Dear Family and Friends
The weeks continue
to keep us busy every day. Saturday we
had a Super Saturday and had 40 ladies show up to make some really cute items, that they can either keep themselves or give
as gifts for Christmas. It was suppose
to start at 10 and go to 2, but we got a late start and ladies lingered much
later, which was great. The lunch was
amazing, although the flyer said I light lunch, it was a BIG lunch with lots of
homemade goodies.
Today we spoke in
Polacca which is 72.4 miles south of Tuba.
It is always fun to go there and speak.
It had been blowing really hard for several days and I was a little
anxious about today, but it has been beautiful.
On Friday they had a
funeral for a 17 year old that was injured in a football game. It was one of those tragic things that
happen. Apparently it was a head injury
that was much more severe than they thought it was. He was able to walk off of the field if I
understand it right, but then collapsed.
The last thing he said was to the coach, when he said, “Help me Coach.” His coach spoke at his funeral. The chapel and overflow was packed and people
were outside the windows listening. Our
Stake President attended as did many members.
It was great to see
a big group of people out for church today.
We spoke about Tithing and focused our thoughts on some of the things
Elder Bednar said in his conference address in October. One of the men meet me in the foyer. He was baptized in 1969 just like me. He said he had listened to my talk and was
going home to get his tithing. We
laughed, but then he walked out to go get his tithing. We had to leave also because one of our young
women had given a talk in 2nd Ward.
She is going into the MTC on Wed.
Her family had a family gathering to eat dinner and say their good-byes
before she goes up to Provo on Tues. I
will be attaching a picture of Tammi and the cute little invitation cards she
sent out.
When we came here in
2011, I thought she was about 12. I
think she is 22. She was fairly shy when
we got here, but she speaks up and has an amazingly strong testimony of the gospel. She will be serving in the Salt Lake City
Mission. We are so excited to see her
go. We have 3 more that will be leaving
in the next 2 months.
The pictures of the
bulls is especially for Derek. These big
guys like grazing in the area just east of the church. They didn’t hardly budge when I got out of
the truck to take their pictures.
In the last month we
have had 3 people assigned to work with us at the church doing 40 hours of community
service. I don’t know what they did, nor do I need to
know, but it is great to have the extra hands in the garden and especially
hoeing weeds that grow so well in the front of the church, in the area between
the fence and the sidewalk. When the
weather was bad, they helped clean the church, which is also a great blessing.
The first helper came
for 2 days and put in 5 hours. A month
later he realized he was down to the wire for finishing his 40 hours, so he
really kicked it into gear. I was able
to sign him off a day before he had to send in the paperwork.
The other two are
much older and realize that it is better not to procrastinate. I guess I am suppose to watch them and show
them, but when they see something that needs to be done and simply do it, it
works a whole lot better.
Elder Olson keeps
busy helping the “elderlies” as they are affectionately called here on the
rez. He has his favorites, as do I.
We have kept busy in
the Family History Center, working on the obituaries. We had 4 families from Utah last weekend come
to volunteer to do whatever was needed.
Some of them went to cut wood, one group went to paint a living room and
the others tilled gardens. They brought
their kids and everyone rolled up their sleeves and did whatever we asked. One of the sisters took one of the binders of
obituaries and plans to enter the information into the Family Tree and then
send the binder back and take another one home.
We feel greatly
blessed to be able to serve and express our love to our kids for supporting us
and being our cheerleaders as we spend time away from them. We are excited about visiting them next month
and hope the weather cooperates, so we can travel on bare roads and not during
a blizzard.
We think of you often and keep you in our prayers.
Elder & Sister Olson
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