Nov 8 07

November 8, 2007

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAXON!

We woke up to a pleasant surprise this morning. Robert took an early morning swim in the front yard of the church. Very refreshing and he enjoyed it so much. NOT! When he opened the front blind he just said, “Oh, no,” and ran out the door. Apparently a pipe broke in the sprinkling system during the night and we had water all over. Robert tried to turn it off and got soaking wet. He called Pres Bonito, who sent someone from housing over, and they couldn’t turn it off either. Finally Bill from the FM group got here and was able to get it off. Apparently there is a certain tool that turns off the main valve. Bill said he left one out here but seems someone has borrowed it and forgot to return it. He left another one and told us to keep it under lock and key forever.

We forgot to say yesterday that a carpenter came to fix our back door. He didn’t get it done so came back this morning. So we had Bill fixing the sprinkling system, the carpenter drilling and pounding on the back door, me making cookies, Sharon filling bags for homemaking night and Robert running around trying to help everybody. Just as Bill was leaving I remembered to ask him to look at our dryer. He discovered that the vent was plugged and that the flexible hose that vents the dryer underneath the trailer was smashed. He and Robert had to go to the housing office and find some metal pipe they could make a makeshift vent from until he can get back with a new pipe. In the midst of all this the Elders arrived. Nice quiet relaxing day for Sharon’s first day on the rez.

The carpenter did get the door fixed so now we can escape if there’s a fire. Sharon might hire this guy to do some work for her because he told her he has a daughter in Tucson he likes to visit and would be willing to do some work down there.

Sharon brought lasagna for dinner tonight and that was really nice because we were having such a hectic day. I really appreciated not having to fix dinner for the Elders.

We had a lovely homemaking night. Sharon’s project was a roaring success. The ladies had more difficulty picking up the crocheting than we expected, but the Elders loved it. They both came over and started a hot pad and crocheted every spare minute they had from then on. Sharon had prepared a colorful gift bag for every woman, and we had about 22 women there, which was matched our previous high turnout. She gave each one a bag with a crochet hook, needle and pattern in it. Then she had made balls of yarn for each woman and put those in a laundry basket, which she subsequently tried to steal from us. One day on the rez and she’s already picked up their bad habits. Anyway, Juliet and Jeanette brought stir-fry and I made Veda’s pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which they loved. Sharon had to start the meeting all by herself because I got hung up picking people up. When I finally got there about 6:50 she was just sailing right along. She got in and helped everyone and got to know so many of the ladies. They loved her, of course, as we all do, because she was so friendly and easy-going with them. When the Elders came over and sat down and started to crochet that was the frosting on the cake for the ladies. Sharon was a little frustrated because the project was so hard for them, but it was still successful and they learned something new. One of the ladies said she wished we had picked an easier stitch to teach them. Sharon and I just looked at each other because a single crochet is the easiest stitch we know. The project was a hot pad and all you had to do was single crochet over and over until it was finished. It was just something these ladies had never done before.

We got a new Elder today. His name is Elder Armajo. He is from Dugway Utah but grew up on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. He’s an Arapaho who started his mission in Mexico. We’re not sure why they changed him to a different mission. He speaks Spanish, English and Arapaho.