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Dear family, friends, and others,

Every year, we receive wonderful cards and Christmas letters from others and I always think it would be nice to do the same and send out some written Christmas well-wishes and deliver a year’s worth of news about our family. Well, this is it, folks. I’ve finally gotten around to it.

Merry Christmas to you!

Great! Now that’s over with. Let’s talk about us!

2010 was a terrific, momentous year for the Bartons. We moved into a new house in Herriman, about a mile southwest of our previous home, on December 15, 2009, just in time for last Christmas. We purchased the home as a short sale and got a wonderful, luxurious home for a killer deal. The house was entirely finished so, unlike with previous homes, we were not faced with any challenges of finishing basements or anything like that. Instead, we’ve had to do some work on the yard and furnishing the extra space inside.

In February, a client that had been giving me the majority of my contract work let all their employees go. They continued to keep me busy managing their servers for the next couple of months, but I could see the writing on the wall. I started looking for other work— even something that was more like a “real job.” Christine hoped I could find something that let me work from home doing software development instead of I.T. work.

In April, I flew to Pittsburgh, PA to interview with Grant Street Group for a position as a software developer on their TaxSys product. The interviews went well and in May, they asked me to come on board as a telecommuting software developer. It’s been a very challenging job for me as I haven’t had a “real” development job in about eight years, but it’s all been great experience for me as I’ve learned and grown a lot.

Also in April, I ran in my first running race and first half-marathon, the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon. This was a major accomplishment for me as I’d been running to get into better shape for several months prior and really had no idea if I could do it. I ran a 5K in September and am planning to run the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon again next April.

Maya, Lucy and Eli changed schools in the Fall because we moved into a different elementary school area and because Maya started the seventh grade. Maya took an special algebra class over the summer to qualify to be in Pre-Algebra in seventh grade and had no problem passing the tests. She’s doing very well in middle-school and brought home her first report card with straight As.

Maya is also now in the Young Womens program in our church and loves it.

Lucy is in fourth grade and her classmates in our neighborhood frequently inform us she is the “smartest kid in the class.” Lucy is also doing very well in piano lessons and on the non-competition swim team at South Jordan’s recreation center. When the new Herriman Recreation Center opens in February, we’ll probably be looking into signing Lucy (and Maya) up for swim team practices there.

Eli is in second grade and got straight As on his first report card. Eli started piano lessons this year with the same teacher Lucy has and is doing well at that also.

Christine has been at Sorenson Communications for almost six years now and is the manager over the quality assurance department where she has about 50 employees working under her. She recently got a new boss who is shaking things up and taking a hard look at how things are being done. Christine is enjoying the excitement, challenges, and new directions her job is taking her in.

On Sunday, 19 September, we came home from having dinner with my parents to find the mountain near our home covered in flames and our neighborhood being evacuated. After we hurried and packed a few belongings into our cars, we could see the wall of flames, stoked by strong, dry winds, moving down the north slope of South Mountain toward the homes on our street. With firefighters nowhere in sight, we had little confidence our home or others around ours would survive the fire.

You can read more about our experience here, but to make a long story short, what happened that night was nothing short of a miracle. Elected officials, police, and firefighters felt the fire would destroy dozens, if not hundreds, of homes. The final tally the next morning was 3 homes. All of the homes in our neighborhood emerged intact, some with charred brush right up to their yards.

It was a humbling, spiritual, and emotional experience that brought neighbors closer together and reminded us that nature is what it is.

Also in 2010, we lost Christine’s paternal grandmother Elna Nielsen. I knew her for years before I met and married Christine. She was a vibrant, loving, wonderful woman who definitely left her mark on the world.

We recognize and acknowledge many of our friends, neighbors, and family members are struggling these days with employment and other economic woes. It is our hope that new congressmen and local elected leaders, with a fresh appreciation for the U.S. Constitution and the philosophy of our Founding Fathers, can steer us in the right direction and back to being a productive, successful people.

With that being said, Utah does seem to be one of the best, if not the best place to be right now.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! Thank you for your kind indulgence and have a happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Doran, Christine, Maya, Lucy, and Eli.

I taught at church today. I’m a member of the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints and I was called by my ecclesiastical leaders to be a teacher, once of month, to the Elders Quorum (men 18 years old and older who haven’t been called to be in the High Priests group yet).

This year we are teaching from a new book the Church has produced called Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith which contains lessons taken from the recorded writings, sermons, etc. of the first prophet and president of the LDS Church: Joseph Smith.

This book is fascinating to me because the way Smith taught is different in many ways from how later and more contemporary leaders taught and teach today. I think this is partly because he had a big job on his shoulders: to convince people to join his new church and that the beliefs the religion is based on are grounded in truth.

Today’s lesson was on missionary work and sharing the gospel with others. I started a group discussion with the class about why members are reluctant to share their gospel beliefs with others in their life who are either less active members of the church or non-members. Lots of people responded saying it just has become increasingly inappropriate in today’s society to share such personal, sacred things with people, that we’re supposed to just accept other people’s beliefs regardless of what they are.

This is in contrast to the way Joseph Smith behaved. He relished the opportunity to speak to people about his beliefs. He encouraged missionary work among all members. He explains at one point that Christ died so that people can be saved, but only if they have the opportunity to learn of the Plan Of Salvation. That’s where church members come in: Sharing the knowledge of the Plan Of Salvation with those who haven’t yet had that opportunity.

To close up the lesson, I read from Elder Russell M. Ballard’s talk in December 2007 in which he talks specifically about using New Media to Support the Work of the Church and encourages members to write about their religion, their beliefs in their blogs, to participate in online discussion forums social networking communities, to comment on online news stories that may misrepresent the beliefs of the LDS Church, etc.

Having not really written much of a religious nature on the Fozzolog, I thought I would give it a shot.