Parkinson's at Navajo Nation: Best of the Rez Week 67

Best of the Rez Week 67 April 16^th to April 22^nd

Please sit down! Really -- grasp something before you read further, lest I fear that we may be in danger of personal injury to your body. Ready now – okay – get this – out of the Elder and Sister Parkinson that have their names at the end of these blog additions, it is Sister Parkinson that is doing the writing. Sorry for the huge shock to your system. Now take a deep breath and try to stabilize yourself. I just needed to clear that up so that people would not unfairly be judging my husband. Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the female gender and do not necessarily represent those of the marriage partnership.

1) Monday was a complete Monday. Seminary was great. Then Elder # 10 pulled out. He was pretty excited to be going home. Elder Openshaw drove with him to Farmington to pick up his new elder. We went for a walk, did some laundry and a bit of cleaning here, and then got cleaned up. We went out to Sam’s where Roxanna was waiting with her literacy. Sister Sam gave me a beautiful necklace. Next to Rock Point where we had a lot of fun with piano. It is wonderful when they start to grasp the note thing.

Home to Many Farms but only one of our ladies showed up for temple prep but WOW was it an amazing lesson. After teaching about tithing we showed a DVD about the humanitarian aid of the mission and she was just in tears. She was so proud. She really acted excited about the tithing commandment.
Wheeler’s were next. Their 2 year old Cian is the one little pill and she has got it out for EP. The parents were still eating when we got there so we sat down to watch the TV with Ciara. EP asked what she was watching. Cian turned around and yelled, “No!” EP told her we were going to watch TV with Ciara. “No!” We both just stared at the TV. She ran and got her coat and held it up in front of the TV and then turned around and glared at us. We were laughing so hard. She was covering all of about 4 inches of the 40” screen. It was a hoot.

We had a good time with them and then home to prepare. Good Day!

2) Tuesday was interesting day on the Rez. Seminary was good; we had a great walk and then got cleaned up. I worked on the blog and EP worked on seminary.

Our new elder showed up – Elder Guevara who has been Spanish speaking till now. He seems nice but they slept all afternoon.

At 4 PM piano started but one student had excused her. The 5 PM piano showed and I asked her mother if she wanted to come in and wait. “No, I am waiting for the police.” I asked if everything was alright and she said yes and left. Half way through the lesson, EP comes in and tells me to follow him. He points toward a man without a shirt running through the field across the street. EP had been in the house when someone knocked at door. He answered it and there stood a ward member just staring at him. “Parkinson,” he says. EP said, “You are drunk.” The man got up in his face a minute and then turned to run. Then he ran back and said “the police are after me.” Then he turned and ran again. We called his mother but he was too far gone. His mother just stood there and cried. I am here to tell you this woman has tried. She is raising 2 of her husband’s auntie’s children because the mother is a drunk. She tries to help her mother who lives out of town without water, but the mother won’t come in. She said she was tried and is going to leave to work with her husband in Houston once school is out. The other piano students didn’t come—4^th week in a row. ARP came and we had a good lesson there.

We drove out to a Recent Convert and found her home. We had a good lesson and EP went and got the elders and they gave her a blessing. We hoped some good would come of that.

3) Another new experience on the Rez—we woke up to a power outage. Get this everyone. Johnny Depp is here filming ‘The Lone Ranger’ and somehow his crew blew the power for about 4 hours. We went ahead with seminary and fixed pancakes on our gas stove. Then we played Farkel. I had been awake most of the night so I crawled back into bed.
One of the assignments senior missionaries get is to GPS all ward members. We have not been given any kind of template to place our numbers in so we started making one up. It was not a good experience. I thought we were really getting around and meeting the people. I am putting NEVER FOUND on way too many. Yikes—not many days left now. However, if you will remember, the addresses leave something to be desired.
Kelsey had a piano recital at school so we went to that. She was ABSOLUTELY the star of the show. She played ‘Think of Me’ from ‘Phantom of the Opera.’

The family of 4 showed up for piano and I almost got a lesson in with all of them. Then we went over to another house near the Recent Convert we had worked with the night before. Remember—we gave her a nice blessing. Well, it must not have worked because she was holding a revival. The house was a rocking and the music a pouring out. A daughter saw us and came out to talk. If it wasn’t for one little girl, we really feel it is time to give up there.

4) Seminary and exercise and back to the computer. It is going to take me forever to type in the GPS numbers with an updated address. Oh for – 54 South 2^nd East. Have you ever considered how wonderful it is to have an address? Someone knocked at the door and I ran to get missionary dressed while EP answered. It was the bread people from Chinle. Fun story here-their father used to play ball for Brick (Brad’s dad). They decided to go into bread delivery on the Rez since as they said, “There is no recession in food on the Rez.” We see them a lot in Chinle and they are always offering us old bread. Well, today’s visit was more than old bread – it is an ABSOLUTE MISSION MIRACLE. They are moving into our ward with their daughter and her husband. They have bought the Rough Rock (our favorite) Trading Post which is in our ward. They are so excited. He said, between the 2 of us we have been everything is there is to do in the church and we are all here ready to serve. We talked to them for over an hour. It was wonderful. We were just giddy with excitement. We can leave and feel good. Okay maybe not good, but at least more comfortable. The ward is going to have help.
My 5 PM lessons showed up but the 6 PM lessons and missionary lesson didn’t show and neither did the 7 PM – our most faithful. Our 8 PM rescheduled so we sat there and looked at one another, sad from the night before but ecstatic with today’s news. “Want to cut my hair?” I asked EP and he agreed. He said I couldn’t cry harder than I did at Wal-Mart. It was a riot. I had my little mirror trying to show him how to hold the hair in his fingers and then cut. He cut himself almost on the first snip. But, I think it looks just great.

5) Seminary was pretty fun as we started Daniel today. After we took the girls home they left for Las Vegas where they dad is going to run in some big cop run. Then we walked, got cleaned up and typed. We went out and did a few more GPS numbers before piano started at 3:30 PM. Buzz and Tivona and had great lessons. Then we ate a bite and taught Logan’s a lesson. It went great—13 Articles of Faith. They have so many questions and are very excited as he is getting the Melchizedek Priesthood this weekend. We rushed home from that and met Sister Yoe and Selena. EP and Sister Yoe made all the plans for tomorrow and Selena and I played the piano. It was a fun lesson with Selena’s sister there watching.

6) Can you say early? We got up and headed out of town at 6:30 AM. We picked up Sister Yoe where she had already fed all her animals. Snowflake Temple here we come. We made it to the distribution center and got the clothing we needed. Then to the temple. It was wonderful. We had a great time with one rather funny experience. Sister Yoe is always so calm and thoughtful but she was so happy to be at the temple. She wants her mother and father to come back. He does not come to church because he is deaf and cannot hear what is going on. Sad!
After the session we headed to Holbrook where she met Sammy to buy feed. We got McDonalds take out and headed right out to see if we could make the 4 PM Priesthood session in Chinle. We have never seen so many horses and cows on the road but we finally pulled in just one time.

It is almost unfair because every time the men have a priesthood meeting the wives get together and laugh till the trailer rocks. This time was no different. We have a new sister from Coeur d’Alene-Sister Grimmett. Oh, what fun we had. We would laugh till tears were coming.
After the meeting they had Subway sandwiches for us. That was nice so we could have a quick bite before the adult session of Stake Conference. The meeting was just wonderful; if only anyone would have been there to listen. We had 4 from our ward: the Bishop and Sister Benally, Brother Simpson and Sister Davis. It could make a grown person cry. If it wouldn’t have been for the 18 missionaries, the place would have been almost empty.

7) Sleep in day. We got some rest. Breakfast was even left over’s so it was a relaxing morning. Then we headed to conference. We picked up Sister Tsosie and I took her near the front. The first 3 speakers were great but #4 had not timed her talk and took 30 minutes. That cut the rest rather short. The temple president and his wife spoke which Sister Tsosie just loved. President Brown’s talk was also very sweet and most sincere. After the meeting Sister Baldwin, our temple president’s wife came down to Sister Tsosie. Sister Tsosie had made her 2 sets of hot pads – one with the famous Bluebird flour symbol. It was really sweet. After the meeting I had to run her home and missed EP confirming Brother Logan and Brother Yazzie in the Melchizedek Priesthood. Home, dinner, nap and GPS.

It truly seemed like a very long week. Having Sister Yoe at the temple meant everything to us. She is the most wonderful lady and we dearly love her. She told us the story of how she adopted Selena and we had no idea. Selena’s birth mother couldn’t make her stop crying and Selena didn’t gain any weight so she brought her over and gave her to Sister Yoe. It has been a very could match. Teaching Sister Yoe has been a very good match to us. She has made this mission for us.

The Church is True,

The Temple is Worth It,

Our faith and prayers,

Elder and Sister Parkinson