Nate Cantrel

Good Monday morning Gayelinn, I shared with Robert my and your inability to feel God's love and yet our easyness in identifying his miracles in our lives. We walked/hiked down to the Virgin River beach and played in the sand for a couple of hours with Lydia yesterday. 1-What crazy mixed up parents we had. Dad served in two bishoprics in Sandy when I was a boy. Mom carefully read scriptures with us even when he was gone doing his bishopric's responsibilities. Yes, we read the scriptures together almost every night for weeks and months at a time. I find this so confusing! v

Good Monday Morning Jerry,  You and I know how hard it is to reduce!  Reduce eating, reduce weight. . . it is hard!  1- I did keto diet the first two weeks of December, but then the Christmas treats started. Did I want to miss all the Christmas treats? NO WAY!  So I patted myself on the back and said, maybe next time. 2-I have been porking out and fattening up.  I have been trying to psych up to reduce again. 3-Yesterday I thought and prayed about it after inspecting my naked self in the mirror before my Sunday cleaning bath. Not a pretty sight. As I dried off the most commitment I was comfortable making was to try.  Only try.  4-Last night when it was time to eat (night meals are the ones I never miss) I laid back in the recliner with food heating in the microwave and did some scripture listening and praying hoping to decide how to TRY right then.  I fell asleep. 5-I later went to bed and eventually took my food out of the microwave and put it back in the fridge.  I didn't eat!  Yay!  6-We'll see how I do today. v 

Thursday · 12:09 PM

Texting with Nate

Hello Nate, Uncle Vern here. I was alarmed when I saw a picture of your silver car being retrieved from a snowy ditch! Oh my crud!

What a wild decade you have had since we stopped writing each other. By the way. . . I still remember that you know how to use the semicolon! I have never learned how. ;;;;;;;;;;

Monday 2/26/24 9:33 AM

Good Monday Morning Nate! After writing to you in the boys home in Wyoming I hunted for someone else that might benefit from communicating by letter. Brandon Perry Smith attended my ward for a while and lived with his sister who is LDS. He served a mission in Oregon but was a special ed/resource kid all through school. His friend was into drugs and murder who had been sent down to Saint George by his parents to get him out of the drug scene in Ogden after he had been shot and left at the side of the road. My son Robert'82 remembers him attending singles ward and activities and showing off his bullet scars on his torso. I memorized the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man" all 7 verses decades ago and sang myself to sleep at night if reciting my memorized scriptures didn't work. Verse 6 talks about helping/visiting someone in prison. Brandon ended up in prison. The jail in Washington county is called Purgatory Jail and that is where he was housed for 6 years until his court case was settled. Then he went to Central Utah Correctional Facility. The violent druggy from Ogden was sent there and so they separated them by sending Brandon to a little used jail in Garfield county. It is located in the little town of Panguitch, on the north east slope of Cedar mountain where everyone around here and from Las Vegas goes skiing. Panguitch Jail doesn't allow letters in. Only letters out. That way they don't have to worry about drugs under the stamp etc.. Since he has been there I have been emailing him instead. I used to write once or twice a week and I really tried to lift his spirits and sent him my favorite conference talks with comments and everything but he was totally depressed. In Panguitch they allow the prisoners to own an Xbox! Ha! So I have had to look up all the best games for him so he would know what to purchase. So funny! 2- I have been a journal keeper since my mission. SWKimball told us to. But it matches my personality. That is one of the reasons it was easy for me to write to you. I write all the time at least in my journal every Sunday. It also gives me something to do when I get bored in church. 3- I write this to let you know where I am at and to invite you to leave me a marco polo or vmail. I would love to hear from you. Your Uncle, Vern