November 25

Thanksgiving in Shiprock should be pretty good, and I'm excited to get whatever things are in store for me in the package. Thank you so much for taking such good care of me even while I'm on my mission! But, I guess I'm not as far away as most other missionaries are, haha, I'm just over the hill. The Watts are great people, I am very appreciative to have such a nice, caring, and supportive senior couple here in Shiprock. They feed us dinner every Sunday and it feels like family dinner back at Grandma's, which is really nice.

I am so thankful to have grown up in a family that encouraged righteous living and where I had the gospel and the priesthood available to me. Thank you, Mom and everyone else, for doing so much to encourage me to live a life in accordance to gospel standards and I hope to be able to do so even more after I get home. I hope Thanksgiving goes swell for all of you and that you have the opportunity to thank and glorify God for his marvelous works in our lives. I read Luke 17:12-19 which discusses the story of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed and the one who turned to give thanks. Jesus has healed every single one of us from the sickness of sin, and it is essential we all use this time to give thanks unto him.

I love you,

Elder Schaelling

November 18

Mom,

Transfers went great! I am still in Shiprock with Elder Johnson, so this will be our third transfer together which is a pretty long time, but we get along really well. I'm glad I'll be able to stay in Shiprock for Thanksgiving and Christmas since I've already gotten pretty close with some members and investigators in the area. The biggest change that is happening this transfer is that they are adding sisters to our district. So far there have only been elders in the district. They are the Kirtland 3rd Ward sisters (previously the ward had elders) and they cover some reservation so I'm guessing that's why they are being placed in the Shiprock District instead of the Kirtland District, they are some of the only sisters on the reservation so they are pretty lucky! Our mission has the least amount of sisters out of all the missions in the world, along with the highest number of vehicles. Thank you! We also set another baptismal date this week with one of our investigators named Bryan. He is such an awesome and solid guy, he's been to church the past two weeks and he's on date for December 21st. He has two little kids who are awesome and he's been reading the Book of Mormon a lot! It's been amazing to see the area progress so much, I have truly been able to see the Lord's hand at work.  

I went to the Shiprock Fair on the Friday night for like an hour or two and it was pretty cool! Supposedly it's actually been getting smaller the past few years, which is pretty crazy to hear. Yeah, I want to come down for a fair after my mission but I'll probably go to the Window Rock Fair instead because the Shiprock Fair is always on General Conference weekend. I'm probably going to Sanostee sometime soon! A family in our ward, the Yellowhairs, are going to take us down there some day to go hiking on a land bridge and butcher a lamb or a goat! It's only about 45 minutes away from Shiprock, and Sister Yellowhair is originally from there. She's from the Bedah family. Yeah, reading/writing Navajo is essentially nonexistent down here, only the younger kids who take Navajo classes learn to read and write it, but supposedly the language is changing between the generations. Yeah, especially in the boarder towns like Shiprock the language is being lost. Deeper in to the heart of the reservation or the small communities Navajo is spoken a lot more.

I've already tried blue corn mush, kneel down bread, roast mutton, dumpling stew, fry bread, steamed corn soup. The only thing I haven't heard of before is Navajo ice cream! I'd try blood sausage, but apparently the mission has told us not to eat it because some missionaries have gotten sick in the past. We're planning on roasting ach'ii at the Watts' place one of these days though!

I'm sure I'll be surprised at the connections I find to Farmington and the rez once I go home also! I think the primary descendants of the Anasazi are the Hopi and Zuni tribes. They are all related to the other tribes of the area too, like the Laguna and Ute and stuff like that. The Navajo and Apache are actually not originally from the Southwest, they migrated over like 600 years ago or something.

I hope all is going well at home! I love you all very much. I got your Thanksgiving package with The Lower Lights, by the way. Thank you so much! The CD is amazing. It's probably the closest thing to some of the music I used to listen to while still being spiritual and about Christ, haha. Greg's recommendation never fails.

Love and regards,

Elder Schaelling

November 12

We have already received an invitation for Thanksgiving, thankfully. We are still technically supposed to do regular missionary work on that day, along with every other holiday, but I doubt we'll get much done. No one wants strangers to knock on their door when you have the whole family over on a holiday like that, haha. So we'll probably just go to members' or investigators' houses that invite us over and whatnot. California sounds like a lot of fun! I enjoyed that Thanksgiving I spent with Jackie and Trevor in Philly a few years ago, that was way awesome! I hope the Phillipps can make it out to Oklahoma too! ...

Yesterday for P-day one of the members here took me and the two Kirtland missionaries I was living with to look at some Anasazi ruins sites between here and Four Corners. It was tons of fun! There is some way cool stuff out there and supposedly there were once hundreds of thousands of people living here along the San Juan river between about Bloomfield, NM and Aneth, UT. The Anasazi and the Navajo aren't related, the Anasazi are the parents of the Hopi and Zuni natives around here. They are all pueblo peoples, so they live in little cities and towns, where Navajos and Apaches all live very spread out and remotely and speak different dialects. Hopefully I'll send you some cool pictures soon!

I love you!

Elder Schaelling

November 4

These are the questions that Matt was answering for me:

1)  What is the weather doing where you are?

2)  How was your Halloween?

3)  If you have specific preferences for Christmas gifts we need that info now or asap because President Batt sent an e-mail requesting all Christmas packages arrive at the Mission Office by December 1.  We're making plans to send you some Christmas cheer!

4)  Are there any more missionaries in the Shiprock area than you, your companion (Elder Johnson), Elder Howe and Elder Thompson?

5)  Are you in your new trailer now?  Is it just you and Elder Johnson there?  Where do Elder Howe and Elder Thompson live?

6) Sadly, I'm just realizing that we never got the names of who you were living with in Kirtland.  How many other Elders were there?  I am sorry about that.  That wasn't very nice of me.  I sent Elders Johnson, Howe and Thompson Halloween candy, I should've known the others and sent them some also.

7)  How are things going with all of your investigators?  Did any come back to church again yesterday?  We are always praying for you and the people in Shiprock!

-------------------------------------------

Mom,

1) The weather is pretty good! Occasionally a little too cold, but I am enjoying it for now. How's it back in Utah?

2) My Halloween was fun. The night before my ward had the trunk or treat and Brother Yellowhair the second counselor dressed up as Duck Dynasty and his wife as the wife from the show, it was pretty funny! Other than that, we ate brownies and your cookies, which were awesome, and watched Hastening the Work videos.

3) I'll send you details by next week hopefully, I hope that isn't too late!

4) Nope, us four are the only Shiprock Elders. Our district covers Teec Nos Pos and Toadlena too, so we see those elders at least once a week.

5) We are moving to our trailer today! It's just me and Elder Johnson. Elder Howe and Thompson live in another trailer by City Market, but it's too small for four missionaries.

6) There were two elders, it was Elders Huff and Munns, now it's Elders Huff and Openshaw. Openshaw is going home in two weeks.

7) No investigators at church yesterday, but things were pretty good this week other than that! Thank you so much!

I am short on time today, so I'm sorry! Glad to hear things are going well! Don't worry about the Intro to Mormons videos. You guys probably just burned the video files to the disc rather than encoding it onto the disc as DVD, but I think I can do it myself down here. I bought some DVDs the other day and already have put some Bible Videos on them and other videos from Hastening the Work.

I love you too!!! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Schaelling