Aug 4 07

August 4, 2007

Elders Rogers, Brown and Hillyard stayed had breakfast then left about 11:30. I spent all morning cooking. I cooked English Muffins and scrambled eggs for breakfast, then made Frog Eye salad and brownies for our lunch tomorrow, and then realized I had bananas about to spoil so I made a loaf of banana bread.

The funeral for Carolinda Lee, Betty’s daughter, was scheduled today at 1:00. Her full name is Carolinda Mae. Weird! Anyway, at 11:00 a truck pulls up to the church. Her grandson is looking for chairs. This is so typical. Most of us would have arranged for chairs a week before the funeral, not two hours before.

The funeral was awful. First of all it was supposed to start at 1:00, and didn’t actually start until almost 2:00. Then it lasted for 2 hours. Some weird preacher type gave an hour long talk, mostly in Apache. We heard snatches. He talked about how alcohol enslaves and said meth messes with you. Robert leaned over and whispered, “He just taught the word of wisdom.” Toward the end he said, “The family that prays together stays together.” And Robert said, “I wish he’d quit stealing our stuff.” Then another lady who wasn’t even on the program got up and talked, in Apache, for another half hour. At the end of their funerals the family lines up beside the coffin like we do at a viewing and everyone at the funeral goes by and shakes their hand and talks to them. While this was happening some lady was singing…into a mike, at the top of her lungs, seriously off-key and in a really strident voice. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she was standing just behind the coffin and the line got stopped for about 5 minutes just as we got to her. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard amplified over a microphone and we were front and center. I thought we’d never get out of there.

It started raining just as we were leaving for the funeral and has rained all day. It’s still raining and it’s 9:00. It wasn’t a big thunderstorm just a steady rain. Of course the cemeteries around her aren’t kept up so this poor family would have to traipse through this icky red mud to the gravesite. They brought the chairs back right after the service. That was nice. Not everyone is so prompt.

We came back home after the funeral and stayed here the rest of the night. We weren’t about to go out in the rain. We got soaked yesterday doing that dinner and tonight we were content to stay warm and dry. Robert Ivins came by for a while and gave us his tithing to pay. The Elders called twice, President Bonito called, and Jared called and was very upset. He wanted us to pray for his father. He says he’s adopted, but we thought he was Thelma’s child. Anyway, it was a peaceful evening by comparison to some we’ve had here.