Dec 18

December 18, 2006

Happy Anniversary! We’ve now been in the mission field 3 months…we’re 1/6 of the way through! Not that we’re counting the days, or rejoicing in any way. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. It’s just that Christmas brings out the worst in us…we’re so homesick!

Today we got to do our favorite thing in the whole world…drag Cheryl and her family around. We’re going to paint the truck yellow and put a “taxi” sign on top. In her defense, she asked us clear last week and we put her off until today because we needed to go to Show Low to get groceries today anyway. We took the long way through Whiteriver because Robert had some paperwork Joseph’s mother needed delivered to the court so Joseph could go to school while he’s in jail. I swear these people have never heard of the US Postal Service, unless they think we’re it. And when we say long way we’re not kidding….it takes forever. Rosie had called early this morning and said it snowed in Pinetop and the roads were very icy, but they were fine when we got there.

We dropped Cheryl, Ricky, Baby and Naysha at Wal-Mart at 10:30 and agreed to be back at noon. They were ready at 1:00. Not bad for that family. On the way up there Cheryl said we should take Naysha to live with us when we go home. I was seriously tempted as she’s an adorable girl and I hate to see the ills of the reservation gobble her up. But don’t think we’re interested in raising anybody’s kids at this stage in our lives.

Got back here in time to meet with Ken Brown, our supervisor. He stayed for a couple of hours, then we went to see Dion and Verbena, the couple whose baby died last week of heart problems. We are so sad for them. Their 1st baby died also, so it’s really hard on them. They wanted the couple missionaries to sing “I Am a Child of God” on Wed as the baby’s body is brought in to where they’ll have the wake. That’s the day of our Zone Conference, so Robert called Pres Buttars to see if we could do it and then come late to the conference. That was a pretty emphatic no. Mission presidents are strange creatures. Tomorrow we’ll have to go back and tell them we can’t and see what else we can arrange for them.

Cooked supper for the Elders…Meeks is on exchange so Elder Mackay came with Itri. They’re off to play basketball with Bonito and we’re off to bed.