Week Ending May 3, 2014

Sunday I had one of our institute students come teach my class. We started late, so I did a little intro then left for Sheep Springs. We arrived 5 minutes late and they were waiting for us. We didn’t know there was another speaker. He left us 20 minutes to share. I rushed through my talk, cutting as I went. Ted did well with the brief time I left him. He shared good examples of lives that had been touched by seminary and institute. Elder Ashcroft said it was just what was needed. One additional boy was at seminary that had not been before. We had dinner and a visit with the senior couple until it was time for seminary.

When we arrived for seminary, Elder Ashcroft was talking with a rough looking man who was looking for a ride to Gallup. He told him to talk to us then went into his class. I felt really uncomfortable with it all, but Ted said we’d give him a ride. It turned out OK, but I sat in the back seat with the phone in my lap ready to call for help if necessary. Ted talked about the church the entire way in. He always takes the opportunity to share his testimony.  I was relieved when we dropped the man off and were on our way home.

Monday I met our grandma at the church and spent several hours sorting fabric and yarn from our ward at home. There were some really nice things. We ended up with five cupboards full of fabric and yarn.

 We went to attend home evening, but no one came for some time and we began to think it had been cancelled. Sarah had prepared a summary of several schools in AZ, NM, and UT. She wants to encourage the kids to go somewhere there will be a better opportunity to meet a spouse. There is so little chance here that it would be really wise to increase the odds somewhere else.

Tuesday I worked at home all morning. In the afternoon we went to The Nugget and had a good visit with the owner. He’d been at the Gathering of the Nations last weekend and his truck had been broken into. A man called him and offered to sell him part of the stuff so he drove to Albuquerque. He held the guy hostage until the police arrived. They were going to let the man’s wife take the car without searching it. When he made them search the car they found three illegal street weapons. The police wanted to hold the stolen stuff, but the owner refused to let them take it. He is one tough dude. Anyway, the one thing he wanted back was his mother-in-law’s rosary. He told the guy he would come get him if he doesn’t get it back. He is always interesting to talk to.

Wednesday I studied in the morning. It promised to be a busy day. We went to the senior center for lunch and visited with the supervisor. She was trying to find a goat to roast on their upcoming outing. I told her I had never had goat so we were planning to join them until we found out it would be held about two hours from here. I asked how they butcher the goat and was told the same as you do a sheep. When I asked how a sheep is butchered, they couldn’t tell me. Anyway, I don’t really need the details.

As I visited with the ladies I told them we only had a couple more weeks before we went home. The supervisor asked if we’d be here on May 14 and said to be sure to come that day. I’m not sure what they are planning, but it will probably be interesting. A lady told me she was planning to come to the church to see if we had some lace. We didn’t. She needs some lace for a project and has looked all over in Gallup. I told her we were going to the temple in Albuquerque next week, so she gave me her sample of lace and asked if I’d get her 5 yards. She even said she’d pay me, which may or may not happen. She did tell me to keep the receipt. I was supposed to teach another lady to crochet and had brought my crochet hook and yarn. She was going to teach me how to make a Navajo skirt. She left, saying she had to go home to get her stuff and would be back. She never returned.

After that adventure we drove to Thoreau to visit Jack and Cecelia Surprise one more time. Cecelia’s a spiky character. They told us some of their early adventures and we enjoyed a good visit. Cecelia had a couple of bags of clothes she wanted to give to the needy. We put those in the car and said goodbyes. I will miss our visits with them. 

Jack and Cecelia Surprise

We then drove to Crownpoint. We grabbed some dinner at the deli and got to the chapel about 20 minutes early, so we had a good visit with the teacher. We were thrilled when the 6 kids arrived, including the young sister of one of the girls. Apparently, this 15 year old girl is caring for her 4 younger siblings since her mom moved in with her boyfriend. She misses school frequently and does all the cooking and everything else needed. The mom checks in occasionally and brings some food, as do several other people to make sure things are going OK. The teacher also isn’t sure what will happen to seminary next year since the student who brings all the kids to class is graduating this year. One young girl brought a non-member friend who has been there a couple of times. This particular seminary has had several non-members attend and one of the boys that is graduating was baptized a year ago. It is a great group. After we left there we drove to Grants for the night.

Thursday Ted woke up at 5:17 am. I had left the phone charger in the car and the phone was too low to set off the alarm. Somehow we were ready to eat at 6 am then drove to the church for 6:30 seminary. We had a good visit with the teachers. They are such sweet people and we enjoy their class. The lesson went well.

At home we unpacked the car, put things away, got things together for the sewing class, and went to church. Our grandma and her niece came to sew. The niece picked out some fabrics and started cutting it into blocks. Our grandma had some material she had found when we sorted, already cut into blocks, and laid it out on some tables. It will be really cute. She actually started sewing the blocks together. The burrito lady came and finished sewing her blocks together. I worked on burp cloths and blankets.

In the afternoon we worked at home for a while then ran errands. At one store the clerk told us she was a member living in Church Rock. We invited her to church. After a few stops we went to Sizzler for dinner to celebrate our anniversary—39 years. I got all you can eat shrimp and enjoyed the meal, but I ate more than I should have. I had to get a second order just because it was all you can eat—there’s a principle in there somewhere.

After we finished there we drove to the stake center for a training meeting. We were about an hour early so Ted took a nap. The meeting was excellent. I had to chuckle during the opening song. When we sang, “Happy are we, Happy are we”, I looked at the people on the stand and they all looked very somber. It was rather funny. Our session discussed preparing lessons. There were some really helpful things discussed. Unfortunately, we were the only people from our branch in attendance.

Friday I was determined to act on the challenge the teacher gave us in seminary Wednesday night to let the Lord help us overcome weaknesses. I have a problem getting distracted and getting pulled off task. I made a list of everything I wanted to get done. I estimated a time for each and prioritized according to importance. I followed each one in order, but it became obvious as the day went on that I am not good at estimating how much time things take. Near the end of the day I had 5 hours worth of things to do and it was 6 pm. I got a lot done, but everything seemed to take more time than I planned. I prepared my seminary lesson for Sunday, made bags for the loom parts, and several other tasks.

About 7:30 there was a knock on the door and we opened it to see the lady from the branch taking the class on websites. She had been looking for me for a few weeks and hadn’t found me. Now she had an assignment for her class due Sunday night and needed help. She needed me to record some videos and help her embed them on the website. She wanted her daughter to demonstrate how to wear the scarves she has on this fictitious website, but she didn’t have a scarf with her. I had taken mine home, so we told her to go home, get a scarf, and come back and we could do the recordings and try to do the uploading which I know nothing about.

While she was gone I moved to the last item on my list—take down my loom. We were able to take all the pieces apart and put them into the new bags I’d made. It took about 20 minutes—I had allocated 2 hours. Yeah!! Something went faster than my plan. Our apartment looks quite strange without the loom. Taking it down made us aware of how quickly time is passing and how little time we have left.

The loom and rug before being dissembled; half finished!

When our friend returned we went to the church. I did the recordings but couldn’t get the sound to work. Finally, I googled it and found I just needed to turn up the volume. One of her daughters was doing the demonstrations, but her twin was laughing at her so it was distracting. Then they took all their mom’s notes to the car and had to retrieve them so we could make an attempt to do the work. We copied the good files to her flash drive, but we weren’t able to figure out how to get the videos on her website. We finally gave up and she was going to try to find someone at school on Saturday to help her.

Saturday I tried again to prioritize my day and stick to it. Almost as soon as I’d finished planning my day we had a call from our district leaders saying that they wanted to stop by around noon. They leave a week before us, so I figured they wanted to bring the new district leaders to meet us. I adjusted my list, but I was actually working way ahead today, getting things done in much less time than estimated. When noon came and went, we found our visitors were in St. Michaels with the zone leader and expected to be there a couple of hours. When they finally arrived they brought a new couple with them. They will be in Zuni. The wife has always wanted to serve a mission on the reservation because her parents served in the Grand Canyon.