Season’s Greetings and at Least One Season of Goodbye

Please consider this our once every 5 years Christmas letter to current, former and future subscribers and the announcement of the temporary suspension of publication of Cougar Sportsline scheduled for May of 2016.

That’s when my wife Penee and I will be entering the Witness Protection Program of the LDS Church.  We will be witnessing of the divinity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the birth of whom we are currently celebrating. We will also be participants in the protection plan and proliferation of blessings plan for ourselves as a couple, our children and grandchildren.

We are opting for the “Potluck” version* of senior missionary service and will take whatever assignment the Church serves up. That is a little scary, but what’s the worst that could happen? My wife will be amazing wherever we are sent and I figure the worst that could happen to me is that they send me home early for either incompetence or incontinence.

I told my wife she could Depends on me to try and match her example as pay back for her perseverance and patience of having me as her first and only companion for the last 40 years.

As for Cougar Sportsline, here’s the plan. Beginning in May of 2016, I will suspend publication for 18, 12 or 6 months depending on the tolerance threshold our Mission President has for us.

Upon our return, I will resume publishing. You have two options. You can either send me a Dear John or email and tell me we are breaking up and I will send you a refund for the remaining issues and balance on your account after May. The other option is that you can wait for me to return and we can hopefully resume our relationship again.

I have also included a photo that we are planning to send in with our official application to the Missionary Committee before the end of this year. If any of you have Photoshop or air brushing skills, I would appreciate it if you could somehow add more hair to my head, less jowls to my cheeks and more IQ to my intellect. I want to make a good impression when that image comes up on the screen in Salt Lake City in early January.

Let us leave you with our impressions for this season (Not football, but Christmas). We are believers. We truly believe in Jesus Christ and his gifts and grace to us of his Atonement, Resurrection and the Restoration of His Church. It has sustained us throughout our lives and is what makes it possible, despite our limitations and liabilities, to achieve this goal of ours to serve as Senior Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Later next year, if you happen to be in Miles City, Yazoo City, New York City, Vatican City or City of Industry and see us walking on the side of the road, honk if you are happy. I’m pretty sure my wife and I will be.

May you relish and revel in this time of celebrating the birth of our Savior. Please accept our best Christmas wishes to you and yours for this special season,

HB and Penee Arnett

*We actually do have a preference of where we serve. That would be at the Church Farm in England. I would drive tractor all day enclosed in the air conditioned and heated cab with headphones on while listening in the morning to Joe Cocker, the Hollies and The Spencer Davis Group in order to get a feel for the English rock music culture of the ‘70s. The afternoon would be devoted to listening to LDS General Conference talks and keeping my furrows and life straight.

My wife would spend her days gathering eggs and genealogical records. We would come home to our “Church Cottage” and spend our evenings reading scriptures, lip syncing Joe Cocker songs and watching Jane Austen movies such as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.

Who knows? After six months of Jane Austen movies, we may ask for a transfer to the Carmel, California mission so we can watch old Clint Eastwood (the former mayor of Carmel) flicks. Hopefully by then the Church will have purchased Pebble Beach and be looking for an assistant greens keeper.