Seamons Scrolls from Sept. 22, 2013

Dear Joe

We won! 30-13! It was a really good game. I had a lot of good blocks and good tackles. Their running back was huge. He was at least 10 pounds more than me and probably was 1 pound under the weight limit. Plus he was black. I still stopped him. It was really cool playing under the lights. So yeah our teams in shape now and there is nothing from stopping us from the dome. I didn’t really run much during the game. Only about 3 or 4 times. That’s probably because I was blocking so well and we did a lot more passing so I caught one for about ten yards. But there RB was huge. I bet he was over. They also had a little fast receiver that probably gained 90% of their total yards. It was really fun playing LB. So other than school that’s my week besides practice, Church, and mowing Brother Wilcox’s lawn. Have fun. Good luck. Ben

Dear Joe

I am going to orchestra on Tuesday and Thursday I’m not sure I like it because Miss Durant yells a lot. I played soccer on Saturday. My team did really good. I play Defender a lot but sometimes I play forward or midfield we lost. The goalie was kind of slow we read about Jacob and sherem this week. I love you. Love Jonathan

Dear Joe,

How’s it going in Germany? We played the Best team called, Ruckus. We were doing really well in the 1^st half of the game. And then in the second half I don’t know what happened to the defense it’s like they just gave up so my coach got really mad so Romeo (Roe-moe-n ) and I got put in the defense ( We were Defensive Mids. ) I took the place of Joana who is the reason of all their goals and he just says ’’It’s just a game.’’ I do not like I when people say ‘’It’s just a game.’’ So ya do you have any tips for me and my team? So see ya.

From,

David Seamons

Dear Joseph,

I guess we were wrong about Ben having more career points than Sam because the previous 2 seasons Sam was the PAT kicker and he put quite a few of them through the goal posts. So I think that it will take atleast 1 more and possibly 2 more touch downs for Ben to get ahead. The weather around here feels like it’s preparing to turn to Fall. There were a few patches of frost down the creek two days this week. The trees in the mountains haven’t really changed any color but as dry as the summer has been they might just turn brown then fall off. I saw president rounds this week at work he has a scar on the side of his head by his ear where the cut to remove the tumor from his head. He started chemo and radiation this week. He looked good but he said that it had made him really tired. Yet he seems to be taking it well and doing well so we have been asked to remember him in our prayers. Take care, love,dad.

Dear Elder Joe,

Well It was our bye week his week so not a lot happened this week except for practice and lots of it. Since it was our bye week this weekend I went up to Bob Firman Invitational and I thought I should have done better than I did. I did improve by about 20 seconds but The course was way easier than Soda’s was but I have been sick all week and my nose kept clogging up and on Monday I got hit in the back of the shins and whenever I ran it would throb like crazy, I thought it would be good by the meet but no it throbbed the whole time and my other leg started to hurt to. We play Blackfoot this week so got to do good and pickup another win or I don’t know what we’ll do. Well hope your week was better than mine because it sucked and I still fill sick (Everybody on the football team is sick right not) and there is a 9^th grader on the XC team who is a little version of Ryden because he ran as fast as the fastest kid on the Varsity team (Kaden Shumway, Kendon won’t be back until districts) and he hasn’t even ran at all this summer he got a 18:24 which is what I would like to ideal get this year by districts but if not I’ll still have a lot more endurance than the other wrestlers especially those around my weight so it will turn out good in the end. Keep doing good on your mission.

Samuel

Dear Joseph,

How has your week been? It seems like they are flying by for us. Some new things that got added in this week were Samuel’s bass lessons. He’s needing some help in getting ready for All State auditions at the end of the month. Since he didn’t have lessons all summer, the lesson was spent getting back to basics----metronome, slow, intonation practice, etc. I hope that he will implement these suggestions, because right now he is fast and flying through everything with not a lot of accuracy and intonation issues. Anyway, always good to get back to lessons. Ben had lessons in Rexburg this week too, so I noticed that on Friday I filled up my car, drove everyone where they needed to go---back and forth to town a couple of times and then drove to Rexburg and was totally empty by Pocatello---395 miles and then 108 more by today. Seems kind of ridiculous, but I’m not really sure of what to do about it. Fortunately Sam had a bye this week, so we didn’t go to games and couldn’t get to Boise to the cross country meet, which was sad not to see Sam run, but nice for us not to have to have football games in the middle of that, too. I didn’t get to see David’s game on Saturday, but I saw part of the game on Tuesday (comp) and I thought David was doing pretty well. It was 5-2 at the half, but then ended up being 10-2---kinda sad for him. It’s hard for me to sit and get the continuity of the game, since Jacob is not too keen on holding still! The comp team is supposed to be going up against a Tremonton team that’s not quite as high level as the other teams they’ve been playing so maybe the score won’t be so discouraging. I’m not sure whether I should leave him on this team next year and hope they get better or look for a different team. I subbed on Monday for Alice King in an EMT class and talked to Michael Winward, who’s on the soccer team and he said they weren’t doing very well this year---about equal on wins and losses. He seemed kind of discouraged. Eli was homecoming king---I thought that was kind of funny and Colby Hendrickson was one of the princes? Not sure. Anyway, I hope that the team does better. I told Michael that you would probably yell at them if they didn’t do better---they were playing Century this week, but I didn’t hear how it turned out.

Ben did well at his game and they seemed to gain a lot of confidence from that win. They played really well in the first half and Ben blocked really well, opening up holes for the running backs. He wasn’t able to catch very well himself---not sure why, just kind of off that night, but I think he was happy with the way that his team worked better together. I’m not sure of how good a team the Raiders were, but Preston pretty much dominated in that game. It was nice for someone in this house to get a win! Yey! It was a fun night. I didn’t get to see Jonathan’s game either, because I was in Rexburg with Ben, but I guess it didn’t go very well from what he said. I hope all these game losses will build character, or something like that.

Today the Bishopric spoke on preparing for Conference. Br. Beardall talked about what Elder Porter taught the youth last week (we thought it was only the presidencies that were supposed to go to last week’s Stake Conference meeting, but apparently it was for all the youth, so Ben and Sam missed out!). I guess Elder Porter said that the youth should be reading the book of Mormon twice every year from the time they are 12 to the time they are 18---hmm, I guess that’s 12 times! I have to say, I’m not even sure I’ve made it through it half that many times, so I have some work to do and so does everyone else in this house!

Br. Christensen talked about how we can receive personal revelation during conference, even when a talk isn’t on the subject we need the revelation for. If we are preparing ourselves to hear the word, we will hear the things that we need to for our lives. He bore testimony of such experiences that he has had. Bishop talked about really knowing what the prophet is revealing to us in our day. He gave the example of a member talking to a non-member and explaining that in our church we have a prophet that receives revelation for us in our day. When the non-member asked the member excitedly what the prophet had recently revealed, the member was stumped and couldn’t think of a reply and the non-member was quite disappointed that the member wasn’t able to give any examples of modern day revelation by a living prophet. He also counseled us strongly that we need to get on the technological bandwagon and take advantage of having all the church resources at our finger tips. Well, I was trying to take advantage of this this morning when I was substitute teaching Ben’s class and had my notes and scriptures on my Kindle, only to have it come up missing minutes before church started. No one has a clue of where it is! So, I struggled through without any technological help! I am thinking that I will ground everyone from their games until someone ‘remembers’ what they’ve done with my Kindle. As I was teaching the Sunday school class and about half the kids had he scriptures on their phone or device, I couldn’t decide if I’m as forward thinking as the apostles and prophets, because I am worried about what’s on their devices, and I think they are distracting sometimes when you are trying to teach and you’re not sure what the kids are looking at---maybe it’s scriptures, maybe not. Anyway, like I said last week, I’m not sure I’m on the bandwagon of having kids govern themselves and giving them suggestions---I guess it’s just the power monger in me! It is so much easier to use a device to look up scriptures, etc., but there’s also something about holding your scriptures and Ensign in your hand and leafing through them and finding what you need. I guess It’s just my middle age inabilities that are speaking out here! We have survived without internet for at least 6 months now, but it isn’t very convenient, and I’m not sure if I’m closer to a solution. However, I know that the technology we are blessed with today is to help us help our dead and forward the missionary work. So…..I guess we will figure out how that works for us!

The lesson I gave was on how keeping the commandments helps us live and understand the gospel better. The video we watched was of Daniel and his friends when they were in King Nebekenezzar’s court (spelling!) and asked if they could keep their covenants by not eating meat and wine and then by keeping this covenant they were given power to interpret the King’s dream. I thought it was interesting in the video that it kind of ends abruptly and doesn’t include what the interpretation of the dream was and the kids were kind of upset about that and I was thinking that it didn’t really matter what the interpretation of the dream was for the King, because the King was probably just given the dream so that Daniel could interpret it and the Lord could show forth his power in his righteous servants. Anyway, I was thinking that could be a lot of how life is----sometimes we are experiences we are given may not be for ourselves, but may be for the benefit of others and to show forth the power of God---which in a way, is like baring your testimony. I also shared Helaman 10 with them, because I remembered that you suggested reading it a couple of letters ago, and I thought it was so powerful and a great example of the power Nephi received because of his obedience.

Did you get our package yet? If you did, remember, you CAN’T OPEN IT UNTIL YOU’RE BIRTHDAY!!!! No cheating! I wish we could talk to you on your birthday, but hopefully you will have a great day as a 2 decade old dude (as Jonathan says!). We really hope that you enjoy playing the game we made you! It’s quite unique!

We pray for your investigators daily and hope they are making progress. I was thinking we could probably be more specific in our prayers, so I will look for any suggestions that you send. Did I give you Sowensky’s address----I think sowensky.lumene@mylds.net. He sounds good! I hope that he enjoys the MTC and his mission.

Rico Crosland had his Eagle Court of Honor tonight—also David advanced to first class and Ben to Life—Samuel still needs to finish up his project and get 4 more merit badges before Eagle---they aren’t hard, camping, communications, and physical fitness (which should be a piece of cake for him!). He’s just hesitant to get it done, but hopefully, he will be motivated as it gets closer to Christmas and he wants to get his license! I’m hoping.

I think that is it for the week----more bus drama with Jacob, Jackie made some new rules for Jacob, we didn’t like them and complained and Kevin’s been driving the bus now, so it will be interesting to see what the resolution is tomorrow. I could have been a lot nicer and not lost it with her----I’ve tried to be friendly and get along better, but I think I shot it all out the window by losing my temper so badly at her last week. I need to figure out how to fix that!

Take care! I hope you are feeling good and feeling good about your work in Rosenheim! There was an interesting article in this months’ ensign about missionaries and realizing that when you set goals, even if the evidence shows otherwise, you show faith by going out every day and bearing your testimony and those that hear it and are meant to hear it will receive it---even though the numbers may not all line up like you’d hope they would! We love and pray for you and are grateful to have the bestest son in the world!

Hey, your German was great! Keep it up! Jonathan felt pretty special with a german message just for him!

Mom