Dec 4

December 4, 2006

Today we decided to have a mission recovery day. We have gone 8 straight days without a break and decided to just stay home today. So at 8:00 Maxine Bonito called and asked me to write a letter for her to help her get financial assistance for her medical needs and also to make a sign-up sheet for the Branch Christmas dinner next week. Then Naysha Lupe called and said we needed to go visit her Aunty today. Well, we tried to take a break.

Aunty is Cheryl and had finished some projects she was making for us. She did have the things finished, but the real reason she wanted us was that she wanted a ride to Whiteriver and Show Low to pay some bills and shop. Robert says Linda “expertly” redirected her request by saying that we couldn’t go today but we would be willing to take her on Wednesday. We’ve just decided we can’t be at everyone’s beck and call. We have to take some control. We don’t mind doing these things for them, but it needs to be on our time schedule when we can.

We also had a call from Alma requesting money and again deflected the request. We told her we cannot give anyone money, which has become our standard answer as we get asked for money rather frequently. We said the only person who can give money for the church is President Bonito but since she’s not a member he’s not likely to do it either. However, feel free to call and ask him. We’d really love to help, but just can’t. Everyone needs money. How would we ever pick and choose whom to help? We had been tempted to help the Gooday family pay for the funeral, but this morning Robert talked to the funeral home director and he said the Tribe paid all their funeral expenses.

Our daily trip to check the mail turned into more mission work. We tried to find Byron and give him a copy of something Robert used in a talk and Byron wanted. It was really just an excuse to mention that we missed him at church yesterday. Then Robert commenced a quest to see if we can get the street lights around the church fixed. There is no light except in the church and on our trailer. Since we’re having a dinner Dec 13 it would be nice to have some type of light in the parking lot. We worry that someone might get run over because it’s so dark out there.

Finally about noon we got back to the schedule we wanted for the day. Except for one interruption when the kids next door came to visit, we spent the afternoon reading, making fudge, finishing Christmas cards, writing letters and doing the things Maxine had asked us to do.