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| Sister Luna helping Willard |
Monday started out as a lazy day and so Willard thought he would put on the new locks on the RV so we wouldn’t need to have people go through our bedroom to get out. The task looked easy enough but no matter how we tried it, they just wouldn’t work. After about 4 hours trying to get them to work, Willard had a brilliant idea to call Carol Luna and see if she could get them to work. She is a wiz and mechanical things. She comes over, did a little adjustment to the side plate and it shuts. It took her all of 2 minutes to fix it. She was a life saver. I got ready to teach a piano lesson for the next day and Willard went to the high school to get fertilizer with Bishop Gilmore. Willard came home with a great big load of cow manure in the trailer. It was well aged and was dry: perfect for the garden. That night Elder Ziegler helped him get some manure spread on the garden but a lot more was needed. I waited for my lessons but she didn’t show.
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| Willard carrying manure down to gardens |
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| At the sign up table |
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| Neighbors getting to know each other |
Tuesday, I helped Willard shovel fertilizer into bags from the trailer. I would put about 9 shovels full of manure in a bag and he would carry it down. It only took us all morning to get all the manure down to the gardens. Willard started to till the garden but then the Harvey’s stopped in to get some sawdust. That evening we had the workshop. I had organized it with each year having a line. (Working the elections had really helped me organize it) then I set up chairs according to neighborhoods so the friends of other faiths could see who were in their neighborhood. We hope to set up some mentors so that if the new gardeners have questions they can call their mentor and then if they can’t help, they call us. We had a great turn out from the 1st ward but hardly anyone from the 2nd ward. We had some people stand up and tell what they liked about their gardens. In my mind I envisioned someone saying something for 2-5 minutes but they usually talked about 10. Then Willard invited anyone that wanted to share their experiences with their gardens to speak and some more spoke up. Actually, I thought it was very successful. I think they all felt a part of something special and those who participated contributed to the success of the meeting. After the meeting Willard took the first time gardeners down and taught them how to till the garden. We were please how well it turned out. We did get about 15 new gardeners, only 5 left to go.
Wednesday we tilled most of the day. Willard would go up one row and I would come back down. He back was really hurting him from hauling all the manure. But it worked out well with us sharing the tilling and we got both gardens done by 3pm. We had just enough time to rest up and go to dinner up at the church because the Young Women fixed us dinner. It was a great potato ham soup with rolls and salad. 1st ward really does spoil us.
Thursday morning I got a call about 9 from Sister Williams to direct the music for a funeral. It was an interesting experience. The young President Holiday from the Denihoso Branch came to conduct the funeral. His acutely lives in Kayenta but travels back and forth to support that branch out there. I am impressed with their dedication to their callings.
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| A lovely Spring day In Kayenta |
The family of the fellow that died, were members of the church along with his ex-wife and they wanted a LDS funeral. But the his girl friend and his brothers who all belonged to the Native Navajo Church wanted a service that would reflect their beliefs. So the funeral was sort of a combination of both. The opening prayer was LDS and President Holiday gave a talk of the plan of salvation. The Eulogy and closing prayer were given in Navajo by his brother who wore a red Navajo banner draped around their shoulders . It was interesting to say the least. I spent the rest of the day making goodies for the movie night for Friday. Then Willard took me over to teach Glindi Yazzies who is living with her sister and her 4 children. I was really impressed with the family. Glindi, who is 17, lost her mother about 3 years ago and her father is out drinking someplace. She came to live with her sister and a couple of months ago they lost everything in a house fire. When I went to teach her she took me to her room. It was empty except for some blanket plied up in the corner and a nightstand where we put the keyboard. They didn’t have any beds; they just slept on the floor. Their house was clean but not much in it. I taught her and her niece who is nine. They were very excited about the opportunity to learn the keyboard. I am really going to enjoy teaching them. Meeting them really made me appreciate the things that I have been given and really admire people’s fortitude and resilience.
While I was teaching there, Willard went to the Nez’s house that was around the corner unloading the manure. After teaching Glindi, I went to the Nez’s to teach their teenage daughter Neira, however, she wasn’t really interested in taking lessons, just that her mother wanted her to. I was glad she told me how she felt because I didn’t want to teach someone that really wasn’t interested.
Friday morning I got up early and made bread and then we went down to Bashess to get our pictures taken. When we were shopping there a sister from the ward Alfreda Young said hi. Alfreda has 4 kids from 17 to 5. She had rolled her car on the day we got to Kayenta. Earlier she had been living with her parents out on the Mesa and there was some squabble and they kicked her out without anything. She was able to a home here in Monopoly and got a job and things were going good until the accident. She lost days of work and fell behind and she said that she just got an eviction notice the day before. She was ready to give up and just leave because they had just cut her hours at Bashess to 12 hours a week. We tried to cheer her up and told her that we would take her and her family to movie night. We came home and made cream puffs and got ready for movie night by putting up our sheet on the wall to show the movie at the church house.
We picked up Alfredia and her daughter and son and went to movie night. When we started there were 5 people there plus the Zieglers. By the time it ended there were about 15 people there. They ate and went home. Not one person offered to help clean up except Alfredie’s daughter. Alfredia went to talk to the Bishop. When she came out she said, “I guess I am not going anywhere. We are going to stay here in Kayenta.” She seemed to be in much better spirits. As we got talking, it was amazing all the places we had in common. When we said that Willard was from Shelley Idaho, she said that she actually had worked in Firth. Willard said that he had never met anyone who had worked in Firth. She had also lived in North Ogden in the placement program. She is really a sweet woman.
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| The living room where the 2 girls sleep |
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| The Bathroom |
Saturday we set out to find and talk to the new gardeners. But first we went over to the Cranks home. The Bishop asked us to check with them to see what needed to be done on their house to make it more livable. He said that there had been some family squabbles and the last family member had removed some important beams in the room and the house might need repair. He said that he had never been asked in the home and wanted us to see if we could get in. We found out after talking to the Cranks. That Sister Crank who must be about 27 was raise in the home. This home was a octagon Hogan type of home. It was about 50 years old and her parents had raise 9 children in it. It had two bedrooms and a large living area with a bathroom, laundry room in one of the corners. The home was in a dilapidated condition. She is expecting her fourth girl soon. It was amazing that they were living in such conditions. I took pictures and sent them to the Bishop so he would know the conditions.
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| Notice the gray sand in Monopoly |
Then we went to some of the new gardener homes that were in Monopoly Housing. It was interesting in the difference of living conditions but one thing they all had in common was the blowing sand. However, the sand is gray in that housing development. We advised them about how to situate their gardens and how to get their plot flatter. It was fun getting out to met the people and seeing how excited they are about starting a garden.
On our way home, we stopped in at Glindi home to find out about their truck which wasn’t working, and to see what it needed. Her sister wasn’t home but Glindi was excited to show me that she had already knew how to play “Jesus said Love Everyone” She just beamed with pride. That was a real joy to see her so happy.
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| Compare it to the red sand on the hill |
We did stop at Brother Johnson’s home, that is on the hill, to talk to his mother-in-law about her garden and he told me that the primary presidency was going to be reorganized on Sunday. He said that Alfredia Young was going to be the next primary president. Then I understood what she had said the night before.
We went home because it really started to blow. We hardly slept at all that night because of the wind blowing so hard and the RV would shake and shutter and it was like being right outside it was so noisy.
Sunday I go up early because I couldn’t sleep for the noise and started working on a handout to offer to order tribute Strawberries to the sister. I found a great place to order them from and shipping and handling are free if there is an order over $75, which is going to be easy to do. Sunday was as exciting as last. After Sacrament, I went to play for primary. That went smoothly and then at 11am. I excused myself because I wanted to be there when the new primary presidency was sustained and also I was going to be sustained too. Well as I set down, Sister Black, the organist, motioned for me to come up to lead because the chorister hadn’t shown up. So lead the songs, and played for the primary to sing and then ran back to play for primary. However, since there were only about 7 kids in primary, she was just teaching the lesson. Nobody had bother calling her to tell her they wouldn’t be there. It is their spring break and most of the people in the 2nd ward are teachers so everybody leave town at that time. So Nellie and I were the only ones there to do primary. 1st ward had a lot more children there and it was sort of a mad house. Reverence is something they have to work at training the new kids. They are successfully bringing out children of lesst active families but they haven’t been taught to be reverent. So there is a process of training that has to go on.
We went over to the Williams for Sunday dinner and eat the beef stew that Nellie had brought over from her school. This is the second time she furnished dinner from her school. They have really good things there. The Olson’s from St George came over. They are checking out the mission. They are thinking about doing a gardening mission. We spent some time explaining all the ins and outs of the mission. They are a really nice couple and we hope to see them again
Right now I am all bundled up with socks on my feet and wearing my jacket in bed writing this blog. It has been snowing all day and blowing. It was so nice in the middle of the week and now it is so cold. We have shut the door in our bedroom just to keep the heat in. The little heater in the living room, isn’t big enough to heat the other part of the trailer. We went to bed just to get warm. We are going to Tuba City tomorrow for training and I hope it isn’t blowing snow. Willard is suppose to take the trailer for the fencing but I don’t know how good the roads are. Another adventure awaits us tomorrow.
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