cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Charles and Diane Cluff, and Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"I got a neat brief note from Darrell Krueger on Tuesday this week, he said: `Roice our Susan goes in the MTC Wednesday the 8th of January. She is on her way to Hamburg Germany.' That means Kendall, Susan, and Paul are in the missionary training center at the same time. Paul, please find a little bit of time getting to know Susan and Kendall. Aunt Sara told me tonight that our Uncle Ted is back from the Phillipines a little bit early with some heart problems. Said she went to visit him and he looked really good. He is home in Cedar from a visit to the LDS Hospital on the way home from the Phillipines. Uncle Willis and Aunt Shirley are working very hard to get Grandma Nelson's house finished up so they can move out of Uncle Ted and Aunt Vanna's house as soon as possible. Uncle Dick and Aunt Elaine have been back from the Phillipines for a few weeks now. We didn't get to see many relatives when we were in Cedar, but my thoughts were with them. Uncle Lloyd said in an e-mail they got their visa and are back `home' in Pakistan now.
As I contemplate all of this wonderful service going on all across the world by our close relatives all across the world, I realize how much folks care. I have been reading Jimmy Carter's new book `Living Faith,' and his discription of his mother going to India to help out as a nurse in her 70's for the Peace Corp reminded me of the above service that is being rendered by our family. It specifically reminded me of Grandma Hafen and her going to live with the Indian's to learn how to use roots to naturally die wool when she was about that same age. There is probably nothing exclusive about this service relative to our family, our faith, or our country. But it is exciting to think about the efforts of so many to help people of other cultures they don't even know and helping in ways they don't even know they will be using when they start out.
I have been thinking about the word `care' since about 2:30 this morning when one of you came in, and after a frank discussion about sneaking back out of the house, opened up to me about how I `only care about my name and my reputation and what people think of me, and don't really care about other individuals and their feelings!' It is true I am very proud of the name I have, of our heritage, and of the opportunities I have been given to serve. It is true I believe that the best way I can love you kids is to love your Mom, which I absolutely do. It is true I have `chased' her to the point she just wants to run away. It is true I have spent my emotional energy with your Mom (not necessarily effectively), particularly for the last five years, and have not spent enough time with you kids, getting to know you and your needs and wants as well as I should have done. I am doing a lot better, specifically as shown by the weekly dinners with Roice. I hope these thoughtlets open up some frank and useful communication between me and each of you over the coming decades and hopefully weeks. It is not true that I don't care about anyone else, and I am very sorry this impression has developed in the mind of at least one of you kids.
I remember when Aunt Sara and I were growing up how she felt our Dad was `a whimp' because of the abuse he took from Mom, and how hurt Dad was that he did not have a better relationship with his daughter before she got married. Then I think about the words my sister said to me on the phone just before we left for Utah a couple of weeks ago (some 25 years after the hurt feelings): `Dad was such an angel to put up with that for all of these years. I miss him so much.' I hope and I truly believe that over the coming days, weeks months, years, and decades you will each realize how much I care, and I will come to realize how much each of you also care. Thanks."