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.