Dear Family and Friends,
I just looked and it has been 7 weeks since I last posted.
I just thought these would be fun to show you how kids everywhere make their own fun out of whatever they have on hand.. This method is a bummer if you don't make a direct hit on the tire, but all the time we watched they seem to make a good connection and bounce away pretty happy.
I would not however recommend this idea to anyone I loved or was related too, in fact I would not recommend it to anyone, but kids will be kids and I know our own survived many "ideas" that I would not have approved of had I known at the time.
The infection and dental appointments are winding down which makes me very happy. It has been quite the adventure.
Our first semi load of garden supplies came in a few weeks ago on a semi from Colorado. A family who planted last year owns heavy equipment and offered to come by and off load the rolls of wire and the fence posts. He had fork lifts that had to be attached to his bucket. It worked well, but his son had to guide him from below, since he could not see from the seat behind and above the bucket. I know there has to be an amazing "parable" to that event and perhaps one day I will be able to put it all together. It took a little over two hours to unload.
The fertilizer is coming in the next week or two and our first meeting with the new missionaries will be Mar 5 here in Tuba City. Elder Seeley will work as a consultant and the missionaries will be doing their own demos with the people they serve among.
We have 12 couples that all should be here by the end of the week, but one and they will soon follow. They served here last year, so it isn't as critical as it would be for a new couple. Elder Seeley who is now Brother Seeley will conduct all our Missionary Meetings. He and his wife have put together a book to give to each couple. It will give them an overview of what happens and how they can be most effective.
We are excited to start the new gardens and Elder Olson has been helping people get their gardens ready for this year, by tilling in sawdust and manure so that it can mellow and help in producing a more bountiful harvest. The more remote and "challenging" the better he likes it.
I have pretty much finished the Tuba City Cemetery names, but Sister Norris and I will be heading to Winslow and Moencopi in March to do the same thing for those cemeteries. We ended up with about 1,900 names for marked graves in Tuba and I am at 615 for the unmarked graves. She plans to upload them to findagrave.com Hopefully we can make it available to anyone who is seeking Navajo relatives who have been laid to rest.
We are headed to the Snowflake Temple next weekend and plan to stay with Laurie and kids. We are pretty excited about that. Elder Olson will do some fencing while I attend a session Friday evening and then we will both go with our Navajo brothers and sisters Sat. morning. I told Laurie that she could make Elder Olson very happy if she had lots of fencing to do. She was gracious enough to comply with my request.
We should know by this time next week if Elder Olson's surgery was approved. We submitted the paperwork Dec 1, 2011 at 11:47 am. It has taken that long to get a response, but his case worker said we would know this week. We are hoping she is right.
Yesterday we had a Visiting Teaching Conf for 2nd ward. It was very good and the Stake RS president asked if they could do it again for the Stake.
We keep very busy and I can honestly say the weeks fly by. We will have been out a year on Mar. 9 John thought we had been out forever.
I was hit by an overwhelming feeling of homesickness, but I know we are doing what we should be doing. We do love it. It would be fun to hear from you.
Elder & Sister Olson
