Williams Family Journal

Well brother your home!  Welcome back…I hope that your doing well!  Hopefully the only culture shock will be Jenny’s amazing cooking!

Chris

Hey robert how are you?? well we were all alittle slow. so if you see this check your e-amail if you can. melissa 

Lilac wood eh? Can you even buy that? I will do my best. And that is my favorite primary song of all time! It is awesome! I will definitely learn that one, and I am still looking for a cool arangement of kolab. I will do my best! And you, my friend, are awesome!

Jenny

Dear Robert,  I’m so sorry we missed you.  I hope that you still get on and write on the family site.  We put $200 in your account.  Happy Birthday!  That is for your birthday and for gifts to bring home.  Keep us posted.  Tell us more about the baptism? 

Mom

Well my week has been a good one.  That was cemented when I saw a Bridled Titmouse.  Well that didn’t happen in Las Vegas for sure.  I will guess tell you all now that I am in Phoenix.

We have had a good trip to Southern Arizona.  We decided to come down while we had a chance at all.  We might have a chance later and maybe not.  So we seized the day.  Carp in denim or something like that. 

We waved to Mexico for a minute or two and then headed on to the Mineers.  It was lots of fun. 

Robert I have to tell you that it was really nostalgic to go places that you went and see birds that you saw and maybe even actually the same birds.  It has been good but I knew January wouldn’t be birdy.  I have seen a good variety but not lots of numbers.  Coolest bird was a Bridled Titmouse.  For some reason for me that was the goal bird.  I had a good time with him.  Anyway.

I tell you what Robert my kids love hanging out with the Mineers.  Karen has this set of trains that Zach loves.   He sets up trains of like 10 trains and pulled them all over the house.  It has been lots of fun.  Andrea has been loving it here as well. Things are neat.

Tomarrow or I guess as you read this today, we are going to go hiking with Sam and Don.  We are going to do that one hike we did when we came to Arizona.  Maybe you didn’t do that one because you were pretty young then.  Anyway things are looking like a lot of fun. 

What else can I saw?  I mean say?  Arizona has been pretty sweet.  I think that we should come down here and do a bird bonanza together.  In a good bird time. 

Well that is all.  I hope you have a good time.  I will have pics for you next week.

I love you all.  From Phoenix!

I was just thinking that this exsperience (you reading my weekly update) would be much more satisfying, and entertaining if it was narated by my monotone voice! sorry about the imposibility? well this week sucked lets just leave it their and move on ok! hmm that leaves me with nothing to write? oh this could be interesting i rember somthing about squirls a few weeks ago that makes me wonder if i should ever be left alone i will have to move fast into the married catagory when i get home!

       so here are my thoughts on birds, this weeks special is the ruddy turnstone i cant remember if the ruddy part is correct? but the turnstone is! i have ticked about 15 others but that is the regular passer by’s i am afraid that i may already be in the slow time… well i will get to finish the year in america where the birds are more common so i will just enjoy my time here where they are more exotic!

             well each week i sit down to email wonder where the week went and then ponder about what to say, i always have so much i want to let out but it never seems to come in words so i am ushually very unsatisfied by the time my hour is up! to day i wanted to email a firend but turns out i dont have their email adress? well to bad i guess that is what happens when you delete all your emails after you read them? but look on the brite side that left more time for me to ramble on about things here were you all got to read!

              you know what have found out on my mission, that structure is key to progression, if you have structure you continue to refine it and improve it, if you have none you pass from day to day not knowing all that you are losing! the more structure we have the better every aspect of our lives can be! i have seen this with obedience the lord understood this eternal principle perfectly he new that structure would lead us home so he prepared a very stuctured plan for each of us, telling us down to the minuet what we need to do in this life to be most happy and to be prepared for eternal life with him, then he said you choose we get to decide if we want structure and the realated blessings or if we want out so called “freedom” where we just do and go where ever the wind blows… the fact is that the structure he gave us (commandments and gosepel and plan of salvation) is the key to freedom and our so called “freedom” is the beginning of enslavery! i pray that we will all choose the structured plan our father has prepared that is possible through following our example and savior!

               ok that is all i have

Elder williams 

So, this week was the end of term. I am kindof sad, but happy at the same time. I don’t have to go to my stupid geography class (my only class with only freshmen, and these are about the worst freshmen) and I will have psychology. I am sad becuase I am leaving ceramics. I think I will still go in and make stuff becuase the teacher made a soda kiln, and I want to try it out. her first time firing it will be this semester, so yeah. But, the last day was cool becuase we had guess demo doer person from somewhere in wyoming. At the end they gave out two t shirts, to advertize for their collage, but you had to answer a question. It was a super simple question, but no besides me knew the answer… that was sad…But it is a cool shirt. Anyways, have agood week robert. I love you.

Jen

Hey everyone, if you didn’t notice today is the twins birthday.  By the way, you guys are 24 years old now.  Wow that must be cool.  I remember when I was 24…I was married, and all that fun stuff…okay that was way below the belt! 

Sorry, I hope that you have a happy birthday!

Have a great Birthday!

Chris

Robert how was the week?  I have decided that this week I will blog only…cause that is what I am up to currently…we will see if time changes things.

So my wife has done a great job on making our family website pretty cool with tons of pictures we took over the holidays.  Sadly I didn’t have any from Melissa’s camera so they are mostly of her house.  That is okay though… Check it out here www.chrisandalison.name . 

Well we have had a great week.  We have only been home for 6 days and are already getting ready to go one yet another fun little trip.  It is to Southern Arizona.  We will leave thursday and come back on monday…That will be a lot of fun.  We are going cause we might not get to go later, and if we do go later we want to scout out the area for the best birding areas we can expect later.  Anyway, it will be cool.

I tell you I didn’t expect my kids to be so relieved when we got home from Provo.  Being away from their own home (well apartment) and routine is hard on them.  They are definetily happy to be back.  They miss their family though.  Did anyone tell you that over the holidays everyone at the roylances and our house got sick?  The only person that never really had anything was Andrea.  Go figure.  The one who gets held by all and would be the weakest against sickness.  Blows me away.  Anyway, she is doing well.  I think that Mom and myself maybe only felt quesy.  But out of about 32 people we hung out with over the break only 2 or three didn’t throw up.  Talk about a plague.  Oh man.

What else can I talk about…

so goals this year for me are to read the standard works.  All of them.  That one is pretty lofty for me.  I think I can do it.

I also want to reach 400 life birds.  I have about 350. 

I also want to get to 300 birds photographed.  Maybe 200 is all I will get cause I don’t even know where I am really.  My goal is to have a good enough body of work that I could do a sweet show.  So we will see how that goes.  To start this off I have already gotten some nice pictures of a Crissal Thrasher, and Northern Pintail.  Just two towards the goal but now only 98 or so to go.  Anyway.

I am doing my thesis proposal in a few days.  This is pretty big for my project, and if all goes well it will be a big step towards getting done sooner than later.  I am working long days to get everything in.  Maybe even longer than you.  This week for sure.  I will be doing about 17 or so hour days to get 50 hours in before we leave thursday.  My oh my.  That is what it will take to be a full time student and photographer.  That is the goal. 

Accomplishments last year for me are having a continual 4.0 in my masters work.  I am number one in the program.  That is kind of a warm fuzzy for me.  I am proud that for 3 semesters I have kept that up.  We will see what happens the last semester.  It will be the hardest. 

One last story, Zach is wearing some of his little kid glasses and so proud, but he has to point his nose up and note move his head or they will fall off.  It is funny to see him walk with them on.

I love you!  I hope all is well.

Update- i am in negril after three emergincy transfers i am settled down and wearing a helmet again… to bad i dont have a car? i would still wear a helmet in the car if that makes any difference. well negril is nice i just ride along the beach for 10 minuets every morning on the way to my area, not bad at all! we have a few good investigators so things are good i am just trying to figure out the area? i have 4 months left and alot to do so pray for me! well jenny you like stories? how about last night when i looked over my sholder and saw a car speeding towards me and my comp i jumped by reflex but did not even have time to yell at my comp befor the car hit is bike right out of his hands! (oh we were walking) it was crazy he littleraly came within inches of my comp and i! CRAZY STUFF lets see what else oh the other night we were walking down the street and a man yelled out to us “can you recive forgivness for murder?” we stoped and told him about it and shared a few scriptures, apparently he had his bar cleaned out got robbed blind but he knew who it was and wanted to kill him! i hope we talked it out of him but i have my doubts they were planning it that night? he did calm down a bit when we showed him some differnet angles to look at the situation. or how about 5 weeks ago when i got a call telling me you are moving in 2 hours then 1 and a half weeks ago a call telling me you have 2 hours ofter church to pack and then 3 days ago you are leaving early tomarrow morning… that is 3 moves and 4 areas in 6 weeks it was crappy! i am glad to be settled down now is a pretty awesome place! their are white people every where it is weird for me white people are to discusting (to bad i am one) oh i did see the first attractive white girl on mission today she was about a 5 on the 1-10 scale i dont know if i have just lost my taste or if jamaicans are really just better looking? i dont know all i know is wierd people are white and i am glad i get to teach my favorite people in the world JAMAICANS i am pretty shore the large majority of my friend in the pre earth life were jamaican! any way the gospel is true!

love ya

elder williams