Jul 5-22 07

July 5 - 22, 2007

Once again we have a whole lot of catching up to do. We’ll try to be brief. We have friends from the Temple serving a mission in Baltimore and every month she sends us her journal. The whole month is like one page. She writes a paragraph about every day. Either she’s a lot more to the point than we are or she’s got one boring mission out there. Besides that her entries are filled with silly stuff like guilt over every minute they’re not doing missionary work. Fortunately we are not highly motivated by guilt and so far remain unaffected by peer pressure. Not news to anyone who knows us very well.

We had a great time with Cade and Andi and Heather and Ethan and Allison. Cade and Andi arrived in Cibecue July 5. That was the day we went to Globe with the Elders to meet the new mission president, President Craig. He is very spiritual and told us some of his experiences as he and his wife have lived all over the world. He has been the director of “Temporal Affairs” for the church and so has supervised building temples and meeting houses in such places as the Phillippines, Germany and Russia. We’ll write more about his stories later. Personality wise he’s an exact opposite to President Buttars.

We were sad to say goodbye to all our kids. We had a great time with everyone and so appreciate the visits. Made the time zip by.

We came back from Phoenix on Thursday and stayed overnight in Snowflake. We had a picnic with Family Services and the couples who come to our staff meetings. It poured rain the whole time, but was warm and we enjoyed ourselves. Family Services paid for a motel that night in Taylor and the next morning we had staff meeting. They showed a video about the history of Snowflake and it was very interesting. Then Robert did a presentation on marriage counseling. It was great. He did a fine job and got lots of positive comments. They took us all to lunch at “Trapper’s” in Taylor, then we went back to Snowflake and helped with decorations for a truck they’re driving in the parade on Saturday.

Some of the couples stayed overnight again, but we had to pay for our own motel room and so we decided to come back to Cibecue. Plus we felt like we needed to check on the trailer as we’d been gone since Sunday. Big mistake. Huge! Before we got out of Show Low the Elders called and said they were coming down and would be staying overnight and there were 3 of them instead of 2 because the new AP was with them. They wanted to do baptismal interviews for Gilbert and Julian. But when they got here they discovered Alma is back, so that means Gilbert can’t be baptized, although they were having a hard time accepting that. They seemed somewhat convinced that Gilbert and Alma suddenly developed a platonic relationship and wouldn’t have done anything that would affect Gilbert’s baptism. Right! Nice to be young and naïve, I guess. Their big wakeup call came at 1:00 AM when the local policeman knocked on our door with Alma in tow. Gilbert had again been drunk and had beaten both Alma and Famisha. The officer had taken pictures of their bruises and said she needed to get a restraining order against him and press charges. We talked to her for a while then took her to her cousin’s house to spend the night. We got back to bed about 2:30.

Next morning we got up early and went back to Snowflake for the Pioneer Days celebration. They had a cute parade and a nice craft fair in the park. We did some grocery shopping, went to Harry Potter, and then had dinner at the Stake Pioneer Day Barbecue in Show Low. Once again it poured rain. We left while it was still raining and when we got to Cibecue found that they had a huge rainstorm and even a little flooding. Apparently we’re finally experiencing the monsoons we’ve heard so much about.

Church today. I made graham cracker covered wagons in Primary and the kids loved it (see July Friend). Tonight Alma called and said her mother is on her way from San Carlos but could we stop by Gilbert’s and pick up some of her things. Robert went to the door and talked to Gilbert and said he was remorseful and wants Alma to stay with him. He said he had called her earlier and she said she was already in San Carlos. These two weave a web of lies to each other that is impossible to sort out. Robert feels they’re deep into a cycle of abuse complicated by alcoholism. When we saw Alma we told her that if she decided to come back yet again, which she undoubtedly will, she should make Gilbert agree to come once a week for counseling with Robert before she’ll come back. It’s nice to hear ourselves talk, we suppose. Why else would we say these things?

We also visited Myrna tonight. She’s planning the Memorial Dinner for Dinky. This is the dinner they have one year after a person’s death. She said she’s planning for 500 people! She said she’s working on getting married and wanted to know if she can go to the Temple even if her husband isn’t a member. In our conversation she mentioned how grateful she was that we were available to her and made many visits there while she was pregnant and after the baby died. She said she felt like she couldn’t have gotten through all that without our help. While she would have been fine, no doubt, it’s nice to once in a while think there truly may have been some good come of our time here. Last night Bonitos followed us into the driveway when we got home and today Thelma has called twice. We do feel like we’re missed when we’re away and that’s nice. We know it sounds trite when people say how much they love the people in their mission, but we can truly say that we do genuinely love many people here.

It’s raining again tonight. It feels so good to have some moisture in the air and have a little cooler temperatures.