The Holiday Season

Kelly loves Christmas and wants to start celebrating as soon as Halloween is over. I also love Christmas, but it is still far from my favorite holiday (the 4th of July). The reasons I don't like Christmas are as follows.

1. Pressure of getting the "right" gift. I have so often heard that it is "the thought that counts" only to realize that this is in fact a bunch of BS and that the thought dwarfs in comparison to the gift itself. I understand that I, like many, have fallen victim to the commercialism of this day. When you combine this with my strong distaste for shopping in general I have my first case against the Holiday Season.

2. Christmas used to be a relaxing time of eating sweet treats, waiting for school to get out, and playing in the snow. Since becoming an adult, Christmas is hectic. You are trying to juggle family time and doing the appropriate activities for the season. This is all multiplied in my own life due to my work. People drink more milk and order more product in the winter months, almost 20% more. This is my money season and with the economy still on the rebound and with inevitable medical and tuition payments to be made I recognize that the additional earning potential of this season might be necessary during next summer. It is hard to have Christmas Cheer when this time of year is serious business for me.

3. Christmas in Idaho will never be Christmas on my mission. The two best Christmas' I have ever had were the two on my mission. They were the best because they were absent from the commercialism of the season and the true purpose of the Saviors birth was felt in its entirety as a missionary. Now that I am home for over 3 years from my mission I feel guilty around Christmas for my weak missionary efforts and how little I do to help those in need around me. Christmas on my mission was a time of sacrifice and personal growth, now it has become a time consumed by money (in addition to the unsatisfying growth around my waste that happens each year). It also makes me miss the people from my mission that have had an everlasting effect on my life. The Bradshaw, Parr, Stewart, Wickner, Thomas, and Downs families (just me name a few).

I recognize that all of my issues with Christmas are my own mental issues and how I perceive Christmas. I also recognize that they are solvable problems. Maybe this blog is the first step in me solving some of these issues. I have innumerable blessings to count from my religious beliefs and there affiliation with this season and I hope to make progress in moving Christmas up the list of my favorite Holiday's. For now I will do what I do best, work hard, stay busy, and eat bacon.

Defined

Definitions are a figment of our imagination, our minds can dilute any half truth or bull faced lie into a rock solid truth.

More than once in my life I have written a paper for school or a talk for church and have asked myself the question "what defines me as a person"? Pardon me while I overturn the table of logical thinking.

I refuse to accept that I am defined by my job, my education, my past mistakes, my past successes and my family.

Rather I DEFINE what it means to be a milkman, I DEFINE what it means to attend BYUI, I DEFINE what it means to be a father and husband. I DEFINE what it means to be LDS. I resolve to no longer allow the circumstances that come up in my life to dictate the person that I am. I chose to write my own dictionary, to escape the maze of mediocrity. The only question left to ask is .......................What word do I add to my vocabulary next?


Failure- Extinct as of September 29, 2009

100 BLOGS!

This is my one hundredth blog! Here are the pictures that I promised would come!


This is our house. After looking at over 40 homes, our awesome and very patient Realtor found this one for us. We financed using Idaho Housing and Finance and lets just say that like all government agencies, it came down to the wire! Lucky our mortgage officer was also amazing and we closed on the last day possible without an extension! We were one of the first to use the 8,000 dollar home buyer tax credit as collateral to finance a down payment, amazingly it all worked out and we even amended our taxes from this spring to get the credit early. We used it to pay off all of our debt (except the mortgage) and it feels great! (it also bought Kelly new glasses and me an XBOX! with the rest sitting in savings). I wish I had a before and after picture of the backyard! I have become a regular in the home and garden center at the Home Depot by our house. You can ask Kelly, I have worked very hard on our lawn and have made unbelievable progress in one summer. We had 7 stumps removed and I finally got around to planting grass 2 weeks ago in those spots that were torn up by the auger. I am amazed how green it looks on camera. I will post another picture in the future of the finished backyard.

This is the newest addition to our family, his name is Turdherder! He is a 1987 Honda with a leaky gasket seal, a gas tank that you cannot fill all the way or it sloshes out the loose cap when you turn too sharp. The throttle cable sticks making it so that I have cruise control all of the time. It was 600 bucks and is a great to and from work car for me. It has a future in a demolition derby, but only if Staci will be my co-pilot.Oh yeah! If you missed or forgot, we had a baby! He is a funny little guy, who is growing like crazy! He is very long and very skinny! We love him very much and will be so grateful when he finally finishes this round of teething. I wish we had a better camera, he has thin blonde hair that seems to float off of his head, he is a miniature version of Doctor Emmit Brown on Back To The Future.

May your spirit reside with .......

Kelly has pretty vivid nightmares, not often, but they do happen. Last night was one of those nights. When one of these nightmares occurs we generally say a prayer together to calm her down and then we can get back to sleep.

I am not a heavy sleeper and I struggle to fall asleep when it is light outside, so I take Advil PM to help me get to sleep. The only side effect that I have is that I have more vivid dreams, they are not scary but instead are weird.

So last night when Kelly had her nightmare, I offered to pray. Unbeknown est to me I fell asleep and back into my dream as I was praying. After a brief pause I said the following. "My your spirit reside with.... all those that are associated with the circus.....darn squirrels".

In my dream the elephant show at the circus was in the ring and they had gotten scared by the squirrels that had gotten loose and were running a muck at the circus.

A Small Piece of America.....

As we approach the Fourth of July I have been humbled by the recent string of celebrity deaths. I realize that many people die every day in odd situations and circumstances and that just because someone is a celebrity should not give them priority over anyone else that has passed away in the last seven days.

A part of me is sad because part of American culture is gone. It might be said that the people that have passed away this week were not perfect people, but no one is. This all hit me today as I heard about the passing of Billy Mays. My wife and I have been loving the Discovery channel show about him and Anthony Sullivan. The show was not only entertaining, but eye opening. Billy was a man of the people, but was a family man first. He was not perfect, but was trying to be better. You could see this effort to be better on the show.

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcet, Billy Mays and Ed Mcmahon were all people that helped to define what is best American culture and the way of live. Some of us make music, some of us model clothes and are advocates for cancer survivors. Billy helped normal everyday people achieve their dreams, who hasn't wanted some help to achieve their dreams? What Billy did may not equal to the same fame and fortune as MJ or Farrah, but for those of us that know even a little bit about Billy, know that your bowl of cereal at 3:00 AM in front of the TV will not be the same without Billy Mays. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of friends and especially his family.

I hope and pray that someday......someone (even myself) will build upon that small piece of the foundation that it means to be American that Billy Mays started.

Busiest Semester Ever!

Pictures will come soon, but Kelly and I finally took the leap into owning a home. It has been 3 weeks and we are slowly starting to love our little place. I am constantly fighting the battle against crab-grass, and am slowly winning.

Between, School (3 weeks left), work, and having a funny little 3 month old at home I have no more time to write. My next post will have lots of pictures.

Mission Stuff

On August I will have been home from my mission 3 years. It is crazy how time has passed from such a great time in my life. I was just minutes ago looking through my mission stuff and found my "letter's binder". It includes all of the letters that I got on my mission, even if they were good or bad.

I want to start by thanking my sister, Staci. She knows knew me better than anyone else then. She never questioned my choices or pushed her ideas onto me. She was the perfect example of faith, in a time in her life where she was going through her own hardships. She needs to know that I will be always be grateful for her always positive letters.

This might sound like I am dissing anyone else that wrote me, this is not true. I always appreciated the mail that I got and they were always full of support. Some were very opinionated, but we are Visser's and it is in our blood to be so. The part that made me laugh out loud was that there are a number of stories, that led to these opinions being shared and causing tension. It all started with the use of my money. One event forever changed the letters that I got on my mission because this event forced me to use the remainder of my mission money on a necessary tool. I will not divulge the story, and have told it to very few people and told no one while I was on my mission.

I will admit, in High School I spent my money like an idiot! This habit was quickly kicked when I got home from my mission (all except for my first bike which I bought on credit and then quickly sold). My seemingly "unwise" use of money was a frustration for everyone. My parents graciously gave me spending cash each month to make up for this money shortage and I owe them many thanks. This did not stop the letters full or financial advice from coming. When I would get these letters, I would not like them. So when I would write letters on P-day I wanted to write happy letters, so I would start by writing letters to the "girl". After writing her letter first each week I would then write everyone else. It was hard to not let this "girl" influence my letters home to my parents and friends. So this would start a vicious cycle of letters from my family that would be about money to letters about the "girl", repeated twice a month. All of this came from me abstaining from telling one story. Now, I ask myself it it was worth it? Yes it was.

Many people, not only my family were afraid that I was losing focus and had too many distractions. They might have felt that way for awhile but eventually those fears were quieted when I was blessed to participate in 10 baptisms (3 times the mission average per missionary). Had over 300 investigators to church in two years. Taught over 1500 lessons. Read the Book of Mormon 9 times, and Preach My Gospel 22 times. I wrote over 150 pages of trainings and talks that I still use today (these numbers are all accurate, I counted them all). My efforts on my mission led to my subsequent finding a beautiful wife and the best Mother that I know, having a wonderfully happy son, and the being able to provide for them with my single income and to be debt free, attending school and purchasing our first home.

It is true what they say, actions do speak louder than words. I really am grateful for the love and support of my family during my mission. There words of warning, as frustrated as they made me at times, were out love and care. I have great respect for all of them, and I hope to emulate the love we had in our home growing up in my own home.