Fruits of their labors.

Check the height of the corn.

This is their first year.

Anybody want a slice of watermelon?

Elder & Sister Olson, oops he forgot his badge.

We just had a couple of amazing weeks of working in the vineyard as I like to call it.  A week ago we offloaded 500 boxes of peaches and pears on Tuesday and then another 206 on Friday.  We worked from 7 A.M. until 6 P.M.  very long, but rewarding days. 

Last Monday we had our Missionary Training and then on Thursday we had the Demo for our participants.  On Oct 23 we will have the last Demo for this season.

These pictures only represent 3 of the gardens we had for this year.  Elder Olson worked with 67 new gardeners and lots of the previous gardeners.  All of us need an encouraging word and praise for doing an amazing job and continuing to plant, which the majority of our previous gardeners continue to do.

  The first picture is of Mae B  who was hesitant to do anything on her own 3 years ago.  You can see that she is literally stepping over her squash plants.  She and her husband mentor 3 other participants who also continue to plant.

The second is Lee and Rose Manygoats.  They planted a little late, but you can see that their garden did very well.  Rose does not speak English, so her daughter would translate for Elder Olson.  He does still speak Navajo, but having someone translate, made things a lot easier.  They plan to expand their garden next spring and are already looking forward to doing that.

The third picture is of Selina Slim and her husband.  They were the ones who did such a great job last year and now they are pretty self-reliant which is one of the goals of the program.  Their previous efforts had not been very successful.  They happen to be visiting with another participant last year and asked Elder Olson if he could help them.  When he went over their corn was only 8 or 9" high and had died for lack of water.  He helped them get started and they had an amazing harvest.  This year they did it all on their own with minimal help.  

On Thursday and Friday of this last week, 4 of the Brethren from SLC came to visit and check up on what we are doing in the Tuba City Stake.  I was able to put together a Power-Point Presentation with about 50 slides of both gardeners and pictures of those who come to the Family History Center.  The presentation seem to go well and we visited as we showed the slides.

  I always get a little anxious before they come, but having gone through this several times, I am not sure why I do that.  They are always so positive and so generous with their compliments about what we are doing, and how amazing the gardeners and their gardens are doing.

I was able to report the stats for the Tuba City 1st and 2nd Ward, but we no longer have senior gardening couples serving in our other units, so getting those stats is more of a challenge.  The couple in Dennehotso is MLS, but they are helping a lot and hopefully will be able to give us the info we need.

The couple serving in Polacca will go home tomorrow.  They are doing a great job and plan to come back in March.  He helps in the gardens and she works in the Family History Center.  

We expressed our concern about not having as much support as we could use out here.  Did you know that the number 1 reason that senior couples don't serve is the fact that they don't want to leave their pets?    The Simpsons told us that they could use 2,000 couples to fill out the requests from the Mission Presidents around the world.  Maybe you could spread the word.

The biggest challenge we have here is finding housing.  They have hook-ups at the units, but no trailers or RVs for the couples to live  in while serving.  When I see senior couples traveling through with big RVs I want to follow them and tell them about the opportunities to serve here.  I love the flexibility of our mission.  They train you and you get to set your hours.  The best thing is you get to love and serve your fellow man.  No set hours, you can work as long as you want. LOL

You learn a lot about yourself and your testimony of the gospel.  You learn to trust the Lord more and have more patience with yourself.  You learn to love the people more every day and appreciate the challenges that other people go through.  You find that your challenges don't seem very big at all.

You learn to stretch yourself physically and spiritually.  You end the day tired, but find yourself ready to go again in the morning.  I am grateful for the time we have had here and the people that we have grown to love so much.  We have laughed with them and cried with them.

I hugged a sister last night who began to sob.  I just held on and asked if she was OK.  She said it was her mother's birthday this week.  Her mom passed away unexpectedly just a few months ago.  I told her I did not have words, but I did have hugs.  She said, "You hug, just like my mom!"  Sometimes you are blessed to respond to the spirit and be in the right place at the right moment.  

I love each of you that read this message and pray that you will feel of the Savior's love for you.

Love,

Sister Olson