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.