Oct 13 07

October 13, 2007

We spent the whole day today trying to get things set up for Stake Conference tonight and tomorrow. We had a 7:00 PM meeting tonight and then tomorrow there’s an 8:00 meeting for President Bonito, 9:00 for new members and recently activated, 10:00 general session and 2:00 youth fireside. Apparently Elder Bruce Hafen has a lot of energy and wants to share it with the rest of us. We’re trying to have some representation at each meeting from the Cibecue Branch. So we contacted people all day inviting and arranging rides. We took a group tonight in the van and tomorrow Byron Collateta is taking the van to the 9:00 meeting and we’re taking the baptism group with us. We’ve talked to all the families who have youth who might go to the afternoon meeting and told them they’d have to be responsible for getting the kids to that one. Like that’s going to work.

We also taught Byron and Juliet Temple Class lesson #4. It was a great lesson, as all have been with them. Among our visit we also talked with Myrna, Byron’s mother, about starting the temple class. I don’t know when she’d actually be able to go through. Depends on what kind of timeline President wants to set up with her. Since we’ve been out here we’ve learned to see the boyfriend moving out as genuine repentance, even if Myrna didn’t initiate his leaving. Close enough. On with the temple class. We want to get the class started quickly before a new boyfriend shows up.

We ended up with 8 people at the 7:00 session: Alfred, Thelma, Murphy, President, Myrna, Myrna’s niece, Deborah (nonmember), and us. We were very happy with that. We invited Myrna when we were there earlier today and she immediately said yes. The whole session tonight was centered around grieving and how to deal with loss. It was perfect for her. She said she hadn’t planned to go, but when we invited her something just told her she should come along. Her niece has been taking seminary classes in Whiteriver. She lives with Myrna but rides the bus to Whiteriver to school every day. She’s told us before how much she enjoys seminary and what’s she’s learning. She enjoyed the meeting tonight and said she felt so comfortable in the church, like everyone was happy she was there and no one was judging her or critical of her. Who could pass up an opening like that? We said that since she so enjoys studying about the church we thought she might enjoy visiting with the Elders. Would it be all right if we had them come and visit her? She said sure. So that’s 2 referrals we’ve given the Elders in 3 weeks.

It was a good meeting. Elder Hafen is very low key but interesting. He told this story:

There was a woman whose husband was extremely frugal. So when he died she felt she could best honor his memory by continuing the frugality he had always practiced as she made funeral arrangements. She called the newspaper to place his obituary and asked for their best deal. They said they were having a special that week where they would print 6 words for the price of 3. She thought long and hard and then told them to print “Fred died Wednesday.” The newspaper clerk then asked what she wanted for her other 3 words and explained that the price would be the same for 3 words or 6. The lady thought again and then said to add “Toyota for sale.”

After the meeting we stopped at Safeway and finally got home around midnight. Wild life we lead out here!