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