April 27

Mom,

Things are still going great here in Mount Taylor Ward! That's so awesome that Aimee won the election! I'm proud of her, I'm sure she'll have a lot of fun and learn a lot in that position.

That's great that Nate and Natalie found a place to live finally, I hope it all works out well too!

That's awesome that Jackie is the Young Women's President! I'm sure she'll do a fantastic job in that calling. What callings has she held thus far in her life? Has she worked with the young women much before? I've enjoyed working with the youth whenever I have the opportunity to as a missionary, because the youth are so willing and have so many opportunities to do missionary work. 

Great news with all the mission calls and homecomings! New mission calls are always exciting. And yes, I can still remember plenty of Navajo to do my testimony in my homecoming talk. I have been losing it a little bit since I've not been speaking it too much here in Grants, only like once ever 2-3 weeks (it hurts my heart sometimes, I miss the Navajo people a lot). In Blanding I still got to use it a decent amount, but obviously not as much as I did on the reservation. There are a lot of people who either were raised speaking Navajo in Blanding or learned it on their mission. But I'll have no problem in my homecoming talk because I'll be prepared. Sometimes it's hard to converse in Navajo now if it's just regular conversation, but the times when I have been able to testify to people or pray in Navajo either here in Grants or on exchanges in other areas the words that I need always come back. 

Jacinta is awesome. We also have some updates on Albert and Vanessa. We took the Bishop's wife, Sister Merayo, with us to go see them this past week and Albert has been facing some pressure from his family to not join the church and to not accept the Book of Mormon and so he's pretty confused right now, but Vanessa has the testimony of a giant! She defends the church and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith to everyone she knows who says anything bad about it! She's been having a hard time coming to church just because she's been a little anxious about it but Sister Merayo gave her a big hug and told her she'd be saving the whole bench for her and her family and Vanessa came with her four kids and even brought her cousin and she was commenting in Gospel Principles! Albert had to work so he wasn't able to make it. Tonight we'll be teaching Albert and Vanessa at the Merayo's home so it should be pretty awesome. 

Love, 

Elder Schaelling