Building Bridges--Some of Howard Pitts' Construction Projects

Working on the Bridge

A 1949 Bridge Project

Building Bridges

Grandpa Pitts and Workers

Charlotte at Bridge Building Site

One of the Bridges Dad Built

Visiting the Bridge

Some of the Workers

Friends at Construction Site

At Construction Site

Some World War II Photos of Howard Thomas Pitts

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Navy Winter Uniform.

The Enola Gay seen through a cracked and battle-scarred windshield.

Dump trucks loading road base.

That same scarred windshield reveals a tank.

It was steamy and hot,

Winter Uniform in Price, UT

Summer Uniform--R&R Hawaii

Enola Gay

He Sometimes Watched Strafing 

Ruins

Always Building

Buddies

More Seabees

Getting Road Base

Ready for Battle

Building 

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Camouflaged 

Seabee Buddies

Seabees Built Airstrips for Bombers

Another Photo of Dad

More War Buddies

Fighting the Japanese

War Buddy

The Enola Gay, in another view.

Dad, his mom, Ruth Edwards Pitts and his father, Vivan Pitts 

Some Excitment

On Friday, you will have a new baby cousin. We are traveling the same day the baby is being born so we will be there after the fact. We really should leave for Colorado on Thursday. At any rate, it will be exciting to find out if it is a boy or a girl. We are praying that all goes well and that Kirsten and the baby will be healthy and well.

Little Jens laughs now and can roll over and can also grab things, like your plate when you are eating. We still can't tell if he is truly blond or if he has red in that blond hair. Maybe he will be like Grandpa and be a strawberry blond. He is such a good baby.

Rachel is taking Chinese at school. Grandpa asked her if she was learning to speak the language. She said she was not. So Grandpa made some Chinese-sounding noise and asked her what he said. She said, "I don't know. I told you that I can't understand Chinese." Grandpa laughed and said, "I can't understand it either."

Mary is now in the second grade and is very happy to be back in school. She has a Catholic teacher who wear a "real gold cross" around her neck. Christene is in half-day Kindergarten.

We have had some storms. I was quite happy that we seemed to be missing the copious amounts of rain the horrible storms in your home area have been experiencing and then Brother Ealey had to go and ask Heavenly Father to send us rain for our crops. It hasn't quit raining yet and it is a hard and driving rain.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the Virginia earthquake on the 23rd was half a mile deep and centered near Louisa, Va., about 40 miles northwest of Richmond. Shaking was felt at the White House and all over the East Coast, as far south as Chapel Hill, N.C. Parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were evacuated. I have a cousin, Caren, who lives in D.C. I sent the current joke: The Virginia earthquake was shown to have been caused by all the Founding Fathers rolling over in their graves at the same time. She did not like it and wrote me an email telling me that I should be more thoughtful than that. So I am busily repenting.

Fierce winds, pelting rains, and a storm surge barreled into Massachusetts yesterday as Hurricane Irene weakened into a tropical storm, not as ferocious as once feared but still powerful enough to uproot trees, snap power lines, and threaten dams. Almost 700,000 electric customers were in the dark last night, and roads big and small turned into ponds, forcing traffic to be diverted. Your mom and sister were without power and your mom said that some of your trees were damaged and lost big limbs. Some were uprooted but the house and all inside was fine. There are a lot of tree limbs to cut up, your mom said. Grandpa told your mom that she could probably rent an electric saw from the lumberyard. However, Jim just laughed. He said that the saws were likely already rented.

When your mom told me that your family was moving to Texas, I thought: "Oh, great, now I will worry about tornados!" Well, it seems that I should have worried about hurricanes before you get the house sold and move.

We had a returned missionary speak in our ward last Sunday. He had dengue infection while he was on his mission and thought that he was going to die. He became delirious with fever and his missionary companion gave him a blessing He came to, briefly, while his companion was blessing him and found three men, his comp and two others, dressed in suits. Two were assisting his comp with the blessing. He then faded away again. When he came to, he asked his comp how he had gotten other missionaries to come and help with the blessing. His comp said that he performed the blessing by himself. From that point on, however, the missionary started to feel much better.

Gramps and I continue to pray for you. We hope you soon feel well again. We have kept your name on the temple prayer roll. Your dad also taught us, while we were at your house, that we should be praying for your comp as well as you so we do that. We appreciate how hard you are working and the good you are trying to do. We do love you!!

Lightning causes power outage near Axtell

By Bruce Mehew
Published on August 29, 2011 at 10:19 AM
(AXTELL) – Lightning caused a power outage Friday afternoon affecting about 2600 Rocky Mountain Power customers in Sevier and Sanpete Counties. RMP Spokesperson Margaret Oler said lightning hit a transformer on a power pole about two miles south of Axtell at about 4 p.m., causing the pole to catch fire and knocked out power to the North Sevier and South Sanpete county areas. Oler said crews were able to re-route power and had service back up at about 5:30 p.m.. Crews replaced the burned transformer after switching the power.

Annette Morely: Thanks, Myrna for letting us know the official cause of our getting out of the temple early last Friday--Love, Annette

Myrna: It was exciting in the Special Dressing Room. Of course, you also had sisters doing initiatory work which also complicates the "leaving early" connotation.

I had to find an auxiliary electric plug in another area so that the poor bride could curl her hair because she had not done so before arriving. It was decided to let them use a sealing room where there was natural light. It was still sunny outside and so it was bright enough inside with the big windows to go ahead with the ceremony. Her mom then hung the hot curling iron up inside her locker area in the semi-dark dressing room. There was one small light that is run by the generator. In the excitement, I forgot to pin her card back on her wedding dress so she had to come back for it.

The second girl was told to come back the Saturday morning early to receive her endowments. Then she would still be in time for her wedding Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, the assistant matron came in and told me to pack her up because she was going out for photos and would not be able to get back in and so would need to change back into street clothes in the ancillary building. Her mom had hung the curling iron in a locker next to hers and I didn't notice it. The next day, when I arrived, the office sent me to find it so that we could mail it to her. I hope she had one to use for her reception which was held on Saturday.

So what did I learn? Do not get so excited that you forget to put the card back on the bride and always check all four lockers.

The temple presidency had been told that the power would be off for three to four hours and so made the decision to close early. The power came back on much before that but we were already in shut-down mode with Security already closing exits and etc.

Myrna: I hope that the riots soon settle down in England and don't start here, though they are predicted to do so. Are the horrible gang-related riots they are having in England close to any of Howard's family? And I hope you have seen the worst for this year! Are you faring well through all the storms, earthquakes, etc.?

Melanie: Howard's brother, Andrew lives near London, so yeah, he's near. Neil lives further north, so he's not. 

We were without power for about 21 hours. It has been restored, but the internet is still down.

We are doing okay. The power came on earlier. I have been outside with two men from church, and their chainsaws chopping up four trees and getting rid of the debris. We are finally done. The temperature outside was in the 70s, so it wasn't too hot. It's nice outside tonight. 

We are at an internet cafe for Mikaela's summer reading project and to see if Braden will email is while we are here.

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.
Melanie

Myrna: Thanks for putting my mind at ease. I have been worried and so has Dad. You certainly seem to attract bad weather and I have been in some of it with you. I just got Braden's letter at 8:25 p.m. here so you should also have it. I love you, both! We will keep praying.

Elder Bradon

I cannot believe how fast the weeks seem to fly by! I am absolutely amazed. I am approaching my 11 month mark (like 2 weeks away) and it seems like it was yesterday I went into the MTC! Where have the past 11 months gone? Truly interesting how time seems to fly by when one is truly focused on the eternal scheme of life and progress. There's my profound thought for the day, I'm done.

I have been so tired lately. I realized that it has a LOT to do with the amount of water I drink. The heat here is getting WORSE. I don't know how that it possible, nor why it happens, but it does. Semana Santa, the Holy Week, is coming, and supposedly that is the hottest week here in Nicaragua. We'll see how I handle it all.

Okay, now to get going...

Funny Experience:

SO this week my companion and I were walking to visit one of the families that we are teaching. We were walking to their house rather quickly to inform them that we would be arriving a little bit later that night with a member to talk to them and help teach them. We were on the road walking when we saw a bucket full of tar with rocks and stuff all over it. I thought nothing of it, as we see trash all over the place in the city, and so we kept walking. Soon enough, we walk up to a drunk man, also a very common occurrence here, but this one was different. This man looked crazed, there was something really wrong about his whole person. He got close to me, touched my shirt and name tag and told me that i had to give him 20 cordobas, i.e. 1 dollar. I told him no, and hit his hand off of me (mind you, he looked like Satan incarnate). He pestered my companion, so we decided to keep walking. We took about 5 steps and the man started to STONE my companion! I was absolutely amazed. He literally threw rocks at us and hit my companion. Well, our investigators came outside and started yelling, throwing rocks and sticks and saying mean things to this Satan man in Miskitu. He fled and we remained completely surprised.

We also witnessed the biggest guilt trip from the Aunt of one of our investigators when we asked her if he could get baptized. She went off on how he knew who he was, when and where he was baptized, but that he could make his own decision. Then, we went to go take him to church and he had "left with the pastor" of the Evangelical church. Apparently the Aunt didn't notice anything, she was too busy working inside the house that she didn't notice that anybody had come or gone. Lie #1. She then said that she didn't know why the pastor had come by to visit her nephew (question: how did she know that the pastor came to visit her nephew if she never saw either one?) and that maybe it was because he hadn't been to church in a while. Lie #2. She drove me nuts. So, actually being polite, I said thanks and left with my companion.

Quote of the Week:

"I told you that I was teaching a family in your area and that they were going to get baptized." Favorite line of the week.

"Do any of you have questions about the Priesthood?" -My companion asking a question to Melchizedek Priesthood holders. Silence. Then the response: "What's the Priesthood?" Classic.

Lesson Learned:

This week was full of lessons. Mainly I learned the following: never trust a missionary. They will do anything to baptize, they will do anything to be right, and they will not hesitate to be brutal about pretending to be honest. My companion and I have had some funny experiences with the missionaries in our zone this week. I find them funny and slightly frustrating at the same time, but this is a time of growth and learning, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I also learned that the reasons why I have dreams that I am at home. #1: I am afraid, deep down inside, of going home and being out of the expereinces here in the mission and having to deal with my own personal problems instead of the problems of others. #2: It's so that I can secretly escape my mission and do things i used to do like read books, watch movies with my family, go to church in a well-established area, being protected by the law, you name it. So keep comin dreams!

I love this place, the culture, the languages and the many opportunities that I have to become a better person and to work really hard. I love you all so very much and hope that you might find happiness and success this week in your lives.

Sincerely,

Elder B