One down and more to go.

Dad/Gramps had a colonoscopy this a.m. They found another polyp. They removed it surgically and we will have the biopsy report and see the doctor again on Monday afternoon. I guess he is just going to keep growing these things in his colon so he will be having the test every other year instead of one every ten years like the rest of folk do. Poor guy. Once every ten years is often enough to suffer. It is not the test; it is getting ready for the test.

We met with the eye surgeon yesterday. They are going to do his eyes one at a time. First they will take the cataract off the right eye. Then they will do a laser repair of the left eye. When he was 14 he scratched his eye with a knife when one that he was putting away popped up out of the drawer. He has had a scar since then. So that will be repaired and then, a few weeks later, they will remove the cataract from his left eye. Then he will be able to see again like a young man for the rest of his life. That is good news.

I am losing it. He will be healthy and I will be nuts or, at least, have no memory. I sent Erin a birthday card so it would be there on her birthday. I sent Kyle and Benjamin's birthday cards shortly thereafter. I sent Laurel's and Michael's cards the same time. The problem was that I didn't put the birthday money in Kyle's card. I haven't heard from Ben, since they can only communicate once a week, what I may have done to his. I also haven't heard from Erin or anyone else what I might or might not have done. I am not sending another card to anyone unless Dad/Gramps is here to watch me so that I will know what I have done. Two witnesses should be good. At least, I hope. I would say it was because I was getting old but I have always been this way. I have done this before, as you all know. But I think the cure is to have someone check up on me. Hopefully, I didn't put money in Laurel's card. That would be a shock for her. We just exchange cards, not money.

Melanie wrote: Any consolation...Howard usually has multiple polyps and has to have the procedure every three years. His mother died of colon/ liver cancer.

Myrna wrote: The doctor told us that as long as they get them small, they usually haven't developed into cancer yet. Is that what they tell Howard? Of course, he says, sometimes they do, so early detection is the name of the game.

Transfer 6-3 (Michael)

Mike's letter-of-the-week.  Enjoy, and have a great week yourselves.  :)  Amy

From: Michael Trauntvein [mailto:michael.trauntvein@myldsmail.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 6:11 PM
To: Amy Trauntvein; Cody Pickett; Camden Argyle; Eli Philpott; Ryan Johnson; nkleshinski@inbox.com; Todd Trauntvein; ryandalesmith@myldsmail.net
Subject: Transfer 6-3

Hi Everybody!

I have to apologize, I couldn't email you all yesterday because our P-day got switched to Tuesday this week so we could attend the temple today as well.  So here is what I have learned this week:

Today, we got the opportunity to attend the temple. It was a really great experience, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity. The temple is such a wonderful place, and I always feel so refreshed after going there. The L.A. temple is marvelous, as well. Something that really stuck out to me while I was there is listening to the Spirit. The temple is such a great place, partly because it's one of the few places in the world where you can go and disconnect yourself from all the worries of the world and all the "white noise" of life and just focus in on the Spirit and what He is trying to tell you if you will just listen. I think if we would all just sit back and listen to the Spirit once in a while, especially us as missionaries, we would find that God is so much more involved in our life than we think, that He really does care, and that He wants to talk to us just as He wants us to talk to Him; so that's something I'm going to do better from now on is listen to the Spirit.

I've also learned something very important about our Savior Jesus Christ.  We've all had bad days in this life, but no matter what, I'm sure that He officially had the worst day in history.  For Him, it started out fine, eating dinner with all His friends on a holiday, and then ended with Him suffering in body and in spirit (not for Himself because He was perfectly innocent, but for each of us because we have all sinned), bleeding from every pore, being betrayed by one of His closest friends into the hands of murderers and sinners for the price of a slave, being beaten, spat upon, mocked, and falsely accused under spurious charges, then led to Golgotha and crucified, where he yet suffered and was forsaken by His very own Father in His final moments so the finality of the Atonement could be carried out, after which, He willingly gave up the ghost.  Yet He forgave all of them.  That is the amazing part.  I don't know if I could ever do that: that is what makes the Christ so divine and an example for all.

I know these things are true.  I know them with all my heart.  Christ exists and He loves each and every one of us.  We can become like Him; all it takes is one feeble step after another down the same path that He trod.  I testify in His Holy Name, Amen.

Love,

Elder Michael Trauntvein

Work in Progress--add to it please.

• I have been thinking that this was a good idea but I am having trouble with dates. Please add anything that you think might help with this. The very preliminary beginning of a rough draft history is below.

My Grandmother Smith was a graduate of Brigham Young University, first with a normal certificate, which certified her to teach school. Later, she returned to the Y and received her B.S. degree. Some of the stories she told about those days when she was at the Y should be preserved. I am likely the only person still alive who remembers some of those great stories. Although a do have a couple of cousins, Toni Jackson and David Childs, who might remember some of it. 

Her family lived next door to the Woman’s Gym, still standing in Provo. Now it is a boutique. Back then it was the scene of many of my grandmother’s favorite days. She was active in women’s basketball, gymnasium and dance. In fact, she was one of the first women to receive a Block Y for her athletic skills.

The two-story frame house, where the family lived, was not demolished until the 1990s when it was replaced with an apartment complex. Oddly, though Grandmother visited me in Provo when we were students at BYU (my husband graduated in 1966) and though she herself attended the university as a mature student in the 1950s, none of us ever stopped to take a photo. An then, as with many good things, it was gone.

Accodring to “Wikipedia,” the free encyclopedia, concerning the history of BYU, “In 1903, Brigham Young Academy was dissolved, and was replaced by two institutions: Brigham Young High School, and Brigham Young University. (The BY High School class of 1907 was ultimately responsible for the famous giant "Y" that is to this day embedded on a mountain near campus. The Board elected George H. Brimhall as the new President of BYU. He had not received a high school education until he was forty. Nevertheless, he was an excellent orator and organizer. Under his tenure in 1904 the new Brigham Young University bought 17 acres of land from Provo called ‘Temple Hill.’ After some controversy among locals over BYU's purchase of this property, construction began in 1909 on the first building on the current campus, the Karl G. Maeser Memorial. . .”

This history, of course, pre-dated Grandmother’s attendance at the school. When she went there, it was a university and she was educated well. She became a teacher and was employed as such. Her earnings also helped her sister receive an education. Jessie became a secretary. Grandmother said, years later, that she wondered at the wisdom of the family decision to train one as a teacher and not the other. “I think that Jessie had the personality to be an excellent teacher.”

Jessie, however, was a person who liked to have a bit of fun. In fact, one story concerning the Woman’s Gym had to do more with her father and younger sister, Jessie, than with her. Jessie liked to dance. In those days it was forbidden for those attending dances at the gymnasium to do the fox trot. It was considered a bit risque at the time. However, Jessie liked to tease and she and her dance partner would got to the far corner of the gym. There they would do a few fox trot steps and then move back into the more sedate waltz. However, little did Jessie know that her father, John Pritchett, gazing from the upper window of his home next door observed her shenanigans. When she got home that evening, she was in deep trouble with her father.

My great-grandmother, Mina Ericksen Pritchett, provided food for boarding students at the Y. I have no idea what the cost for a good hearty supper may have been but it must have been very reasonable because she fed quite a few boarders. Those were happy days for the family. Mina was a good cook and had been trained in fixing big meals at good prices by her mother-in-law when the family lived in Mount Pleasant. After Levi Franklin Pritchett, John’s father, died at a young age, his wife, Sarah Ellen Bean, took in borders to pay for her living expenses. Even after she remarried, she kept up the work. Mina, when she married into the family, helped with the cooking and cleaning. Mina did that until she and her husband, John, decided to move to Provo. John had worked for Mina’s relatives, the Ericksens, who ran a pharmacy in Mount Pleasant. It was decided that they would move to Provo, Vivian, my grandmother, and Jessie, her sister, would attend the Y. John would train as a pharmacist with another relative, who owned Mabin Drug. There were also two boys in the family but they were younger.