March 22 - 28, 2010

Fortie Family Flyer
March 22 – 28, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, the big news this week is that we got a call from Nathan from his apartment near Fort Lewis in Washington. That’s right, last week he called us from Afghanistan and this week from Washington. He has finished up his last tour of duty and will spend his last few months in the army there. Then he and Paige will be heading for Texas (back to her house that she has been renting out while they were in Washington). Nathan will be heading to school there and the Army will be glad to pay for it because of his tremendous service. He had some rather hair raising experiences on this last trip but our prayers were answered and he was rather miraculously saved to be able to come home to see his wife and soon to be born baby. He will be able to tell us about those experiences in 25 years so remind him when you see him in 25 years that you want to hear about some of his interesting stories from Afghanistan and Iraq. Hopefully he will still remember them.
Well, the other fun news for this week is Michelle and Jennifer’s trip to Disneyland and Sea World. It was rather quiet around here with them gone the whole week. In fact I’d be willing to bet that even their teachers at school thought it was rather quiet without them. Well, we missed them but they seemed to have a lot of fun and I will let them tell you all about it once they get their school work caught up and they come back down to earth. At least they don’t have to wait 25 years before they tell about their trip (although if I don’t remind them several times to write it down they may take 25 years to do it). I think Michelle was most excited that she got a tan in March (crazy teenagers).
Actually I think Chad leads an interesting and somewhat dangerous life teaching kids in middle school. He is doing very well and has had a very positive influence on those kids’ lives. They sure love him. We haven’t heard much from Chad and Alicia this week so I will have to catch you up on their stuff next week. Well, after those announcements of people coming and going the rest of what I have to say will be pretty boring so you are certainly welcome to skip down to the end if you are pressed for time. Brian is busy doing homework but he did have time to watch a Godzilla movie the other night (more crazy stuff from our house that we maybe shouldn’t be telling people about). Tami and I have just been working so no news there.
I did get a call from the census bureau about a job as a supervisor. I can’t afford not to take it so I will see if that works out for me. It will be over the next two months and it pays fairly well. Overall I think it will be a good experience. I’m not sure how Deseret Book will deal with it but I think they can work around it, we are not that busy.
Tami and I tried to go to a dollar movie on Friday night but it was sold out so we just ate at IHOP then came home.
I have had a very bad headache all week that has been very debilitating. I’m not sure what is going on there. I almost went in to the doctor but thought I would experiment with a few things first. I fasted for a few days which seemed to help. I don’t know if it is some kind of food allergy or what. At work Saturday I started feeling some kind of bug slowly creeping up on me. You know, sore throat, runny nose, etc. as the day went on. I finally came home and took a nap then called to let people know I didn’t think I would be at church to teach my genealogy class. Instead of having someone sub for me they just decided to postpone it until next week.
Sunday Tami went to church without me and I read, did a little genealogy, watched church on KBYU and slept; all this with lots of tissues nearby. We were going to go to grandpa and grandma’s to eat but with me being sick and the girls gone it was cancelled. Finally, at 10:00 Sunday night Tami drove the car and I drove Arnold’s truck and we headed for the airport. We picked up the rather excited crowd and headed home. We then spent more than an hour hearing about all the fun stuff the girls did in California and I finally got them to go to bed at about 1:00 in the morning. There is going to be two tired girls at school on Monday.
Well, that is it from our house. So many comings and going it is hard to keep track of who is where. At least Jason stayed where he is at this week (I think). Keep your helmet on and keep your head down.
Ken and clan


From Elder Fortie:
Okay so this past week we got 9 people at church which was really exciting. We had a lot of our members help us out with appointments and a lot of them are getting really excited. We have this one lady that just loves what we have done for her, we have been teaching her for about two weeks and she just rants and raves about how we have changed her life and how much we have touched her heart. It's really cool. Being a missionary is just awesome! In case you were wondering. The baptism this past week was Blanca Montes, she is the daughter of one of the Elderly sisters of our ward that has been a member and for years has been praying that her daughter could join the church but the daughter worked on Sundays and could never really take the time to learn about the gospel, till one Sunday she had the day off and came to church on a fast Sunday, and her little old mother got up and in tears talked about how for years she has fasted and prayed that her daughter would come to church, and God has answered her prayers and how she knew God would provide a way for her to be baptized. The daughter in tears told her little old mother she would try to get work off. We found a member of the ward that worked for the same company, and was a supervisor, and had had to go through the same thing when they wanted her to work Sundays, but she had refused and they had let her have them off. She pulled some strings, and got work off for Blanca, and a few weeks later she was baptized. This work is the Lord’s, he moves it forward in his way, it's amazing, and I love being part of it.
Sorry to be brief again, but I have to run. I'm so glad to hear Nathan's home and safe, and that everything’s progressing well with the baby. Michelle and Jennifer, welcome back to the real world, try not to stay in Disneyland in your brain. Brian, good luck with school, and you too Chad and Alicia, seeing as Chad, you’re the one trying to control the Disneyland day dreamers such as Michelle and Jennifer. Keep on smiling!
Love, Elder Fortie