January 4 - 10, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer
January 4 - 10, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
Happy 4th of January, oh wait, that’s not a holiday is it. That’s the one in July… now I remember (getting old and starting to forget things). So what is going on in January that is worthy of writing about? Our government is being taken over by Socialists but then you knew that. How to stop it I don’t know. Preach the gospel I guess. We have a generation that is willing to give up their freedoms to be taken care of. How do we convince them it isn’t worth it, time will tell (history has told us but not too many pay much attention to that). It appears the book of Revelation tells us of some dire consequences to the poor choices people are making right now but it is hard to get those who have been raised to be like cattle to think about stuff like that. Interesting time to be alive for sure.
On the lighter side, our entire family is going on a diet this week; too much Christmas candy I suppose (one can never tell). I had a couple of oranges for breakfast this morning (and no they were not those chocolate oranges that you slam down on the end to break them into slices (we finished those off)).
We went to see that show called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or something like that. It was at the $1.00 Theater on Monday night. We all enjoyed it.
The heater in the truck is starting to go out. Too bad it couldn’t have waited a month or two for warmer weather. Course with my luck it’ll start working again in July and we won’t be able to shut it off. Life’s crazy sometimes.
We have had a few leaks under the kitchen sink over the past little while that we have been trying to pinpoint. Well, it’s not hard now, it’s been a real rainstorm under there over the last few days. Grandpa came over with a few tools and we replaced the faucet with a new one Tami said she wanted for Christmas. It’s a real fancy one with a high neck (so’s we can get more dishes in the sink before we have to wash them to get to the faucet), also the end of the faucet comes off so you can spray all around the room if ya have a need to (for those family water fights in the kitchen). We even put in a soap dispenser in that 4th hole to the right (you know the one I’m talking about) that was meant for the sprayer. I’m telling you we are getting ta be as fancy as other city folks around these parts.
My genealogy class is getting pretty high tech on Sunday. We set up like 6 computers on a table so people could sign in to the New Family Search site and start doing their genealogy right during Sunday School. What next? Maybe I’ll give a prize to the first person who finds out if they are related to someone else in the ward (you know, like a 6th cousin twice removed or something).
I also taught the first lesson in the Gospel Principles book to the High Priests. It should have been like a 10 minutes lesson about our Heavenly Father so I studied a few other books about the general Christian beliefs of what God is like so it would last longer and I almost didn’t get the whole lesson in before time was up. As you can tell by this letter I do tend to ramble.
After church I was calling members of the ward to set up appointments for genealogy visits for next week when Nathan called. Everyone else was at meetings (Young Women’s Presidency for the girls (Jennifer was just called as the Beehive Pres.), Church for Brian, and Visiting Teaching for Tami) but they all gradually came home while I was on the phone with him so they all got to talk with him. It sounds like things are rather difficult where he is but he seems to be in tact and surviving. The bad guys are stepping up their efforts and that keeps Nathan busy. He says he has had some interesting situations that he will be able to tell about later (probably in 40 years or so). After talking with Nathan for quite a while we headed for grandpa and grandma’s for dinner and games. The dinner was great and I won the golf game afterwards so I was having a fine day. We also had like the biggest pieces of chocolate cake I have ever seen (Alicia’s famous cake). She cut them extra big and we couldn’t resist eating them as she cut them. Guess it was because we were starting a diet and we had to get our last big dessert in before evil diet Monday came around. Funny how good desserts taste when you are about to stop eating them. They can sure make it hard to go on a diet sometimes; life is indeed difficult here in America (j/k).
I started the Book of Mormon this week and noticed right in the first chapter that both Nephi and Lehi talk about hard lives yet immediately say how merciful the Lord is. Guess there is a lesson somewhere in there. Nephi says he has seen many afflictions in his days yet he is highly favored of the Lord. Not many of us connect those two. Then Lehi says he sees a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem and how the people are going to be killed with swards or taken captive and then goes on and on about the Lord’s love and mercy. That seems to be good news for those of us who don’t really deserve much love and mercy yet the Lord seems to be happy to give it out in abundance. I’d like to be like that.
Well, that’s it from our house (with a new faucet). Keep moping up after the leaks.
Ken and clan



From Elder Fortie:
The fight goes on! I'm still going... I'm tired, I'm smudged and dirty. But I live on! Man alive they are trying to burn me out here. Transfers came, and I'm staying again. That means I will stay Zone leader over the largest zone in the mission, in the largest mission in the world, for at least 1/3 of my mission... longer then any one else I know of. Usually they give us a break from being in charge of this place for too long because it's a really high stress, burn out job with a lot of junk to deal with. And yet... they have left me here to run myself into the ground... I don't think they like me very much... they're trying to short circuit what's left of my feeble mind... Sigh. Oh well, I'll go till the spark plugs stop sparkin. I don't mind too much. It's got its ups and downs. I just need to do a better job at remembering the up's more than the downs I suppose.
But anyhow, things are going well, the work is moving forward, I'm not sure how but it is. I don't think I'm doing it, the Lord must send some gnomes in by night to get it done. Honestly I feel like this is the least productive and least effective time of my mission, and yet I'm seeing more success then I've ever seen before. Someone explain that equation to me... Or maybe you shouldn't that would confuse me more.
Well the guy we baptized last Sunday got confirmed this Sunday, but before he'd even gotten confirmed, I took him with me to an appointment on Wednesday. I had another member lined up to go with us, but he canceled on me like an hour before the lesson, I went into panic trying to find someone to help us out but no one could do it. Finally with like 25 minutes till the appointment I was driving by his house and just thought, why not. I knocked on his door, he opened it up and said "come on in (all in Spanish of course) I just walked in from work and was about to shower but I'd love to have you teach me." I said I actually didn't come to teach you tonight, I came to ask if you could do me a favor, I need your help... then proceeded to tell him about the appointment and the other member falling through. He just looked at me and said "I'll jump in the shower right now! We better hurry!" I said are you sure you can? He turned and looked at me and said "Elder, when I got baptized I promised I would take the Savior's name upon me and represent him and serve others. I have to go, it's my duty." Then he ran off to jump in the shower. 15 minutes later he was standing in his suit at the door ready to go, as we were walking out he pointed at the wall and said did you notice that? I looked and he had framed his baptismal program and hung it on his wall... I could not believe this man. Then we ran to the appointment. He tore it up in there, teaching them all about how he had changed and the church had saved him and if it wasn't for the church he would probably be dead or living under a freeway overpass by now (this is the former drug Lord and gang member turned father dreaming of the day when he can give a Melchizedek priesthood blessing.) and how they needed to do what he did and he would be by the next day to see them (without me, he just was going to go visit them) and would pick them up for church if they wanted. He is amazing, he is telling every thing that breathes that he is speaking in a fireside, just 2 weeks after his confirmation, about his conversion story and he is planning on inviting everyone in the chapel to be baptized during his talk. The man is exploding with conversion, and now wants the rest of the world to do the same. I can't believe him he is amazing. Anyhow, I gots to get running. Be good, be smart, and be happy. Good luck!!!Love, Elder Fortie