Dec 11 07

December 11, 2007

We awoke to beautiful snow this morning! About 3 inches here and probably 6 in Show Low. Rosie and Steve said they had 17 inches at their house in Pinetop.

We cooked pancakes for the Elders then left to go to Snowflake to pick up food at the Bishop’s Storehouse. We were getting turkeys, stuffing mixes, cranberries, hot chocolate, potatoes and flour to give to members of the Branch for Christmas boxes. We also got more candy, nuts and fruit for the Elders to pass out at the Commercial Center, heaven only knows when. We tried to communicate with them that their schedule is a bit full between now and Christmas, but it really didn’t compute. Next week is the only time they can come down again and Wednesday is Transfer Day and Friday is the Mission Christmas Party in Phoenix. We asked them if they thought the Zone would make their goal for the year. They said they were close, and we unkindly asked them to define close. They said they need 30 baptisms by this Sunday. And how many do they have right now? NINE! So they need 21 baptisms between now and Sunday. We believe in miracles, but that might be a bit much.

When we got back from Snowflake we started passing out all the food we picked up. We took Christmas boxes to 16 families and are going back tomorrow for a few more. We also had to pick up two boys and take them to the Church for the Elders so they could give them the new member discussion. We took one box to Deoma Henry, who is Byron Henry’s mother. He was there and scheduled a counseling appointment for him and for Kyesha Friday night. Byron is so quiet we were surprised he wants to come back without Shawna. He can’t come any more with her because she did get the restraining order against him.

We finally got home about 6:30 and had a bit of a crisis. At first we thought he dropped them somewhere, which would be a disaster today. Everything is wet and muddy and we doubt we could ever find the keys in this mess out here. Our whole lives revolve around his keys, as he has keys to a lot of things around the church that I don’t have. So we thought pretty hard about all the places we’d been. And we prayed about finding them. That’s when I was inspired. I thought how unlike Robert it would be to ever misplace his keys. Then I thought how very much like me it would be to misplace anybody’s keys. So I thought long and hard about how when his keys would have been in my possession and remembered that we both went into Bonitos. I was driving so would have had the keys in my hand. We took a package to them with some coloring books we had bought the kids and some candy for the whole family, in addition to the Branch Christmas box we got for them. I was talking to the kids and decided I probably put the keys on the table, then pulled my own keys out of my pocket to drive home. We went back to the Bonitos and sure enough there were the keys right where we thought they would be. It helps a lot to know who should be blamed at a time like this. Makes it easier to figure out what happened. Robert is just too careful with his stuff, and conversely I’m just careless enough with mine.

When we got home again we had some supper then finished our Christmas cards/letter/poem. Watch your mailboxes.