Family History Experience 19 Sep. 2013

Story of the three brothers of Dan Edwin Bighorse who wanted their temple work done.

  I am grateful for this special experience that my foster mother had and shared with me, which greatly defined my life.

  I was living in Bitterspring, Ariz. I had had no contact with my foster parents for an extended period of time.

  I had graduated from the LDS Lamanite placement progam, and had started a family, I had a lot of crucial circumstances that occupied my life. So I guess I was not reachable to the three ancestors who wanted my attention. Thus, they visited my foster mom.They told her they wanted their temple work done and that her foster daughter Marie was the one who should help them. They also told her that their brother, my grandfather was close to death; and that he was the only one who could give me the information.

  After my foster mom contacted me and lit a fire under me, I went to my grandfather to acquire his life history and to obtain the names of those who wanted their work done. He gave me a lot of other information but to my surprise, he did not tell me the names of the three who visited my foster mom. I was happy to get more names but I knew none of these name were the three who visited my foster mom.

 I had questioned him each visit but he did not remember these three brothers. I just assumed that he could not remember.

  On our next visit we were sharing a meal with my grandparents and all of the sudden out of the blue, he sat up and said "SHO," and commanded our attention.  He proceeded to tell us the name of the three men. During this revelation, we found out that these brothers of my grandfather were from an earlier marriage and a couple of them were 50 years older than my grandfather.

  My great-grandfather, Gus Bighorse, was married a few times. My grandfather was the oldest of the siblings in the last marriage of Gus Bighorse and Mae Bah Manygoats Whitehair Bighorse.

  I took another 6 years to do their work. I have had many wonderful experiences that convince me that this work of the dead is of extreme importance in this life. We are Saviors to our families on the other side...as we save them, we also save ourselves. Amen

Written and shared by Marie Singer Goldtooth

(narie5844@gmail.com)

with Sister Elaine Olson

Tuba City, Family History Center, Tuba City, Arizona

22 Sep. 2013

Stake Primary Day 14 Sep 2013

What a fun week this was.  On Saturday we had a big Stake Primary Day.  We had lots of kids, lots of great leaders and LOTS of FUN.

Sister Allen is an amazing leader.  She divided the kids into three groups and each went to a station focused around the theme of I am a Child of God.  

The bike rodeo course had signs that said, things like Did you think to pray?  Read your scriptures, etc.  The older group loved the course and rode like experts, the youngest kids rode tricyles and loved the course just as much, but watching them pump up the slight slope was pretty funny.  

In the kitchen they made play dough and talked about how their actions shape their lives.  They got to pick two colors and I was pretty impressed that the older kids liked it as much as the younger ones.

In the cultural hall they got to close material to make very simple scripture bags.  They would go over to one of five sisters who would sew the bag together.  Then they got to choose a tablet, a small notebook, a pencil.  a card with the Articles of Faith, a pamphlet with A Proclamation of the Family.  They were able to decorate their notebooks.  Sister Norris said it was neat to see them bring them to church today.  We spoke in Kayenta, so we did not get to see them.

Sister Allen also had Bishop Luna and Bishop Blodgett speak to the kids for 3-5 mins, then everyone ate a the longest submarine sandwich ever.

On Thursday we had about 300 boxes of peaches come into Cameron where they loaded them onto trucks and trailers to take to the various units.  We delivered about 165.  I just sent out an email and told everybody that they had come in and then they came and picked them up.

The sisters either bottled them or made jam.  I suspect a lot were eaten before they ever made it to the bottles. ;o}  It went over so well that we are ordering more peaches this week.

Tomorrow we have our missionary training meeting and then on Thursday we will do our Demo with the participants.

The new Seminary teacher and his wife arrived Friday.  They seem very nice and eager to get started.  We told them to try and relax and get settled, then we will put them to work.  Elder Walker's brother was killed in an auto accident, so they will be traveling to California next weekend for the funeral.

One of our Gardening couples left today, two left last month and the rest will leave in the next few weeks, so Elder Olson and I will be the lone rangers again.  We will hopefully get a new group in Feb.  If you know of anyone who would like to serve here let us know.  The days  are long, but the rewards are great.

Stake Temple Day 7 Sep. 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

  These are pictures of our Stake Temple Trip on Saturday, Sep 7, 2013.  We had members from all the Wards and Branches in our Stake.  The session was filled to overflowing and the young people did baptisms for about 3 hours.  It was really quite amazing.

We attended a Chapel meeting at 9:15, then went to the next session.  It was so fun to see all of our Lamanite friends sitting in the session.  I was able to get many pictures, so I shared just a few.  They plan another trip in December.

  We were able to stay with Laurie, Harrison, Cassidy, and Uncle Evan.  It was so fun to visit and share time in Laurie's home, which isn't far from the Temple.  Laurie has quite a bit of space for her horses.  Cassidy participated in Holbrook on Sat.  Here is the email from Uncle Evan, the proud grandfather:

Cassidy and her mom left Snowflake for Holbrook at 6:45 a.m.  Harrison & I left for Holbrook about 3 hours later. Cassidy earned ribbons in four of the seven events in a field of 17 contestants, as follows:

 

6th Place: Western Showmanship, which is leading the horse with a halter

1st Place: Western Pleasure, which is along the railing walking, trotting, loping & reversing

2nd Place: Western Reining (in the sprinkles), which is guiding the horse in circles, backing up, and pivoting around

1st Place: Western Bareback (in the rain), which is a pattern without a saddle

 

Last, she was asleep when they got home last night at 8:30 p.m.

 

All in all, she made her mother and the rest of the family proud.  Cassidy and her mom had worked hard learning everything.  Next stop is the Arizona state fair in mid October.

 

Grandpa Olson, alias Evan

They were already headed to Holbrook by the time we were up and about.  It was fun to visit with them Friday night.

Tonight we visited with two of our ward families and then stopped at the Stake President's to put the pictures on his computer.  He might be sending a few to SLC.  Maybe you will send them again sometime.

   We had some great times this last week in the family history center.  The YM and YW have spent several nights in there finding their ancestors.  On Tues we had 12 people and Wed. 9 which was very exciting.  Hopefully they will continue to come in and become even more involved in finding the ancestors.

  Our new Seminary teacher will arrive this week and start teaching the following Monday.  Our Stake President has been teaching Seminary since school started.  He does a wonderful job of engaging the kids into the lessons.

  It is late and tomorrow is another full day.  Hope you will go and find one of your ancestors.

Elder & Sister Olson

Little People in the Garden

Some days are just more fun.  What a cutie and so polite.  

One of the things coming from this program is the fact that they are relearning what their ancestors already knew and did to be self reliant. Not only are they feeding themselves, they are healing themselves, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Evelyn showed Brayden how to look for the red tomatoes and the RED raspberries.  He quickly learned that green raspberries don't taste like the red ones.He learned very quickly. Now he knows the color red and RIPE! And he is only 2. ;o}

Young Men and the Family History Center

 We had 7 YM come in tonight and get a lot of names on their family trees.  We printed their pedigree chart and they are suppose to fill in the blanks and come back next week and add the info.  Almost all of them were able to open accounts on Family Tree.  Bro. Allen had all their information so they could do so

Sister  Norris and I kept pretty busy.  It was kinda fun to watch and listen when they had to call home to ask their moms what their grandparents real names were.  Most of them spoke very softly. .  It was pretty awesome.  We invited them to come back anytime.

Sister Olson

Weaving Again

This said Draft, so not sure it was published

Dear Family and Friends,
  I managed to get the picture I wanted at the top and centered too, guess miracles never cease.

    It has been another busy week, but I managed to squeeze in some time for weaving as you can see. The pattern is simple, like me, but I am thinking that I could actually put the warp on the loom and weave now.  The next big step is to make sure that I can finish it the right way.  When you are fairly close to the top, you actually go to the top and come down, while still going up from the bottom, so that you do not finish right at the very top of the rug.  You actually finish about 4 or 5" from the top.  I have done it with lots of help, but want to do this one with someone just watching and directing.

  Tomorrow we have our monthly missionary meeting which may be fairly short, since the Stake President has to be in Flagstaff for meetings.  It is always fun to see the other couples and hear about what is happening in their units.

  I suspect the majority of you are doing the count down for school to begin. ;o}  The kids here have already started.  Seminary started Wed and our Seminary teacher won't actually be here until mid Sep.,  so President Justice has started the year off with the kids.  I think it will be difficult for him to turn them over when the Walkers get here.

   To Uncle LaVar a special thanks.  Elder Ronnie cut some grease wood sticks for me a couple of days ago to use while weaving.  He had whacked off the branches, but hadn't shaved off the bark.  I explained that it had to be done while they are green.  He picked them up and hustled out the door.  It was getting pretty late and I was feeling a little bad that he might have to get new ones another day,  but it wasn't very long and in he came with the sticks all shaved.  ;o}  I asked how in the world he had done it so fast.  He explained that his big brother LaVar, has used broken glass to smooth the arrows he made when he was a kid.  Elder O found a broken bottle and made quick work of getting the sticks shaved.
  We then tied them tightly to a dowel with yarn.  You leave them that way for 10 days, that way they stay very straight until they are completely dried and ready to smooth with sand paper.

  Those are the sticks you wrap your yarn around and slide through the warp as you weave.  I found that if  I take off about 6 yards of wool and wrap it around the stick, I can use about the same amount of yarn for each section on the rug.  The bigger sections are made with 18 yards and the smaller ones with just a couple of lines, rather than yards.

  Sister Goldtooth taught me how to make a pattern that looks like small beads or dots.  You only do one line of wool surrounding it on both sides with a stronger contrasting color.  I don't think you can see it on the picture, but it stands out very well on the rug itself.

  I have another smaller rug started also on the smaller loom.  The pattern is much more detailed and will take a bit longer even though it is smaller.  I actually started before we went home, but have to go through the steps again to figure out what I was doing to make the pattern.  The Navajo sisters do not use patterns, they can just see it in their head and it somehow comes out on the loom.

  Some rugs sell for several thousand dollars, but I can assure you that they give their labor away, while the dealer makes a huge profit.  Makes me sort of mad.  They buy it for $1,000 and sell it for $10,000  it should be the other way round.

  We had another baptism yesterday.  She is an amazing young girl of 17.  What a beautiful young girl she is.  It has been fun to get to know her.  She has been a good friend of our Stake President's two youngest sons.  Joseph got to baptize her.  Jared Justice, his brother, has been out on his mission for 6 months now, which is hard to believe.

  Elder O is at a high councilmen meeting.  We speak in Cameron next Sunday.  Each month we will go to a different ward or branch in the Stake.

  Hope all is well for all of you.
Elder & Sister Olson

Baptisms and Primary

Dear Family and Friends,

  This week was busier than most.  We had a baptism on Friday and another on Saturday.  On Friday the Elders were in Chinle and asked that I turn the water on and fill the font.  The previous Elders it usually took 45 mins, SO I started it in good time and decided to check it at 30 mins.  It was about 4" from flooding over.  When the father of the young man being baptized came, we both thought it might be bit too full, SO he pulled the plug just a little.  WELL, when we opened the font doors, the font was empty.  Everyone patiently, for the most part, sat and waited.  The Bishop asked the Primary President to bear her testimony AND THEN he asked me to share my conversion story.  I told them that Elder Olson could follow me and correct any details than were exactly correct according to his memory. ;O}  Unfortunately we did not have time for Elder Olson.
  We had the second baptism on Saturday at 2 and I was asked to give the talk on Baptism, which I was happy to do.  Afterwards we went to their house for dinner, which was very nice.  It was a great way to spend a Friday and Saturday.

This is a picture of a young married couple who could see the vision of what a garden could do for them and their family.  Both of them, plus a friend rolled up their sleeves and made it happen.  The picture above is the young couple helping put in a garden for Grandma.  Both gardens are showing green already.

The picture above is what your car will look like when you hit a horse.  The people in the car were very blessed, but the horse did not fair quite as well.  I know the Lord's tender mercies were with out good friends.

  Last night after we were in bed, we had a late night guest, who kept insisting that I give him blankets and a place to sleep.  We had a break in last weekend, which continues to make me just a little uneasy.   When he asked for a sleeping bag I explained that I gave one to the last guy who promised to return it, but did not, SO I did not have one for him.  SO I offered to call the police for him and he decided he would look elsewhere. 

 I think Elder Olson should answer the door next time, but maybe not, because he might give them the blankets on our bed.  But, maybe I should reread the story about going the extra mile and giving him my cloak also and repent.

  Today I was asked to teach primary in both wards.  I had flash backs of being back in school.  One little Munchkin, age 3, was left in my care.  It was his first time coming to Primary.  What a wonderful little boy.  The 1st Ward had 30 kids come today.  Sister A does an amazing job of being positive and noticing good behavior.  There were no teachers who showed up. ;o{, but she "rolled with the punches."  I could not begin to explain how much admiration I have for Sister A.

There was a Provident Living Meeting at 2 right after RS for 1st Ward. That meeting went until 3:30.  Dinner for the young Elders at 4 and Family History until 7.  We had 6 people in there for a while.  It was so fun.  With Ancestral Quest, Roots Magic, PAF, and Family Tree, I am learning more and more about what I don't know, but usually I can figure it out.  Sister Norris is amazing, she knows so much.

  I am actually very tired but I don't know why, lol.

I have more I want to share, but I think I will save it for another day.

Love,

Sister Olson