1) Have you been able to study the Navajo language more since Elder Aguilera needs to study Portuguese?
2) You've mentioned that church is in Navajo. How does that work for and affect you?
3) Will General Conference be broadcast at your church or will you need to travel to another?
4) I know that some parts of Arizona does NOT observe daylight savings time. What about Steamboat?
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Mom,
1) Not really. I have spent my extra hour of study reading Jesus the Christ and Conference Talks mostly. I probably should study Navajo, but it is pretty difficult to study it without someone to help you a lot with pronunciation. In some of the bigger towns on the reservation have teachers, like we organized Bishop Clah to teach us in Shiprock and I guess the Window Rock Ward (which has two sets of elders and a set of sisters) has a teacher too.
It sure is hard to believe how fast time can go by! That's so exciting that Spencer will turn three years old! I can't wait to see how big he is when I get back. He along with Madelyn and Luke sure will have grown! Nate and Trevor have gotten to be pretty big boys now too. They are getting close to middle age territory.
This week had more great things! We were able to meet a new family here in Steamboat that is super promising. Two Fridays ago they just stopped by the church asking us if they could learn more about the process of getting their two kids baptized and we set up an appointment with them for this past Friday. They are very nice and I can tell they are just a great family. The dad was baptized when he was young by his mom's foster family in Utah and he always went to church when visiting them, but he never went to church while down here. He came to church along with his two boys who are 9 and 10 years old yesterday and their mom couldn't make it because she was feeling sick. I'm very excited to be able to continue meeting with them!
Thank you so much for mailing the package! We aren't checking mail today, but I'll check tomorrow because we have to go to Window Rock for our quarterly interviews with President Batt. I'm sure it will all be very useful, thank you!!!
A public relations mission sounds like fun! Honestly, a senior mission sounds so awesome. That'll probably be the best thing about retirement. If you guys go on a medical mission you might be sent somewhere crazy! That'd be awesome. I would go visit you two.
2) It mostly just means that I only understand half of what is going on during sacrament meeting, and then we teach sunday school for the youth and also the young men. It doesn't really affect me all that much. We usually bless the sacrament, so I want to get the sacrament prayers down in Navajo before I leave Steamboat. I'll listen to the prayers a lot on the cassette tapes to try to get it down.
3) It should be broadcast here, we have a broadcast box. I can't wait for General Conference! I relistened to all of the past conference and now I'm trying to read other past conferences. It might be in Navajo here though, so if it is we'll either watch it on the Patterson's laptop or go to Ganado or Chinle and watch it in English.
4) The Navajo Nation observes daylight savings time because it is spread out across New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah but all the boarder towns like Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, and Page don't observe daylight savings time. The Hopi Reservation doesn't observe DST either. It gets pretty confusing in Steamboat because Steamboat itself observes DST because it is part of Navajo land but the people in Jeddito don't really observe it in practice because they are part of the Hopi School District and crazy stuff like that. So if we set up an appointment with someone in Jeddito at 6:30 PM then it is really 7:30 PM for us now with the time change. That's how it is for the Joseph's tonight, because we're going to go see them. Crazy stuff!
In the mission we are doing a new push with the Book of Mormon so it has been super awesome to be focusing in using it even more during every teaching appointment we have with everyone: investigators, less active members, new members, and active members. I would like to challenge all of you family members back home to the Book of Mormon specifically every day and to reference it in every church assignment (talk, lesson, home/visiting teaching, etc) given to you! (Except maybe for dad when he teaches Gospel Doctrine on the Old Testament, I can let that one slide.) It is so important for all of us to build our testimonies, and, even more, our lives, on that book! I love you all!
With Love and Regards,
Elder Schaelling
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