Spring 2013

		Tulips, Mutton Stew, And Other Things VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here it is April and my tulips are so brave and beautiful to survive the winds and the freezing temps every night.  I love them.

This is my birthday month so I had Clive take a picture of me on the day I turned 74.  Our Tongan Elder was transferred along with another of our Elders so we had a mutton stew dinner to celebrate my birthday and had 6 Elders to dinner to help us celebrate and to say goodbye to those leaving and welcome to those arriving. 

Mutton stew and Navajo fry bread are the signature Navajo meal as sheep are treasured and to have sheep is part of being Navajo.  Our ward has a mutton stew cook-off every year and this year much to everyone’s surprise the winner was a Belagona (white man).  Women aren’t allowed to participate in the contest, this is a man thing.  I have thrown in pictures in of Elder G. making his mutton stew.  I also have a picture of the three Navajo sisters who judged the contest.  All three gave the top number to the same stew, and guess whose it was….yes, Elder Grimmett’s.  There is a picture of him coming up to get his prize and his certificate for making the winning stew.   He’ll now go down in history in our ward.  For years people will say, “do you remember the time a Belagona got first place,” and they’ll shake their heads in disbelief.

You can see the picture of a window pane all tapped up to hold it together.  I don’t think it was a coincidence that I had a notion to come home 20 minutes early at the end of our work day. I went into my sewing room to do something and then came out into the living room.  When I arrived I had put my cell phone on a little tv tray stand by the window, which is unusual.  I would more than likely put it on the credenza  by the coat hooks.  Just as I stepped into the living room, I heard a loud cracking sound and the drapes flew clear up to the ceiling.  I was able to get to the window in three steps and put my hands on the shattered pane.  The wind had been blowing hard for three days at 35 mph with gusts up to 50 mph and it finally got the better of a little bb hole in our window.  I pushed towards the outside and the wind pushed towards the inside.  My phone was right where I could reach it, so I called Clive.  He came running home and got some tape and started taping on the outside and then the inside.  We were so blessed.  If I hadn’t been here to hold the window together until Clive got it tapped, we would have come home to glass shattered all over our living room floor, and we would have had an open window in a very bad wind storm. 

Jingle dresses are used for dancing in powwows.  The metal trim dangling around the dress makes a jingle sound.  I thought the little grands and greats in Coeur d’Alene would like to dance around and jingle away so I sent some up there.  I’ll have to do a little adjusting for size when I get home.  The stew judge the farthest from the camera made the jingle dresses.

You might wonder who the guy is with the cowboy boots.  I actually can’t remember his name, but he came into our office wearing some cool boots so I asked him if I could take his picture. Unfortunately you can’t really see the boots well enough to think they are special, but I thought they were.

This past weekend was stake conf. and I’m the one who put the choir together, sent out the information, arranged the music, and then conducted it.  It was a lot of work and lot of sleepless nights worrying about if it would work out because we were only to have one practice. But, the Lord loves it here just as we do and it couldn’t have turned out better because of HIm.  In all my years of choir directing, I’ve never felt the spirit so deeply as I did when our Navajo choir sang at conference.  My prayer was that they would have a meaningful and spiritual experience as they sang and I can honestly say that they did because so many came up to me later to tell me that very thing.  Our Stake President got up after the choir number and said, ”tabernacle choir, here we come.”  He said that with a great deal of reverence in his voice for what had just transpired.

Thank you all who sent me birthday cards and those who called on the phone.  No matter how many birthdays have gone by, it is still nice to have friends and loved ones take the time to wish you well on your birthday.

Johnson’s Visit

What a great time we had with Traci, Brandon and Tony!  As Traci said, we will now know how to be tour guides for the next family that comes.  I thought it would be fun to make Navajo fry bread, but they turned out more like potato chips than bread, but I’ll keep working on it.  We were able to go to Canyon DeShelly one day thanks to our friends who took over the office for us and then the next day we closed an hour early so we could drive over to Gallup to a trading post and also to Earl’s which is a restaurant.  All the while you are eating at that particular place folks come by vending their goods and even outside, as you can see, before you even get in the building there is plenty to look at.  The pictures by the window rock are standard and the last pictures you see are in our office….goodbye time.  We loved having family here with us and appreciate the sacrifice it was for them to come.  There was a lot more that they saw and did, but this is all I have recorded in pictures.  Brandon took a lot of really cool pictures as well.  He has a very good camera on his phone and is a good photographer.  He, like Dad, is fascinated with the rock formations and has some good photos of the scenery here.  The day after they left a cow got through the cattle guard and into our parking lot.  Dad and the Elders chased her out.  Too bad that didn’t happen when we had witnesses.  That’s the first cow incidence we’ve had since last summer.  Again, thanks for coming Traci, Brandon, and Tony, and Jenni, it was fun to see you on skype.  Oh, by the way, I forgot to say that Traci spent some time with us in the office and helped a candidate with his resume.  She was surprised at how busy we are. Ok, I’m through, love you all.

February and early March

		Hodge Podge VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Well, this doesn’t look very artistic, but it will have to do.  The Navajo grandmother is making fry bread, but her hands are so quick as she shapes them all you can see is a blur. There is no recipe for Navajo fry bread/tacos but the ingredients are just flour and baking powder mixed with warm water.  The dough is kneaded until smooth and then covered with a cloth.  It almost immediately begins to rise.  The dough is treated kind of like pizza dough.  You can roll it out, but the Navajo cooks would never think of such a thing.  This lady tried to show me how to get the dough into a circle and I dropped it on the floor.  Not good!  The only difference between the taco and the fry bread is that the fry bread is fried and the taco is scorched in a hot pan or on a hot burner.  The dough is the same for both.

The Elder with the apron on is hot off of the MTC burner, but is unique in my book because he is the first Elder to invite us to dinner in our own house.  That’s right, he planned it, cooked it, cleaned up after it and it was delicious.  He also invited a bunch of Elders who were just coming in.  One of the Elders in the picture is a first wave 18 year-old.  We are getting 30 Elders at a time for a number of months until June when our mission will be a whole lot larger than it was before Pres. Monson’s announcement in the last conference.  Where to put them is a challenge, but we are very excited about having them in our mission.

I included a picture of Elder G. painting our bathroom.  This house is going to be a lot nicer when we leave than it was when we arrived thanks to you know who.

The sweetie in the baptism suit is a 16-year-old genius.  That might be a generous observation, but I’ve never heard such deep prayers as this girl gives.  She is such a thinker.  Her grandparents invited us to their home a couple of times for dinner and the Elders gave her the final discussion in our home.  We won’t be forgetting them any time soon.

The Elder with Elder G. adopted him as his grandfather.  The pictured Elder has been transferred now.  It is always hard to say goodbye.

A year ago yesterday we drove down our driveway, down the street, and on our way to Boise.  Can’t believe where the time has gone, but gone it is.  In another week and a half on March 26 it will be a year since we entered the MTC.  It was April 9 when we drove into the Church parking lot and saw our little blue house.  The wind was blowing like crazy and continued to blow until June.  Today we have a big wind storm so I’m thinking this is the beginning of the hang-on-to-your-hat season.  And, wouldn’t you know it, we are having company next week and I was so hoping the winds would hold off until they left.  We are so excited about having Traci, Brandon, and Toni come for a visit.  My next blog will be all about the Johnsons in Navajo country.

January 2013

The very best thing that happened in January is that our nephew, Devin, is home from a tour of duty and reunited with his family.  Our trip to the Snowflake Temple with friends from our ward was pretty awesome.  Our week-long seminar in Mesa was very informative and we are doing a better job in our office because of the instruction there.  We got to stay overnight with Dee in Chandler (which is a neighboring community to Mesa) at Ian’s house and Dee made us the best taco soup.   And, this may not seem like much, but we now have a real bed which takes the place of the box with a board and a mattress that was subbing for our bed.  The Sr. couple from the mission office came through for us with the bed.  We had the privilege of going out to visit investigators with the Elders a couple of times and we are seeing the fruits of our labors as Ammon missionaries. We both survived having the flu and think the fact that we had flu shots made a big difference in our fairly quick recoveries.   Looks like a good start to2013.

Where Did the Water Go?

We have a state of emergency on the Navajo Nation because quite a few communities are without water including us here in St. Michaels.  I took these pictures yesterday during a rain storm to show you how creative Clive is.  He had gallon jugs, garbage cans, anything he could find out in the storm collecting the rain as it dripped off of the gutters.  One of the Elders caught the idea and started collecting water for he and his companion.  Our other set of Elders filled their garbage can with rain water.

The problem started with a really really cold spell where the temps were below zero for quite a while.  The pipes throughout the nation began to freeze and then to break.  As they broke the water ran out of the breaks in wild abandon.  Now trying to refill the various cysterns is the issue, especially trying to get them full enough to provide pressure.  It could take weeks.  The NN Pres. is asking the people who still have water to cut down on their use to assist in refilling these containers.

Also, part of the problem is that where some of the breaks are, the ground is so muddy due to the recent rain storm and higher daytime temps that the equipment such as trucks and backhoes cannot get to them.  The Bishop said this morning that he sunk down to his ankles in mud visiting a member this week. 

We had a very short Sacrament meeting today because the bathrooms are obviously unusable.  The Bishop gave a short talk about preparedness after the sacrament was passed and then we closed with a song and a prayer.

If we have to be out of something I’m glad it’s not electricity, but in any case two thoughts come to mind.  We really do have to listen to our leaders and be prepared for any circumstance, and second is sympathy for the many who have lived through severe natural disasters of which this is just a drop in a bucket, no pun intended.

Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas we took  two sisters from our ward to Snowflake Temple where the sister on the left received her own endowment and the sister on the right was her escort.  It was a wonderful experience for us all and so in tune with the Spirit of Christmas.

We had stockings for the Elders on Christmas Eve, but the really super part of the evening happened before the stockings were passed out.  We all took turns reading the Christmas story from Luke and then each Elder and both of us bore our testimonies concerning the Savior.  Of course we opened and closed our little devotional with prayer and sang Silent Night before the closing prayer.

I do believe we will forever fondly remember our trip to the temple with those dear sisters and our devotional with the Elders on every Christmas Eve that comes to pass in the years to come. 

Thanksgiving/Halloween

		Fall Holidays VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Our ward had a fun Halloween party so I included a couple of photos from that event.  Most of the seniors in our district had a nice Thanksgiving together so I threw in a few pix from that very fun feast.  The snow pic was the first and last snow we’ve had so far.  The moisture must all be going north because it sure isn’t here in the Southwest.  I have my usual Elder’s photos.  The guy with the red tie and the cowboy were both leaving us so I had to have a photo to make note of our good wishes for them in their new areas.  The Elder by the pumpkin is an Idaho boy who started his mission here.  He’s learning fast and doing a great job.

We had a scare a couple of weeks ago when Elder G. had chest pains and thought he might be having a heart attack.  After further tests at the cardiologist’s office it was determined that he had a great heart, no problems.  What a relief.  My bp has been up a bit so a doc in Gallup doubled one of the many pills I take.  I’ve just got to quit having so much fun.

We had such a wonderful trip to the Snowflake Temple recently.  We took one of the sisters in our ward with us and just very much enjoyed getting acquainted with her.  She sure is an inspiring person.  I’m glad she went with us.  I didn’t get a picture of her at the temple because I forgot my camera.  She called Elder G. two nights ago to asked him for a blessing because her son was being admitted to the hospital and today was flown to Flagstaff for surgery.  We are so concerned for her for her son.

I wrote up a program for a Christmas fireside which included a lot of music from choir, primary, young men and women, RS, etc.  I was thinking of it for a fireside.  I guess it could be for a program along with a ward dinner, too.  We’ll see.

Elder G. gave me yesterday, Thanksgiving Eve, off from our office so I could cook.  It was the first time in 8 months that I played hookie from the office. It felt so good to just be home and do housewife stuff.   Not that I don’t enjoy working in the office, but I did enjoy the break.

There are so many lovely people here and we know we’ll  be home for the holidays next year, so don’t be concerned about us. We miss all of you very much, and love you dearly, and yes, I get homesick, but it would be a shame to miss this experience because we wouldn’t be ‘home for Christmas’ so to speak. 

Hugs and kisses to all…………….