Best of the Rez Week 51

Best of the Rez     Week 51     December 26^th to January 1^st

The lessons may have slowed down dramatically but I do believe we were busy this week.  Lots of visits and invites and a lot of croqueting.  By the time I finished on Saturday evening, I had made 33 hot pads, 4 hats and a scarf.  I am more than sure that within a week or two I will get feeling back into my hands.  Now, if I can get enough rest to get my energy back.

1)      Monday we went over for our final party with the Nawahine’s.  We sat around and talked, played Toss Up, and ate pie.  Oh, will we ever miss them in more ways than one.  They are the best at feeding the young elders.  They also let all the elders do their email at their home every Monday morning.  From now on, they will be in all our homes.  And they are just the happiest, most giving couple ever.  They make you feel so good to be around them.  They gave us a couple of homemade rag pot holders, a Merry Christmas plaque and a card telling us how much Elder Nawahine appreciated having Brad’s father for a mentor.  It was so touching.  And now they leave us – so sad.

2)      Cool!  Elder Byron and Sister Joanne Webster made the Church News. 

3)      Most of our lessons fell through this week.  Elder Parkinson had 2 literacy lessons, and I had 2 piano lessons.  I had canceled piano for the holidays but these girls just got a piano so they were too excited to wait. 
As I would finish a couple of hot pads, we would run out and deliver them and have a fun chat.  Then home to make some more and run to another home.  We had a lot of fun doing that (except for my hands – but I got so I could do 4 a day).

4)      We also tried to go out finding.  Elder Parkinson was looking for Eric Rogers, a famous team roper.  We stopped at a house where this girl gave us directions.  I was only watching but I had little faith we could find the house.  Elder Parkinson drove right to it.  The mother wasn’t home, but at least we are getting better at finding places on the Rez.

5)      I think a lot seems to be getting to me, but the other day at lunch, I was eating a sandwich and was literally too tired to chew it and couldn’t swallow it whole.  I said I was sorry and went to take a nap.  3 & ½ hours later I woke up and still felt tired.  This has been a very emotional and busy month indeed.

6)      Friday was the Stake New Year’s Eve Dance.  We went over early and went out to eat at Garcia’s.  So good!  Then we bought our groceries and 14 more liters of pop.  Then we went to the dance.  We told several I would be willing to help teach them how to dance and get things going.  They all looked at us like we were the weirdest people ever.  It must have been because the dance was such a huge success.  Every single person was sitting on the sides with Tyler and his sister, Jessica, every once in a while getting up and doing about 32 counts and sitting back down.  Finally Tyler came over and asked if I would help.  I told him to go to the DJ (YM Stake President) and ask him.  Elder Parkinson got our music and within 5 minutes we had the dance floor booming.  We did the Teton Mountain Stomp, the 2 step, Cotton Eyed Joe and Achy- Breaky Heart.  I taught them how to ask one another to dance and escort them to and from the floor.  We did men’s choice and girl’s choice and we had everyone at the dance involved the whole night.  It was wonderful but I did leave a little tired.

7)      Saturday was more visits and finds and croqueting.  By 9 PM I had everything done.  Just a week late; no big deal—right?  We started our fast early for our children and then the Elder’s showed up with food.  We entertained them without food and tried our best to enjoy our last day of 2011.  The Rez had a few fireworks, but lots of gunfire.  The noise kept going till around 1:30 AM.  We didn’t stick our heads out to see as we were rather frightened of what would happen.

8)      Sunday our Bishop only held the one meeting.  It really was a great Fast Meeting as people were home visiting.  We only had 51 but felt good about that.  We went out contacting that day and ended up teaching a great lesson to more of the Begay clan.  We delivered all the hot pads and pop and made a few more contacts and appointments.  All in all, a pretty good day. 

So, 2011 has ended and what a year it was.  51 weeks were spent in the mission field.  Oh, how life can change.  Oh, how a person can change.  We made it – one day at a time. 
Life has changed at Many Farms – perhaps more slowly than we expected, but still there were some good things that happened.  For our records, we are listing things that have changed.  We are in no mood to consider this boosting.  Most of these things just happened, but at least we were here to see the change.  The Many Farms ward was the first to start holding ward council meetings –five to date.  There are now Aaronic Priesthood lessons being taught.  When we came there were 4 ward men holding ward positions – now there are 6 with some hopefuls coming.  There were 4 women functioning in ward positions and now we have 5 in RS, 4 in Primary, 2 in YW (one other accepted a call but not functioning yet), 2 called (one today) in YM and a youth SS teacher.  We hope more women will be called as well.  16 youth have accompanied Sacrament Meetings (even a 6 year old) – all music now being played by the youth.  The average attendance was in the 30’s and we have had several weeks hit mid 50’s, 4 weeks in the 60’s with our 95 attendance Christmas Sunday.  As missionaries we have 2 sisters that have returned to full attendees, 3 marriages (1 already split), 16 & ½ baptisms (with the young elders adding 3 & ½  more) and one family married and sealed in the temple.  Our YM-YW was probably functioning better than any other stake unit, but they continue to be an example to the stake.  We are very proud of the fact that the Aaronic Priesthood now meets seperately for Sunday meetings.  Another thing we feel is huge is that when we came the young missionaries prepared and blessed the Sacrament every week.  Now, only on rare occasions do we need a missionary -- the YM or ward members are doing it every week.  Our youth are wonderful and of course we think our opportunity to teach the Curley girls seminary has been a high light of our year.  Our RS was holding monthly work meetings but we have watched that program grow and grow as well as in Sunday attendance.  Both Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching have been organized but we hope to get it functioning next year.  And our softball team beat Ganado 21-11.  Change one number there and that would be the summation of our 2011.

I guess 2012 has begun.  The election and the Olympics are bound to be the big news.  I doubt we will get much of either one here on the Rez.  I just hope we can find the energy to work valiantly till the end.  We finished all those baptisms in December and said, “Okay, now we can relax.”  That lasted about 10 minutes and Elder Parkinson had to be out finding again.  I do hope we can have some of the good experiences in this next 6 months to match our first year.

The Church is True,

            Happy New Year,

                        With all our love,

                                    Elder and Sister Parkinson

We took the presents from Utah out to Begay's.

They live in a hogan without plumbing or electricity

out against the mesa.

Little Scotty was so excited about his toy.

Jerald and Elvira got gloves.

They said they had been wearing socks on their hands.

As we were driving by, Elder Parkibnson stopped quick.

A logger-head shrike.

I can't believe he knew the name of a bird

he had never even seen before.

The Ahasteen's were sure excited about their new hats.

A Rez Sunset

Trying to get Kayla in the picture with

Mariah, Kelsey and Keshawna at the

Stake New Year's Dance.