Week Ending July 13, 2013

Sunday I sat with one of my students. I admire her—she usually comes alone but she is there every week. I asked her how she does it. That takes real determination. She said she’s just used to it. I asked her why she had been baptized when she was sixteen because she’s come her whole life. She said she just wanted to wait until she could understand it enough.

We went home teaching in the evening. Ted again talked about temples and challenged the husband to go to the temple. I invited them to come with us on the 20^th. He hemmed and muttered a bit and said he couldn’t think why he shouldn’t then he agreed. I was amazed.

Monday evening we went to family home evening. We had a large number of kids which was exciting. We played a card game called Nertz.

Tuesday we had a call that a member had passed away on Saturday. I’m happy for her—maybe she can find the peace she desires. Apparently, her uncle died on Sunday so they are having a joint funeral. The aunties didn’t want the funeral at our building so it will be held at a Christian Reformed Church.

We ate lunch at the senior center, arriving a few minutes early and visiting with people. The chairman gave me some yarn to start doing some weaving and some idea on how to do it. While we were eating our mutton stew they brought in crates of produce. It was from the food pantry and we were given some. We held back so everyone could get theirs first. We got a watermelon and 4 heads of lettuce along with a bag of jalapeno peppers.

We also got some for some others from church. There was lots of lettuce and hardly anyone took any. We went to one sister’s house to visit with her. She was at her mom’s showering—she doesn’t yet have water in her home. (She said she went without electricity for two years.) We left her some lettuce. Then we headed to another home to deliver more. The lady really needed someone to talk with. I held her hand and visited a bit then we left. She had been very close to the lady who passed away.

Wednesday the elders asked us to go with them to review the baptism interview questions with a lady. They had to pick us up because we had some rain and knew the road wasn’t going to improve by being wet. From there we went to another home to give a lady a blessing. We visited a while then the men gave her the blessing. Her husband has been having some issues as well so I asked if he needed a blessing. He said he didn’t think so, but she told him he did so they gave him a blessing as well.

At home we studied a bit before heading to Tohlakai. One family called to tell us they still don’t have a car so we offered to pick them up. Oh my goodness. We allowed ourselves what we thought was plenty of time, but we took much longer on the road than anticipated. We had to call the other family to tell them we’d be late. The road was about 2 ½ miles long and we couldn’t go anywhere near normal speed on any of it. Then we had to go back out to get to the church. At seminary we combined with the adults for a video and short discussion then we separated to finish up. We had to take the family home so we had two more trips on the road. We didn’t get out to the highway again until after 7:30. After a couple of stops, we picked up a pizza and headed home.

Thursday we took another couple with us to the double funeral. It was nice. We didn’t know the uncle, but there was a large crowd and the majority of them were there for him. He met his wife at BYU so I’m sure they were both members. They talked about his devotion to his Navajo ways and his daughters wore traditional dress. He was a very successful business man who owned an electric company that actually does work. It was a bit unusual in that they played three Western songs as part of the funeral service.

After the service, the mortuary people opened up both caskets and arranged things so they could have a viewing. Everyone had to file past the two caskets and shake hands with about 2 dozen people to get to the exit. The man looked very happy—our friend looked at peace. I was impressed that the men in attendance were all in their best jeans, all cleaned up, with button shirts, neckerchiefs, clean boots, and hats. Lots of women were in shorts or pants—that is their way to just come in their regular clothes. Some were dressed up, but not many. But they all seemed to be very touched by the service and wanted to express their condolences to the family members. A group of men from the electric company all wore signs on their backs like people wear when they run races with the man’s birth year as the number and his death year at the bottom. Apparently, he died suddenly while running a marathon on Sunday. Several of the men had the traditional braided hair. The people from the company had shirts embroidered with a tribute to his memory. It was very impressive.

We had to leave early for institute to get water and get the building set up. Missionary Prep got rescheduled for the same time so we weren’t sure who would come. We were amazed when we had 6 students come to institute. All but one were kids that will still be here after school starts. There were four others that were in mission prep that should be coming as long as we are on opposite weeks or until they leave on missions. One should be permanent and should bring his brother and sister. I was so thrilled.

Friday we had our seminary/institute inservice meeting at 7 AM. It was a really good meeting and I really enjoyed it. Our supervisor is really helpful. I asked him if he could visit institute on 7/25 and he agreed. I suggested maybe he could teach the section I had volunteered for to show us how he teaches and give the kids some help with their teaching. He’s so good that I know he’ll be able to give us a lot of help.

The church is starting online seminary. I thought that would mean that the kids would do the work online and then come to class on Saturday, but they would have a virtual group meeting once a week. That would take half my class. I guess I’m feeling a bit possessive of the kids and don’t want to give them away. The supervisor decided I could still have them in my class and they could do the work online. He called this afternoon to suggest I get trained to be an online teacher then the kids would be totally in my group and there wouldn’t be any issues. OK by me.

We stopped for burritos at Lottaburger on the way home. They are a local chain that is noted for their breakfast burritos. I enjoyed mine thoroughly.

In the evening we went to the stake center for a baptism. Ted played the piano and we gave the prayers. It was a very nice service and the lady and her son were very happy. She had brought refreshments for everyone, so we had a bit of a visit afterward.

We’ve had some strong rains lately. It’s monsoon season and the storms hit hard and fast then blow over. There has been a lot of lightning. It makes the air really smell fresh and clean. And it gets fairly cool in the night time.

Saturday was seminary. After class we cleaned the building. The branch president’s family came. I haven’t seen the group work together so well and with so many people helping. We got home about 11:30. I cleaned up the last three desks from Tohlakai and we moved them into the classroom. I now have 10 desks in a room that should have 10-12 chairs. It is cozy, but I think it will work well.

I invited the seminary students today to go to the temple on 7/27 instead of having class. They thought that would be a good idea and all wanted to participate. I really think that would be a great finish to our year.

In the late afternoon we went to the home of the lady who was baptized. It was her nephew’s birthday party. All her aunts and uncles were really sweet and welcomed us to the party. When we arrived there were five women standing in a semi-circle around another woman who was near a pan of oil cooking on a fire. Those in the circle were all patting balls of dough into large flat round disks which they took turns putting into the pan of oil. The woman cooking would prick the bubbles in the dough and turn the piece as it cooked then put it in a large pan. They were making fry bread. I visited with them and probably could have tried shaping a piece but I didn’t. At one point I actually held a shaped disk until the pan was empty, at which point I put my piece on.

I introduced myself to the ladies. Each lady told me she was a sister, “sister cousin” to our friend. They were the same generation as our friend so they were sisters. When the boy opened his gifts, many were from “Grandma and Grandpa” something. I know he really had only two grandmothers there, but their generation was all grandparents to the boy. It makes for a challenging family history puzzle, but it is an amazing relationship they all have with each other. The mother of the boy, whose mother had been cooking the fry bread, had married our friend’s brother. She said in her comments to the group that she was so grateful to be married into a family that they could really feel close to and feel their support. It was an amazing experience.

I visited quite a bit with a lady who said she’d come to Relief Society with her niece one of these evenings. She was very nice. Another aunt told the missionaries they could come by to visit with her. The hostess thanked everyone for coming and told them how happy she was that she had been baptized and bore her testimony. It was very touching. Her brother also shared his feelings with everyone about coming to his son’s party. They were really a great family and I continue to be impressed with how close they are. It started to rain and blow right in the middle of dinner so we had to grab the food and run into the house. It was still fun with everyone jammed into the house.