Week Ending November 24, 2012

Sunday early Ted had a call from the branch president saying he was sick and asking Ted to help Bro. Joe if he needed any guidance in conducting a meeting. Bro. Joe was just sustained as a counselor in the branch presidency last week. I did a few last minute preparations for my lesson and we left for church. Ted spent some time talking with Johnny Joe about conducting—fortunately the high council speaker was there. Bro. Joe did a great job and I was really proud of him. What an initiation!

Our temple prep class went well–we just had one couple there. I went from there to Relief Society just in time to start. There were only three ladies when we started. Then all the Young Women came in. It turned out that the Young Women’s president had a problem with one of her daughters and she had to take her home. That meant we had a full class which made it much nicer for teaching. We had a good discussion, even though I told them they needed to do what they can to prepare for emergencies and one sister told me they were all so destitute that there was no way to do any storage at this time.

In the afternoon we decided to do some visiting since our lessons had cancelled. We walked over to the Navajo Housing by the school to visit a less active member. When they opened the door they said, “What took you so long to come?” It turns out that the missionaries had told them they would tell us about them and we would come see them. We had a good visit. We offered to pick them up for church. She said she’d come and he’s thinking about it.

Monday visited our grandma. She was looking good today and we had a good visit with her. She was able to tell us where several people lived in her neighborhood so we have several to visit. It continues to amaze me the number of people we find who are members of the church who are not on the branch list as well as the number on the list who are no longer here. There are several on the list that are deceased.

After that we went to visit a man who lives on the same road. I cannot remember the last time I met someone who was as negative as he was. One of his grandsons came over while he was talking about not being able to go anywhere and said, “Don’t lie, Grandpa. You go over to the casino and gamble all the time.” He was really a sad character.

We had looked for someone in the branch to invite for Thanksgiving. In the morning I felt strongly that we should invite one of the families. We drove to Gallup to get more food so we’d have enough for their family. I talked to Heather on the phone and she gave me a couple of recipes that sounded yummy. By evening we hadn’t heard from the family we’d invited to know if they were coming. Then we had a call from the Relief Society President, inviting us to dinner.

Tuesday I studied most of the day. I still hadn’t heard from the family we invited by mid-morning, so I sent a message asking what the status was. I got a message back a few minutes later that they wouldn’t be coming. I was a little disappointed, but it also meant we could go somewhere. I made a call and accepted the invitation.

In the afternoon, we taught a makeup class for temple prep. The man’s granddaughter and grandson sat in with us. The granddaughter is home from BYU and is submitting papers for a mission in a month.

At institute we only had one student. He told us he’d invited several people he thought would be there. He said he really feels the spirit. He’s going on a mission, so we need to get this going before he leaves.

Wednesday I spent some time studying in the morning. I also spent time baking and doing things in the house.

Thursday was a good day. We have much to be thankful for and it was nice to have a day just to reflect on our blessings. We had the opportunity to talk with all of our children and express our love for them. We were invited to have dinner with our Relief Society president and her husband. We enjoyed the time with them. We were so grateful for their invitation as we had been feeling the pangs of being away from home for the holiday. It was nice to be with people we enjoy. We missed being with our own family, but we felt the love of the Lord with us.

Friday I studied almost all day. I needed to organize my thoughts for my lesson on Saturday. I feel so inadequate at times, like I really don’t know what is needful and what should be presented. I reread the book about teaching seminary and got some additional ideas about things I needed to do. In the late morning we visited a family here in Ft. Wingate. We shared part of a talk by Elder Echo Hawk and Ted gave the husband a blessing because he had a sore tooth.

Saturday morning I had an impression about a parable for the seminary kids to encourage scripture reading. I quickly wrote it down before I forgot. I’m not sure it really made a difference, but I think they got the message. They can only feed their spirits if they read on a daily basis. The kids are in need of the strength they get from the scriptures.

In the afternoon we went to visit in Iyanbito. We were looking for two brothers on Burnt Corn Rd. We turned into the area where they lived and met a man. He was their brother-in-law who lives on the same property with them. He invited us into his hogan—our first visit to a hogan. It was about 20 feet across, round and very basic with a ceiling that sloped up to the center point. It was in fairly good condition, but needed new flooring. There was a sofa facing an entertainment unit with several shelves of videos. There was a kitchen area and a small table where he sat next to the sofa. There was a wood stove on one side. There was a room off to the side that I assumed must be the bedroom. He was very nice, but he had some disappointing attitudes. He would make a good branch president and we strongly encouraged him to come to church and become active. He feels badly for his people and said many of them have totally lost hope. I was very impressed with him and felt he could really make a contribution to the branch. I told him we really needed him and encouraged him to come.

We then went next door to visit the first brother. We knocked on the door of the house which looked like it was falling apart. The door was about my height. A window opened to the right of the door and we saw a man with white hair, but he didn’t say anything. We told him who we were and told him who we were looking for. He shut the window and came to the door. His jacket had seen better days. It had lots of holes in it and the filling was coming out. He had a cowboy hat on and his hair was about to his shoulders. We had a good conversation with him. We invited him to come to church.

We then went to the next house where his brother lived in another hogan. He was outside and came over to visit. While we were there his brother came over without the jacket on, knocked on the door of the hogan, and went in. He was back out in a couple of minutes with a different jacket on. Apparently, his brother’s wife washes his jacket for him. We invited this brother to church and walked back to the gate. The first brother walked with us and told us we’d gotten off easy—usually his brother chases missionaries off. He said he has to watch out for the family and when they start to argue he has to separate them and restore peace. It was definitely an interesting experience.

Week Ending November 17, 2012

Sunday we got up to find our pilot light was out on the furnace. Ted tried reaching the emergency number but weren’t successful in getting help. In the meantime we turned the oven on and left the door open to heat up the living room. While Ted was out cleaning off the car, our landlord came by on a walk and Ted told him about our situation. A few minutes after Ted came in there was a knock on the door and the landlord was there. He lit the pilot and told us how to handle it in the future.

Our outside thermometer, Sunday 11/11 about 9AM

 We thought the weather was cleared up so we were surprised that the roads were still quite icy when we headed out for church. We arrived in good time and visited with the elders for a bit. I think our talks went OK. I spoke a little longer than I’d planned, and Ted spoke a little shorter than he’d planned, but it all came out in the end. We stayed for Sunday School and enjoyed the lesson that was taught. It was the same one that had been taught at Ft. Wingate last week so it was interesting to see the different way it was presented. After Sunday School they told us there was no teacher for Relief Society so church was over. One of the sisters asked if we couldn’t just read together or have some discussion since we were there. The elders had prepared a lesson, so they presented that to some people that stayed.

When we arrived home we had a bite to eat then went to teach a discussion to a young lady. Her two younger sisters and her grandma were also there. We had a good discussion. I felt a very strong spiritual impression that the things we were teaching are true. In the end we asked the girl to pray and she offered a beautiful prayer. From there we went to a home to invite a couple to the temple prep class. The wife said her father lived with them and asked if he could attend as well. We then went to teach a makeup lesson for seminary. We taught the whole family the seminary lesson. I think it went well, but it was a little more challenging with the two younger children there.

Monday we went to see our grandma. She was not doing well. She looked like she was not eating or sleeping well. She is in a lot of pain. She sleeps on the couch in the living room by the wood stove so she can be warm. Everything is aggravated by her mourning for her father. We talked for a long time, mostly letting her talk and express her concerns and her pains. We tried to give her some comfort and read a couple of scriptures about where spirits are after they die. We talked about the good memories she has of her dad and her desire to be with him again. Ted gave her a blessing before we left. After the blessing it was clear she had been crying, but she had a different countenance. She seemed much happier and more herself. She said she felt much better.

Tuesday we spent most of the day studying. I had a call asking me to teach Relief Society on Sunday. We are also teaching the temple prep class. We have a lot of preparation to do this week. At institute we had three students. We had a new man there. I thought he was about 18 or 19, but he turned out to be 26. It turned out that he is being baptized on 12/11.

Wednesday we went walking in the morning and it was really cold. We decided not to walk in the early morning again—it’s too cold and it hurt our lungs. I studied most of the day, preparing my lessons for the week. In the evening Ted and I went through the temple prep book and reviewed what needed to be taught and split up the lesson. This will be our first attempt at team teaching.

Thursday we got up and did our joint study and got ready for the day before walking. We walked to the church and got our room set up for Sunday. We also made several copies. Mid-afternoon we went visiting here in Ft. Wingate. We introduced ourselves to a family that lives here. They were all sick so they suggested we come back after the holidays. I think at least one of the other two people have moved because there is a Baptist minister at one of the addresses. We went to Sundance to try to visit some people. We stopped at a member’s house and had a good visit with her. Her husband came home while we were there and we had an interesting conversation. He is really struggling with things in his life. He is a really nice man with some real concerns.

Our appointment in Toh-la-kai cancelled out so we decided to do more visiting. We drove down Roadrunner Road, a not-so-good dirt road. We had a couple of addresses to look for. A man drove by so we asked him where the people were we were looking for. One man was in a care center in Rehoboth. At the other home, we met the lady we were looking for but she was watching TV and said she was too busy to talk with us. We went to visit another home. The man’s name was not on our membership list, but he said he was a member “a long time ago”. There were a bunch of really aggressive dogs that made us a little nervous. We had a brief visit and left after inviting them to come to church and visit us.

Friday we did a few things around the house then in the early afternoon we went visiting to try to find some more people in the Sundance area. We were told one man lived exactly one mile from the turn off from the highway. The problem we had was that our odometer doesn’t have the tenth of a mile digit on it. We looked at the reading when we turned, then looked again when the last digit changed to see about how far we were from the tunnel, then when the last digit changed again we turned around and went back about as far as we thought we’d gone from the tunnel to the first change. We got to a place where there were two houses on the right and one a bit further on the left. The one on the right was the home we’d visited the day before so I knew it wasn’t that house. I ran to ask her where to go. It was the one on the left. When we got to the house the man we had gone to see wasn’t home, but his wife invited us in and we visited with her for a while.

After running a couple of errands in Gallup we drove to Toh-la-kai and set up for seminary and Ted’s adult education class. At about 6:00 one family came to drop their daughter off so she could go to Albuquerque to do baptisms the next day. At 6:30 there was no one there. We started calling people to see where they were. Two families actually came so I had three in my class and two in Ted’s.

Satuday morning we had seminary. All of my class was there. The differences between the two classes are very interesting. In the Ft. Wingate most of the kids come most of the time. We almost always have a devotional and we have a class president. In Toh-la-kai there are four students that have never come. I have yet to have a student-prepared devotional and we have no class president. Immediately after we dropped a few things at our house then left for the temple. The 1 PM session is designated as the Native American session but is now usually in English. A man came in just before the session was supposed to start to talk to a lady who spoke Spanish. He asked how many native speakers were in the session. A few ladies raised their hands and said the others had gone to the dressing room. He decided the session would be done in Navajo. He then told the lady helping him to get earphones for the English speakers. She told us she’d take care of that in a few minutes. 

Week Ending November 10, 2012

Sunday we went off Daylight Savings Time so we got an extra hour of sleep. At church I was surprised and pleased to see our grandma and her entire family. Her father had passed away Tuesday. Her father was one of the last Code Talkers from the world war. He was 90 years old. Many people feel the Code Talkers were responsible for saving many lives during the war because the Japanese were not able to break their code. They were not recognized after the war until 1968 when the details of their service were declassified.

After Sunday School we met with Pres. Pine to discuss what we could do to help the branch more. He asked us to teach a temple prep class. He gave us a list of about 5 individuals and families that he would like us to meet with. I think we will be kept quite busy doing the things he would like done.

Monday it felt good to get up when it was light and go for our walk. Back at our apartment we cleaned and did wash. We studied a bit and did a few odd jobs. In the early evening we went to a community meeting about the post office. It is being reduced to 4 hours of open window in order to conserve funds. This is happening at rural post offices across the country. At least they are keeping it open so we can get our mail here. I felt badly for the lady who runs the post office. She is having her hours cut in half and she needs to support 4 children.

Tuesday we spent most of the day studying and preparing for classes. At institute we had three students. Afterward, two students stayed and we played games for a while and had a good time.

Wednesday morning we took a trip to Canyon de Chelly, pronounced de-Shay. We stopped at the Hubbell Trading Post, the oldest open trading post in the country, and bought a couple of souvenirs. It was an interesting place. We watched part of a video on the Code Talkers which I bought. One of the interesting things I learned was that the alphabet was coded using animal names: A=ant, B=bear, etc. Then the Navajo word for the animal was used in the code, so the decoder had to translate the Navajo to English then take the first letter of the word for the coded message. The word for bear is “Shoosh”. It suddenly became clear to me why the Wingate High Bears kept cheering “Shoosh” at their games.

Wagon at the Hubbell Trading Post

At Canyon de Chelly we took the north rim drive first. We stopped at a couple of overlooks and the scenery was amazing. There are actually Navajos living at the bottom of the canyon right now. The ruins in the cliffs were also very interesting. At every overlook there were vendors selling their wares. I bought a beautiful turquoise necklace at the first stop. We also bought a stone with two cocopellis on it. The cocopellis are gods of the rain and the harvest. The ones we have on our stone are playing flutes calling for rain. All the artists have a story to tell. It was interesting visiting with them.

Canyon de Chelly

On the south rim we stopped at several overlooks. Most of the overlooks required a walk to the viewing site so we got lots of exercise. At the end we went back to the White House trail. This was a walk into the canyon to see some ruins and petroglyphs in the cliff walls. The walk down was not too bad. The trail got to be fairly narrow at some points, but it was safe enough if we were careful. It was amazing the way the wind and water has shaped and etched the mountains and left beautiful designs. It looks like sand dunes set in stone in several places. At the bottom there was a Navajo home with the area fenced off so visitors would not bother the people. We walked over to the ruins and took several pictures. They were amazing. It is called White House because the upper level is covered in white plaster. At the bottom looking up it was amazing how far up it was.

Part of trail to White House Ruins

White House Ruins

As we started back up several young men and women came running out of the tunnel at the end of the trail. They were a wrestling team from the Chinle High School doing some training exercise. They had run down the trail and then turned around and ran back up. They all passed us before we reached the top, some sooner than others. Some of the girls that came past us near the end were saying how their legs were really painful and wondering how the first ones had run the entire way. I couldn’t believe they had run either direction. I felt fairly safe coming down, but I would never have attempted running. Going back up was unthinkable. I’m afraid if I had stopped to rest I wouldn’t have been able to start up again. Some of the steps up were fairly high and I wasn’t at all sure I was going to make it. The drive home was uneventful. We were both tired, and my legs were sore and weak.

Sunset over Canyon de Chelly

Thursday I studied most of the day. We planned to visit in the afternoon, hoping to see some people that need support. Ted got an email asking us to speak in the Tohlakai Branch on Sunday. It is Veterans’ Day so they want him to share the story of his conversion and experience in the Navy. We set up a visit for Friday with a couple. I decided to make cookies to take with us. Just as I finished some cookies our Friday appointment called to ask if we could come now. Their granddaughter was at home and they wanted us to talk to her. They told us how to get to their home and we packed up and left.

At their home we visited with the granddaughter. We had met her on our first visit with the Relief Society President. She’s 18 and said she was out of high school and not working and not in college. She really didn’t want to participate in the seminary class we were starting. She recently told her grandma she wants to join the church. We will teach her and help her understand the gospel.

After we left there we went to visit another family. The husband had a stroke and is in a wheel chair. His ex-wife is caring for him in a home that is about half finished. The outside looks like it is missing the outside layer. We asked the husband if he would like to go to church and he indicated he would. The ex-wife was going to a Contribution Meeting. I asked what that was. Her niece’s daughter had died. Since most of the Indians don’t get life insurance, when someone dies they have a meeting where all the people give money to help with burial costs and to help the family. This is also called a “Gathering”. The people share memories about the person who has passed away.

From there we went to visit two ladies we saw a couple of weeks ago. It was almost totally dark, so it was tricky finding their driveway in the dark. The mother was home alone. Her daughter had gone with some people around there into Gallup to a motel and she didn’t know where she was. She said she thought she’d be back in about a week based on what has happened in the past. We had a good visit with the mom. She is not a member. She wants to read the Book of Mormon and the Bible before she joins the church so she knows what it is all about. She has read the Book of Mormon and it gives her a good feeling. She is currently in Psalms in the Bible. She had several questions about what she is reading and said the best thing we could do was help answer her questions.

We had thought about visiting one more person but were not ready to tackle a strange place in the dark. We came home and finished baking the cookies and studying. Sister Joe called to say they would not be able to come to seminary Saturday but wanted to do a makeup lesson. She said it is supposed to snow this weekend—I can hardly wait. We are keeping busy and getting busier. That is good.

Friday we woke up to the wind blowing. It looked as if it had rained during the night. I tried wiping the car down after our walk, but it wouldn’t get dry. It was like the water was too cold to get absorbed. I hung the towel and shammy I had used on the fence to dry. A short time later as I was studying I heard what sounded like rain on the air conditioner. Sure enough, it was raining outside. My towel and shammy were very wet on the fence. It rained off and on all day, and snow was being forecast for Saturday with about an inch on the ground Sunday. The high temperature for Sunday was supposed to be 35 degrees with a low of 4 degrees.

I worked on my lesson for both seminaries during the day and did some review for the temple preparation class we’ll be teaching. I also began thinking about the talk I need to give Sunday in Toh-la-kai. I had five students in the seminary class. We had good discussion. I got a little confused in the middle of the lesson and almost gave part of the Ft. Wingate lesson, but I caught myself in time.

Saturday we woke up to about 1 ½ inches of snow and very cold temperatures. We got ready for seminary in plenty of time, but it took Ted quite a bit of time to clean off the car so we got to the church just in time to set up and be ready. I only had three students.

Ted at our cottage, first snow

It snowed (blizzard) off and on all day. We didn’t have to go anywhere, so we hunkered down in the cottage. I made a pot of soup that tasted good. I worked on my talk part of the day and spent quite a bit of time looking at family history. When I looked at some records Steven had found, they were some German records that had just been indexed and contained quite a bit about the Roeth family back in the mid-1800’s. In the evening we watched a movie on the Code Talkers. They were really amazing and made a huge contribution to the country during the war. 

Week Ending November 3, 2012

Sunday when we got up the temperature was about 30 degrees. Our meeting was good. There was a couple from Ramah who had come to speak. I had not realized “Ramah” was a Book of Mormon word. The town must have been settled by members of the church. The counselor in the branch presidency was also supposed to speak, but he just summarized his thoughts. It took the same amount of time.

The rest of the meetings were cancelled to have a dinner for a missionary couple who leaves this week. We took the opportunity to talk with Pres. Tulley to ask about seminary. The dinner was nice. The branch had a little speech, several people had gifts, and the couple shared a few comments. It was nice.

Monday we were unable to confirm our appointment so we drove to our grandma’s house. A young man opened the door and said she wasn’t home. We told him to let her know we had come and we left. I was feeling concerned about her. She is such a sweet lady. I thought we needed to be doing something more but didn’t know what we could do. I called the Relief Society President. She suggested a man we could visit who’d had a stroke and needed help. We made a list of people and started out. We couldn’t find the man’s house at first. When we found it we parked the car and walked up the driveway. We asked if there was anything we could do to help—their house looked like it was about to fall down.

We then drove to visit a mother and daughter in the branch. Another daughter and her son that live in the hogan just across the driveway were there. A nephew who lives in the hogan at the bottom of the hill also stopped in. We talked quite a bit about their family. Apparently, the lady is one of 14 kids. When we were ready to leave we asked if we could have a prayer with them. She told us about her sister who is in the hospital and asked us to remember her in our prayers. We also said we would call the temple and put her name on the prayer roll. They were grateful for that.

We then tried finding a couple of people in the Turtle Butte area. That is just across Interstate 40 from us. When we turned off the highway the road turned into dirt. We had no clue which way to go but we stayed to the right and the second driveway was the one we were looking for. After we left there, we went home. It was nearly dark and we didn’t want to try strange roads in the dark.

Tuesday we drove to visit another lady and her daughter on the elders’ list. They live down in Iyanbito down a very ugly dirt road. We had no idea which was her home, so we parked the car at the first sign of life and walked to the house. The lady showed us the trailer we were looking for and we walked over. She wasn’t home but we knew her daughter lived just up the road, so we walked up to the group of houses that was just past hers. As we were wondering what to do we noticed two men walking up the road. One was the lady’s son who lived in the house where we were. He said he usually listens to the elders when they come visit his mom. He also pointed out his sister’s house—it was about ½ a mile up the road across the field. I shuddered to think what the road to her house would be like. Anyway, neither of the ladies was at home, so we left and walked back to the car.

The roads here are in bad condition. Even the interstate is bumpy and rough. The paved roads vary as to condition, but are at least drivable. The dirt roads vary from quite smooth to slightly wash boarded to open field. The road we were on for this trip had deep ruts and pot holes 12-18” deep. Normally I’m the nervous one, but Ted was quite anxious as he was driving. There was a van in front of us that was driving on the wrong side of the road, but it didn’t look any better over there. Ted talked to our car while he was driving, telling her how grateful he is for all the good service she’s done for us and apologizing for the trial she was experiencing on the road. She is a good car.

After we left Iyanbito, we drove to Turtle Butte again to try another home. This dirt road was much smoother like it had been graded periodically. We passed an unmarked driveway with a single house at the end. We parked the car in the very soft dirt and walked. As soon as we got within sight of the house six large dogs started barking and running toward us. Ted, who is normally a dog person, got a bit nervous. We stopped at the gate and rang the bell—there were two more dogs inside who were obviously protecting their territory. No one answered so we left a note. While we were standing there one of the dogs had come over to me and barked a bit. Then another dog came over as if to come near me and the first dog began barking at it as if to protect me. It was very interesting.

When we got home we felt dusty and tired. We got ready for the onslaught of trick-or-treaters. As it turned out, no one came to our door. Maybe they think our house is haunted.

Thursday I did some work to prepare for my seminary lesson Saturday. I felt very unsettled about what to talk about. Ted listened while I went over the things I wanted to present and gave me some ideas. I felt much better about it all. I made some additional notes and put some ideas together. We found out the priesthood had scheduled a wood-cutting trip for 9 AM Saturday, so we had to reschedule seminary to 8 AM. We needed to let the branch president’s kids know, so we walked over to his home, armed with only a street number and a description of which street (the outer loop) he lived on. We found his house and left a note in the door. When we tried to find the trail back to our part of town the barking dogs and flashlight alerted the neighbors to the ghost walkers and they came to see what was going on. They were kind enough to show us where the break in the fence was and we managed to get home OK.

It is pitch black here at night. Ted kept commenting on how amazing the stars were. We have never seen so many stars at night. We bought a wheel that shows us where stars are in the sky based on time of day and month of year. We stayed outside looking at stars for a while. We were able to pick out several constellations and the Milky Way which was totally amazing to us.

Friday as I was waking up I had several more thoughts about how and what I needed to do for my lesson. I also realized that in my efforts to prepare for Saturday I had not reviewed the lesson for Friday. Since I teach the same lessons to both seminaries on different schedules, I don’t need to do a separate preparation for Tohlakai, I just need to review what I taught three weeks previously to Ft. Wingate. I need to make some adjustments but not an entirely different lesson. That’s a blessing.

Our seminary coordinator came down from Farmington to observe and teach us. He arrived early and cleaned up some additional desks and chairs for our seminary class, so we moved into a smaller room. I thought it worked much better. It was a shame though—only two students came. We had a good lesson and the two that came had a good discussion. I spent time with the coordinator afterward and he gave me some good comments. I felt like it had gone well and so I was pleased that his comments were positive. 

Week Ending October 27, 2012

Sunday the branch president called to ask us to be ready to speak in church. We were supposed to have speakers, but he hadn’t heard anything and wanted a back-up plan. As it turned out, a counselor in the stake presidency came, not to speak but to make an announcement, so he spoke and Ted spoke. The speaker didn’t come. My Relief Society lesson went well—at least I felt good about it. There was a lot of participation and that is usually good.

In the late afternoon we went to call on a referral we’d been given at zone conference. The pamphlet we’d left on Friday was still in the door, but there was a truck outside. We knocked a couple of times and a young man about 23 years old came to the door. We had apparently awakened him. We told him his grandmother had asked us to call on him. We gave him the pamphlet we’d left before made an appointment for Friday afternoon.

After that we went to call on the granddaughter of a lady in Tohlakai. She actually lives just across the back fence from us. She is a sweet girl and was very kind. She is obviously very lonely. She had told her boyfriend several times recently that she wanted to start going back to church. We offered to call on her again and give her whatever support we could.

Monday we were all prepared to visit our grandma but she called to say she had a doctor’s appointment and wouldn’t be available. We decided to go see a volcano and ice cave near Grants since we had the day off. The climb to the volcano was beautiful. The entire area is covered with volcanoes and lava flows. When we reached the top of the trail we were inside the cone of the volcano. There was a huge, cone-shaped pit with one side completely gone where the lava had broken out. The lava flow goes about 26 miles. The trees had no chance to get good roots and they were twisted and perched on the sides of the mountain. Many of the trees are burned from lightning strikes. There is a trading post at the start of the hike where the family who owns the land has lived for nearly one hundred years. We had a good visit with the great-granddaughter of the original owner who lives there now. 

Carolyn in the volcano

The other side of the trading post was the trail to the ice cave. It is basically part of a collapsed lava tube. The temperature stays at a max of 31 all year. We went down into the cave, but we were still just at the edge of it, and it was plenty cold. When they first discovered it the ice was 12 feet thick. It is now about 20 feet thick due to water seeping through the ground and runoff from the rains. Since it is so cold, the water just sits on top until they get a hard freeze then it becomes part of the ice layer. We really enjoyed the hikes.

Ice Cave

Tuesday I studied a bit in the morning then made cookies. We had a bit of lunch/dinner then headed to Gallup to run a few errands before Institute. Ted’s institute class went well, but only one of our former attendees came. We had a good visit with him. He is 18 and getting his papers ready to submit for a mission. About half way through the lesson another person came. He is from the other Gallup ward and is Indian. He is a returned missionary and Ward Mission Leader. Both of them said they would invite others to attend. We explained that we would like to get some activities going so people can socialize. I really hope it will grow.

Wednesday I studied a lot preparing for my lesson for Saturday. The weather is getting colder and it is difficult to want to go outside before it warms up.

Thursday I studied most of the day. The wind was blowing a bit, but Ted and I went for a walk up by the elementary school. It was plenty cool, but we enjoyed it.

Friday we got up at 6 AM, had a bite to eat and read our scriptures. When it began to get light around 7 AM we bundled up and went for a walk around our neighborhood. (It was about 32 degrees when we got up, but when we left to go walking it had dropped to 30 degrees.) There were a couple of other people out walking and a car or two drove by us, but it was fairly quiet outside. It was also plenty chilly.

We called and sang Happy Birthday to Seth. He didn’t say much of course, but Heather said he was smiling. We studied most of the morning. In the afternoon we went to visit our referral. He was referred to us by his grandma in Zuni. At first we didn’t think he was home. Then he answered and told us we needed to use the other door. We went around to the back and went in. He has had anxiety attacks. His family took him to a medicine man to help get rid of the anxiety attacks and the medicine man told him he needed to get into a religion. I think that’s why they referred him to us. We both felt really confused as to what to teach him. We visited with him for a few minutes and we made an appointment for next week to come back.

We tried to collect our thoughts for a bit before we had to leave for Tohlakai. We went a bit early so we could visit with Freestones to find out what they had been doing that was reaching the people. After we talked we had our seminary class. The group seemed to be a bit more aware of what I was talking about tonight. The family of four called just before we were going to start to say their mom was in the hospital and they wouldn’t be coming. I hope they eventually get to come.

Saturday we got up and walked in the cold again. This time it was still dark when we walked. We had to hurry so we could get ready in time for seminary. My class seemed to go well this morning. I was very touched with the scripture given for devotional. The student had forgotten she was supposed to give it, so she only had about 5 minutes to prepare. She read a scripture from the Book of Mormon about Christ then bore a sweet testimony about Him. It was a perfect lead into the lesson since we were talking about Peter’s testimony of Christ and the Pharisees wanting to see a sign.

We attended a baptism in the afternoon. It was held in Tohachi which is about 10 miles past Tohlakai. We had bad directions, so we got all the way to the end of the bad road before we realized it wasn’t the right place. Fortunately, the car in front of us turned around and we found it was the RS president from Tohlakai. We followed her to the church. The boy being baptized is one of my seminary students. He is 11 years old. He was so excited that when I asked him a question on Friday night he answered the question then told everyone he was being baptized the next day. There was a good crowd. Apparently, they were not able to get the cold water to work, so the water was really hot. He was gasping for a couple of minutes when he got into the water. The elder told him he’d do it really fast and he did. It was a nice service. Afterward, Sister Freestone had prepared a meal for everyone. I’m not sure where she gets her energy, but she certainly has a great deal of it.

Rance Thompson and Grandma Mary John 

We decided to attend the Tohlakai Branch since the young man was being confirmed and they were having a dinner for the Freestones. I called and told the Relief Society president we would bring some food, so I threw together a pumpkin pudding and Ted made a salad.