Week Ending June 29, 2013

Sunday the branch president passed out the seminary certificates. I thought it would be good to have the recognition of the branch president. I was right—he did a great job and it went well. There was a really good spirit about it.

A man in the branch had been asked a couple of weeks ago to help with the sacrament and had declined. Today he had his white shirt and a tie on and asked if he could help. I nearly cried watching him do it. This is such a big step for him and such a wonderful thing. I was so proud of him.

After church a sister brought an article of clothing by for me to fix. I am surprised at the things I am able to do for people that they don’t have a handle on. I take so many things for granted, things I just grew up doing. It’s amazing.

In the evening we attended the Worldwide Leadership Training Conference broadcast from Provo, Utah. It was amazing. They had all the missionaries from the MTC for a choir and it was incredible. The talks were all really good about how we can be more effective. I really wish more people had attended.

Monday it was cool outside and there was a stiff breeze, so we wore light jackets when we walked to the church. It is surprising how cool it gets at night—55 to 60. Since the youth are all at the special multi-stake youth conference, I don’t have seminary this week. It made it so I didn’t really need to work on specific lessons. I did need to plan what I want to do with the next two months until we start the new course of study. I want to help them learn how to memorize scriptures and better ways to study the scriptures to get more out of them. I also want to discuss some of the topics that we touched on but didn’t really have enough time to develop properly.

One of the topics I want to discuss more is the widow’s mite. I think we often apply that to being generous and not withholding our means from the Lord. But it occurs to me that it is as much about giving our lives, giving service, our talents and all we have to serve the Lord. I think of the story of John Tanner who gave everything he had, which was quite a bit in terms of worldly goods, to build the kingdom and help others around him. There are so many generous people that it is easy to get caught up in the monetary aspect, but there are also many people who have little, but give all their time and energy to helping others and serving. There is something more all of us can give to the Lord.

Tuesday afternoon we went to read with a family. The mom’s work schedule is somewhat more stable. Her brother has moved to Albuquerque to be with his mom. She is taking him to church so I’m sure he will be baptized soon. From there we went to visit a family where the husband was in the hospital. His wife was home and we had a good visit with her.

After those visits we picked up a man from the Gallup 2^nd Ward to go visiting. We went to visit a lady whose address was something like “2^nd driveway past hogan on dirt road”. Unfortunately, we had no idea which dirt road was referred to. Our companion called the home teacher who knew met us and showed us where she lived. She wasn’t home but we talked with her mom and left an invitation to institute. We visited three more homes. One was up an ugly dirt driveway. This was worse than the one in Iyanbito that required a prayer to get down. This required prayer both directions. I thought we were going to lose the car a couple of times. The boy was not home, but we talked with his grandfather and mom and they said they’d pass the word along. The young man and his dad do some kind of youth mentoring on the Res.

Wednesday we did a few things at home then went to the senior center for lunch and a visit. There were hardly any people there when we arrived so there wasn’t much visiting. We stopped at our grandma’s to let her know about the fireside in Farmington on Sunday with Elder Larry Echo Hawk. She was really excited and wants her husband to take her. I’d like to offer them a ride to the fireside, but we have a full car already.We stopped at the Cultural Center and saw the statue memorializing the Navajo Code Talkers.

Plaque honoring Navajo Code Talkers

In the evening Ted and I discussed how to handle the institute lesson on Thursday. As we were leaving the house today the girl giving the lesson called to say she wouldn’t be able to attend. She was going to take her younger brother to the rodeo instead. She was doing half the lesson and bringing the refreshments. Anyway, we decided I would teach most of the lesson since I had my seminary notes and we would show a video clip as well. We are dropping a chunk and moving some of it to next time.

Thursday we had to test a cable to hook up my laptop to the TV. I finally figured out how to get a picture, but I couldn’t get any sound. I gave up and started downloading some more of the conference from Sunday. I had left my glasses at home so it was difficult to see, and the connection is slow. I got impatient and clicked multiple times, so it took much longer than needed. I finally left the laptop at church and we came home. I went back a bit early and tested everything again. I found a setting on my laptop that changed the speakers to accept audio signals and the sound came blaring out.

Our little workshop group

We had our weekly workshop. The Relief Society president had bought two kits of knitting looms and a couple of extra picks. The lady who came last week brought her three girls and they all worked on looms. The 5 year old and 8 year old got a bit impatient with the process but they caught on. I was the only one that had brought anything to eat, so we ate my food then returned to the projects. We were there until about 2 PM. I finally said I needed to get home to work on my institute lesson and we all left.

Melina wearing hat her mom made!

When I got home I worked on the institute lesson. We got to the church a bit early to write a poem on the board that I wanted to use in the lesson. When 7 PM came we were the only ones there. We waited a bit because we had three people tell us they would be there. We had decided we’d wait until 7:20. As the hour approached I packed up my laptop, which I had set up to show a video clip, put all my stuff away, and erased the board. At 7:22 a young woman walked into the room. We unpacked everything, set the laptop up again, and had the lesson. It is kind of difficult to get a real discussion going with one student, one teacher, and one other, but we did our best. She didn’t want to stay and play games—I can’t really say I blame her—and she didn’t want any of the junk we’d scraped together for refreshments, so we got home fairly early which was great.

Friday we were up about 5 AM to get to a CES training meeting at 7 AM. (Thank goodness for the early night on Thursday.) We had the Area Supervisor for the Southwest and his assistant to do the teaching on helping the students become more involved in the learning process. It was really good. We also got our manuals for the new year. They redid the Book of Mormon course so it includes specific aids for home study teachers. The book is about 2” thick. I glanced through it and it looks like it has lots of good helps. I really need to begin getting into it so I’m ready for the start of the new year.

After we left the meeting we drove to Farmington to see the Aztec Ruins. They aren’t really Aztec ruins, but that’s what someone named them many years ago and it stuck. It was really great. There was a man outside with a solar telescope we could look in and see sun spots and flares on the surface of the sun. Amazing!

Layers of rooms at Aztec Ruins

 We looked around the museum until the next video showing then went on a walking tour of the ruins. The entire thing was about ½ mile and took about 1 ½ hours reading everything in the guidebook. It is an incredible place. We could see several layers of rooms and kivas in the structures. They have rebuilt the great kiva to give the idea of what it may have looked like. We really enjoyed it.

Kivas at Aztec Ruins

Outside the museum there was a man and his mother with rugs for sale. The mom was actually weaving while we watched. They were fairly pricey, but they had some beautiful pieces. The man is working on a master’s degree in cultural history and studies textiles a lot. We had a good discussion with him. He told us about some of the dyes he uses. He showed us a blanket in which he had used Kool Aid to dye the red threads. For some of the blankets they actually card and spin the wool, but that is very time-consuming so they mostly buy commercial yarns and dye them. It was very interesting.

Rebuilt Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins

We took a different route home and found both ways were exactly the same mileage. The road wasn’t quite as good coming back. It’s funny because that was the way we came when we first arrived in New Mexico for our mission and I don’t remember it being so bumpy. We had even been told it was bumpy and it seemed really good to us then. It wasn’t bad, just a bit less nice than the other road.

We ran into a bit of a rain storm. It grew blacker and blacker and we were afraid it was going to really hit us hard. Then we saw a dust storm ahead of us that looked even worse. We ran right into that one. It was like dust and sticks and small rocks were blowing around. I’m surprised we didn’t have more damage to the car. It was so bad we couldn’t see ahead of us at times. Fortunately it didn’t last too long. When we pulled out of that we found we were missing the rain storm.

This way--just in case you think you're lost!

Saturday afternoon was spent at a graduation reception for one of my students. These are a big deal here. When someone graduates the family throws a big dinner and recognition party. Since the student has been at school the party was put off until today. It was up at McGaffey at the Z Lazy B Lodge, a bed and breakfast hotel. We thought it would take about 20 minutes to get there and we were late leaving. As it turned out, it took us 40 minutes—it was much farther up the road than we had thought and the road became dirt about half way up. We thought for sure we were lost but finally got there.

Congratulations, Kyree!

We were embarrassed to be so late, until we found out the time had been moved back 1 ½ hours. The family was still decorating and one of the helium balloons had escaped so Ted helped get it down. We sat with a young cousin. She’s a sophomore and has changed her plans for the future at least 20 times based on all the things she said she had thought she’d be. Right now, it’s nursing so she can take care of her aging grandparents.

The party's over.

It was a beautiful and interesting drive. We passed an Elk farm where they produce antlers for commercial use. On the way home I took several pictures of the animals even though some of them were scared of me.
 

Granddaddy Elk! Look at those antlers!

In the evening the elders had a fireside at the church to help the members become more involved in missionary work. There were only the Relief Society president, another family, and us in attendance—the ones that already help with missionary work. The branch president came for a few minutes about 45 minutes into the meeting. After he had said a few words he came and asked us if we would speak in Sacrament Meeting tomorrow then left. The elders gave a good presentation but there was really no one to benefit from it. Sad.

When we got home from the fireside we worked on our talks. I found one I had given before we left on our mission. I made a few changes and felt good about it. It is on the Book of Mormon and why each of us needs to find out for ourselves how we feel about it through reading and praying about it. Ted stayed up very late putting his talk together.