argentina. I was only there for three months and my memories of the place are a bit of a blur generally. I felt like my brain was on overload as I adjusted to the culture and struggled to learn the language. I never really learned my way around the town as I traipsed behind my senior companions who walked so briskly through the sandy streets that my shin-splinted legs could not keep up.

Some of the more wealthy people from the city of Santa Fe have nice vacation homes in Rincón, but most of Rincón was populated by the poor, many of whom lived off the land and the river. The house we lived in near the cemetery was not much more accommodating than a tent and was made of cinder blocks and plaster. It had a corrugated metal roof and a suspended ceiling made of thin styrofoam. We had no windows, but rather metal shutters on the openings where windows should be, securly latched together with a piece of wire. (You can fix anything in Argentina with wire.) Part of the house had a rough concrete floor, but the rest was dirt floor.

We had a refrigerator that didn’t work, but we kept our food in it anyway. We also had a bomba electrica (electric pump) that sent water from our well up to a large storage tank above the house which allowed gravity to feed the water to the sink, shower, and toilet. The toilet was typical, but the waste went to an underground pit in the yard known as a “pozo negro” (black-hole) that frequently backed-up through the shower drain.

The shower water was heated in a “calefón”; a five-gallon metal bucket with a heating element in it much like the heating element on an electric stove. It had a plastic spout and valve on it, so you had about a five minute shower if you turned the water off to soap up.

The one charming aspect of the little house that I remember with delight was the grape vine trellis over the front patio…but even that collapsed in a terrible lightning and thunder storm that had me believing it was the “end of days”.

I remember writing home every week about our latest adventures with Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom inside of our little “pench” (Americanized version of “pensión” meaning apartment). Perhaps it was more along the lines of the plagues of Egypt than the Wild Kingdom really. We had rats running along the ceiling beams and pooping down on us from above at night. We had spiders with round quarter-sized bodies, but legs that extended out so far that its entirety was larger than my hand. We once even had a scorpion in our bathroom. The mosquitoes tormented us day and night with their ear-buzzing and blood sucking. It was so hot and humid that we’d lie in our underwear with a thin sheet over us to keep the mosquitoes off of us, but they’d still get us through the sheet.

Speaking of bedding…I didn’t know I was supposed to bring my own bedding, so for a few weeks I had to improvise by using a dusty old curtain to cover me while I lay on the sticky bare foam used as a mattress. I ordered a fitted-mattress sheet and a sheet from Hermana (Sister) Delia Diaz, a nice church member lady who lived in the neighboring town of La Guardia. She was the local Avon lady so she ordered the sheets out of her Avon catalog. They were supposed to be white sheets, but when the order arrived they were pink with an awful flower print. I used those pink flowery sheets my whole mission, much to the amusement and possible concern of my compañeros.

We had an infestation of carpenter ants for a couple of days. We discovered them nesting in the ceiling. I removed one of the foam panels and poked my head up into the space and emptied a full can of Raid on them critters. It literally rained ants in our kitchen for half an hour while we choked on the airborne chemicals. Dead ants covered every square inch of our countertops, desk, and floor.

If you think that was gross, it gets worse…

Another time we had infestation of little frogs. We’d have to wash our dishes before we used them because frogs were all over them all the time. One time I had poured myself a fresh cup of milk and as I was drinking it down, I saw a frog frantically trying to swim upstream to avoid being washed down my gullet.

If you think that was disgusting, it gets even worse…

Our shower water started to reek something awful. For two weeks, the stench got worse and worse and the terrible smell clung to our skin. We thought maybe our well had gone bad, but the water storage tank above the roof was clean on the inside. One Sunday morning as I was showering before church I looked up and saw one of those dang little frogs on top of the bucket. Suddenly I realized with dread and horror what the source of our stink was. Carefully I took the calefón bucket off its nail hook and lowered it to the floor. With trepidation I removed the lid only to be overcome with the noxious fumes of a bucket full of boiled and re-re-re-boiled frogs.

'nough said