Fortie Family Flyer
February 15 – 21, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from the Southwest (the Southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley that is). Another week has gone by to be sure, and already we are panicking to get our home teaching in before the end of the month. What? February almost gone already! Can’t be. Another trip around the sun completed for me and I’m already a week and a half into my fifty-fifth trip; hope this is a good one. Better keep my seatbelt fastened. Perhaps, during this trip around the sun, a trip around the world with my camera would make it a memorable one; now that would be something to write about. For now it’s just a trip around the supermarket that I have to go do so I’ll keep this short.
Well, Deseret Book, like everyone else, is suffering from this recession. The customers are not flocking in to buy books, they can’t pay their mortgages let alone buy books. The company is really cutting back on hours now. Hard for anyone to survive on such wages. Good thing I’m so filthy rich and don’t need to work (oh, wait, I must be thinking about someone else).
The infection in my eye finally cleared up (for the most part) but I went into the doctor just to check on it and they said I had a duct clogged and I needed to try to put a hot wash cloth on it a few times a day and if that doesn’t clear it up a surgeon will have to lance it to get rid of the problem. Right now it’s a bump on my eyelid that makes it feel like a piece of sand is in my eye all the time. If its not one thing its another.
Stephen Kerr called this week to ask me to help with photography and t-shirts for the Herriman play and also asked if I would play the part of Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly this summer. That came as quite a shock to me. I was comfortable but nervous about playing the butler in the Sound of Music then I was way out of my league when they asked me to play Mayor Shinn last summer in the Music Man but to have one of the main male parts in Hello Dolly including a few solo’s, dance numbers and so many lines to memorize I have had a hard time overcoming fear and saying yes. I talked to my work and they said they would work with me so now if I can convince myself that I can actually do this I will call them back and say yes. We’ll see what happens.
Jennifer is still having some bad back pain so I took her into the doctors again and they set up an appointment for an M.R.I. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) for Thursday. Tami took her in but we haven’t been notified of any results yet.
Rauckhorst’s came in on Thursday so the girl’s skipped school so they could go do stuff with them. They went to movies and dinner and just played. I don’t know what all ‘cause I wasn’t there for the most part; guess they’ll have to tell you about it.
We had the missionaries over for dinner on Friday night but all the kids were at grandpa and grandma’s with cousins so it was just Tami and I. We had a nice visit with them then they left for other appointments.
On one of our trips to grandpa and grandma’s I decided to tow the Mustang over to their house to see if it would sell better there. Michelle helped me by driving the Mustang behind the truck all the way there. She was very nervous but she did fine. The neighbor said we could park it on the corner of his yard out by 7000 So. We have already had a few people express interest so hopefully it will sell soon.
On Saturday, after work, I headed over to dad and mom’s for the family dinner that had been set up for when Rauckhorsts were here. Mike and Linda and girls where there, Curt and Mary Kay and grandkids, Craig and Emily and kids and Curt brought Brent and Mandy’s kids. Our family and Whitney’s boyfriend. It was a full house. We ate and talked and had fun. Tami and I headed home leaving the kids there for one more night. Mom had to give a talk Sunday and I would like to have come for it but I had to teach. I thought I was teaching Sunday School but we moved the restart of the genealogy class to next week. I finished putting my month long effort into my Priesthood lesson early Sunday morning, then when I went to set up for my lesson before priesthood opening exercises someone asked me what lesson I was giving and I said lesson number 3 about Christ. They said Bishop Pullen gave that one last week. When I asked him to teach for me last week I specifically said he should do his lesson, number 4 (that he was supposed to give this week), and I would do my lesson the next week when he was supposed to teach (we each teach one Sunday a month the second and third Sunday). I brought in several reference books to talk about how to study the life of Christ in personal study and as families. We have studied about specific prophets for an entire year so I wanted to help them get going on a study of the life of Christ that would last longer than one 3 page lesson. So there I was with all my reference books ready to talk about Christ and suddenly I needed to read over lesson number 4 before everyone came in after opening exercises so I could teach it. Luckily for me it was about agency, a topic I have studied and thought a great deal about over many years. One quick read through and I had a plan for a lesson. I was going to incorporate some of my other lesson into this one but as I stood up I had a prompting that I would be able to use that material later in the year and I should not use any of it. I left the other books alone and we had a great discussion about agency, opposites, etc. Everyone thought it went very well and I didn’t even get halfway through a 3-page lesson.
After church I cheated and took Tami home teaching with me. Bro. Hutchings couldn’t go early and I couldn’t go late so Tami and I went and visited the Gibson’s and the Hunter’s and I left the Butlers for Bro. Hutchings to take his son to go visit later in the evening. We had a nice long visit with the Gibson’s and tried to keep our visit with the Hunter’s short as they had family over. After that we headed over to dad and mom’s for dinner and a winding down of a wild week with cousins. Tami fixed a couple of casseroles and they were both good. We ate cake and pie and played golf and had a nice night.
The poem I memorized this week is very familiar to most of you as it was put into song. I think it’s a pretty good missionary song. The title is “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy.”
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.
Dark the night of sin has settled;
Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.
Trim you feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a beam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.
- Philip Paul Bliss
That’s it for this week. Let your light shine.
Ken and clan
From Nathan and Paige:
Hello All~I thought I would send out an email instead of calling everyone with updates...that could take me awhile. Nathan is doing very well. We seem to be on the downhill stretch, so he tells me. :) I just got an email today that tells us the last date to send packages is Feb 28th. So if you have a package to send, now would be a good time, if not...well you will have to wait until he gets home to send. Thank you for all your prayers during this time. It sounds like Nathan has had a few "close calls" this time around. He definitely feels the love of the Lord in his daily activities. Please continue to pray for him as we are not yet done. As for baby, all is well. He/She is growing rapidly it seems. I believe we are almost at 2 lbs this week. So the next time you are in the grocery store pick up a 2 lb roast and yes my friends, that's your grandchild right now. :) My next doc appointment is Mar 8th, so we'll see what developments are happening by then! I have found my hungry bug it seems. I just can't get enough! However, I am definitely keeping it under control. I just remember what I gain, I have to loose...so that helps to keep it in perspective. The kicking/ punching seems to be everyday all day, which I have just kinda gotten used too. I can't wait for Nathan to get here and feel it, by then my stomach will be moving I'm sure. Avery has developed a love/ hate relationship with "the belly". Her new sleeping position is under the covers curled up in the fetal position against my belly. Perhaps she likes the heartbeat or the warmth, that is until the baby kicks her and then she's not having any of it. The barking ensues and we are all 3 awake for about 10 mins before we start it all over again. Oh the joys of motherhood! :) It should be interesting when baby does finally make an appearance. How will Avery act? I think that's all for now. I continue to stay busy with my calling at church. We have the next 4 months scheduled for Enrichment and I'm excited for some warmer weather activities. Currently, I am planning a baby shower for my sister in OR, who is 35 weeks, trying to plan a move back to TX, Nathan's return, and a baby in the next few months. Some days I feel more busy than I did with a full time job!! I'm sure that's only going to get more crazy once baby comes along, but I know it will be worth it and rewarding. We love you all! Hope your 2010 is going smoothly thus far! Hard to believe March is right around the corner! Paige
From Elder Fortie:
Hello everyone. So I'm killing my companion today, it's his last day! Tomorrow I will be picking up Elder Abernathy, to train him as a new Zone leader, I train a lot of zone leaders, every time they get a new one they make me train him, it's kinda fun but it gets a little tiring having the largest zone in the largest mission in the world and running it more or less solo for about 3 weeks till your companion figures out what he's doing... No wonder I'm worn out! They sure like beating me up! But oh well, I don't mind, I do best when I'm under pressure, that's probably why they always give me so much extra stuff to do because they're trying to make me work harder haha. But I'm now a grandpa! My youngest son is training! I have lived to see my posterity extend and it is good to know my legend has not ended! huzzah!
Also I was standing outside the temple waiting for some recent converts, when I heard a deep voice say "hey elders, is that parking spot available?" I turned to see Thurl Bailey hanging out the window of his car, I laughed and said yeah sure you can park here. I then talked to him for a little while, I didn't know he lived in Highland Utah, so then me and my companion took a picture with him and I got his autograph, he's a really cool guy, he signed a picture of himself for me and I said "is it a little weird signing your own face?" he looked at me and laughed and looked at it and said, "now that you mention it I guess it does feel a little weird." We joked around with him for a few minutes till the people we were waiting for came, and then I had to go, because I was going to the temple with them! It was wonderful, I got to see 3 of my recent converts from the past month go into the temple for the first time and I got to baptize them again! haha (I baptized them for the dead) it was amazing! I was so glad to be there, and they loved it. But the baptismal font in the Oakland temple is kinda weird... the changing rooms and showers are in the same room as the font, they are just blocked from sight by a little separation thing, it's hard to explain, but it's really kinda awkward because you can hear the showers going while your baptizing people, I was thinking that wasn't designed too well... But funny thing, we lost one of the recent converts in the temple! He went in to change after he was baptized and when we all came out he wasn't there! We thought for a minute that he'd wandered off into the temple, so we were all running around looking for him all around the temple, but came to find out he had just gone outside to pull the car around for his wife. But for a while we thought he was trapped in the Celestial room or something haha!
It was a good week though. Well I could go on but I gotta run, sorry, I love you all, keep up the good work. Have you made a list of all the non members you know? DO IT! the activity is on page 172 of Preach My Gospel, the second or third bullet point on the page if I remember right if you want to read it! Go to and do it!
Love, Elder Fortie
February 15 – 21, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from the Southwest (the Southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley that is). Another week has gone by to be sure, and already we are panicking to get our home teaching in before the end of the month. What? February almost gone already! Can’t be. Another trip around the sun completed for me and I’m already a week and a half into my fifty-fifth trip; hope this is a good one. Better keep my seatbelt fastened. Perhaps, during this trip around the sun, a trip around the world with my camera would make it a memorable one; now that would be something to write about. For now it’s just a trip around the supermarket that I have to go do so I’ll keep this short.
Well, Deseret Book, like everyone else, is suffering from this recession. The customers are not flocking in to buy books, they can’t pay their mortgages let alone buy books. The company is really cutting back on hours now. Hard for anyone to survive on such wages. Good thing I’m so filthy rich and don’t need to work (oh, wait, I must be thinking about someone else).
The infection in my eye finally cleared up (for the most part) but I went into the doctor just to check on it and they said I had a duct clogged and I needed to try to put a hot wash cloth on it a few times a day and if that doesn’t clear it up a surgeon will have to lance it to get rid of the problem. Right now it’s a bump on my eyelid that makes it feel like a piece of sand is in my eye all the time. If its not one thing its another.
Stephen Kerr called this week to ask me to help with photography and t-shirts for the Herriman play and also asked if I would play the part of Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly this summer. That came as quite a shock to me. I was comfortable but nervous about playing the butler in the Sound of Music then I was way out of my league when they asked me to play Mayor Shinn last summer in the Music Man but to have one of the main male parts in Hello Dolly including a few solo’s, dance numbers and so many lines to memorize I have had a hard time overcoming fear and saying yes. I talked to my work and they said they would work with me so now if I can convince myself that I can actually do this I will call them back and say yes. We’ll see what happens.
Jennifer is still having some bad back pain so I took her into the doctors again and they set up an appointment for an M.R.I. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) for Thursday. Tami took her in but we haven’t been notified of any results yet.
Rauckhorst’s came in on Thursday so the girl’s skipped school so they could go do stuff with them. They went to movies and dinner and just played. I don’t know what all ‘cause I wasn’t there for the most part; guess they’ll have to tell you about it.
We had the missionaries over for dinner on Friday night but all the kids were at grandpa and grandma’s with cousins so it was just Tami and I. We had a nice visit with them then they left for other appointments.
On one of our trips to grandpa and grandma’s I decided to tow the Mustang over to their house to see if it would sell better there. Michelle helped me by driving the Mustang behind the truck all the way there. She was very nervous but she did fine. The neighbor said we could park it on the corner of his yard out by 7000 So. We have already had a few people express interest so hopefully it will sell soon.
On Saturday, after work, I headed over to dad and mom’s for the family dinner that had been set up for when Rauckhorsts were here. Mike and Linda and girls where there, Curt and Mary Kay and grandkids, Craig and Emily and kids and Curt brought Brent and Mandy’s kids. Our family and Whitney’s boyfriend. It was a full house. We ate and talked and had fun. Tami and I headed home leaving the kids there for one more night. Mom had to give a talk Sunday and I would like to have come for it but I had to teach. I thought I was teaching Sunday School but we moved the restart of the genealogy class to next week. I finished putting my month long effort into my Priesthood lesson early Sunday morning, then when I went to set up for my lesson before priesthood opening exercises someone asked me what lesson I was giving and I said lesson number 3 about Christ. They said Bishop Pullen gave that one last week. When I asked him to teach for me last week I specifically said he should do his lesson, number 4 (that he was supposed to give this week), and I would do my lesson the next week when he was supposed to teach (we each teach one Sunday a month the second and third Sunday). I brought in several reference books to talk about how to study the life of Christ in personal study and as families. We have studied about specific prophets for an entire year so I wanted to help them get going on a study of the life of Christ that would last longer than one 3 page lesson. So there I was with all my reference books ready to talk about Christ and suddenly I needed to read over lesson number 4 before everyone came in after opening exercises so I could teach it. Luckily for me it was about agency, a topic I have studied and thought a great deal about over many years. One quick read through and I had a plan for a lesson. I was going to incorporate some of my other lesson into this one but as I stood up I had a prompting that I would be able to use that material later in the year and I should not use any of it. I left the other books alone and we had a great discussion about agency, opposites, etc. Everyone thought it went very well and I didn’t even get halfway through a 3-page lesson.
After church I cheated and took Tami home teaching with me. Bro. Hutchings couldn’t go early and I couldn’t go late so Tami and I went and visited the Gibson’s and the Hunter’s and I left the Butlers for Bro. Hutchings to take his son to go visit later in the evening. We had a nice long visit with the Gibson’s and tried to keep our visit with the Hunter’s short as they had family over. After that we headed over to dad and mom’s for dinner and a winding down of a wild week with cousins. Tami fixed a couple of casseroles and they were both good. We ate cake and pie and played golf and had a nice night.
The poem I memorized this week is very familiar to most of you as it was put into song. I think it’s a pretty good missionary song. The title is “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy.”
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.
Dark the night of sin has settled;
Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.
Trim you feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a beam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.
- Philip Paul Bliss
That’s it for this week. Let your light shine.
Ken and clan
From Nathan and Paige:
Hello All~I thought I would send out an email instead of calling everyone with updates...that could take me awhile. Nathan is doing very well. We seem to be on the downhill stretch, so he tells me. :) I just got an email today that tells us the last date to send packages is Feb 28th. So if you have a package to send, now would be a good time, if not...well you will have to wait until he gets home to send. Thank you for all your prayers during this time. It sounds like Nathan has had a few "close calls" this time around. He definitely feels the love of the Lord in his daily activities. Please continue to pray for him as we are not yet done. As for baby, all is well. He/She is growing rapidly it seems. I believe we are almost at 2 lbs this week. So the next time you are in the grocery store pick up a 2 lb roast and yes my friends, that's your grandchild right now. :) My next doc appointment is Mar 8th, so we'll see what developments are happening by then! I have found my hungry bug it seems. I just can't get enough! However, I am definitely keeping it under control. I just remember what I gain, I have to loose...so that helps to keep it in perspective. The kicking/ punching seems to be everyday all day, which I have just kinda gotten used too. I can't wait for Nathan to get here and feel it, by then my stomach will be moving I'm sure. Avery has developed a love/ hate relationship with "the belly". Her new sleeping position is under the covers curled up in the fetal position against my belly. Perhaps she likes the heartbeat or the warmth, that is until the baby kicks her and then she's not having any of it. The barking ensues and we are all 3 awake for about 10 mins before we start it all over again. Oh the joys of motherhood! :) It should be interesting when baby does finally make an appearance. How will Avery act? I think that's all for now. I continue to stay busy with my calling at church. We have the next 4 months scheduled for Enrichment and I'm excited for some warmer weather activities. Currently, I am planning a baby shower for my sister in OR, who is 35 weeks, trying to plan a move back to TX, Nathan's return, and a baby in the next few months. Some days I feel more busy than I did with a full time job!! I'm sure that's only going to get more crazy once baby comes along, but I know it will be worth it and rewarding. We love you all! Hope your 2010 is going smoothly thus far! Hard to believe March is right around the corner! Paige
From Elder Fortie:
Hello everyone. So I'm killing my companion today, it's his last day! Tomorrow I will be picking up Elder Abernathy, to train him as a new Zone leader, I train a lot of zone leaders, every time they get a new one they make me train him, it's kinda fun but it gets a little tiring having the largest zone in the largest mission in the world and running it more or less solo for about 3 weeks till your companion figures out what he's doing... No wonder I'm worn out! They sure like beating me up! But oh well, I don't mind, I do best when I'm under pressure, that's probably why they always give me so much extra stuff to do because they're trying to make me work harder haha. But I'm now a grandpa! My youngest son is training! I have lived to see my posterity extend and it is good to know my legend has not ended! huzzah!
Also I was standing outside the temple waiting for some recent converts, when I heard a deep voice say "hey elders, is that parking spot available?" I turned to see Thurl Bailey hanging out the window of his car, I laughed and said yeah sure you can park here. I then talked to him for a little while, I didn't know he lived in Highland Utah, so then me and my companion took a picture with him and I got his autograph, he's a really cool guy, he signed a picture of himself for me and I said "is it a little weird signing your own face?" he looked at me and laughed and looked at it and said, "now that you mention it I guess it does feel a little weird." We joked around with him for a few minutes till the people we were waiting for came, and then I had to go, because I was going to the temple with them! It was wonderful, I got to see 3 of my recent converts from the past month go into the temple for the first time and I got to baptize them again! haha (I baptized them for the dead) it was amazing! I was so glad to be there, and they loved it. But the baptismal font in the Oakland temple is kinda weird... the changing rooms and showers are in the same room as the font, they are just blocked from sight by a little separation thing, it's hard to explain, but it's really kinda awkward because you can hear the showers going while your baptizing people, I was thinking that wasn't designed too well... But funny thing, we lost one of the recent converts in the temple! He went in to change after he was baptized and when we all came out he wasn't there! We thought for a minute that he'd wandered off into the temple, so we were all running around looking for him all around the temple, but came to find out he had just gone outside to pull the car around for his wife. But for a while we thought he was trapped in the Celestial room or something haha!
It was a good week though. Well I could go on but I gotta run, sorry, I love you all, keep up the good work. Have you made a list of all the non members you know? DO IT! the activity is on page 172 of Preach My Gospel, the second or third bullet point on the page if I remember right if you want to read it! Go to and do it!
Love, Elder Fortie
