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| Presenting the quilt to Sister Pine (tall lady in the middle) |
After dinner we had planned to visit another girl in the branch to invite her to go to the temple with us. It looked like rain and they live in a muddy area so we decided to go a bit earlier. That also might make it so we could catch the mom before work. It began sprinkling a bit as we started then became fairly heavy. It was on and off, stopping completely when we got to Church Rock where she lived. The ground was dry. We talked with the girl and told her about the trip. They hadn’t come to church this morning because they moved to a hogan next to the grandmother’s house a couple of weeks ago and when they went back to the house this morning to get their clothes for church the grandmother had changed the locks. The kids are sleeping on the floor on mattresses because there are no beds set up yet. I know the elders would be happy to help set up beds if they knew when the family was going to be home. The kids looked like they were enjoying the slumber party.
It started raining while we were there, so we finished talking with her and hurried to the car so we could get out before the ground turned muddy. By the time we turned onto the asphalt, it was really pouring down. Ted had planned to take me home before his home teaching appointment, but it was raining too hard to see very far so we pulled onto the street where his companion lives and parked the car and waited.
After they finished, we drove toward home. We were on the
frontage road and noticed there was a lot of traffic coming the opposite
direction. We couldn’t see the freeway, but it was obvious it was closed to
traffic. We noticed a tractor heading up the freeway toward Ft. Wingate and
there was a fire truck on the bridge to home so we weren’t sure we’d be able to
get through. We thought there was an accident. When we got near the bridge and
could see the freeway it was a huge mess. It had flooded on both sides and was
covered with muck and weeds and all kinds of debris. There was a tractor
further up the freeway from us headed toward us scraping the junk off the
freeway. The tractor heading up the freeway that we had passed was undoubtedly
going to do the same from the opposite direction. There is a bit of a gully
next to the freeway onramp and it was full of water so it looked like a river.
It must have overflowed its banks and created the mess. The rain must have hit
right after we went through.
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| Muddy Interstate Highway |
Apparently, it rained in Iyanbito yesterday while we were
gone. The road crews have been grading a road getting it ready for paving. We
were really excited. The rain washed it all away. We haven’t been there, but a
lady told us everything was washed out. She lives about half way up Iyanbito
Road which is slightly sloped. She said her road was completely flooded
yesterday as well. She lives right by a bridge—I wonder how much water is in
the ditch. The rain is so strange. It comes almost without warning and is
really heavy for several minutes then stops and moves on. It definitely has
wreaked some havoc in its wake this time. We actually had flash flood warnings
for the last couple of days, so we are right in the middle of the rain.
When we got home, we discovered the crock pot that had been
washed after dinner and was at the top of the dish drainer had fallen to the
floor and broken. Is this a case of “when it rains, it pours”?
Monday we had several errands to run in Gallup so we left a
bit early for home evening. I got my hair cut by a lady that is cousin to a
lady in our branch. She was an interesting person. And she gave me a fairly
good cut. We checked out Goodwill to see if they had a crock for our crock pot
base and to see if they had any more sheets. We did not have success on either
count.
Home evening was good. We had six kids. They have a good
time and mix well. Most of them know each other so it works well. I would
really like to see more kids there and a better variety of activities.
Tuesday all our plans fell through. We couldn’t go visiting
for institute and our scripture reading cancelled until Wednesday.
Wednesday I made bread and cookies. I tried using the dough
from the third loaf in the batch to make rolls. It wasn’t a smashing
success—they are good, but heavy. I also made cookies for the zone conference
Friday. I made two different kinds. I’m not sure why except that I wanted to. I
was really pushing to keep the process flowing and had put the dough from the
chocolate chip cookies in a separate bowl so I could use the mixer to make
oatmeal cookies. I had the canister for the sugar right next to the finished
dough. I measured out the cup of sugar called for in the recipe and proceeded
to pour it in the bowl on top of the completed cookie dough instead of in the
mixing bowl behind me. I immediately realized my mistake and dumped out as much
as I could. Then I had to guess how much more I needed in the mixing bowl.
When I was ready to add the flour, for some reason I doubled
the flour in my head so instead of 1 ½ cups of flour I measured 3 cups of
flour. Fortunately, I caught myself before I dumped in the third cup so I just
added an extra ½ cup. Since high altitude recipes add a bit of flour and some
extra liquid, I added a couple of teaspoons of water. They were a little hard
and seemed to harden more as they cooled. They still tasted good, but not good
enough to take to zone conference.
When I finished, I
was exhausted. I needed to prepare for seminary at Tohlakai and managed to
spend a bit of time working on that lesson before we had to leave. We headed
over to read scriptures with a family. Their yard was a real mud pit, so Ted
parked on the bridge over the culvert to their house. When he came around to
open my door, he was unable to reach my door around one way, so he went the
other way. When I looked out to see what the problem was, it looked to me like
he had just missed going into the ditch. The car was right on the edge and the
edge wasn’t solid. As we walked toward the house, the daughter came out to tell
us her mom wasn’t home. When we left, I waited outside to make sure Ted got the
car backed up and out of danger before I got in.
We decided to drop by another home to see how the family was
doing. They were both home, just starting to fix dinner. We visited a few minutes,
I shared a scripture with them and we had a prayer, then we left.
We didn’t have any other appointments so we drove to
Tohlakai, arriving about an hour early. We got set up then Ted watched some
church videos and I reviewed my lesson a bit more. I had three students. I
talked with them about 2 Peter and the Divine Nature. I am not sure if I am
reaching them or not. They agree with me and nod their heads, but the kids are
so quiet. I need to figure out how to get them to speak up more and share their
thoughts.
Thursday we picked up two of my seminary students for our
CES inservice meeting. We had been asked to bring some students. We had a big
discussion about the online seminary program that seemed to take forever. I was
feeling a bit discouraged since I thought I was training so I could keep my
students in my class and it turns out they would have to be in someone else’s
class unless we have six students. They are suggesting that the students
participate in the online program then attend my weekly class once a week in
addition to their weekly work. I’m really not sure what we’ll do at this point.
In the evening we had institute. Our supervisor was visiting
and was going to present part of the scripture block for the evening. We had
three students present and it went well. There was good discussion and some
good points made. When it was time for his part, we were basically out of time
and he’d told his wife he’d be home to help. He talked for a few minutes,
praising the students for their efforts and just making one suggestion: Since
the focus of our studies is to bring us to Christ, seek to ask questions that
will lead the discussion in that direction. I have a difficult time with
getting the questions right so I need to work on that more. It was a good
meeting. He later told us that was the best institute class he’d ever been in.
I thought it was good, but I’m not sure the best. I appreciated his comment
though.
Friday we had zone conference in St. Michael’s. I had
wakened with many questions about seminary and how it was going to work. It had
been a restless night and I was very tired. The conference was good. I was a
bit distracted by my seminary issues, but I appreciated the comments that were
made. Pres. Batt asked us as senior missionaries to watch over the young
missionaries and help them be obedient. He went through several mission rules
and asked us to talk to the missionaries about them if they were in question.
We had a good lunch. One of the sisters who is going home
brought several quilts and quilt pieces to show what they’ve done in their
area. I was amazed. They were beautiful. She had one piece a lady had made that
was really beautiful. She gets about 29 ladies out regularly. She brought three
machines from home and one other sister has one. If someone had another machine
it would help in our branch. I have mine, but no one really knows how to sew
yet.
Our CES supervisor came after lunch and we talked. He said
he thought we could get an exception so I could be the teacher for the online
students in my seminary even though we will only have 4 or 5 instead of 6 and
then all my students could work together in the weekly meeting. I felt so much
better. I had thought that was what we had already decided so I had been very
confused and frustrated when I had been told that was not the plan.
After the conference we drove to the Hubbell Trading Post.
It is a fun place to visit. There was a blanket on a loom in the shop that was really nice. The man there told us that when it was finished it would sell for about $800. When we got home we were really tired. I did a
couple of online seminary lessons before bed.
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| Navajo Rug at Hubbell Trading Post |
Saturday we met at the church at 10:45 with the others who
were headed to the temple with the youth. One family cancelled and the other kids
had not got recommends so it was just three kids, two parents, and us. We all
fit in a van with the kids scrunched in the back. I was so relieved that we
didn’t have to drive. It was a first time for one of the girls and she really
enjoyed it. Afterward we took the kids to dinner. On the way home I was again
so glad the other couple was driving because we were really tired.
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| Group at Albuquerque Temple |
At home I did a couple of seminary lessons and typed the
branch announcements then went to bed.
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