Dear Family,

No big get togethers this week; there was a secret unscheduled one mentioned below but there is great news! Eva had her baby girl and Rob and Eva are now the parents of three girls and one boy. Eva had the C section a bit early and the Baby weighed just under 7 1/2 Ponds.

She is one of their smaller babies at birth; Luke who is a chunk weighed 10 pounds. I heard the little girl over the phone when Rob called and she has very husky lungs. Baby and Mom are doing fine. Eva had to spend quite a bit of time on bed rest before the delivery. We are grateful that all are OK. Eva comes out of the Hospital tomorrow. Eva's Mom is there and helping out in the home. We are so blessed with these wonderful grand Kids. Mary who keeps the Family Stats reports that little Elena Louise is # 72. (I thought we had 72 but maybe that was thinking ahead). She certainly looks like a member of the Wirthlin family.

Bina is due in March. Kristina is due in August, so the family continues to grow and we are so grateful for all these great Kids.

Mom and I spoke in a Singles Ward last Sunday. It was packed with about 500 Young Adults. I love speaking in these Wards; they are so alive and full of energy. They do not fall asleep during your talk either.

I brought and showed the six inch knife I surgically removed from the right chest of a young man in Boston some 40 years ago. He was of their same age and somehow lost his way in life, getting on hallucinogenic drugs while in College in the 60's. The Singles paid a lot of attention when I described how the knife was buried in the chest up to the hilt and moving back and forth with each heart beat.

Talked about getting lost, losing ones direction in general and we talked about navigational devices. I then talked about Spiritual Navigational Devices and listed a few; you can make your own list but then I discussed Patriarchal Blessings which was the subject. They did not fall asleep!

We had Becca and Paul and their kids here over President's Holiday. The kitchen was turned into the Iron Chef Stadium again. Becca showed us how to make our own Tortillas with the Mom's Valentine present and they were yummy. And then I noticed how cheap they are in the super marke. Then Becca brought a turkey that she had brined and we smoked it in the smoker and had Doug and his kids over for dinner, giving Kristina a rest. So much fun! (Notice in the picture that Mom is not too impressed with her Valentines present)

Back in our schedule again. We love you all and pray for you daily.

Mit Liebe, Opa u. Oma

OMA'S VALENTINE PARTY

Dear Family,

Mom had her yearly Valentines party. I was reminded that we did not do much on Valentines with the older boy s but when the girls came, we always had a little valentine party. Now it is a big party and I think there were about 50 present. Everyone in Utah came. Mom prepared for this for a long time making valentines, decorating the house, arranging gifts for the little kids and turning our house into one great heart. Here is a picture of the gang after dinner and after our FHE.

We had a dinner for everyone. All brought wonderful side dishes and desserts. Opa did the roast which was a 12 pounder perfectly cooked. Here is Opa at a speciall carving station. That roast was almost completely eaten. That large carving fork I bought at a street sale in Vienna near our apartment.

It was special that everyone came on schedule. We had such a good time, We settled everyone down and had a family night. Mike gave a lesson on "Love One Another" and I spoke on doing that in the home which is the laboratory where we develop our personal skills. I commented on The Savior's admonition to "love one another even as I have loved you" and tired to point out how that added to all previous commandments to love one another.

We also had a special birthday celebration for Madeleine B. birthday which falls on the day before Valentines. Here is

Madeleinee with her cousins. There is Natalie H. , Madeleine B., Madeline H., Rachel W., Catherine W., and Victoria W. .(Victoria is my brother Ralph's granddaughter and is staying with us this semester as she attends the UofU). Victoria played the flute.

I am not so good at Valentines presents; roses wilt, chocolates get eaten, so I bought Mom a Tortilla press so she can make tortillas . Also got her a large fruit steamer - juicer for grape juice.

OTHER NEWS: Rick and Gemina were in New York for business and after went out to Flushing and visited the house where I grew up on 33-01 159th Street, I was tickled to see pictures of this house again. The neighborhood was like Birmingham but Flushing has become very Asian. Rick said they had an outstanding Chinese dinner there.

And the deer are back. It has not snowed that much this year but the does do come back to snooze under our great Spruce tree in the backyard. We got to Michigan in May for two baptisms and to California for Scott's graduation. There will be a trip to Spokane in between for another baptism. Hard to keep u p with all the events but it is wonderful.

We love you all and are grateful for what you are doing in your families. Oma u. Opa

MORE XMAS CARD FOLLOW UP

Dear Family,

I am sitting here in my study looking at the wall full of pictures from the past with memories of past events, mementos of adventure and accomplishment. There are pictures of my Dad, my great teacher and mentor, Dr. Robert Linton with whom I was associated with for several years. You see the two of us together during surgery. There is a picture of my Dad in his first Model T Ford making house calls. There is a small picture of me as a missionary in Austria standing in front of the old Linz Gemeinde in 1957. There is a picture of Dr. Nathan Smith, founder of Dartmouth and Yale Medical schools and the surgeon who operated on Joseph Smith's leg as a seven year old boy.

Well with memories swirling lately, I get a call from Dr. Hardy Hendren who was a great and famous surgeon at the MGH and Professor of Surgery and the Boston Children's Hospital. When I was a Resident in General Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital on the Pediatric surgical service, Hardy Hendren (his knick name among the house staff was "Hardly Human", mine was "Big Daddy") invited me to accompany him and his scrub n nurse, to operate in Malawi, Africa and we were done there for a month and those adventures were unbelievable. He was a great surgeon and I learned a lot from him.

Well he called and mentioned that he was invited to give a talk at the prestigious Brookline Country Club in Boston and he decided to present a power point slide show of our surgical safari to Africa in 1966. He flashed a picture of the three of us, pointed to my pictured and said, "This was my Chief Resident, Roy Wirthlin. He is a devout Mormon and has led a productive life." He then flashed the next slide which was a picture of our 2010 family Christmas card that I wrote about previously. There was a gasp and stunned silence. He said the group was impressed. He told me about a MGH surgical reunion in Boston in September that I believe we will try to attend. They still remember us there.

The next big Family event is a Family Home Evening with the entire Utah gang on Sunday. There will be dinner, a lesson and just a good old time.

Mit Liebe, Dad and Opa

AUDIO CLIP OF MY INTERVIEW WITH JOSEPH SMITH PAPERS TV SERIES

Dear Family,

One of the workers in the Temple was telling me that he was skiing one day and listened to me on a Ipod as he was skiing down a hill. It was about 3 below 0 and he was at altitude with all his weather protection on as as he was skiing downhill, he said he listened to my interview with the Joseph Smith Papers TV documentary. I was glad he did not hit a tree.

As you know I did an interview with the TV documentary about four years ago. They play that interview rather frequently on BYU TV. You can buy the first year series on a DVD and see the episode.

I did not know it was available on an MP3 file. Here is the link to the audio files. It is Episode #2 and when you click on it, you can move the audio cursor to about 16:35 minutes to hear my part.

Thought you might be interested. I have been giving that fireside less as they broadcast this episode several times a year.

Love, Dad

FLORIDA VACATION, JOHN, KALEY, THE KIDS AND BUSCH GARDEN

Dear Family,

Mom and I had our break in temple service at the end of January. The Salt Lake Temple shuts down for two weeks for maintenance and everyone takes off to warmer places.

We went down to Tampa Florida to vis John and Kaley and their two boys. John has started in a prestigious law firm in Tampa so was working the long hours required of an associate in the law firm. We saw him in the evening and on weekends.

Here is a shot of John, Kaley, Grant and Garret on their couch in their nice home in Land O Lakes. We went out to dinner in the evenings and just had a good time. They live on a string of small lakes. There are gators thee and one morning, John and Kaley spotted two huge Bobcats on the opposite side of the pond. They put in a fence in the backyard which keeps the gators out.

They live about ten minutes away from Busch Gardens.
We used to visit this place when we lived in Michigan but the park has been expanded with rides and roller coasters. The Southern Belles that sat in the beautiful garden (I had Bryan sit next to them for a photo then) were not to be found.

Mom and I bought a pass and went with Kaley and the kids three times and once with John. The weather was 65 - 72 degrees and was most pleasant.
We took the kids on the train and rode around the Park. Here is a shot of the train and John and Grant having a good time. You could tell the people from Florida.. they were wearing sweat shirts with hoods and the tourists were there in shorts.

The kids loved the little monkey statue. They were like monkeys anyway. Here is Kal;ey, Grant and Garret with the monkeys. There were animals everywhere and it was such fun. The shot at the top shows me getting close and friendly with the Giraffes.

When we went there on Saturday with John, Kaley took a little break by crawling in the stroller and John pushed her around. A kid yelled out, "Look there is a Mom isn a Stroller!" It was a good break for Kaley after pushing the kids around. We feel we got our moneys worth by frequent visits there and the kids had a ball and we wore them out.

On Friday, John took off a day and we travelled to Kissamee to meet Kaley's uncle, Randy L. I wrote about him before when we visited John and hunted on the Church ranch in the middle of Florida. Randy took us to his hunting concession of the K6 section of the ranch. There were cows with new calves is some fields but we hunted in a very primitive portion of the ranch which was native uncleared Florida. We were after wild hogs. Randy took us there in a swamp jeep. We built a ground blind for myself (like in Africa) on a game trail. John went up a palm tree with a climbing deer stand over a game trail. He heard a lot of action but the brush was so thick, he did not get a shot. I heard a lot of rustlng in the brush, leaves crunching, rooting around and it was getting closer, pulse rate went up, got the safety off and there was a huge armadillo rooting around. Randy was not even hunting but stumbled on a large wild hog and shot it so we did bring home some bacon for John. So fun.

We off course looked around for some good sea food. We went to a place that served fresh stone crab which is almost as good as fresh Maine Lobster. It was so good. We then found a sea food shot that sold them and had them at home. Kaley cooked some great meals and it was so much fun!

On Sunday, we gave our Joseph Smith fireside in their ward and it went over well. Monday we left 72 degrees and arrive in Utah to 0 degrees and I managed to come down with the flu but we had such a great time each and every day in Florida. Could be habit forming.

Next family event include several baptisms away from home, we are entertaining a group of Chinese surgeons tomorrow night and there is the family Valentine Family Home Evening soon

Love to all, Mom and Dad