Pictures of grandpa and grandma's Christmas lights - zooming into tree and through window fog.
Fortie Family Flyer
November 30 – December 6, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
We finally got Brian on Tami’s insurance on December 1 and Tami’s work messed up on her paycheck (took all the money out rather than part for Brian) so we ‘got no money’ this week. Not only can we not go Christmas shopping but even food is going to have to be put on hold for now. Perhaps we will just have to extend fast Sunday to include the entire week. I have about $30.00 in my wallet for gas to get to work and that is it. We both should get paid Friday, hopefully that will at least catch us up to a few dollars above zero for next week. I have heard rumors that Santa has moved Christmas to April when Jesus was actually born; hope all the kids will buy into that.
I have been noticing stories everywhere I turn (books, PBS specials, radio) about artists and their poverty stricken lives as they go bankrupt 2 or 3 times or get food from dumpsters while trying to do what they feel is their life’s work. This tends to last until they either finally become successful or die trying (of course that’s when their work suddenly starts selling). A happy note about this artists situation, I finally got word that Kim Sparks (from Deseret Book) got back with Sounds of Zion and they will be ordering some of my pictures to get them into the stores. Hopefully they will sell so that maybe we can start feeding the kids again.
I finished listening to the set of CD’s called “Keys to Understanding the Book of Revelation” by Richard Draper. I have some old tapes on this subject by him but this seems to be the new and improved version. They are very good and I want to use them for scripture study with the kids so they can see the big picture of what is going down in the last days.
I went to the party at Pixels camera shop celebrating the printing of the book “Capture My Utah” that I had submitted pictures for on the internet. I didn’t order one earlier because with something like 12,500 pictures submitted I didn’t think I would have a chance of having any in the book. They said there is a CD that comes with the book and rumor was spreading through the crowd that everyone has at least one picture on the CD. I sat and watched part of the CD and did see one of my pictures on it. They had several books lying around for people to look through and as I was coming from the food table with a plate of yummy food type things I noticed that there were no books available so I stopped behind a guy who was looking through one of them and asked if he would mind if I looked over his shoulder as he went through the book. He said that would be fine and he turned the next page and there was my picture of the Oquirrh Mountain temple at sunset as one of the small 2x3 shots on the page introducing the topic of buildings. I said, “Oh wow there is one of my pictures.” He then turned the page and there was a full page picture of mine of the Salt Lake Temple at sunset. I said, “Oh wow; there is another one.” I then decided that I had better leave because I thought I might be a bit obnoxious saying there is one of my pictures on the first two pages I saw and most people never got even one picture in the book so I quietly slipped away. Later I looked through the whole book and found one more small picture of mine in another category of all the girls around the campfire at girls camp and a quarter page shot of the stream in Big Cottonwood Canyon I took in the fall. That was pretty exciting to me but the sad thing was I couldn’t afford the book so I had to walk away with the satisfaction that they liked my pictures enough to put them in a nice picture book of Utah. Maybe someday I will be able to get the book, or better yet, make my own (I can do that at Sam’s Club for $40.00, the same price as this book). As I was leaving, the caterer asked if I wanted to take a tray of shish kabobs home… I did; now we have something to eat for a few days.
I went to the Republican Party meeting on Thursday night, listened to the proposed changes to the rules, voted with the majority on all but one thing. I agreed with the leaders that wanted to lower the percent a candidate needed to win in the convention from 60% to 51% so we would not need to take it to an expensive primary election that the Democrats have learned they can sign up for and help determine who our candidate will be that will then run against them. Most people thought it was taking some freedoms away from the general population but I believed it was leaving it in our hands (the chairman of each precinct) and keeping the enemy out of our camp. We had several vote our way but not a majority. I don’t think the guy presented it very well, maybe next year.
Work is very strange, I am grateful for the work and I worked five of the six days this week but the store just isn’t the same as the other stores I have worked at in the past; no life, no energy, no enjoyment. It is surprising how much backbiting there is for a bunch of LDS people. I’m telling you I really sense that the spirit is gradually pulling away from our country and people everywhere are becoming more and more contentious, grumpy, hopeless and withdrawn. I wonder how bad it is going to get before people wake up to there situation – if they ever do. We will either become like the people of Melchizedek or the people of Mormon, our choice.
Tami’s adopted mom called Friday morning to tell us that Tami’s brother, Cal, died. He has hardly kept in touch with us for several years and I sensed that he wasn’t doing very well. She said he had been on a lot of pain killers and finally just gave out. Tami was at work and I debated as to whether to call her or wait. I realized she would want to know so I called her. She took it pretty hard and couldn’t work very well so they sent her home. Now we have to wonder what they are going to do about a funeral and such… they are hard to predict that group.
Saturday morning most of us happened to be available (usually all of us work on Saturday and at least one in the morning) so we (Tami, Michelle, Jennifer and myself – Brian went last night with a date and had school Saturday morning) decided to go to the Christmas Tree Festival since we haven’t been for years. We had a nice walk through with the two girls on each of my arms singing songs or taking pictures of cool trees. We of course had to get a scone and a sweet roll to share. We finished a quick walk through before all of us had to work that evening.
I taught the genealogy class on Sunday and then went around to member’s houses after church for two and a half hours helping them get started on genealogy. People seem to be catching on to the emphasis the church leaders are putting on temple work, genealogy and family history. When Brian got home from church we all headed for grandpa and grandma’s for dinner and a nice visit. I decided that since I had taught everyone in class how to record someone’s personal history or get genealogy from them somehow I had better try to do what I was teaching. My mom has always avoided being recorded but we finally talked her into telling about her life history on camera. It turned out well and I even learned a few things about her that I didn’t know. We did that for about an hour then we all settled in to watch the First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional while we ate ice-cream and cake. We finally left at 9 so we could get kids to bed for school in the morning. The roads were a bit slick on the way home as snow had been coming down off and on all day but wasn’t very deep yet. It’s supposed to linger for a few days, we’ll see if we get anything worthwhile (at least more than an inch or two).
Well, that’s our week, hope yours was fantabulous.
Ken and clan
From Elder Fortie:
Amazing is the Lord, truly amazing. I had one of the worst weeks of my mission. I had much of my week booked with firesides and meetings, and had little time to work. Then when the little time I had left to work came, missionaries made foolish mistakes and I was sent to resolve them. Sisters (that were really just fine at home in their apartments, but forgot to turn their phones on, because all sisters are required to call in every night to their district leaders to confirm that they are safe and home.) in Oakland not calling in and their district leader calls me at 10:40 at night to tell me his sisters are missing, and me at 11:00 at night out in down town Oakland in the rain looking for the missing sisters who were home happily in bed. Elders causing problems that I am sent to fix that took 2 days for me and the president to resolve etc. etc. Come Friday, I had only taught 2 lessons all week, neither of them very successful, I was frustrated, burnt out, stressed, upset at many missionaries because of their negligence that caused so many problems for me, I was down because all the goals we'd set were looking impossible, and I was sick of doing a thankless job that I felt was nothing but babysitting. Then Saturday night, when I was just about to start biting people, after I had had NO time ALL week to work in my area, and I felt like my area was abandoned and that I had done nothing with it, we only had 4 hours left in the night, and Sunday I had meetings all day, so this was all I had to make anything happen, and It looked hopeless. I said a prayer in my mind thinking "Lord, I know this is your work, and I feel bad, I feel as if I have had no time to really do my part. Yet I know, I have not wasted a minute, every moment I have had was hectically dedicated to doing everything that was demanded of me, but I want to do true missionary work, I want to know that my diligence isn't just to be a babysitter." I was at my wits end, I had worked my tail off all week doing my job as a mission leader and it had cost me all the time I had to serve the Lords children and I was so frustrated because of it. But the Lord knows his work, and he prepares it well. In those 4 hours, after that plea, our ward mission leader called us up and said I want to go out with you all night, lets go. over the course of the next 4 hours, with the Lord setting the way at every moment, and using us as his tools, we set 5 baptismal dates, taught 9 lessons, set up 2 weddings so investigators could get married so they could progress, found 3 new investigators, and ate pupusa's... (I think that was a heavenly mercy). I have NEVER in all my mission had that kind of success. By the end of that night I was driving home singing "All Creatures of our God and King" and the top of my lungs and in pure giddy amazed delight at the power of the Lord! It goes to show how much this work is about him. I did NOTHING for my area all week, and that night, when I was at rock bottom, he gave me the most powerful successful night of my mission! I am out of time, I have to go, but just so you all know I am doing FANTASTIC!!! I have never seen such blessings on my mission, and I realized even though all the things I was doing felt useless, that the Lord blesses us for our obedience, and he did work in my area all week, even if I did not. I love you all! Love, Elder Fortie.
November 30 – December 6, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
We finally got Brian on Tami’s insurance on December 1 and Tami’s work messed up on her paycheck (took all the money out rather than part for Brian) so we ‘got no money’ this week. Not only can we not go Christmas shopping but even food is going to have to be put on hold for now. Perhaps we will just have to extend fast Sunday to include the entire week. I have about $30.00 in my wallet for gas to get to work and that is it. We both should get paid Friday, hopefully that will at least catch us up to a few dollars above zero for next week. I have heard rumors that Santa has moved Christmas to April when Jesus was actually born; hope all the kids will buy into that.
I have been noticing stories everywhere I turn (books, PBS specials, radio) about artists and their poverty stricken lives as they go bankrupt 2 or 3 times or get food from dumpsters while trying to do what they feel is their life’s work. This tends to last until they either finally become successful or die trying (of course that’s when their work suddenly starts selling). A happy note about this artists situation, I finally got word that Kim Sparks (from Deseret Book) got back with Sounds of Zion and they will be ordering some of my pictures to get them into the stores. Hopefully they will sell so that maybe we can start feeding the kids again.
I finished listening to the set of CD’s called “Keys to Understanding the Book of Revelation” by Richard Draper. I have some old tapes on this subject by him but this seems to be the new and improved version. They are very good and I want to use them for scripture study with the kids so they can see the big picture of what is going down in the last days.
I went to the party at Pixels camera shop celebrating the printing of the book “Capture My Utah” that I had submitted pictures for on the internet. I didn’t order one earlier because with something like 12,500 pictures submitted I didn’t think I would have a chance of having any in the book. They said there is a CD that comes with the book and rumor was spreading through the crowd that everyone has at least one picture on the CD. I sat and watched part of the CD and did see one of my pictures on it. They had several books lying around for people to look through and as I was coming from the food table with a plate of yummy food type things I noticed that there were no books available so I stopped behind a guy who was looking through one of them and asked if he would mind if I looked over his shoulder as he went through the book. He said that would be fine and he turned the next page and there was my picture of the Oquirrh Mountain temple at sunset as one of the small 2x3 shots on the page introducing the topic of buildings. I said, “Oh wow there is one of my pictures.” He then turned the page and there was a full page picture of mine of the Salt Lake Temple at sunset. I said, “Oh wow; there is another one.” I then decided that I had better leave because I thought I might be a bit obnoxious saying there is one of my pictures on the first two pages I saw and most people never got even one picture in the book so I quietly slipped away. Later I looked through the whole book and found one more small picture of mine in another category of all the girls around the campfire at girls camp and a quarter page shot of the stream in Big Cottonwood Canyon I took in the fall. That was pretty exciting to me but the sad thing was I couldn’t afford the book so I had to walk away with the satisfaction that they liked my pictures enough to put them in a nice picture book of Utah. Maybe someday I will be able to get the book, or better yet, make my own (I can do that at Sam’s Club for $40.00, the same price as this book). As I was leaving, the caterer asked if I wanted to take a tray of shish kabobs home… I did; now we have something to eat for a few days.
I went to the Republican Party meeting on Thursday night, listened to the proposed changes to the rules, voted with the majority on all but one thing. I agreed with the leaders that wanted to lower the percent a candidate needed to win in the convention from 60% to 51% so we would not need to take it to an expensive primary election that the Democrats have learned they can sign up for and help determine who our candidate will be that will then run against them. Most people thought it was taking some freedoms away from the general population but I believed it was leaving it in our hands (the chairman of each precinct) and keeping the enemy out of our camp. We had several vote our way but not a majority. I don’t think the guy presented it very well, maybe next year.
Work is very strange, I am grateful for the work and I worked five of the six days this week but the store just isn’t the same as the other stores I have worked at in the past; no life, no energy, no enjoyment. It is surprising how much backbiting there is for a bunch of LDS people. I’m telling you I really sense that the spirit is gradually pulling away from our country and people everywhere are becoming more and more contentious, grumpy, hopeless and withdrawn. I wonder how bad it is going to get before people wake up to there situation – if they ever do. We will either become like the people of Melchizedek or the people of Mormon, our choice.
Tami’s adopted mom called Friday morning to tell us that Tami’s brother, Cal, died. He has hardly kept in touch with us for several years and I sensed that he wasn’t doing very well. She said he had been on a lot of pain killers and finally just gave out. Tami was at work and I debated as to whether to call her or wait. I realized she would want to know so I called her. She took it pretty hard and couldn’t work very well so they sent her home. Now we have to wonder what they are going to do about a funeral and such… they are hard to predict that group.
Saturday morning most of us happened to be available (usually all of us work on Saturday and at least one in the morning) so we (Tami, Michelle, Jennifer and myself – Brian went last night with a date and had school Saturday morning) decided to go to the Christmas Tree Festival since we haven’t been for years. We had a nice walk through with the two girls on each of my arms singing songs or taking pictures of cool trees. We of course had to get a scone and a sweet roll to share. We finished a quick walk through before all of us had to work that evening.
I taught the genealogy class on Sunday and then went around to member’s houses after church for two and a half hours helping them get started on genealogy. People seem to be catching on to the emphasis the church leaders are putting on temple work, genealogy and family history. When Brian got home from church we all headed for grandpa and grandma’s for dinner and a nice visit. I decided that since I had taught everyone in class how to record someone’s personal history or get genealogy from them somehow I had better try to do what I was teaching. My mom has always avoided being recorded but we finally talked her into telling about her life history on camera. It turned out well and I even learned a few things about her that I didn’t know. We did that for about an hour then we all settled in to watch the First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional while we ate ice-cream and cake. We finally left at 9 so we could get kids to bed for school in the morning. The roads were a bit slick on the way home as snow had been coming down off and on all day but wasn’t very deep yet. It’s supposed to linger for a few days, we’ll see if we get anything worthwhile (at least more than an inch or two).
Well, that’s our week, hope yours was fantabulous.
Ken and clan
From Elder Fortie:
Amazing is the Lord, truly amazing. I had one of the worst weeks of my mission. I had much of my week booked with firesides and meetings, and had little time to work. Then when the little time I had left to work came, missionaries made foolish mistakes and I was sent to resolve them. Sisters (that were really just fine at home in their apartments, but forgot to turn their phones on, because all sisters are required to call in every night to their district leaders to confirm that they are safe and home.) in Oakland not calling in and their district leader calls me at 10:40 at night to tell me his sisters are missing, and me at 11:00 at night out in down town Oakland in the rain looking for the missing sisters who were home happily in bed. Elders causing problems that I am sent to fix that took 2 days for me and the president to resolve etc. etc. Come Friday, I had only taught 2 lessons all week, neither of them very successful, I was frustrated, burnt out, stressed, upset at many missionaries because of their negligence that caused so many problems for me, I was down because all the goals we'd set were looking impossible, and I was sick of doing a thankless job that I felt was nothing but babysitting. Then Saturday night, when I was just about to start biting people, after I had had NO time ALL week to work in my area, and I felt like my area was abandoned and that I had done nothing with it, we only had 4 hours left in the night, and Sunday I had meetings all day, so this was all I had to make anything happen, and It looked hopeless. I said a prayer in my mind thinking "Lord, I know this is your work, and I feel bad, I feel as if I have had no time to really do my part. Yet I know, I have not wasted a minute, every moment I have had was hectically dedicated to doing everything that was demanded of me, but I want to do true missionary work, I want to know that my diligence isn't just to be a babysitter." I was at my wits end, I had worked my tail off all week doing my job as a mission leader and it had cost me all the time I had to serve the Lords children and I was so frustrated because of it. But the Lord knows his work, and he prepares it well. In those 4 hours, after that plea, our ward mission leader called us up and said I want to go out with you all night, lets go. over the course of the next 4 hours, with the Lord setting the way at every moment, and using us as his tools, we set 5 baptismal dates, taught 9 lessons, set up 2 weddings so investigators could get married so they could progress, found 3 new investigators, and ate pupusa's... (I think that was a heavenly mercy). I have NEVER in all my mission had that kind of success. By the end of that night I was driving home singing "All Creatures of our God and King" and the top of my lungs and in pure giddy amazed delight at the power of the Lord! It goes to show how much this work is about him. I did NOTHING for my area all week, and that night, when I was at rock bottom, he gave me the most powerful successful night of my mission! I am out of time, I have to go, but just so you all know I am doing FANTASTIC!!! I have never seen such blessings on my mission, and I realized even though all the things I was doing felt useless, that the Lord blesses us for our obedience, and he did work in my area all week, even if I did not. I love you all! Love, Elder Fortie.
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