In brief

107 days until TMFKATB returns, but who's counting?
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Brevity, thy name is TMFKATB.

With this week's letter, he continued his streak of brief updates. I am beginning to believe he's doing this on purpose because he knows it's driving me nuts. If that's his real intent, well, he's hitting it out of the park.

The reality is I don't have much longer to gripe about the length of these weekly updates. Late last week, we got information regarding his release date and travel request information for his return back to the 'Stan. He's going to be home in the proverbial blink of an eye and this two year cavalcade of stories that I've been sharing with you will come to an end. I'm going to miss sharing this experience. Until that day comes, though, I'll keep the updates coming, no matter how brief the content.

As for this week, he's happy and he's focusing on the three things that have helped him to stay happy: humility, repentance, and forgiveness. While he didn't get into specifics, natch, he mentioned how those three principles have helped him to stay happy throughout his missionary service. I know that if he can stay focused on those principles in his post-mission life, he'll sure have a better understanding of his fellow man and some of the things that make them tick. It will help him to stay happy.

We have an additional measure of happiness awaiting us this weekend when we'll be able to see him, thanks to a Mothers Day Skype call. Sunday is going to be a great day, can I just tell you? At that point, it'll be down to 102 days, but who's counting?

Short and sweet

Fresh fruit on a stick
Throwback to his Mexico days

No one is ever going to accuse TMFKATB of being long-winded or overly descriptive in his weekly missives home. I've lamented that fact plenty before, so the brevity of this week's letter should not have come as a big surprise to anyone, especially me (one can hope though, right?).

Here's the recap:
Things are going well.
They are busy.
They ran into some, and I quote, 'shady people.' Let's remember that he's entrenched behind the Zion Curtain so the 'shady' scale is highly interpretive.
Knee-deep in his study of the New Testament and he's digging it.

There you have it. A week in the life of TMFKATB. Plus a picture of him going to town on what appears to be a mango. I just hope it's not a tumor-esque chunk of fried dough that some BYU student is now selling from a sketchy food truck. Even if it is said fried dough, I can hardly reprimand him for it, given my fondness for food trucks/carts, the sketchier the better, around the world. Best to leave that alone.

In brief.

It would be foolish of us to expect that TMFKATB writes a version of "War and Peace" each week. In what is now 75 weekly letters, he has kept us up-to-date on what's going on his life and has rarely left us  wanting for more. Maybe since it was his 75th, today's letter was brief, as in MTV News brief (gotta keep it snappy when your audience is the very definition of short attention span).

Most importantly, he's happy. He has a new companion and is now working with a young man from Florida (the Panhandle area, which is a whole new level of Florida crazy that he gets to learn about) but he's enjoying working with him. Per him, it was a week with some excellent training and spiritual growth.

That said, it was awfully short on detail. When he's brief like this, I tend to do a little reading between the lines, just to reassure myself that all is well. In doing that today, I get the sense that he's doing fine. He's making sure that things are never boring as he serves. Life was never boring when he was home. He excels at making sure things aren't dull.

Even though he kept things brief today, even though it's been a few hours since we had our exchange, here I am mulling things over, smiling at some of the things he said and I'm grateful for that. So there is beauty in brevity after all.