If you look at the garden on the left you will see where a cow broke through the fence and ate half of the garden. It was devastating. This is the garden of the MLS/garden missionaries just two trailers away from us. Their garden was so beautiful and is the demonstration garden for the garden program in our area. I texted this photo to our FM guy and he wasted no time in driving here from where he lives which is an hour and a half away. By that night their broken fence and our garden fence on the right side garden were installed with the hopes that they would be higher and stronger. If by chance they are crushed down as well, even stronger fences will be installed. A couple of days before the above fence was broken down, our fence was broken down and a cow was in our back yard. Fortunately we saw her and chased her away before she got into our garden.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
This and That
Thought you might like to see how our garden is doing. Also there is a picture of Elder Grimmett building a fence between our house on the right and the new trailer for the Window Rock Elders on the left so the cows couldn’t get through there.
One day in our office a young woman came in to use the copy machine. She said she and her husband had started a business selling tamales in Ganado, so we went over, bought some, loved them, and now are regular customers. Her husband is from Mexico and she is a Navajo. She uses his family recipe and let me tell you, they are the best tamales I’ve ever had.
The young man with the lizard was just baptized yesterday along with his teenage sister. His mother is in the background. He is such a fine young man and his sister is very special, too. It was a very special baptism service.
The other folks in our living room were there for our CES class on a Sunday evening. The missionary couple you see live just two trailers away from us. They are what is called MLS/garden missionaries around here. She is a master gardener. They both know every garden on their assigned area of the rez inside out. They work very hard.
The picture in the woods was taken on the 4th of July when our district celebrated by having a picnic. We got rained out just after we finished eating. Perfect timing and no one complains about the rain because this part of the world is in a drought and the rain is prayed for and welcomed.
The Smaller Elder with the green hoodie has been called to be a district leader and will be leaving us on Tuesday. We will miss him very much. Just had the Elders to dinner today. Yesterday was their pday so they dressed accordingly as you can see in the picture I took last night, and of course they look much more official in their traditional missionary dress today. They use the conference to conference reference for when to wear their jackets. They come off after April Conference and go on after October Conference.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Navajo Weavers
Last Friday we went to our District meeting in Crownpoint, New Mexico. We drove our van which holds us and Elder and Sister Long and Elder and Sister Bouwhuis very comfortably. In the picture above you will see Elder Bouwhuis in the row behind Elder Grimmett and Elder Long is in same row on his left. The Bouwhuis Elder and Sister are our close neighbors here in St. Michaels. They are serving as MLS/garden missionaries as are the Longs. Coincidentally, the Longs served a mission with the Days (Mark and Pat) last summer. Pat Day is our own Pat Macey/Coloca. The Days are now serving as site missionaries in San Diego at the Mormon Batallion Visitors Center. The Longs live in Sawmill out on the rez, which isn’t too far away from us. The long drive to Crownpoint is more fun when we go together.
The picture above was taken while we were waiting for the Navajo Weaver Women’s auction to begin. After our district meeting, followed by a nice lunch at the Navajo Technical College cafeteria, we walked over to the high school where the auction was to begin in an hour or more. We wanted to be early to snag chairs and also to look the rugs over. In the hallways of the school many vendors had set up their wares so that is why you just see the Elders holding down the chairs.
The Navajo Weavers Association was started 40 or so years ago when one woman became incensed because the women spent so much time and work on the rugs but weren’t being honestly dealt with by traders who would buy a rug for maybe $200 and then sell it for $5,000. She thought of having an auction where the money bid on the rug went directly to the weaver and thus these auctions began. At the beginning all of the weavers stood up so we could give them a good appreciation applause and each rug has attached on the back the name and location of the weaver who created it.
If you do the slide show above you can see the two rugs we bought. The prices are shocking at first, but when you think of the work and the artistic ability of the weaver, it makes more sense. Also on the slide show are a couple of unique pots made from clay and horse hair. Elder Grimmett fell in love with them immediately and I fell for the story rugs that had sheep in them so we both came home happy and $200 poorer, but rich in wonderful memories. I hope all the district meetings aren’t followed by auctions or we may have to sell the farm.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
May Days
May has been a great month with lots of things to do. No boredom here. We enjoyed our 55th wedding anniversary, went to Polacca for a great Zone Conference, the first and the last. The first for us and the last for our mission pres. and his wife. Our new president comes in July. We have endured lots of noisy construction going on outside our office and even had our plumbing and electricity cut off which automatically gave us a two day vacation. I had a wonderful Mother’s Day thanks to our dear children and to my dear companion. We enjoyed having Dee here for the eclipse and then a few days later he and Ryan came by. Ryan had flown down to Chandler to help Dee pack up and head for Sandy. Our Elders were giving Dee’s motorcycle an envious inspection.
Our computer crashed but between Dee and Mark we are set up again with a laptop. Dee helped Clive buy it in Gallup at Wallmart and did the initial setting up and then Mark hooked up through mesh and did his magic. We still have skype, thank heavens. I’ve spoken at two baptisms, one with maybe 20 minutes notice and the other one with no notice. Also gave the Sunday School lesson in gospel essentials class with no notice, so extemporaneous is the key word here and that’s okay.
We were just given our list for home/visiting teaching today. We can’t wait to start going out to visit the folks on our list. Our only problem is the van. Dad thinks he might be able to find an old jeep or something as out on the rez you may have a passable road and you may not. I asked if we could have one more person on our list, Wally Whitegoat. He was Dale and Renae’s foster son on the placement program and Renae asked me to try to look him up. He isn’t on our ward roster, but the missionaries say they know him and he is a Navajo cop. We were told if we could find him we could visit him so we will enlist the missionaries’ help.
Clive is pretty sun-burned from working in the garden. We’ve got to get him a larger brimmed hat that will protect his face and his ears, and soon. Don’t want his skin cancer to come back.
Thanks for your prayers. We send love to all. Ya ta Bene’
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Snowflake Temple
Last Monday our mission was given permission to go to the Snowflake Temple as a group, actually it took two sessions, which was the first time that temple had ever opened on a Monday before. It was just a wonderful experience and what a beautifully appointed temple! The couple we are standing by on the left are the Hansens from Sandpoint. They are doing a 6-month garden mission in Tuba City. They were surprised to see us and we were surprised to see them…what a treat. We know them from the Spokane temple. On the picture on the right, you will recognize the senior missionary as Elder Grimmett. The young elders are the ones who are our next door neighbors here in St. Michaels. Left to right they are Elder Earl from Idaho, Elder G., Elder Christensen from Philadelphia, Elder Nelson, can’t remember where he is from, and Elder Jones from near Cody, Wyoming. Elders Earl and Christensen rode with us to the temple and all four of them rode back with us. Glad we have a van. I should have edited the photos before posting them. Sorry about that.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Uncle Dee’s Visit
We enjoyed having Dee with us last weekend. On Saturday we took him to see the window rock and the statue of the Navajo Code Talker with the window rock in the background. From there we drove to Canyon DeChelly, pronounced dushay, where we went to almost every lookout along many miles to view the magnificence of the canyon. The picture on the right of Dee shows ruins of a former civilization and the one on the bottom hints of the depth of the canyon. At every stop there were venders with jewelry, or pots, or painted rocks all of which were tempting, but Clive and Dee hadn’t thought about bringing much money, so they were kind of disappointed that they couldn’t buy more. They did each buy a painted rock, however.
On Sunday we all went to Church, but I came home after Sacrament meeting to nurse a cold I had caught from Clive who had a lot worse cold than I did. He and Dee stayed for all the meetings and Dee came home so impressed with what he had heard and seen. Monday morning he and his little dog,Delta, ( he says she’s Ian’s dog, but I don’t know if Delta makes that distinction as she adores Dee), well anyway, they left for home which is Ian’s house in Chandler. As Dee was leaving he said, “I love this place.” We agree.