Dear Friends & Family,

I find myself this Christmas season wanting very much to touch bases with everyone. Approaching this new year I have been thinking a lot about what life is really all about. It’s so easy to get caught up in work, school :o), or anything else and forget what the true meaning is: people…our family & friends, our brothers & sisters. If this is God’s work and glory, then it too must be ours. So, in this chill season I pray for you all the warmth of the Spirit of God as well as the humility to seek his still small voice.

For those whom I have lost touch with a bit I wish to recap what’s been going on in my life this past year and I sincerely hope it sparks incentive for you to let me know what’s going on in your life as well.

2006 started off on a good foot for me. Like many of you, I took LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon front to back by the end of the year 2005. That experience renewed my faith in Jesus Christ and I committed in the new year to read every day. That lasted for quite a while. I have had to recommit myself again and again. This has also been a great experience for me. Each time I recommit I realize that God is always there just waiting for us to talk with him and to seek him out. He truly has many things he’d like to teach us and bless us with if we simply make him our partner in this life.

Many of you knew that I had been working for an internet marketing called 10x Marketing. Last year I took a little break to do my own business. In the process I learned quite a bit. Among the lessons I learned was that I can’t do everything myself. Again, the value of people became clear to me.

Well, I returned to 10x in December 2005 to supplement my meager business income. When I came back I was hired as the manager of the search engine optimization fulfillment team, the very job that I did before I left. It was quite a different experience to manage, that’s for sure. By December 2006 I was in responsible for 10 members of our team. I finally learned nearing October that my job had changed and that delegation was a very real part of how I was to succeed as a manager. The year went well at 10x. I’ve made some lifelong friends, including one special one that I’d like to tell you about now :o).

During mid year at 10x we began to see that we needed more people to fulfill the contracts of the growing number of clients that were coming on, including several big ones like ADP & Overstock Auctions. Marci, my fellow employee, knowing this to be the case mentioned to her friend Emily Lyon from American Fork Utah that she should send in a resume. Emily did so and I reviewed it. Emily came in for an interview and the interviewer being impressed with her enthusiasm for learning and apparent good attitude decided to bring her on board. Now, at this point I really had no intentions other than filling a needed position. Some will argue that the position I was seeking to fill was that of girlfriend. Not so, but it quickly became obvious that there was a good match there.

July was when our family had a time share up in Park City. I was planning on having a bunch of friends up there to play around. By that time I enjoyed playing soccer at lunch with Emily and over IM in separate rooms I invited Emily to go to Park City with me. I gave her two options, to go up on Tuesday the 25^th with just the two of us or with everyone else later that week. She opted for both :o). Our first date was to see the family. I guess that takes all the anxiety buildup out of things, yeah? The rest is history. We’re still dating and are madly in love with each other.

Emily is so fun to be with. She and I were preparing for a marathon together (at her suggestion) before school became more important to finish up. She just graduated from BYU in Exercise Science and I’ll finish up at UVSC in Behavioral Science/Psychology soon as well. We enjoy so many of the same things. We hiked Mt. Timpanogos together here in Utah Valley, have enjoyed reading several books together, and love conversation. My favorite thing about Emily is her amazing attitude about life, people and the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Aside from that, here are a couple other fun things that are going on:

My sister Mindy and her husband John just had their first baby on November 17^th, John Benjamin Lindquist. Mindy really took care of her diabetes well while pregnant with Ben. There can be many problems when diabetics have babies. Ben is healthy and a joy to our lives.

My other sister Melissa is doing some fun things in addition to raising her two beautiful kids Zach and Alissa. She has been into photography for a while now, but is getting better and better all the time. Her biz, Melissa Davis Photography, is small, but really blessing her life. Melissa also recently began a neat project that I’m very proud of. It’s called Project SAHM (Stay at Home Mom). She is taking donations and when they reach $100 she goes shopping, but not like normal. She takes that money and gives it to a random SAHM in the store so that she can buy herself an outfit. It’s Melissa’s way of saying thanks for all the work that SAHMs do. I think ‘tis beautiful. Alan, Melissa’s husband is a great support to her. I’m thankful that he takes care of my sister.

Lastly, I have a fun story of adventure. The date was December 14^th, 2006. I was at the UVSC writing lab with a friend setting down plans for a new business when I received a phone call from Darryl, my boss at 10x. Today wasn’t my day to come in so I wondered why he would be calling. Darryl proceeded to tell me of the layoffs that had just happened that morning at 10x. A while back 10x was purchased by a company called Vista/Innuity. Innuity had not liked the way things were going at 10x and came in and told everyone that they were taking operations up to Redmond WA and were getting rid of about 19 of our near 28 employees, leaving about 10 to fulfill the near 30 contracts that required daily attention. Included in those layoffs were my boss Darryl, me and Emily.

I’m now pushing forward with the plans I was making to form a new business. There is urgency, there is excitement and there is definitely opportunity. We’ve got some fun things on the table and some of you may very well be involved in those things, if not now then perhaps down the road sometime. I’ve been getting very excited about business and I’ve learned much from my yard game business and plan on learning much more!

Well, friends I’m excited to begin another year and I’m very grateful to you all. Each one of you has become a part of me and I could not be where I am today if it were not for every one of you. I’ve learned from you. I’ve laughed with you. I’ve cried with you. I’ve grown so much from your examples to me. Thank you for all you’ve given to me. Thank you for encouraging me and strengthening me in so many ways. I acknowledge the Lord’s hand in all of our relationships and know that any trials we go through are to strengthen us to become men and women of faith.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Love Ryan