I Am a Utah Man, Sir

October 12^th, 2015

Dear Elder Bailey,

We were so glad to hear that you had a good week.  Hopefully the ward will step up their efforts to help those kids come to Church more often.  That's how your dad got to go to Church throughout his youth.  He had a wonderful home teacher that made sure he had rides.  And how interesting that Elder Anderson related the story of your friend in his Conference Talk.  It will be good to reread that talk when it comes out in the Ensign next month.  General Conference was wonderful, but it seems so long ago now because last week was so incredibly busy.

One crazy thing that happened last week I think you will be able to relate to.  I looked at my email last Thursday and found out that we had to get to choir practice early so that we could get dressed in costume for something special that night.  So we quickly contacted everybody in the carpool so that we could meet up earlier.  When we got into the loft, we were told we had to quickly learn the University of Utah college fight song, "I Am a Utah Man..."  Already that rubbed the BYU Alumni the wrong way.  But we learned that ESPN was going to film us singing that song for the opening of their College Game Day show for Saturday that was broadcasting from Salt Lake City, well the U of U campus.  The Utes are ranked 5th in the country at 6-0 right now.  Anyway, the choir did their duty, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of some of us.  At the end of the filming session, Mack asked if anybody had known that song previously.  A handful of people raised their hands (Utes probably).  After that he asked if anybody had gone to BYU.  Then clearly three-fourths of the choir raised their hands.  He said, "Well, don't worry.  Your turn will come around again sometime.  It has happened before."  Fortunately both BYU and the U won their games over the weekend.

Though you might get a kick out of some of these photos.  Isabelle with a hole in her smile.  Unfortunately that hole will be there for a long time.  She shouldn't lose her top front teeth for another couple of years.

Here is Zakarian.  Almost one year old and already a hunk. I think he will be the tallest of our crop of One-Year Olds.  Hope he keeps his blue eyes.

Here is a shot of going over the Alpine Loop.  That is fresh snow up there.  You wouldn't know it was Fall from looking at the front of Timpanogogs.  It is just dull grey and brown.  But there is hope of getting more snow to dress it up this Winter.

Well, we hope you have another good week.  We are praying for you and your companions and your investigators.      Love you, Mom

---From Elder Bailey:

This week was slow but some cool stuff happened.  A girl that Elder Legrand and I reactivated received her endowment and that was really special.  Then Elder Legrand and I walked across the street from the Temple to the Shumway’s house and when we knocked on the door they said "we were just talking about you" and invited us in.  They fed us Bro. Shumway’s BBQ, and we had a grand old time waiting for our rides.  It felt good to be in the company of old friends and have good food.  Neither of us had eaten since breakfast and it was 8 pm.  Elder Legrand doesn't have much time left.  He goes home on December 30^th.  Before he goes to France he will go to Utah and visit with his sister for a week or 2.  He will be in Tooele and I want you to meet him if you can (or send Cami or Matthew or someone to meet him.  I will get you more info).

P.S. And Zak look’s exactly like Michael!