Nov 30

November 30, 2006

Well, strike two for the mission team. One more strike and I guess we’re out of here. Last Sunday we planned a Young Women activity. I bought all the stuff to make Heather’s table runner, cut the strips, organized it all, and guess how many girls showed up? Guess how many leaders showed up? Any number from 1- infinity would be wrong. Yep, zero. Same number we had Tuesday night for the group. At least we’re consistent. Good thing we have the Boy Scouts. They love to come and the same ones have come back more than once.

We went to our first wake today. It was as uncomfortable as we expected it to be. We wanted to go with Bonitos but forgot we have mission interviews tomorrow and they couldn’t go today. It was so sad, but so odd. The people sit around and don’t talk to each other. They don’t talk to us…no one introduces themselves…no one talks to the parents…there’s no line to go through…we just went in, took our bag of flour, signed the book, wandered around for a while and left. We’d have hurt feelings because no one talked to us except they don’t talk to each other either. They just sit around the casket and listen to rock music. Maybe things are different at night, because they stay awake all night, but we’re not going back to find out. Poor Farley, the grandpa, went to Whiteriver. We did talk to the grandma long enough to find out he just felt like he couldn’t be around for the wake. Don’t blame him, but we worry that he might do something desperate.

We went to the tire shop in town looking for the counselor in the branch presidency. There was a sign on the door that said, “The shop will be closed until 12:30 today because of the Awake.” Well, that’s what they do…they stay awake for 48 hours. We won’t be joining them.

We did our end-of-month report for Family Services and wrote the letter we’re supposed to send to President Buttars once a month. We wrote one last month but never sent it to him. Forgetful or rebellious? Hard to say.

The bight spot of the day…when Ona came over for her baptismal interview on Tuesday she asked if she could come over some time and hang out and we said OK maybe Thursday. So about 4:00 we drove over to where she lives and just pulled in the parking lot and she and a friend came running out to the truck. She said, “I saw you the minute you came in. We were watching for you. Can Leah (her friend) come? Can you go get Portia (her sister)?” She was so excited, so we gathered up all 3 girls and came over to the trailer. I told them they could make a table runner, play a game or make cookies. They chose cookies. We made chocolate chip cookies with the red and green swirly chocolate chips. They were so cute. I’ll upload some pictures tomorrow. They helped measure and mix and put the cookies on the cookie sheet and then I said, “When you cook you have to clean up.” They did all the dishes and then asked if we could save some of the cookies for the Elders. Robert teased them and said he’s going to eat all the cookies before the Elders come. We fixed a bag of cookies for everyone to take home…after they ate the whole first batch, of course, with a nice cold glass of milk. All the kids who come over have to wander through the trailer. I’m not sure what they find so fascinating.

On Tuesday Ona was kind of difficult. She didn’t want to get out of the car. She didn’t want to be interviewed. She didn’t want to pray. Just being a 9-year-old. Finally we talked her into praying if I helped her, but she said the end, “In the name…” all alone. We all really praised her and told her that was great. Today when we got in the truck to take them home she asked if we should say a prayer and of course we agreed. She wanted to say it but wanted help, so I helped her. She did the end alone again and we reinforced that. We took her sister to the store to meet their mother who works there and at the store Ona thought we should pray again, but this time wanted to say it all by herself. She did a great job. Then we took Leah and her to the apartments where they live. Now Leah wanted to pray, so Ona helped her. While we realize praying should not be a game, the girls seemed to be sincerely interested in learning how and weren’t silly or disrespectful about it. We talked a little about Ona and Portia getting baptized and Ona said Leah wants to be baptized. We asked Leah if she would like the Elders to teach her and she said yes.

The weather here yesterday was cold, cold, cold with a freezing north wind. We had a skiff of snow but it didn’t stay on the ground. Nevertheless it was the coldest day we’ve had here. Today was also cold but not as bad. This morning we looked up the weather on the computer…every day I check the weather here and in Logan and in St. Anthony. Cibecue was colder than either place this morning. So much for our great Arizona weather.