Fortie Family Flyer
July 13 – 19, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
Week after week I keep writing this letter to my great-great-grandkids and I never get a letter back from them. What’s up with that? Perhaps, when I am long gone, all of you could take the time to write me a letter or two about what is going on in your lives. I’ll try to stop by and read it over your shoulder. If you sense someone is there don’t worry it’s only your great-great-grandpa reading about what is going on in your lives.
Well, this week has been a focus on The Music Man (of course), taking care of sick people, work and other less interesting things.
We had our third performance Monday night and all went well. I keep adding a line or two to each night to see how the audience reacts to some local jokes. When Mayor Shinn says, “ya wild kid ya, taggin down main street after my oldest girl last Sunday night.” I don’t get much reaction but when I change it to “…taggin down main street after my oldest girl last Monday (pause) when we was trying to have Family Home Evening.” I get a pretty good laugh. Once I say, “I couldn’t be plainer if I’s a Quaker on his day off.” It gets a little smile, but when I say, “I couldn’t be plainer if I’s a teenager on trek.” I get some fairly good laughter. The biggest laugh I get is when I change, “And the rest of you standing there like a cot a’ shropshire sheep.” (no reaction from the audience) to “…standing there like a bunch a’ pineapple chunks stuck in green Jell-O” (more laughter than I expected from that one). I’m thinking of changing “couldn’t be clearer if I’s a buttonhook in the well water” to “couldn’t be clearer if I’s a cricket in a flock a seagulls.” We’ll see how I feel when the time comes. I didn’t tell anyone in the cast about my green Jell-O joke and they are all supposed to be serious at the time so some of them said they had to look away from the audience to avoid having them see their laughter. One of the actors who does a lot of theater doesn’t like me changing the lines, he wants to keep the integrity of the original show (I do see his point), but I get sooo much reaction from the audience after the show, when I am down talking to them, that I can’t resist. The people want a good laugh at the end of a long hard day, and the producer and director like it/expect it, so I do it. A few people who are coming every night say it’s like coming to a new play when I add a new joke or two every night, they look forward to it. In fact, after I did it last year and got some good reaction it is sort of expected of me now (I think I have talked about this in a few letters now so sorry about the repetition – bad memory). Anyway, I am finally able to relax a bit and enjoy conversation backstage instead of studying my lines in sheer panic of going blank on stage. I have so many that are strange or similar to each other that (me with my bad memory) I have to go over them constantly or I am lost.
I did get a chance, on Thursday, to dash on the scooter to get a few things from D.I. (books and clothes for the play are great there) and then head up to City Creek Park (east of the capital) to check it out for pictures this Saturday with Arnolds. I stopped by the International Peace Gardens on 900 So. and 1000 W. along the way and I think I like those grounds better for pictures. Their family is staying downtown and want to take pictures somewhere close. When I got home I used about 1 gallon of gas in the scooter to go clear down town and back, much less than the car or truck would have taken.
Well, as I said at the beginning, Jennifer got very sick (Thursday) and was throwing up so bad that she couldn’t eat a thing for two days (she came downstairs on Monday morning as I was writing this letter to tell me she lost 18 pounds, I’ll have to try that diet – NOT). She got so weak that she could hardly stand up on Friday so she was not able to be there for the play. Luckily none of the dances she is in have a partner so they were just short one person in the group.
Tami then got sick on Friday night and she had things running out the other end so I was washing sheets and blankets most of the day (sorry for the graphic writing).
After the play on Friday, 63 of us headed over to IHOP at 10:30. I thought someone who had planned it would warn IHOP but they didn’t. They only had two waiters (usually) handling only like 6 to 10 or people coming in at a time at that time of night. We completely overwhelmed them and it took a few hours to get through us all. We were ok as we were all just sitting and talking (rather loudly) as we could finally relaxing as a group the whole time rather than trying to get through a practice or a performance. Several people said they wanted a speech from the mayor, and that they would finally let me finish my Four Score speech. I started it and went a little ways into Abraham Lincoln’s speech but pretended like someone was interrupting me as always. A good time was had by all. During the celebration I got a call from the sick people at the house asking me to stop by the store on my way home for some medicine and wet wipes, etc. so I didn’t get home until about 2 in the morning.
Michelle has had a cough since trek and it took a turn for the worse on Saturday, she also got a stomach ache at about 3 in the morning that she could hardly stand, so there was one more person to help. However, she didn’t need much help as she just lay on the couch and coughed, moaned or slept. I was worried about how contagious this thing seemed to be (I had been trying to keep germ free to avoid this thing during the play). I then started to have the same problems Tami was having but a much milder version. I just made sure I didn’t eat or drink anything for several hours before the play so I would have fewer problems during the play. It seemed to work but I was very dehydrated after the play. I drank a ton of water and still didn’t have to go to the bathroom the next morning. On Saturday I ate bread and yogurt (stuff that normally stops me up) and my body didn’t seem to know if I should be constipated or have to run to the bathroom every few minutes by Sunday (again, sorry for the gross images but that’s life). I seemed to have such a mild version that it didn’t really affect me health wise; I felt fine.
Saturday’s performance was perhaps my worst at stumbling through lines (just a little bit right at the beginning, I loosened up after a few scenes). Luckily Mayor Shinn does a lot of stumbling so nobody noticed. I also didn’t get a call to be ready for the last scene and I am the first to talk as the lights came up as everyone is gathered at the gym to listen to my speech. Luckily I heard the music just before my speech and dashed out there. They had only been waiting for a half a minute or so when I came running in, oops. The bad thing about it was my family was all there to see us; Chad, Alicia, Brian, grandpa, grandma, Curt and Mary Kay. They said they didn’t notice so I guess it was ok. They also said they liked the play and thought I did a good job.
Sunday morning we all slept in. I was the only one who went to church and I was so late that I missed sacrament meeting and had to stay for another wards meeting at 1:00 pm after choir practice. When I got home I ate a lunch and went down for a nap. I slept for 3 hours which made it so I wasn’t tired at bedtime. Crazy mixed up schedule. Jennifer was feeling better on Sunday and Tami has improved quite a bit so things are looking up. Michelle is still just sleeping or wishing she was sleeping. I’m wondering if we should take her in to see if she has some kind of bronchitis or something. It’s hard to tell because most of the time they just say, ya you are sick and charge you for that. We’ll see what Monday brings.
Well, I think that covers more than you want to know so I’ll say goodbye.
Break a leg,
Ken and clan
From Elder Fortie:
Dear people of the world... Well here I am, training, running multiple districts, jumping between missions, hopping across the bay from time to time to work things out with the new president and myself as one of the mission leaders, working two different wards at the same time because one of our companionships got dissolved because one of the sisters got sick and had to go home to Korea, and dealing with 5 investigators preparing for baptism, 2 Elders that just got in a car wreck, my companion that I had (who I follow up trained) before my trainee, went home a few days after being transferred away from me, the companion of the sister who went home is in depression, I'm working to get the ward back where it's supposed to be because the leaders all went haywire on the ward a few months before I got here, dealing with having to move a baptism 5 TIMES in ONE WEEK because the scouts suddenly decided to go on a week long camp, right OVER his baptism, and he wants to go with them... which hey that's really good and it will be good for him, but can you pick a worse time?... and trying to figure out how to do all my exchanges without killing my poor greenie! Stress... just a little, discouragement? I Think NOT!!! It's total madness, complete insanity and I'm flying off the wall and the zone leaders, A.P.'s and the president all have told me they pity me with all I've had to deal with lately, and yet, I love it. Don't get my wrong I am sure waiting for my day off, but I work really well under pressure, and that's when I push the hardest, so I'm excited. Also since I started the new program I am running here on this side of the bay, the baptismal rate of this ward has shot up with unprecedented growth, and we have so far this month had 3 baptisms with 11 more up to bat! BAM!!! It's about to blow my mind how busy this program I am running is keeping me... I am usually on the phone until 10:25 at night, 5 minutes before we're supposed to be in bed, every night, dealing with a million things and taking care of a million arrangements, and contacting all kinds of people and getting on people who aren't doing their job and my poor yet amazing greenie just is jumping along with me without missing a beat, he is great and I love working with him, we have a blast and we get so much done. The mission president has asked me as the leader over here to contact EVERY SINGLE MEMBER HOUSEHOLD!!! So my teaching time has gone way down as I am running from San Francisco to San Mateo visiting every member on record... so I've lost a lot of time to that, but none the less things are going well, I will be baptizing Jean (he's 12, from Brazil, he's a smart kid, speaks English Portuguese and Spanish, which because of teaching him I can now read the scriptures in Portuguese! That was really exciting, I only know how to say a few fraises, but I can read it decently, and understand some of it). on the 31'st of July, so I am excited for that, he was a total surprise and his mom (a recent convert in April) is ecstatic and We just have a blast at their house every time we go, they are amazing people. Yesterday I sneakily locked her out of her own house, and she proceeded to chase me down the street with a tree branch smacking me with it while she and I tried to run while falling over from laughing so hard. It was hilarious... yeah, I'm a nut case I know. But I am really excited about that. We also have Oti and Mariaita with a baptismal date for Aug 23, and Carlos is thinking of joining them on that date to be baptized, and Jennifer who is in New York on vacation said she wants to get baptized when she gets back and is going to try to go to the temple there while she is there! Also as the leader here, I go on exchanges to all the other areas that I am in charge of, and I have apparently developed a bit of a reputation as being quite bold and straight forward, and so when I got there they told me "if you feel like doing anything bold like we hear you doing some times, go ahead and do it." So with that in mind, we went through the day, and at their last appointment, we were teaching a guy that they have only taught 2 times and were no where near challenging him to baptism, and I got the thought, this man should be baptized, so I took over the lesson, started throwing down some of my analogies that I have developed, and at the end challenged him to baptism. The Elders who were with me looked at me in shock amazed I had just thrown all that out, and that I had challenged him to be baptized that quickly, but he looked at me for a second nodded his head and said, yes, you are right Elder Fortie, I must be baptized, I will be baptized, the look of shock on the Elders faces doubled, they were so surprised. We finished up the lesson and as we left they were jumping up and down (and on top of me) cheering, neither of them have ever had a baptism so they were ecstatic, that's was the 5th baptismal date I had set in a week haha, I have really become quite impatient with all the beating about the bush as of late and have begun to just really throw things down, and be very direct and it's starting to pay off, sometimes it's not the most friendly way to do things, but friendly is not why I am here, I am here to call people unto repentance, and I've found that sometimes has to be done with some force or they don't take it seriously. But anyways, things are going well despite the neck breaking pace at which life is going. I hope you all are doing well and I have to get going, I have to jump up to China town, my greenie wants to see it, he's never seen it before.
Take care everyone, and keep on keeping on!Love Elder Fortie
Date: Monday, July 20, 2009, 12:10 PM
Sorry, my mission pres. is President Wade. As for me, yeah the nightmares have gone down, I still get one here and there, but it's not bad, I'm fully recovered health wise, I still get people coming up to me now and then asking me " some one told me your the guy that pulled that lady out of the ocean and went back in after the daughter, is that true?" So I've developed a little bit of a reputation I suppose you could say around here, but I mostly keep it to myself, I've never told anyone the full story... it was pretty gruesome, I've seen blood and injuries, I've watched people die, tried to save lives when I was a bystander for car accidents and other things, but nothings ever been quite so personnel before... I think it's because in all the other occasions if it was possible to save the person I did, if they died, it was because there was just no way on earth I or anyone else could have saved them, but with this one, this was the first time where they actually had a chance, where I possibly could have saved them and they could have made it, but they didn't, so it's just been hard because I keep questioning my actions, re-thinking the whole thing wondering if I'd done something differently could I have succeeded. But I just keep telling myself, "If God had wanted them to live, I would have succeeded, God had to have decided it was their time, thus he kept me from saving them". As I came back onto the shore and they had raised a slight pulse in the woman but she was not responding, I had the thought I could give her a blessing and save her, but then the spirit told me "her little baby is dead, she's gone, do not bring her back, let her stay with her child, she will be happier there with her baby on the other side." It was a strange sensation, but I followed the prompting and let her slip away. Anyways... you don't need all that. I hope you all get feeling better, I am doing just fine so don't worry about me. talk to you all later!
Love Elder Fortie
P.S. Speaking of your pictures, as the district leader and as a trainer I have to go on a lot of exchanges (if you don't remember, or if that's a new term, that means I leave my companion and area and go into another area and send one of them back to my area for a few days to monitor how their area's are going and help teach them to be better missionaries) and one time I was down in San Mateo and Elder Stoddard was staying up at my apartment, while he was studying in the morning he looked up and saw your picture of the Oakland Temple at night by the tree with the city and the bridge in the background and he told me the next day it was the most amazing and beautiful picture of the Oakland temple he has ever seen and he loved it. I told him you took it and he said to pass the compliment on to you and tell you it is incredible and he has never seen better. So congratulations!
I'm glad you've been having such good studies lately, it's always a wonder what you can learn from the scriptures. I hope all goes well with Moms surgery, she has been in my prayers. There is a lesson I teach from the scriptures to people that are having a rough time that has become well known throughout our mission because one of the A.P's saw me give it once and loved it and has been asking me to teach people how to do it, I will have to share it with you some day when I get home. But like me with the Mother and child at the beach, if it had been within the will and purpose of the Lord for them to live that day, I would have done it, I did everything I could for them, I gave all that could be given, and in the end, despite my efforts, it was not so. God has his own time table, and his own purposes, do your best, and to him leave the rest. Good luck with all you are doing, I pray for you daily.Love elder Fortie.
From Michelle:
Heidi Ho!
So I’ve gotten a little behind… again. I’ve also discovered that that is a dangerous thing for me to do, seeing as I can hardly remember what happened the past 2 days… so remembering the past 2 WEEKS should be tricky.
I’m gonna work backwards and hope that helps refresh things… yesterday I was sick. Not much to talk about there. It was just an unhappy day altogether. I was on the couch with the whole day… okay, that’s all to report there… moving on.
Saturday I worked. That was eventful.
The day before (Friday) I worked and took care of Jennifer and Mom who were sick. And that’s all… wow, this is making my summer sound quite dull.
Thursday, my best friend Courtney and I went to see Harry Potter! (yeah, that’s right, we’re geeks and proud of it!) It was really good and we had fun doing a little shopping afterwards!
Wednesday proves that I do have a life! Yay! I worked at the temple open house from 10:30-4. Now that isn’t the part that proves that I have a life. Although I can’t complain because standing and walking in heels for 5+ hours did give a great workout to my calves! And not to mention, blessing will come. Later that night though, I headed to the Riverton city pool! My friend rented it out for her Sweet 16, so everybody got together for food, fun, and a sweet pool party! We had fun messing with the lifeguards (half of them are guys that we know from school, so they were joking with us) and having a water volleyball game against our guy friends! I even went off the high diving board for my friend. That was a great feat for me, seeing as I’ve never been a very big fan of water! After we finished up at the pool, we headed back to the birthday girl’s house to just hang out, jump on the tramp, and mess around!
Tuesday I went to the new Herriman Lake with my friend Courtney, and we met up with our friends Tyson and Garrett who were also there! It was REALLY cold that day, but we had lots of fun anyways! Tys and Garrett were both champs on the swim team, so Court and I felt a little ridiculous trying to keep up with them, but they eventually learned to slow up for us! :] We had fun, and I got another tan line on my back (I now have about 6 different, very defined tan lines on my back). Then Court and I went back to her place and we played with sidewalk chalk for the first time in forever! It was so much fun and we got some pretty interesting drawings! Then I rushed home, changed, and headed to mutual. We went to the temple open house as a group, and I can’t tell you how beautiful that building is! It is more open than any other temple I’ve seen, and I think it’s the most beautiful. (Maybe that’s just ‘cause I’m a little prejudiced because it’s our temple :] ) Then we headed back to the church and ate pizza! We’ve been in the ward for like 3 years or more, but even still, the people are shocked at how much I eat. Haha! What can I say? I’m a growing girl!
Monday I did Jennifer’s hair and make-up for the play, and I also did Dad’s make-up. I’ve become their official hair stylist/make-up artist and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it! Then I went to the play with them, helped my best friend Ashley with her hair and make-up backstage, and headed into the audience to watch! I sat by Mom and her family, and by my friend Jeff. He and I were laughing and taking pictures the whole time, it was actually a ton of fun!
Sunday I went to a farewell for a friend of mine, Josh Knowles! He’s going to California, and he’s gonna be a great missionary! Then we went out to Grandma and Grandpa’s to have dinner, and play with little (I can’t say baby any more, he’s getting too big!!) Spencer who just learned to walk! He’s so cute, and always sticks out his little tongue as he’s going! He’s so adorable! I pretty much have the cutest little nephew in the history of the world… that’s all!
The previous week, I only remember a few things. I remember going to the play with my friends Nikki, Dallin, Javier, Evan, and Courtney. That was awesome and we were all laughing pretty hard, especially when some of them finally figured out that Mayor Shin was my Dad at the end. I also remember that we finished helping Dallin make the blankets for his eagle project! And as far as I remember… that’s about it!!
Hope ya’ll have a great week! Love ya! Remember, God doesn't give you the people you want; he gives you the people you need to help you, to hurt you, to have you, to love you, and to make you into the person you were meant to be. So just have a little faith and live life the best you can!
Love,
Michelle Fortie!
From Jennifer:
Hi!
Everyone here has been sick with some mystery illness that seems to be highly contagious! I even had to miss one of the play nights for it! But I think I’m finally over mine, let’s just hope that everyone else gets over there’s now!
Well I have successfully broken yet another phone, and I am looking into the possibly wise investment of 1-Phone insurance or 2-a phone cover. This will be my fourth phone in about a year and a half, wow that sounds bad! Accept none of them but this one has been my fault! And even on this one all I did was drop it from my hand to the ground at Smith’s and now the screen doesn’t work! So we went to T-Mobile’s and the guy there agreed that was lame and it shouldn’t have stopped working, it didn’t even put a crack in it! So he pretended like I never told him I dropped it and there sending me a free new phone. How nice!
The play is going fantabulous! Were all having fun with it and dad is once again throwing in his comic relief lines. I’m sure he will put them in his letter! I have made lots of friends in the play and we have all been sharing much laughter together. At least once every night my friend Makell (don’t know how to spell) and I get laughing so hard our stomachs start to hurt and no noise is actually coming out. Have you ever had that happen? When you laugh SO HARD that you’re actually not making any noise! It’s great fun!
On Tuesday for young women’s (and I actually got to go! There was no play practice!) We went to the temple open house, it was so beautiful! If you haven’t gone yet GO! The spirit there is amazing and the inside and out is just astonishing! Then after that we went back to the church and had pizza it was great fun and we were all laughing our heads off. Then I got a call from a friend so I went out in the halls to talk to them and my other friend Jarvis wanted to know who it was so he hid behind a corner and when I came up to it he jumped out and scared the devil out of me and on natural instincts I turned to run and in the two steps I took I got fast, then I came to realize there was a wall there, smacked right into it. He will never let that one go, of course I don’t blame him it was hilarious! At least he never did find out who I was talking to!
Well I’m gonna sign off! Adios one and all! Best wishes! And remember, life is not measured by the number of breath’s we take, but the moments that take our breath away!
Jennifer
July 13 – 19, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
Week after week I keep writing this letter to my great-great-grandkids and I never get a letter back from them. What’s up with that? Perhaps, when I am long gone, all of you could take the time to write me a letter or two about what is going on in your lives. I’ll try to stop by and read it over your shoulder. If you sense someone is there don’t worry it’s only your great-great-grandpa reading about what is going on in your lives.
Well, this week has been a focus on The Music Man (of course), taking care of sick people, work and other less interesting things.
We had our third performance Monday night and all went well. I keep adding a line or two to each night to see how the audience reacts to some local jokes. When Mayor Shinn says, “ya wild kid ya, taggin down main street after my oldest girl last Sunday night.” I don’t get much reaction but when I change it to “…taggin down main street after my oldest girl last Monday (pause) when we was trying to have Family Home Evening.” I get a pretty good laugh. Once I say, “I couldn’t be plainer if I’s a Quaker on his day off.” It gets a little smile, but when I say, “I couldn’t be plainer if I’s a teenager on trek.” I get some fairly good laughter. The biggest laugh I get is when I change, “And the rest of you standing there like a cot a’ shropshire sheep.” (no reaction from the audience) to “…standing there like a bunch a’ pineapple chunks stuck in green Jell-O” (more laughter than I expected from that one). I’m thinking of changing “couldn’t be clearer if I’s a buttonhook in the well water” to “couldn’t be clearer if I’s a cricket in a flock a seagulls.” We’ll see how I feel when the time comes. I didn’t tell anyone in the cast about my green Jell-O joke and they are all supposed to be serious at the time so some of them said they had to look away from the audience to avoid having them see their laughter. One of the actors who does a lot of theater doesn’t like me changing the lines, he wants to keep the integrity of the original show (I do see his point), but I get sooo much reaction from the audience after the show, when I am down talking to them, that I can’t resist. The people want a good laugh at the end of a long hard day, and the producer and director like it/expect it, so I do it. A few people who are coming every night say it’s like coming to a new play when I add a new joke or two every night, they look forward to it. In fact, after I did it last year and got some good reaction it is sort of expected of me now (I think I have talked about this in a few letters now so sorry about the repetition – bad memory). Anyway, I am finally able to relax a bit and enjoy conversation backstage instead of studying my lines in sheer panic of going blank on stage. I have so many that are strange or similar to each other that (me with my bad memory) I have to go over them constantly or I am lost.
I did get a chance, on Thursday, to dash on the scooter to get a few things from D.I. (books and clothes for the play are great there) and then head up to City Creek Park (east of the capital) to check it out for pictures this Saturday with Arnolds. I stopped by the International Peace Gardens on 900 So. and 1000 W. along the way and I think I like those grounds better for pictures. Their family is staying downtown and want to take pictures somewhere close. When I got home I used about 1 gallon of gas in the scooter to go clear down town and back, much less than the car or truck would have taken.
Well, as I said at the beginning, Jennifer got very sick (Thursday) and was throwing up so bad that she couldn’t eat a thing for two days (she came downstairs on Monday morning as I was writing this letter to tell me she lost 18 pounds, I’ll have to try that diet – NOT). She got so weak that she could hardly stand up on Friday so she was not able to be there for the play. Luckily none of the dances she is in have a partner so they were just short one person in the group.
Tami then got sick on Friday night and she had things running out the other end so I was washing sheets and blankets most of the day (sorry for the graphic writing).
After the play on Friday, 63 of us headed over to IHOP at 10:30. I thought someone who had planned it would warn IHOP but they didn’t. They only had two waiters (usually) handling only like 6 to 10 or people coming in at a time at that time of night. We completely overwhelmed them and it took a few hours to get through us all. We were ok as we were all just sitting and talking (rather loudly) as we could finally relaxing as a group the whole time rather than trying to get through a practice or a performance. Several people said they wanted a speech from the mayor, and that they would finally let me finish my Four Score speech. I started it and went a little ways into Abraham Lincoln’s speech but pretended like someone was interrupting me as always. A good time was had by all. During the celebration I got a call from the sick people at the house asking me to stop by the store on my way home for some medicine and wet wipes, etc. so I didn’t get home until about 2 in the morning.
Michelle has had a cough since trek and it took a turn for the worse on Saturday, she also got a stomach ache at about 3 in the morning that she could hardly stand, so there was one more person to help. However, she didn’t need much help as she just lay on the couch and coughed, moaned or slept. I was worried about how contagious this thing seemed to be (I had been trying to keep germ free to avoid this thing during the play). I then started to have the same problems Tami was having but a much milder version. I just made sure I didn’t eat or drink anything for several hours before the play so I would have fewer problems during the play. It seemed to work but I was very dehydrated after the play. I drank a ton of water and still didn’t have to go to the bathroom the next morning. On Saturday I ate bread and yogurt (stuff that normally stops me up) and my body didn’t seem to know if I should be constipated or have to run to the bathroom every few minutes by Sunday (again, sorry for the gross images but that’s life). I seemed to have such a mild version that it didn’t really affect me health wise; I felt fine.
Saturday’s performance was perhaps my worst at stumbling through lines (just a little bit right at the beginning, I loosened up after a few scenes). Luckily Mayor Shinn does a lot of stumbling so nobody noticed. I also didn’t get a call to be ready for the last scene and I am the first to talk as the lights came up as everyone is gathered at the gym to listen to my speech. Luckily I heard the music just before my speech and dashed out there. They had only been waiting for a half a minute or so when I came running in, oops. The bad thing about it was my family was all there to see us; Chad, Alicia, Brian, grandpa, grandma, Curt and Mary Kay. They said they didn’t notice so I guess it was ok. They also said they liked the play and thought I did a good job.
Sunday morning we all slept in. I was the only one who went to church and I was so late that I missed sacrament meeting and had to stay for another wards meeting at 1:00 pm after choir practice. When I got home I ate a lunch and went down for a nap. I slept for 3 hours which made it so I wasn’t tired at bedtime. Crazy mixed up schedule. Jennifer was feeling better on Sunday and Tami has improved quite a bit so things are looking up. Michelle is still just sleeping or wishing she was sleeping. I’m wondering if we should take her in to see if she has some kind of bronchitis or something. It’s hard to tell because most of the time they just say, ya you are sick and charge you for that. We’ll see what Monday brings.
Well, I think that covers more than you want to know so I’ll say goodbye.
Break a leg,
Ken and clan
From Elder Fortie:
Dear people of the world... Well here I am, training, running multiple districts, jumping between missions, hopping across the bay from time to time to work things out with the new president and myself as one of the mission leaders, working two different wards at the same time because one of our companionships got dissolved because one of the sisters got sick and had to go home to Korea, and dealing with 5 investigators preparing for baptism, 2 Elders that just got in a car wreck, my companion that I had (who I follow up trained) before my trainee, went home a few days after being transferred away from me, the companion of the sister who went home is in depression, I'm working to get the ward back where it's supposed to be because the leaders all went haywire on the ward a few months before I got here, dealing with having to move a baptism 5 TIMES in ONE WEEK because the scouts suddenly decided to go on a week long camp, right OVER his baptism, and he wants to go with them... which hey that's really good and it will be good for him, but can you pick a worse time?... and trying to figure out how to do all my exchanges without killing my poor greenie! Stress... just a little, discouragement? I Think NOT!!! It's total madness, complete insanity and I'm flying off the wall and the zone leaders, A.P.'s and the president all have told me they pity me with all I've had to deal with lately, and yet, I love it. Don't get my wrong I am sure waiting for my day off, but I work really well under pressure, and that's when I push the hardest, so I'm excited. Also since I started the new program I am running here on this side of the bay, the baptismal rate of this ward has shot up with unprecedented growth, and we have so far this month had 3 baptisms with 11 more up to bat! BAM!!! It's about to blow my mind how busy this program I am running is keeping me... I am usually on the phone until 10:25 at night, 5 minutes before we're supposed to be in bed, every night, dealing with a million things and taking care of a million arrangements, and contacting all kinds of people and getting on people who aren't doing their job and my poor yet amazing greenie just is jumping along with me without missing a beat, he is great and I love working with him, we have a blast and we get so much done. The mission president has asked me as the leader over here to contact EVERY SINGLE MEMBER HOUSEHOLD!!! So my teaching time has gone way down as I am running from San Francisco to San Mateo visiting every member on record... so I've lost a lot of time to that, but none the less things are going well, I will be baptizing Jean (he's 12, from Brazil, he's a smart kid, speaks English Portuguese and Spanish, which because of teaching him I can now read the scriptures in Portuguese! That was really exciting, I only know how to say a few fraises, but I can read it decently, and understand some of it). on the 31'st of July, so I am excited for that, he was a total surprise and his mom (a recent convert in April) is ecstatic and We just have a blast at their house every time we go, they are amazing people. Yesterday I sneakily locked her out of her own house, and she proceeded to chase me down the street with a tree branch smacking me with it while she and I tried to run while falling over from laughing so hard. It was hilarious... yeah, I'm a nut case I know. But I am really excited about that. We also have Oti and Mariaita with a baptismal date for Aug 23, and Carlos is thinking of joining them on that date to be baptized, and Jennifer who is in New York on vacation said she wants to get baptized when she gets back and is going to try to go to the temple there while she is there! Also as the leader here, I go on exchanges to all the other areas that I am in charge of, and I have apparently developed a bit of a reputation as being quite bold and straight forward, and so when I got there they told me "if you feel like doing anything bold like we hear you doing some times, go ahead and do it." So with that in mind, we went through the day, and at their last appointment, we were teaching a guy that they have only taught 2 times and were no where near challenging him to baptism, and I got the thought, this man should be baptized, so I took over the lesson, started throwing down some of my analogies that I have developed, and at the end challenged him to baptism. The Elders who were with me looked at me in shock amazed I had just thrown all that out, and that I had challenged him to be baptized that quickly, but he looked at me for a second nodded his head and said, yes, you are right Elder Fortie, I must be baptized, I will be baptized, the look of shock on the Elders faces doubled, they were so surprised. We finished up the lesson and as we left they were jumping up and down (and on top of me) cheering, neither of them have ever had a baptism so they were ecstatic, that's was the 5th baptismal date I had set in a week haha, I have really become quite impatient with all the beating about the bush as of late and have begun to just really throw things down, and be very direct and it's starting to pay off, sometimes it's not the most friendly way to do things, but friendly is not why I am here, I am here to call people unto repentance, and I've found that sometimes has to be done with some force or they don't take it seriously. But anyways, things are going well despite the neck breaking pace at which life is going. I hope you all are doing well and I have to get going, I have to jump up to China town, my greenie wants to see it, he's never seen it before.
Take care everyone, and keep on keeping on!Love Elder Fortie
Date: Monday, July 20, 2009, 12:10 PM
Sorry, my mission pres. is President Wade. As for me, yeah the nightmares have gone down, I still get one here and there, but it's not bad, I'm fully recovered health wise, I still get people coming up to me now and then asking me " some one told me your the guy that pulled that lady out of the ocean and went back in after the daughter, is that true?" So I've developed a little bit of a reputation I suppose you could say around here, but I mostly keep it to myself, I've never told anyone the full story... it was pretty gruesome, I've seen blood and injuries, I've watched people die, tried to save lives when I was a bystander for car accidents and other things, but nothings ever been quite so personnel before... I think it's because in all the other occasions if it was possible to save the person I did, if they died, it was because there was just no way on earth I or anyone else could have saved them, but with this one, this was the first time where they actually had a chance, where I possibly could have saved them and they could have made it, but they didn't, so it's just been hard because I keep questioning my actions, re-thinking the whole thing wondering if I'd done something differently could I have succeeded. But I just keep telling myself, "If God had wanted them to live, I would have succeeded, God had to have decided it was their time, thus he kept me from saving them". As I came back onto the shore and they had raised a slight pulse in the woman but she was not responding, I had the thought I could give her a blessing and save her, but then the spirit told me "her little baby is dead, she's gone, do not bring her back, let her stay with her child, she will be happier there with her baby on the other side." It was a strange sensation, but I followed the prompting and let her slip away. Anyways... you don't need all that. I hope you all get feeling better, I am doing just fine so don't worry about me. talk to you all later!
Love Elder Fortie
P.S. Speaking of your pictures, as the district leader and as a trainer I have to go on a lot of exchanges (if you don't remember, or if that's a new term, that means I leave my companion and area and go into another area and send one of them back to my area for a few days to monitor how their area's are going and help teach them to be better missionaries) and one time I was down in San Mateo and Elder Stoddard was staying up at my apartment, while he was studying in the morning he looked up and saw your picture of the Oakland Temple at night by the tree with the city and the bridge in the background and he told me the next day it was the most amazing and beautiful picture of the Oakland temple he has ever seen and he loved it. I told him you took it and he said to pass the compliment on to you and tell you it is incredible and he has never seen better. So congratulations!
I'm glad you've been having such good studies lately, it's always a wonder what you can learn from the scriptures. I hope all goes well with Moms surgery, she has been in my prayers. There is a lesson I teach from the scriptures to people that are having a rough time that has become well known throughout our mission because one of the A.P's saw me give it once and loved it and has been asking me to teach people how to do it, I will have to share it with you some day when I get home. But like me with the Mother and child at the beach, if it had been within the will and purpose of the Lord for them to live that day, I would have done it, I did everything I could for them, I gave all that could be given, and in the end, despite my efforts, it was not so. God has his own time table, and his own purposes, do your best, and to him leave the rest. Good luck with all you are doing, I pray for you daily.Love elder Fortie.
From Michelle:
Heidi Ho!
So I’ve gotten a little behind… again. I’ve also discovered that that is a dangerous thing for me to do, seeing as I can hardly remember what happened the past 2 days… so remembering the past 2 WEEKS should be tricky.
I’m gonna work backwards and hope that helps refresh things… yesterday I was sick. Not much to talk about there. It was just an unhappy day altogether. I was on the couch with the whole day… okay, that’s all to report there… moving on.
Saturday I worked. That was eventful.
The day before (Friday) I worked and took care of Jennifer and Mom who were sick. And that’s all… wow, this is making my summer sound quite dull.
Thursday, my best friend Courtney and I went to see Harry Potter! (yeah, that’s right, we’re geeks and proud of it!) It was really good and we had fun doing a little shopping afterwards!
Wednesday proves that I do have a life! Yay! I worked at the temple open house from 10:30-4. Now that isn’t the part that proves that I have a life. Although I can’t complain because standing and walking in heels for 5+ hours did give a great workout to my calves! And not to mention, blessing will come. Later that night though, I headed to the Riverton city pool! My friend rented it out for her Sweet 16, so everybody got together for food, fun, and a sweet pool party! We had fun messing with the lifeguards (half of them are guys that we know from school, so they were joking with us) and having a water volleyball game against our guy friends! I even went off the high diving board for my friend. That was a great feat for me, seeing as I’ve never been a very big fan of water! After we finished up at the pool, we headed back to the birthday girl’s house to just hang out, jump on the tramp, and mess around!
Tuesday I went to the new Herriman Lake with my friend Courtney, and we met up with our friends Tyson and Garrett who were also there! It was REALLY cold that day, but we had lots of fun anyways! Tys and Garrett were both champs on the swim team, so Court and I felt a little ridiculous trying to keep up with them, but they eventually learned to slow up for us! :] We had fun, and I got another tan line on my back (I now have about 6 different, very defined tan lines on my back). Then Court and I went back to her place and we played with sidewalk chalk for the first time in forever! It was so much fun and we got some pretty interesting drawings! Then I rushed home, changed, and headed to mutual. We went to the temple open house as a group, and I can’t tell you how beautiful that building is! It is more open than any other temple I’ve seen, and I think it’s the most beautiful. (Maybe that’s just ‘cause I’m a little prejudiced because it’s our temple :] ) Then we headed back to the church and ate pizza! We’ve been in the ward for like 3 years or more, but even still, the people are shocked at how much I eat. Haha! What can I say? I’m a growing girl!
Monday I did Jennifer’s hair and make-up for the play, and I also did Dad’s make-up. I’ve become their official hair stylist/make-up artist and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it! Then I went to the play with them, helped my best friend Ashley with her hair and make-up backstage, and headed into the audience to watch! I sat by Mom and her family, and by my friend Jeff. He and I were laughing and taking pictures the whole time, it was actually a ton of fun!
Sunday I went to a farewell for a friend of mine, Josh Knowles! He’s going to California, and he’s gonna be a great missionary! Then we went out to Grandma and Grandpa’s to have dinner, and play with little (I can’t say baby any more, he’s getting too big!!) Spencer who just learned to walk! He’s so cute, and always sticks out his little tongue as he’s going! He’s so adorable! I pretty much have the cutest little nephew in the history of the world… that’s all!
The previous week, I only remember a few things. I remember going to the play with my friends Nikki, Dallin, Javier, Evan, and Courtney. That was awesome and we were all laughing pretty hard, especially when some of them finally figured out that Mayor Shin was my Dad at the end. I also remember that we finished helping Dallin make the blankets for his eagle project! And as far as I remember… that’s about it!!
Hope ya’ll have a great week! Love ya! Remember, God doesn't give you the people you want; he gives you the people you need to help you, to hurt you, to have you, to love you, and to make you into the person you were meant to be. So just have a little faith and live life the best you can!
Love,
Michelle Fortie!
From Jennifer:
Hi!
Everyone here has been sick with some mystery illness that seems to be highly contagious! I even had to miss one of the play nights for it! But I think I’m finally over mine, let’s just hope that everyone else gets over there’s now!
Well I have successfully broken yet another phone, and I am looking into the possibly wise investment of 1-Phone insurance or 2-a phone cover. This will be my fourth phone in about a year and a half, wow that sounds bad! Accept none of them but this one has been my fault! And even on this one all I did was drop it from my hand to the ground at Smith’s and now the screen doesn’t work! So we went to T-Mobile’s and the guy there agreed that was lame and it shouldn’t have stopped working, it didn’t even put a crack in it! So he pretended like I never told him I dropped it and there sending me a free new phone. How nice!
The play is going fantabulous! Were all having fun with it and dad is once again throwing in his comic relief lines. I’m sure he will put them in his letter! I have made lots of friends in the play and we have all been sharing much laughter together. At least once every night my friend Makell (don’t know how to spell) and I get laughing so hard our stomachs start to hurt and no noise is actually coming out. Have you ever had that happen? When you laugh SO HARD that you’re actually not making any noise! It’s great fun!
On Tuesday for young women’s (and I actually got to go! There was no play practice!) We went to the temple open house, it was so beautiful! If you haven’t gone yet GO! The spirit there is amazing and the inside and out is just astonishing! Then after that we went back to the church and had pizza it was great fun and we were all laughing our heads off. Then I got a call from a friend so I went out in the halls to talk to them and my other friend Jarvis wanted to know who it was so he hid behind a corner and when I came up to it he jumped out and scared the devil out of me and on natural instincts I turned to run and in the two steps I took I got fast, then I came to realize there was a wall there, smacked right into it. He will never let that one go, of course I don’t blame him it was hilarious! At least he never did find out who I was talking to!
Well I’m gonna sign off! Adios one and all! Best wishes! And remember, life is not measured by the number of breath’s we take, but the moments that take our breath away!
Jennifer
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