Christmas Play with the Littlest Angel Heralding the Savior's Birth with maracas

Dear Family and Friends,

  The two sweet sisters at the top are Gloria Babbitt, my most favorite here on the rez, and her sister Lorraine, who is the mother of 22 children, all single births.  Mary, Gloria's daughter, said she thought she had 6 with her first husband, so that would make it 28 children.  I hope I will be able to do her family group sheet.  I think she was given in marriage when she was 13 and had her first child at age 14.  They think she is around 105 +  years right now.  Pretty amazing, she needed no real help to get around, although her daughter took her plate of food to her.

  The second picture is the Nativity scene they used at the Christmas dinner minus the sheep that was placed in front of the waste basket on the left.  We think one of the shepherds ran off with the sheep.  You remember leaving the 99 in search of the one that was missing. ;o}

  This is the first Christmas where the littlest angel heralded in the birth by using maracas.  He walked in on the left with a tinsel halo and two bright red maracas which he thoroughly enjoyed shaking.  I guess they were in the sack with the other Christmas items and he found them very appealing, so he helped himself and ran back to his mom, who had quite a time taking them away from him. ;o}  A Christmas to remember.

  The brother who conducted did so in Navajo, which was awesome because many of the older people do not speak English.  The Bishop did tell the Christmas story in English as the primary children enacted the parts.  The spirit was amazing.  The dinner was very good also, although we actually ran out of meat, so Elder Olson went back to our apt.  and brought back a few slices from the roast we had shared with the Nez family.

  We continue to see every day as a new adventure, not knowing what will happen.  Sometimes we have sad things happen, but where we choose to focus makes us who we are and who we will become. One day when I opened the door and asked if I could help, the answer was "We would like a missionary lesson, could you give us one?"  Not an every day occurrence., but one we were delighted to respond to.

  Our Relief Society President is amazing.  Yesterday her first counselor told her that her new job demanded that she work every Sunday morning until Feb, so she would not be coming to church for the next while.  I asked her about the lesson and she realized that her counselor was suppose to give it.  We learned long ago to have "talks" in our scripture bag as well as "lessons" for that week ready, just in case.  Today it was the Sunday School lesson and the Relief Society lesson.  We are really learning a lot about being prepared and relying on the Holy Ghost to direct our thoughts and words about what to speak about.  I am truly grateful for the tender mercies of Heavenly Father.

  Tomorrow we have a missionary meeting and have been asked to present a spiritual thought and our ideas on what has been the best way to help the people here.  There is a message in the Ensign that is directed specifically to Seniors, in fact there is more than one article and one of the highlighted headings was focusing on what you can do and that was an answer to prayer, because it is pretty easy to stress over what should be done and the fact that it doesn't always happen the way it does in other wards and branches throughout the church.  We are uniquely different and we need to do what works to meet the needs of the people here and not stress that what works looks different here than it does in other areas.

  The Relief Society lesson was on Living Righteously in Perilous Times.  In light of what has happened in the last few days back east, it was very profound that it should be today's lesson.  We need more than ever to have God and the gospel in our lives, in our schools, and yes in our work places.  He has promised so many things, but still we see those who would take Him out of everything and then wonder why such tragedies occur.

  We hope at this time of year, we would make a stand for what we know to be true, even if others would have it some other way.  It is He who has the answers and He who can heal lives and broken hearts. We would hope that instead of thinking of more ways He can be taken out, we share how important it is to put Him in everything, for He is the Savior, the Redeemer and in Him all things can be answered.

Merry Christmas

Elder and Sister Olson

  

Elvis has been seen on the rez

Dear Family and Friends, 

    The top picture is of Ann Thompson and Avvy Trujillio.  Ann made the aprons and bag.  The aprons she gave to Elder Olson and me as gifts.  If you look closely you will see a Chee hat on the one, that is Elder Olson's and he loves it.  Mine is the one Avvy is holding on the right.  We love both these single moms very much.  Both are very hard working in their gardens and in their lives in general.
  The second picture is of Avelina Nez, Lee's wife helping in the kitchen which she loves to do.  She is a beautiful Navajo woman and a great cook.
  Elder Olson has not cut his hair for quite a while and a few days ago I asked if his clippers were broken.  He said, "No, why do you ask?"
  I said, "Well you usually keep your hair much shorter, are you growing it out?"
  He responded that he might be trying to grow it out like Brother Nez, who's hair is half way down his back and I said, "Hmmmmmm"
  Today someone at church asked if I was dating Elvis and I must have looked a little puzzled.  He said he thought the man I was with was Elvis because he had such long hair.  Elder Olson had slicked it back after I left the apt and before he came over to the meeting.
  Since he likes to go to bed early, when he is home before dark, and that makes him wake up very, very early, we shall see in the morning if Elvis will go back into retirement.
  After church today we had the Nezs and Andersons over for dinner.  The table is small, but we had enough room to all sit down after we filled our plates at the kitchen counter.  Elder Olson has become quite good at cooking roasts in the dutch oven, which he puts into the regular oven and cooks at a very low temperature from early in the morning until after the last meeting at 2:00.  Sister Anderson brought a nice fruit salad and Sister Nez had brought things for a green salad.
  We invited Bishop Kingsford, who's wife has been with her daughter in Utah for several weeks.  He could not come over when we ate, but came by for leftovers, which he took home to eat.  He will be driving up to Utah for the break and she will return with him after the holidays.
  We were glad Sister Kingsford went because it was her daughter's first baby and they ended up taking him C-section because they discovered that the cord was wrapped around his neck.  Mom and baby are doing well.  Also an update on the baby that Elder Olson blessed.  He is doing well and growing fast.
  We had another Piano Play time last Friday and my fingers were shaking, so I did not do as well as I wanted.  Tonight after Institute I forced myself to play while everyone enjoyed treats.  My fingers were still a little naughty, but when Brother Nez sat on the bench next to me I DID NOT FREAK OUT, even though I was afraid I might.  I kept right on playing and although I also made some mistakes I did much better than Friday and there was an audience listening, which I think is what makes me freak out every time.
  I do practice and I can play, but when I know there are people actually listening for real, my hands shake and I can't play well at all.  I would like to believe that I can fake it until I can make it, but my fingers haven't gotten the message yet.  BUT I shall not give up. ;o}
  Tomorrow we go to Page for my dental appt.  We are also going to get pipe pieces to use on my loom. The dowel sticks tend to bend slightly when you stretch the rug to work on it.
 I am working on my first diamond pattern and am about half way done with the second rug which is much bigger than the first.  The next one will be smaller, so I can practice putting them on the loom more quickly.  It won't take as long to finish it and then I can put another one on if it is smaller and faster to finish, and I will feel more comfortable about putting on the warp and lacing the ends.
  Today the Patriarch along with his wife spoke to both wards.  They live in Page.  He said some really wonderful things about what a patriarchal blessing is and why we should get one.  His youngest person to receive one was 12 and the oldest 86.  One of the sisters is the First Ward had spoken to me about getting hers just this last week. She was afraid she might be to old.  I was very glad she was there to hear them speak and feel confident that she will be preparing herself to get her blessing in the near future.
 Our temperatures have been very nice for quite a while, but today it was cold and the wind was blowing.  I think they are predicting a storm.
  Hope all is well with you and your family.  We feel very blessed to be serving in such a unique way.  President Justice remains us that we are the pioneers and that we are leading the way in several things.  Brother Stephan says that sometimes we just have to make it up as we go because it hasn't been done before.  He says lots of other funny things too. ;O}
  Elder & Sister Olson
PS Elder Olson went to bed at 8:00 so he wasn't up to edit this post.  Hopefully my fingers weren't to naughty and didn't make too many mistakes, or is it to many???  Old age makes you forget how to spell also. ;o}

Who's turning 65????

Dear Family and Friends,
  Cute little baby boy is in the arms of his Grandmother.  Pretty bright and alert for being only three weeks old.
  Can anyone guess who will turn the big 65 tomorrow, couldn't be grum pa could it??  :O}
  Last week was pretty busy.  On Saturday we went to the Snowflake Temple with the Stake,  They had standing room only in the chapel session.  It was so amazing.  They also had to ask people to wait and go through the 11:30 session because the could not seat all the people even though they brought in extra chairs. That was actually a pretty "nice problem" to have to deal with.
  I did discover to late that they were handing out the headsets for the "white" people because the session was all in Navajo.  Fortunately they had a screen with the English scrolling down so you could read what was being said.  I never even thought about getting one to begin with, then I was to embarrassed to admit that I needed one.  I thought that they were giving them out the those who wanted to hear the session in Navajo.  Getting older sucks sometimes because you assume to much.  I mean it was a Navajo session, duh?  Oh well, I did get through it and the spirit was there, the language really didn't matter.
  We left at 5:30 A.M. and arrived home 7:30 P.M.  Wonderful experience, but very hard on Elder Olson's leg with all the sitting.
  Today I started at 7:30 A.M.  Ronnie, Lee and Avy Nez cooked Navajo tacos for the group that met at 2:00 after the 2nd Ward meetings ended.  We meet with a sister from Chandler Heights who drove up to help us with all the indexing that we are doing.  She will be officially retired tomorrow at 5:00 after working for the Church in family history for over 41 years. She just couldn't quit, so she was thrilled about volunteering to help us.
  Two other senior couples came to the meeting plus Sister Norris, Sister Benally and Pres. Justice.  We discussed our concerns and questions about what we had done, what we wanted to do, and what was the best way to accomplish our goals.  We ate around 4:00 cleaned up and went home a little after 5 then headed back to watch the devotional at 6.
  We invited several people to the Christmas Devotional  and Sister Mary from the Catholic Church ;O} came and thought it was awesome.  She could not say enough about how much she enjoyed it.  Sister Margaret was sick, so she could not make it, but I am confident that Sister Mary will share what she saw and heard.
  Went back to the apt and Bishop came to visit, he left and then a sister came and left at !0:05.  It has been a wonderful weekend.
  Elder Olson is going with Brother Yellowhorse out to work on a garden in Monaeve tomorrow. They are going to work on Sister Bighorse's garden, which is way out there as the crow flies.
 Brother Yellowhorse is an excellent gardner and raises a fantastic garden every year.  He and his wife love their garden and it shows.
  We haven't had snow yet, but I suspect it is coming.
Elder and Sister Olson