Escapeseeker

I live for Tuesdays. For on Tuesdays, circa 5pm Pacific Standard Time, I get the weekly e-mail report from our Elder Garrett Burton Gee who is serving a voluntary LDS church mission in the Russia Vladivostok Mission. If you have no idea where Vladivostok is, don’t feel bad. Neither did we, until Elder Gee received his mission call. But now, I can tell you what time it is in Vladivostok–no matter where we are; I know the country code, the city code, and how to get there, should I ever be permitted to go there that is…since Elder Gee made me promise not to accept any assignments to Vladivostok while he is serving his mission. 🙂 But just in case you’re still wondering where it is–If you board the Trans Siberian Railroad in Moscow and ride it across the entire Russian landscape (about 5,000 miles) until you reach its most Southern Far East tip–that’s where the train will come to its final stop–that’s Vladivostok!

Here’s an excerpt from a recent e-mail Elder Gee sent during the Thanksgiving Holidays. I am sharing it in its original form–with English language errors, typos and all. He has served in Russia nearly two years, and is so fluent in Russian that his English–well, not so much. We are so happy that he has put all of his efforts to be the very best missionary he can be…in every regard. It seems that all those years that I dragged Garrett from country to country during his youth taught him tremendous resiliency! We might have to turn off the water heater for a while when he returns home to help him acclimate. 🙂 Well, here is his love letter to our entire family:

Well family let me tell you have grateful I am for everyone of you. You give me so much pride and honor and confidence. I love hearing about all the wonderful things you do. I thank you for not sending anything on my Birthday. I need to majorly cut down on the amount of things I have and I ask you to please continue to not send anything.
I am very grateful for the things I have learned while I have been here. Not just the facts that I have learned…and not just the doctrine… I am greatful for that. Yet I am especially grateful for those special truths from God that have come into my life in so much realness that I will never be able to doubt or deny their excistance. The realization of the realness of it all, and it’s working in my life is a testimony that I will forever hold on to and grow.
I have been shown weaknesses that seem to be weaker than all others. I am constantly fighting pride. I am constantly fighting selfishness. And my English is constantly getting worst. I humbly thank God for showing me these scary weaknesses of mine and it is my prayer that I’ll be humble and strong enough to conquer.
I love my parents and acknowledge them as the source of so many blessings. Thank you for your many hard works, sacrifices, and prayers on my behalf mom and dad. I love you.
Elder Gee junior

MADAME H is our Italian beauty. She’s sexy and she’s fast. With ‘Ifraviator’at the controls, she soars the blues skies over Texas with ease and grace!

MADAME H is the reason we acquired a home in Texas. While Mrs. H., aka Mel is passionate about travel, Mr. H. is absolutely passionate about piloting his own plane. In the summer of 2005, after criss crossing the continent in search of the perfect air park community, we discovered Pecan Plantation, about 35 minutes drive south of Fort Worth in the small town of Granbury. Pecan Plantation is surrounded by a 17-mile stretch of the historic Brazos River. If Southern Hospitality and fried cookin’ is what you savor, Pecan is your kind of place. With its own perfectly manicured airport, two golf courses, an equestrian center, a Clubhouse complete with extra rooms for your overflow guests, community pool, and let’s not forget an entire village of deer that roam freely like movie props in a wildlife documentary–there’s no place like Pecan for a family like ours who love to gather and play and eat, and dance beneath the stars! Come on down Y’all!

New York City–On September 5, 2007, my husband, Roy Henderson and I, along with dear friends, Christian “C” Mack and his wife, Tenetia, attended the New York premiere of a widely acclaimed documentary entitled, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON, on the invitation of one of its producers, Academy Award winner, John Battsek.

If you are under 40 years of age, what you will see in the stunning new documentary entitled, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON and presented by Ron Howard, will seem like science fiction. You were either not yet born or too young to remember the singular event 35 years ago that united an entire world as Apollo astronauts ventured to another planet, and as three billion people on earth watched, man took his first steps on the moon. That man was Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.

Today there are seven billion humans on planet Earth, and only eight more have walked on the moon since Armstrong’s courageous achievement that breathtaking day on July 20, 1969. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON, crewmembers from NASA’s Apollo missions tell their story in their own words. Under British filmmaker, David Sington’s skillful direction and weaving of visually stunning original NASA film footage, the audience is able to marvel one more time at this moment in history when the Apollo Space Program literally brought the aspirations of a nation to another world.

The 10 Apollo astronauts interviewed in the film include Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Alan Bean, Edgar Mitchell, Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, Mike Collins, Dave Scott, Charlie Duke and John Young. This list represents one crewmember from every mission that flew to the Moon.

Noticeably absent in the interviews is Neil Armstrong. However, his presence is felt throughout the film, and his Apollo 11 mission is at the center of the film. The other astronauts speak for him and of him throughout the film. Armstrong remains the most recognized name, and perhaps the most revered of all the astronauts.

Sington said Armstrong expressed his support for the film, but would not agree to be interviewed. Nevertheless, “Neil Armstrong is at the heart of the film,” says Sington.

The Shadow’s producers sifted through volumes of archival audio tapes and film footage that showed more conversations between the astronauts that had not been previously seen or heard in earlier documentaries. With the added new interviews, a wide range of emotions is captured. With the passage of time, the astronauts are no longer required to keep their emotions in check. Sington notes, “Just because they were not experiencing fear doesn’t mean they weren’t feeling a full range of emotions, from wonder and joy to surprise.” “Very intense feelings, just not fear,” Sington adds.

“It was such an extraordinary experience for them to be separated from the home planet, and I believe it took them years before they really understood the implications of it themselves,” said Sington.

And Sington also exclaimed, “I went into the interviews with high expectations, but I must say that I was surprised and delighted at how funny they were in telling their stories.”

In this total feel good, exhilarating movie, Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, now 76, is one of the most animated astronauts in the film. “To me, the marvel of it is that it (Apollo) all worked like clockwork,” Collins says in the film. “Even I didn’t make mistakes. I have a lot of things I can do wrong, but the consequences should I do them wrong are going to be immediately obvious to three billion people!” Collins was among 27 astronauts in nine Apollo spacecraft that voyaged to the Moon from 1968 through 1972—six of the 27 have died, including three of the Moon walkers.