"Well, I am certainly farther behind on these Thoughtlets than I have ever been before. It was hard to write about being laid off. It is harder to write around unresolved disagreements with those you love. I've spent a lot of time since the first week in October thinking and praying and pondering and reading and praying and fasting and putting names on temple prayer rolls and trying to understand how such unresolvable issues can come up between folks who I know love each other. I recall being told how the way we treat our parents is the way our children treat us. I certainly hope none of your children ever treat any of you like I treated my Mom, and in some few circumstances, my Dad. However, it certainly makes sense to me I need to learn how my parents felt about me leaving home and never returning for more than a visit. So maybe this is part of what is going on. Satan is real. I'm convinced this is part of what is going on, for there is nothing Satan wants more than to break down families. Pride is one of his main tools, and there is no question as to whether I am inflicted with a bad case of pride. The only question is whether it is terminal. It makes sense some of you have inherited this characteristic, for it is more an environment than a genetic characteristic.
However, after all of my spiritual struggles on getting ready to turn my notes on this week into a Thoughtlet, my thoughts are led to a scripture in Luke, specifically 16:13 which reads:
Of course the general meaning of the scripture is tied to God and mammon, and yet I have come to a conclusion there is a direct correlation to some children's relationship with two divorced parents, as well as to some children's relationships with parents and step-parents. However, it is completely accurate to use this scripture in relation to family relationships. Specifically because the scripture assumes a master servant relationship, which is not what parent children relationships should be. After all, you children could well be much older spiritually than either Andrea or I are. As children grow up, one of the big transitions which needs to happen for healthy relationships is for the relationships to become peer to peer, and never master to servant. The scriptures do teach us to "honor our parents that our days may be long in the land." However, honor does not mean have a master servant relationship. The scriptures also teach us to "serve those we love." Again this does not mean a master servant relationship. I do know that neither Andrea nor I want to have a master servant relationship. Not only because we know if there is one "master" there will be competition with other "masters," but specifically because we love each of the ten of you, and for those of you married your spouses, and want to be your friends, your peers, not your masters. Certainly relationships will always fall apart if outright lies are told regarding anyone's actions or reactions. Anyway, until we can be accepted as people, with all of the weaknesses this implies, it is pretty obvious we need to stay out of some of your lives and accept your treatment of us being like I treated my Mom. Oh well! Guess I've always had it coming to me, and I just was too proud to recognize it.
Let me list the upcoming Thoughtlets, so those interested are convinced I have taken notes on each week, my notes are up to date, and I will eventually get caught up in writing my weekly blog, hopefully sometime in 2008:
So as I count, I am 27 weeks behind. Over a half a year. Time when Matt was in Iraq, and I should have been sending him notes each week encouraging him to attend church, to read his scriptures, and to say his prayers. And there is nothing I can do to make up for the lost time, other than get over this hurtle, and then settle down and get caught up and keep caught up. There are so many things happening right now, it will be interesting next Fast Sunday, as I prepare to send another monthly letter to each of you, to see how well I have done in terms of getting caught up. Because of all that is going on, I don't expect much by May 4th (see ../0818.html).
Monday, October 1st started with the following e-mail from Marti Berryman:
There was also an e-mail confirmation interview of me submitted to CSEG received.
On Tuesday there was another e-mail from Marti Berryman relative to Landmark's Founder's Day (see 0745.html):
Then there was an invitation to attend CSM "Time-Lapse Seismic Consortium Meeting" in mid-November. This sounded very interesting to me. I ended up not going, and Andrea and I will be going to Colorado School of Mines next week to to the the semi-annual meeting that followed this mid-November meeting (see ../0815.html).
On Wednesday I wrote Jerry Schuster at the University of Utah to find out what the schedule is going to be for my presentation in Utah. He wrote right back and suggested 11:00 on Friday. I agreed, after talking to Andrea about it. There was a nice e-mail from Penny Coltran about the CSEG interview. It is nice to have fans, especially when one feels insecure, as I certainly do. I spent time talking to Donna Hannagan about setting up a Chase Merchant Account. Marc Roulston ended up talking me out of doing this, because he said we would really get hit hard by hackers if we are processing credit cards. I got my first official consulting job on Wednesday: Geokinetics wants me to help close receipt of payment from the Tarim and the Da Qing projects. This is for very limited money, and six months later Geokinetics is not much closer to receiving their money. I have made several calls and sent many, many, many e-mails to attempt to close this out. Oh well!
Andrea and I flew to Salt Lake on Wednesday night to participate in Andrea's 30 year missionary reunion. We drove to Prove and stayed with Randy and Katheryn.
Thursday morning we got up and drove up to go to to the Timpanogus Temple with missionaries from Andrea's mission. Of course, I did not know anyone but Andrea. I took a lot of photos. There was obviously a lot of love and important shared life experiences among these folks. It felt good to be there. At the same time, because of the issues surrounding President Belnap's being disfellowshipped, it was easy to feel like I was had been screwed out of this important part of the missionary experience. Oh well! They had brought names from Japan, and I did work for Okano Oaohuchi, who was born on 04 Oct 07. Andrea had a name from England, where I served my mission. So maybe being invited to attend Andrea's 30 year missionary reunion was how the Lord was making up for my mission having so many issues. The photos I took from Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are located at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/071004-06_Andreas_Missionary_Reunion. If any of you are more interested in the photos that the text version of my blog, and if you are tired of waiting for me to get caught up, realize I do move the photos over to the photo directory when I catch up my notes for the week. So it is pretty easy to stay ahead of my written words.
After the temple session and after lots of introductions and discussions we drove to downtown Salt Lake to have dinner with Rachel. We arrived in time to do a bit of looking at books in the Rare Book Section of Sam Wheller's Zion's Bookstore. There were several books of interest, and they were very expensive. We had our severance from Geokinetics, Andrea was glad I came with her, and I ended up buying a copy of "Hafens of Utah" for $175. It was inscribed by LeRoy Hafen, who put the book together. Pretty expensive, and yet it gives our family a copy of this interesting and important family record. We walked from the store over to the restaurant where we were to meet Rachel and her boyfriend Guy. We had a nice dinner. Rachel was overly impressed with the price I paid for the book. She looked good and seemed happy. We were careful in our conversations because both Andrea and I are becoming gun shy about things we didn't say and didn't mean. Both Andrea and I thought it was nice evening.
When we got back to Houston the following week, there was an e-mail which came on Thursday from Dr. Amos Nur at Stanford:
On Friday morning Andrea dropped me off at a park and ride in South Salt Lake, and I took The Ride to downtown and then up to the U. It was fun to walk across campus, to see how much the campus has changed since I went to work, and to contemplate all of the folks who have graduated from the U since I graduated in 1974. I gave a lecture at the University of Utah to Dr. Jerry Schuester's class. I talked about geopressure pods, and was basically setting a framework to be able to come back to the U and hire students if we get funded to do the exploration projects I have in my mind for DRC. One thing Jerry brought up is it might be possible for me to teach a 6 hours course at the U on 3 differeint Thursdays for $4,000. They have some 3-D data, and the course started on January 20th. The students were being taught to use Landmark workstations. Turns out it was a political move to keep Dr. Ray Levy from holding a stick over Jerry's head. They ended up not using me and using a Landmark guy from Utah who is also teaching at BYU. I can see his face, and can not remember his name right now. Andrea picked me up shortly after noon.
We drove up to Farmington, stopping to buy some Kentucky Fried Chicken. We were a little bit late getting to the park for the picnic, because of my morning lecture. If I thought there was a lot of love shared in greetings at the temple on Thursday, the greetings and hugs and stories at the park were phenomenal. This park was just down the street from where my cousin Debbie Woods lives. I did not distract Andrea from her 30 year missionary reunion to go see Debbie and her family. I enjoyed the chicken. Andrea enjoyed her friends and telling and listening to stories about her mission. She almost forgot the rebukes she received for inviting those she loves to attend this event with her. It was especially special to watch President Tanaka as he interacted with "his" missionaries.
After the park we drove to a stake center in the area. We were one of the first there. Andrea's friend Sharon and her husband arrived. I changed into a suit and tie. I think Andrea was pleased I didn't stay in my more leisure clothes. It was a very special evening and lasted until after midnight. I captured three comments on my swallows sheet, which summarized the evening:
There were introductions by everyone there. I found tears several times. There was a nice meal. There was a wonderful program, including a song written by missionaries that were there, and which became somewhat famous in Japan. There were individual and group photos. During the introductions, the drummer from Alan Peterson's group, Midlife Crisis, came over and reintroduced himself. He was there after Andrea and so she did not know him. Andrea had material for everyone to sign, and she is going to make a quilt for the Tanaka's to give to them at the next reunion, which will happen in Japan. There was light and spirit in the chapel and in cultural hall which was thick enough it could have been cut with a knife. Andrea's 30 year missionary reunion was a very special experience. I wish all 10 of you could have been there with us to experience this most special event.
Saturday morning I checked the e-mail using Randy and Katherine's computer. There was an e-mail from Jiafeng, stating he was on a trip until the 13th of October. There was also an e-mail from John Herrin who owns the property at 0 Deerwood Drive (see 0728.html through 0738.html):
Saturday morning we went to General Conference with Andrea's companion, Sister Sachiko Fujita Sota (Sota married name). She is a wonderful person. She described her 1 1/2 day honeymoon in Salt Lake City. My notes are sparse, and she told us this story a long time ago. What I remember was she was visiting the Visitor's Center on Temple Square. The missionary who baptized her happened to met her at Visitors Center, specifically because his baby needed to use toilet. Later they went to the Church Office building, and happened to meet President Kimball, who took them to his office. It was a story full of miracles. I do not think any clear thinking person could not see these experiences were absolutely beyond the possibility of being merely coincidences. Conference was nice. The Conference Center is really big, and sitting back right along the left hand wall, which I believe is the west side, helped show how big the building is and how many folks come to attend conference. This was the conference where President Hinkley "knighted" Elder Eyring as his new second counselor with his cane (see 
photo sent later by e-mail).
Saturday afternoon was the wedding of Kirsten Shirts to Patrick Svensson. It was a very nice service in a beautiful art museum in Provo (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/RandyShirtsFamily/071006_Kristen_Patrick_Svensen_wedding). There had been an untrue e-mail intended to hurt sent to Aunt Kathryn. There was an attempt to discuss this after the wedding was over, and it turned into the drama which has made this Thoughtlet so hard to write. Oh well! I will leave it at that for now. Yet if I am accused of offending by what I have written here, then in a later Thoughtlet I will publish the e-mail's that followed this interaction so everyone has all the data I have and can make up their own decisions.
Despite the stress and hurt and sorrow of the day, Andrea was the trooper she always is. We went to the family dinner in Heber, and I did not attempt to go to Priesthood Meeting. We ended up riding up the mountain with some relatives I did not know. They wanted to talk about the oil industry, and so we did. They asked a lot of questions, and so I told them about Peak Oil. They were quite interested, and the younger lady, about my age, who was driving the SUV, and who had a lot of make-up on, asked a lot of questions. At one point I told her that at the way things were going folks are going to have to make a choice on whether to have hydrocarbons to drive their automobiles or use it to make make-up. She immediately responded, "I'll walk 20 miles before I'll give up my make-up!" The comment helped both Andrea and I to not take our troubles and concerns so seriously. The dinner was nice. It was cold, and there was snow on the ground in Heber. I think everyone that came had a nice evening. Again it would have been wonderful to have had all 10 of you there with us. Oh well!
Sunday morning we got up and watched conference with Randy's family. Kathryn's Mom is living with them. She has Alzheimer's, and does not remember from moment to moment. She will be 100 in May of 2008. We watched here while Randy and Kathryn did some things they needed to. Then we drove to the Salt Lake airport and came back to Houston so Andrea could teach seminary on Monday morning. Kristy Crabtree and her son were on the same flight we were on. It was fun to recount to her about Andrea's 30 year missionary reunion."