Apr 24 07

April 24, 2007

Another boring day on the rez. Wish we could find a few things to do to keep ourselves occupied. It’s now 7:00 PM and we’ve only put in 11 hours straight in missionary work. But the night is young. Who knows what opportunities will yet present themselves?

Last night just as we were settling in to our second Scrabble game with the Elders (about 9:45), Josephine came over with Bertania, her 12-year-old daughter. They asked if we could give them some money, because Bertania is going on a field trip to the zoo in Phoenix today and Josephine didn’t have any spending money to give her. Bad luck or bad planning on their part, because Robert wasn’t home alone. I told them we can’t give money, sorry, but we could sure give them some food so Bertania would have some lunch. Unfortunately, Robert Ivins is Josephine’s brother and he’s the one Robert gave money to, which started our War of the Roses. So my story was a little less credible than it’s been in the past. But, hey, it’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. They hung around for about 30 minutes, repeating their story several times just in case I missed the point the first time. The Elders were in their room making bets about whether or not we’d cave in to the pressure and who would fold first. All the money was on Robert. They’ve been around long enough to know he’s the marshmallow. Finally Josephine and Bertania left with an apple, orange and good portion of banana bread. Now that’s the church welfare program in action.

Today we did welfare for real. This morning Robert went to the post office and deli (for mugs) and saw 3 people who wanted sidewalk counseling. He also took Murphy his new white shirt, short sleeves, just as requested and went by Simpson’s house to take the phone number of the foster family he lived with in Sugar City.

And he talked to the manager of the apartment complex, Dion Nashio. Last night Josephine told us that over the weekend there was a big fight at the apartments and her sister, Roletta, and another lady, got arrested. Roletta has been in jail for 4 days and is only out on house arrest. She was badly beaten up in the fight. When Robert saw Dion he got more details. Apparently they were fighting over a man…understandable since the men out here are such prizes. When the 2 women started fighting Dion said people then started coming from everywhere until there were over 50 people in the parking lot fighting each other. There was only Dion and one policeman trying to control this mob. Dion kept telling the policeman to mace them all and get it stopped, but he didn’t. One of the women had a knife and Dion said she would have stabbed him if some other ladies hadn’t held her back. He says he’s had threats against his life and his family because he has to evict people who don’t pay their rent or obey the rules. Backup policemen from Whiteriver finally arrived and got things under control. Keep in mind that Whiteriver is 45 minutes away, so this fight went on for some time. Dion said people had knives and clubs, and Josephine said Roletta was beaten with a club.

About 10:30 we picked up Betty Lee and went to Snowflake to get her Temple Clothes. She’s excited about going to the temple and we’re trying to set a date. We had lunch at Eva’s and drove by the temple. We enjoy Betty. She doesn’t say much but when you have a chance to really visit with her you realize she’s very smart.

She told us a lot about growing up in Cibecue. She lived in a Wikiup when she was very little. Then she lived in a house without plumbing or electricity or heat for most of her life. She told how they had to go to the creek in the cold mornings to get water to bathe and wash their clothes. She also told us she had 2 sisters. One of them still lives in Cibecue and the other went to California and they have no idea what’s happened to her. She had 3 children, and she left the 2 youngest ones, 2 boys, with Betty’s mother when she left, so Grandma raised them. But one of the boys got hurt when the children were playing. Betty said they jumped on his stomach. And he died just a short while after the mother left. I doubt the mother even knew her son was dead. So much tragedy in people’s lives out here, and they just take it so matter of factly, like that’s how life is for everyone…which is true here.

When we got home from Snowflake we visited Eric Ivins and took him the size 24 white shirt we ordered from Salt Lake. We’re working very hard to get him to the temple, but not sure if it will happen. We had a long visit with him. Hope we can help him. Then we went by Murphy’s again. He wanted us to look at his shirt and see if it fits OK and we took him some new garments the branch bought him today. The Elders were also there.

We also went by President Bonito’s office and gave him a ride over here to get some welfare forms for us. Then he took the beater van to drive for a few days until his truck gets repaired.

Just as he left Henrietta Tessay and her daughter Amber came by. They need a food order so we filled out their forms. We talked to Henrietta about going to the temple, but we think she doesn’t feel like she’s worthy. She says she wants to pay her tithing for a while first. Good idea, but around here probations are very short. One payment and she’s good.

Then we went to see Ricky and Cheryl. We took Ricky a birthday card with some fishing hooks in it. His birthday was last week, so we’re a little slow. We also filled out a food order for them and an order for some DI furniture. So we’ll be making the famous redneck run to Phoenix on Saturday.

By then it was almost 7:00 so we raced back to the church to wait for no one to show for our parent class. We figure we can count that hour for both family counseling and addiction recovery since both groups are scheduled at the same time and no one comes to either one. We’re at the point where we have to ask, “Could it be us?” No matter what we schedule the people don’t show. Maybe we’re just not the right personalities.

At 7:30 the Elders came over and asked Robert to go with them to give a blessing to Malachi Dale who may need eye surgery. Not sure exactly what the problem is.

The Elders found an 18-year-old girl to teach who is raising her sister’s five children while she attends high school and tries to graduate. There’s a girl who deserves some respect.