Jun 23 07

June 23, 2007

The heavens opened today and the blessings poured out. Our only question is why do they have to start pouring at 7:30 in the morning?

Last night Tamara never showed for her baptism interview, so this morning Abbitt called at 7:30 and wanted to know if the baptism is on today. From our point of view the answer was yes, if Tamara could get her interview done. So President Bonito agreed to come over at 8:30 and Tamara met him here for the interview. Keep in mind the baptism was scheduled at 10:00, so that meant we needed to leave at 9:00. Since we were waiting to find out if Tamara should be on the program, we still needed to finish the baptism programs and run them off.

And just to make things interesting…when Abbitt called Robert said he would call Bonito. Of course Bonitos weren’t answering any one of their 3 phones. So Robert had to run up there. He got back at 8:15, and we needed to get Tamara interviewed, run off programs, and finish getting ready by 9:00. So of course Maxine came with President and came right in and was ready to visit. But she’s cool. She talked while we did programs and President did the interview, and finally we all left for Show Low. We had to pick up some of the Gooday kids (Clarissa, Tara and Sheldon), but with that, and leaving 20 minutes late, and coming back to get a battery for my camera, we were still the first ones there. I love the rez. It’s getting to be so much fun…seriously. We’ll be bored silly when we go home.

Tamara was baptized by her husband, Abbitt and Arnell Gooday, the little boy who waited so we could be at the baptism, was baptized by President. They had trouble finding sizes for the baptism clothes, so the Elders ran home to get a shirt for President to wear. The baptism, scheduled for 10:00, actually started right on the dot of 11:00. Michelle Zospah, Arnell’s mother, brought cookies, punch and chips and we had that after the baptism.

Then the race continued. We brought Clarissa (who is a college student and we love her, very pleasant to talk to), Tara and Sheldon (whom we also like a lot) home to Cibecue…got here at 1:00 and turned around and left at 1:30 to pick up Murphy and go to the Temple. We got to the Temple a little after 3:00, but poor Murphy is slow and they had to hold up the session waiting for him and Robert. Bonitos came, also Alfred and Thelma, and Wilcocks and Sis. Wilcock’s father, and Murphy and us. Alfred and Thelma went to the prayer circle all by themselves. We are so pleased with them.

The Temple was wonderful, of course. We stopped at Sonic and just got a hamburger to eat on the way home because we didn’t get home until 8:00 and still had Sunday stuff to prepare. So it was a truly crazy, race up and down the highway kind of day, but a great day. We felt the Spirit so strongly all day. On the way to the Temple Murphy said, “I always sleep late. I don’t get up until after 8:00. But this morning I woke up at 5:30 and the minute I opened my eyes I thought, today is the Temple day. I got up right then and didn’t want to go back to sleep.” Later he said, “I’m so glad I joined the church so I can go to the Temple.”

Alfred told us yesterday they couldn’t go to the Temple because they had to be at a Wake. But Thelma called and said no, she wanted to be in the Temple with us, and they met us there. She was the first one there, because she came late once and said she never wanted to be late to the temple again. She told Robert that one reason they weren’t planning to go was because they didn’t have any money for gas. They still didn’t when she called and said they were going, but she just felt her son would get home with some money in time for them to get to the temple. He did.

Since we returned from California we have had three straight 14-hour days. We have been so busy but so blessed. The blessings in the mission are different than any other time of your life. Sometimes they don’t come often, but they’re powerful when they do come. They are truly sweet and make the time you spend on a mission well worthwhile. Not the least of our blessings is that we have been able to drive over 1100 miles in the last 4 days and we’re still alive.