05 Feb 2006 #0606.html

Catch-Up

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Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to this week's "Thoughtlet."

These words are my personal diary and a weekly review of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you: my children, my family, and my friends.

"This was the week I really started to work on Thoughtlet catch-up. Actually didn't get very far. I think maybe two were written this week, and then about one each week for the next several weeks. Oh well! For instance, I quoted the letter that came from Matt at Basic Training this week in Thoughtlet ../0547.html.

My big thought about catch-up is that we all need to do it more than we do. Like maintenance of a house or a car or our clothes or our body, if we don't keep up with it on a regular basis, it will catch up to us and we will find ourselves in a world of hurt. Sort of like being 11 Thoughtlets behind, and leaving for China on another trip in 36 hours. Oh well! Maybe after Rachel's graduation (0619.html) I'll actually catch-up.

Most of my week was spent working on the Ji Dong prospects. We did a lot of free work for those folks. Oh well! On Monday while I was working, Jim Johnson called. Jim has a son Roice's age that went to Taylor High School with him. I have worked with Jim in a variety of different places over the years. Although, when I do a search in the Thoughtlets, he doesn't appear referenced before now. Jim was a Cray Research, he was involved in extensive on-line disk storage Conoco set up in Lafayette, and he was involved in some of the visualization theaters. Most recently, at the 2005 SEG (../0545.html and ../0546.html) he was showing a true 3-D display device which is very interesting. Jim called to talk to me about why he was unable to get anyone in the oil industry to look at the technology. I told him everyone is too busy to look at new technology and it has not been demonstrated to uniquely solve an industry problem. As we talked, he passed on an interesting statistic I had not heard before. According to Jim 50% of the radiologists in the U.S. are colorblind, and this is the reason high resolution color graphics has never been able to replaced black and white x-ray films. I think this is a very interesting insight.

On Tuesday we had the first Tiles meeting we have had in weeks. The last two deep-water Tiles are just about finished. They basically need my mapping part done, and several weeks later this still isn't finished. It is so hard to catch-up once you fall behind, and we all fall behind. Also, the SEG-Y files of geophysical rock properties which we generated for BP were in the wrong projection, and I did not document the change well enough. So Les had to regenerate the rock properties in the correct projection for free. Oh well! Catch-up.

On Thursday I attended a meeting with Scott Burns and Cindy Peevey at Chevron. It was a report on the Indonesian wells Scott had worked up, and I felt like an unnecessary bump on a log. I ended up leaving the meeting early in order to get back to the office to pick up Carlos so he could be on time to his art class. Mike wanted someone that works in the group to be at the meeting, I was, and it is one of those things which does not help attempts to catch-up.

Friday I got a call from Ajay Kalsi. He has renamed Phoenix Hydrocarbons to Focus Energy. We agreed to meet for lunch on Saturday. Friday night Andrea and I went to the annual seminary dinner with a General Authority. It was at our building this year. The chili wasn't very good, and the company was nice. However, the presentation was one of the finest I've every heard. The new apostle, Elder Bednar was the speaker. Here are my notes:

`Preaching by the spirit and learning by faith are companion principles. These are very important as the future will be ever more turbulent and uncertain. The power of the spirit carries unto, but not necessarily into, the heart. For the spirit to teach, it requires the receiver to open their heart. Faith is the foundation of all righteousness and is: (1) the assurance hoped for and not seen; (2) evidence of things not seen; and (3) the principle of action in all intelligent beings. Faith in Christ is tied to hope in Christ. We only see evidence of our faith after the trial of our faith. Our confidence waxes stronger as principle is built upon principle. The soles of the the Israelites were wet before the water parted. They had to walk through the water, and then look back to see the evidence of what happened. We are blessed with agency, which means we are primarily to act and not to be acted upon. Heavenly Father knew where Adam was, and helped him act. Lehi was taught in a dream. The spirit asked Nephi, `What desireth thou?' The spirit already knew what he desired. The spirit taught Nephi to act. Are we waiting to be acted up? Or are we serving to help others learn by faith? Learning by faith requires active, physical effort. It involves exercise of moral agency. Missionaries teach investigators to act. It is only when they act that the Holy Spirit gives them a witness. This type of learning puts off the natural man. This type of learning can not be transferred to a student. The students must act themselves. Joseph Smith instinctively understood how to act by faith. He prepared himself to act in faith. Joseph's question was what what he needed to know and what he needed to do. The best way to obtain wisdom is by divine guidance from Heavenly Father: (1) The Holy Ghost is the only true teacher. He is the teacher sent from the Father. We are like fiber optic glass, who become spiritual conduits through whom the spirit works. We are just the conduit. Anything that draws attention to ourselves is a form of priestcraft. (2) We are most successful as instructors when we teach by faith. We don't distribute fish. We teach others to fish. More people have gained a testimony standing up to bear it, rather than on their knees. It is a leap of faith to bear a testimony. It is one thing to feel the spirit when one bears their testimony, and another thing to have the spirit confirm your teachings as being by the spirit. An answer obtained by faith lasts a lifetime. The best lessons are caught, not taught. (3) Instructors faith is strengthened as they help others learn by faith. Divine learning is never more apparent than when teaching. Teaching diligently invites heavenly grace (D&C 88:77-78). These blessings are for the teacher. All are edified by everyone's teaching. The Prophet's challenge to read the Book of Mormon was teaching by faith. No one was coerced. We each needed to decide personally. We need to seek learning by faith. Each of us had our own copy of the Book of Mormon. It simply required the Book of Mormon, a willing heart, and action. As the world becomes more confused and troubled, learning by faith will become more important. In closing, Elder Bednar left his witness as a special witness of Jesus Christ.'

When we got home, I stayed up late reworking the Red Cove 98 page investment document. Then I did some more work on it Saturday morning. Took it to the Fed Ex / Kwik Kopy just past Dairy Ashford on I-10, got it bound, then went to the Texas Stake House to meet Ajay Kalsi. They are closed for lunch on Saturdays and so we ended up going to the Pappasita's Seafood. I brought the two pair of shoes Ajay gave me when we were in London (../0338.html), and told him they were a gift for him, and that I wanted to show him how much I appreciated his gift. They were worn out, with big holes in the soles of each of the four shoes (0609.html). I took a video of his reaction as he opened the box up (see files in http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Friends/Kalsi_Ajay/060204_Ajay_Kalsi). I also gave him a copy the just bound copy of the Red Cove Investment Opportunity. We spent about 3 hours talking through his oil company, his interest in creating new cities in India, and my Red Cove plans. It was catch-up time with a friend. He is not interested in investing in Red Cove, and we both enjoyed the discussion.

Sunday was fast and testimony meeting. I hadn't shared my testimony for a long time, and decided that if I was going to challenge my class to bare their testimony before they are baptized, I needed to set an example. Brother Swan, Rob and Marti's Home Teacher when they lived in Katy 2nd Ward, is on the High Council, and was on the stand. There often seems to be something like this that keeps me from getting up. But I did, expressed my hesitation and how hard it is to walk to the front of the chapel, talked about my feelings in Brother Bednar's talk on Friday, and shared some thoughts about my recent reading from the Book of Mormon. As I sat down I was surprised to see Noah Inman get up and bare his testimony. Then Kirsten Songster. Then Dylan Hutchings. Then Ashley Siebert. Then Tyler John. Then Brother Hutchings got up and talked about our work in Vidor. Then Chris Schmidt got up to encourage Jonathan to get up, and publicly expressed his thanks to me for being Jonathan's Primary teacher and their Home Teacher. Then Greg Branning, the Gospel Doctrine teacher got up and challenged everyone in his class to stand and bare their testimonies. It was a very touching meeting for me. And in some ways it was another way to catch-up."

Since the 38th week of 1996 I have written a weekly "Thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me). Until the 43rd week of 2004 I sent these out as an e-mail. They were intended to be big thoughts which mean a lot to me. Over time the process evolved into a personal diary. These notes were shared with my family because I know how important the written word can be. Concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life, I thought this was a good way to reach those I love. It no longer feels right to send out an e-mail and "force" my kids and my family to be aware of my life and struggles.

Everyone has their own life to lead, and their own struggles to work through. I will continue this effort, and will continue to make my notes publicly accessible (unless I learn of misuse by someone who finds out about them, and then will aggressively pursue a legal remedy to copyright infringement and I will put the Thoughtlets behind a password).

The index to download any of these Thoughtlets is at http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets, or you can e-mail me with questions or requests at rnelson@walden3d.com (note if you are not on my e-mail "whitelist" you must send 2 e-mails within 24 hours of each other in order for your e-mail to not be trashed).

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2006 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.