to Hermana Patterson (Lexi), Love Liz

Feliz Navidad Hermana Patterson! 

I hope you are having a beautiful Christmas morning in Costa Rica! As I got your name last spring to be the one to do service for this Christmas, I knew it wouldn't be too difficult! A new missionary has lots of needs and wishes.

My first thought was that I should do something related to Lauren's Wedding. It was fast approaching and I knew it was probably weighing heavy on your heart that you couldn't be there, and probably Lauren's heart as well. But then I thought about how Christmas time was so far away from the time of the wedding and you would've probably gotten over it by then. Have you? Lets hope because I didn't do anything in that regard!

The next thing our readers might be thinking is that I probably committed to writing you a letter every week all year without missing a single beat....but you and I both know that didn't happen either :)

Something I did consider was to serve our local missionary effort a little better and have them over to dinner more often and try to give them names of someone they could teach. I know you would've loved that if you had someone who did the same to you where you are. But alas...that too did not get done.

Instead, I turned my thoughts to how I could be a better missionary myself. I did this in two different ways.

First of all, since the beginning of the year I've been trying to figure out what to do with David's blog and what is the point and purpose? Since we had finished his anniversary service project, I didn't know what to do with it. All I knew is that I didn't want to let it be lost in cyber space with no further benefit to anyone. As I thought and prayed about both service opportunities (David's blog and your Christmas gift) I realized I could try to merge the two together. And so I began changing the focus of the blog from our grief of David's loss into helping other people who have experienced similar devastating loss. I suddenly knew who my audience was. I was able to make new posts with them in mind. Members and non-members a like. I re-vamped the “suggested articles” section and added a “suggested books” area. A lot of this was done shortly after Ryan died. With everything so fresh on my mind and the Holy Spirit evident in that week – I used that strength to let the Lord guide me in what to do.

Now, almost every time I know someone on Facebook who has lost a loved one or expresses their grief in loss, I send them the link to the blog in hopes that they find help and peace. I feel like its a wonderful missionary tool to have people read about what we experienced and also read about what the prophets of today are saying about life after death. Lastly, just this week I added a new link at the top/left corner of the blog that says “What We Believe”. It provides a link to mormon.org with information on the Plan of Salvation. I'm hoping this will be informative to any non-LDS who want to know more about why we feel so strongly that we will see our loved ones again some day.

 The second effort I made with you in mind throughout the year was a tiny bit more “missionary-ish”. No, I didn't convert anyone. I never even told the full time missionaries about anyone. I just did what the prophets and apostles have been telling us to do – be a better friend and always be an example of Christ and testify as often as possible of my love for the Savior. Let me tell you about two of my friends who have been on my mind this year.

The first friend I'll tell you about is already a member. But she is not active. As much as I would LOVE for her to come back to the church, I know it's not my decision. Early in our friendship, she explained to me some of her reasons for drifting away, yet she still comes from time to time. So I asked her “Why don't you leave completely? What is it that keeps you lurking around?” I wasn't trying to convince her to do anything drastic about her membership, I was just wondering what was it that was keeping her from doing that. She said without hesitation “Even though I have my doubts about many things, the one thing I will always know and never deny is that Heavenly Father and Jesus love me. And I always feel that love when I do go to church.”

I was so touched by her sincerity. I knew then that if there was just ONE thing I could do for my friend, it would be to help her feel that love of her Father and Brother more often in her life. I don't try to push her or make an issue of the difference in our commitment to the gospel. Instead, we both embrace and respect each others lives.

My other friend is a wonderful person too. She is a non-denominational Christian. And let me tell you, this woman LOVES the Savior. I have never – NEVER – met anyone (even LDS) who bears her testimony more often and more sincerely than this gal. Our very first communication included her testimony of how much she loves the Lord. Ever since then, it is a constant thread in our communication.

 Again, I would LOVE to invite her to church and introduce the missionaries to her. Some day I do hope to do that. But I've learned (the hard way) that things like this are not on my time table. It is in the Lords time that something like this will happen. She already has a wonderful relationship with God and the Lord. It's not my place to tell her she is doing anything “wrong”. She is not. Instead, I hope to help her see that there is still more she doesn't know. I want her to know someday that our church doesn't want to take anything away from her that her current church is teaching her. Just that we have more to add.

In the meantime, I try to see her as often as possible. We go to lunch, we help each other with projects and we keep in touch through social media and texting. And without fail, every time we get together – we both bear our testimonies to each other. She usually is first to start.

So, dear Lexi – I hope you have felt served in these efforts. I'm sorry I haven't written you any letters or fed our local missionaries in a long time. I think about you often and read your blog posts. You are doing a fabulous job down there and our own little family feels the daily blessings of you serving where you are. Thanks for being a wonderful example to my children. You are a special person to us – and we are so glad you came to our family to live!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Liz

timberHeap

my service person was erik.

approximately one year ago erik gave me a call that has been a little bit life changing. he called me because i'm the resident family geek and he wanted some advice on a technical problem he was having.

"i've got netnanny installed on our PCs to help protect the family from undesirable internet content, but increasingly the kids are getting on the net with mobile devices. is there any way i could put a protection where the internet enters the home?", erik asked

"well, yeah," i replied," if it were me, i'd get a spare PC and install linux on it. i'd then explore several opensource packages and find the best one that does what i want it to do. you could then use IP tables in linux to forward all traffic to the different filtering mechanisms and then out to the internet."

as i was telling him this, i realized how ridiculous i sounded. while what i was suggesting was certainly doable, it wasn't even a simple task even for someone like me who is a pro with linux and opensource.

another option was to use any number of commercial products that have been built for small businesses and schools. but i advised that he likely would not find anything that was within a reasonable price range. since these solutions had been built for businesses and bureaucracies, they are usually very expensive (over $1000 for the software and another $600+ for a standalone computer) and difficult/confusing to administer (they come with full feature sets which increases the complexity and learning curve).

i basically sent him on his way without a good solution. but the idea just cultivated in the back of my brain.

i realized that there was a need for parents to have an affordable solution that was very easy to setup and administer.

so i decided to build one.

i had three goals for the project:

1. the total solution had to be under $100
2. the setup had to be under 1 minute.
3. administration had to be braindead simple

i finally got the time to kickstart the project when my wife left town one weekend to offer support to her cousin whose husband had died tragically.

i spent over 18 hours that saturday working on the project trying to see if i could create a solution with a small, underpowered computer that was no more powerful than a common smartphone.

when i got the prototype working and ran some stress tests, i realized the first goal was done. the less-than-100-dollar hardware i was running on was working spectacularly.

the next two goals required a lot of custom software development. this is the part of the project where i really needed erik's need to push me. the prototype i had was working fine for me and i was tech-saavy enough to administer it well enough, but i needed a push to write the code to make it braindead simple to setup and administer.

and thinking of erik and his family gave me that push. i kept thinking that even if it were only erik's family that benefited from this solution, then it would be worth the effort i put into it.

i called erik to tell him what i was working on. i had realized that the solution that was right for erik was also right for pretty much anyone else who desired to protect their family. my main goal is to give the tools that parents need to protect their homes and as such, i wondered if going a non-profit route would be advisable. after some discussion and thought, erik convinced me that i'd be able to help more people by making a successful commercial product. so i decided to do just that.

i had to push hard for timberHeap to be beta ready by thanksgiving, but i wanted erik to be able to take it with him after the holiday. i had some other last minute problems that almost destroyed the thanksgiving deadline, but i actually finished it up on the saturday after thanksgiving ready to give it to erik as he went home on sunday.

there's still a lot to do as i've come to some realizations about the real power of the device. the real power is not in the ability to filter undesirable content, but rather in the ability to report and identify all internet traffic that is coming into your home. i'm currently working on that.

thanks to erik for giving me the impetus to solve a difficult problem and the drive to continue with it esp. when it got hard. if the solution only helps his and my family, it will be well worth it, but if it goes on to help others, then so much the better.

Lydia

I love you Lydia! Merry Christmas!

I Hope They Call Me on a Mission, Merry Christmas Wes!

So, what do you do to show service that parallels the guy who serves everyone around him? …… I guess you can start by serving everyone around you?  Man Wes, you set the bar really high!

Well, showing how I served everyone around me seemed a little too vague and a little too daunting.  So, I started by serving the man himself.  Yes, Wes now has instructions on how to become the bionic man he has always longed to be- using his brand new, pain-free knees!  Alright, so that really is a gross exaggeration.  But the intent was there….

With Wes in mind, the real search was to find a genuine need that could only be filled if I chose to go above and beyond in the name of Wes.  I thought of his missionary service in Brazil.  With that in mind, Laura found a charity in Orem that collects soccer shoes for boys and girls in Brazil.  However, Brazilian charities apparently are very good at advertising, but not so good at returning phone calls.

So the search continued. 

The genuine need finally did present itself in the form of a young missionary from our former ward.  Although we do not attend there any more, we had heard about a family we knew from that ward that was going through a divorce.  It deeply pained me to learn that one of the young men I knew as his Bishop had managed to find himself being dragged through the divorce of his parents literally about a month before he left on his mission.  I had hoped to attend his farewell to see how he was doing, but I had just received a new calling in our current ward and had Sunday commitments that conflicted with the farewell. 

I called his Bishop (a good friend of mine) and tried to get an email address to possibly reach out and see how he was doing.  The Bishop agreed to look into it, but then never found an email address.

As tender mercies would have it, a few days later, I decided to make a quick stop at Costco in West Valley on the way home from working in Tooele.  I rarely get out of work that early in the day, and even more rare was to go to that particular store.  I simply needed to get some light bulbs that happened to only be on sale in Salt Lake Costco stores and this store was on my way at 1:00 pm in the afternoon.  While approaching the light bulb isle, I came across this same young man and his father.  He was getting ready to go the MTC the very next day.  In our brief conversation, I was not able to get his email address, nor discuss the family’s tragedy, but I offered him my email address and asked him to write if he found a free moment. 

A few weeks later....   from the missionary training center in Mexico, I received an email.  In it, I found a very faithful, but openly discouraged young man.  He knows the gospel is true and that the Lord loves him, but is trying to find a way to forget about problems back at home and make sense of a world that is now drastically different in every way (new situation with his family, new situation on a mission, learning a new and difficult language, teaching people in a totally different country, etc.).

Though I am not a good letter writer, nor do I have much free time on Sundays to write, I decided in honor of Wes to make this a commitment to this Elder in need.  Based on the circumstances of how the Lord helped me get in contact with this young man, my guess is that the Lord also approves of this service project. 

Thanks Wes for giving me the opportunity to open my eyes and look for the opportunity to fill a need in your honor!