September 16

Farmington might have a city bus with like one or two routes or something, but who knows. I think there is a bus that goes from Window Rock to Shiprock to Farmington too, but I'm not positive how expensive it is.

Yeah, the evenings are pretty cool. The past few weeks have had a LOT of rain. It is pretty crazy driving on some of the dirt roads with it being so muddy and rainy.

Only one of the six return appointments went through for our new investigators. I hope we can get in with the other five this week! We had two more new investigators this week though.

Navajo tacos are usually on fry bread, which is pretty much a scone. The dough for fry bread and tortillas are the same, fry bread is just fried in lard and tortillas are just tossed on the grill. I'm glad you all enjoyed Robin's Nest! They have some of the best sandwiches in SLC. I like the SINK sandwich there.

That's great that the missionaries are assigned to the stake! That's a pretty small area for those guys though, I hope they have good stuff to do! If you guys could host a lesson in our home or go out with the missionaries to the lesson that would be so awesome. Those kind of lessons are the best...

Today for p-day we are going down to Toadlena with a bunch of elders so I am excited to get down there! I hear its really pretty down there because it's up in the mountains and whatnot. It's pretty deep rez down there.

I love you guys so much! I appreciate all the support and love I get from you all, it helps a lot every single day. 

Love and Regards,
Elder Schaelling

September 9

 The weather down here is hot, but usually isn't not terrible. It stays in the 90s most days but sometimes it is overcast which is really really nice. 95 degrees isn't too bad when you aren't outside for too long, but it can be pretty hot when knocking doors and whatnot. Also, trailers heat up way bad when the sun shines on them so on bad days the heat just stays locked in the trailer and it is still really hot when we go to bed at 10:30. People say that it usually cools down in October. It sounds like it might be like Utah, where the fall and the spring only last for a week or two and it goes from hot weather to cold weather over the course of a few weeks.

 

Our temple trip is on September 30th to the Monticello temple!

 

... this past week we had a really good week and found 6 new investigators! A new investigator is someone who we have a lesson with for the first time and we have a return appointment scheduled. We have a really awesome new investigator named Kee. His dad was a member and attended BYU so Kee has always been a big BYU fan, but it doesn't seem like he had looked into the church much throughout his life. His father passed away a few months ago, unfortunately, and he decided to come to the LDS church here in Shiprock and we started talking with him and he would come to our basketball nights that we have on Fridays. He is such an awesome guy and our lesson he pretty much just spent the whole time teaching me and Elder Johnson everything we need to know, haha. He is really spiritual and knows quite a bit about the Bible. He goes to Provo for BYU games quite a bit and was up there this past weekend for the BYU vs. Texas game and I recommended he try J Dawgs and he said he really liked it!

 

Thank you so much for the ties and the Mormon Messages! I got both of them last week and they are awesome. I love the Mormon Messages, they work really well for families and it helps the youth and kids focus because they all enjoy watching TV more than talking with guys in ties, haha. If you haven't watched very many of them, you should. They are really great and you can watch them all for free online.

 

I hope you guys are all having a good week! I love you all very much.

 

Regards and love,

 

Elder Schaelling

September 3

Mom,

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, all of the public libraries were closed for Labor Day.

I am doing pretty well! This week has been stressful and tiring taking over our area in Shiprock and being in charge of setting the agenda and whatnot since Elder Johnson is learning the area, but it was still a pretty good week! This is a super awesome mission to be in.

We have a City Market in Shiprock which I think is in the same family as Smith's, gas stations, and a few trading posts that sale native stuff, but that's mostly it. We go to Walmart when we go to Farmington for p-days. 

If you are serving on the reservation than you can take 30 minutes a day for language study and get a Navajo tag, but if a missionary serving off the rez wants a Navajo nametag they could just order one through the missionary office.

Sundays start at 8 o'clock with weekly coordination meeting with the ward missionary leader, Brother Shepard. He was called about three weeks ago so he is getting the hang of his calling. For a while he was training to be a medicine man (essentially a priest in the traditional Navajo religion) but he rediscovered the church about a year ago, he's a really great guy! I spoke in church just for a few minutes my second Sunday in the area mostly just bearing my testimony and introducing myself. Us missionaries rotate every week teaching the Gospel Principle's class which is pretty fun! I taught the lesson last Sunday on tithes and offerings. 

 It is amazing how much I have not necessarily learned, but understood on my mission. Before my mission I could easily pass a "Mormon Test" and answer any question correctly in terms of the words, concepts, and terms, but now I truly understand many things so much better in my heart and am starting to see what the gospel and the atonement are all about.

The old Navajo nametags said "Gaamali" (which just means Mormon) instead of "Elder" but it has turned into a little bit of a derogatory term (just like for a while we were encouraged to say "LDS Church" instead of "Mormon Church"). We can get a Gaamali nametag just for fun but we can't wear them around, so we get them during our exit interview with President Batt. 

The Snowflake temple is outside of our mission, but President Batt got us permission to leave the mission boundaries for this temple trip. I should be going to the Monticello temple unless something weird happens, I think just the AZ and maybe Gallup missionaries are going to the Snowflake temple.

There are a lot of really great people down here on the reservation and I have really grown to love them and love serving them. 

Regards and Love,
Elder Schaelling

August 26

We have been meeting with some awesome families. We have been talking more to Nicole's mom, who isn't a member, and she is so awesome. Her brother-in-law, Brother Yellowhair, is in the bishopric of our ward and his family is super great too. The other picture is of us and Stevie after she was confirmed at the church with most of the Mason family, but her husband isn't in the picture because he is still up in Chicago for his Naval training. The Masons, her in-laws, are members of the ward and they are really great. Sister Mason is really funny and Brother Mason helps me with my Navajo (and tries to keep himself from laughing when I mispronounce things). They've got two sons who served missions. Sometimes I forget what I have already told you guys and so I don't know what else to say. We are working with these two boys named Lynol and Lyman whose grandma is a member of the ward and they are really funny.

The mission will be having a temple trip at the end of September. One half goes to Monticello and the other half goes to Snowflake, it will be great, I'm sure!

I love and miss you guys! I'm glad everything is going well at home. I look forward to hearing from all of you as always and hope Aimee's birthday is fun!

Regards and love,

Elder Schaelling

Farewell photos

Here are a few photos I took at Matt's farewell. Thanks to all who came to support him!

August 19

Mom,

I have moved to Kirtland now so it is a 30 minute drive to and from Shiprock everyday, so that cuts a little into our proselyting time which is unfortunate. But we live with the zone leaders...

We taught seminary every day for the past week! It was a lot of fun, but the senior couple is here now and they are teaching this week and for the rest of the year. There are only three kids in the class right now, but there are 1-3 kids who are trying to get signed up. It was way cool to teach and all the kids are super awesome and I hope they learn to love the gospel and allow it to work in their life throughout this year of seminary!

We get fed dinner 2-4 times a week usually, so pretty good! There are a lot of really awesome families in the ward that are really nice to us. 

This week we had two baptisms! One was of this little girl who is 8 years old and her name is Nicole. Neither of her parents are members, but her older sister was baptized a few years ago and a few people in her extended family are members of the ward. She is such a funny girl and I'll send you a picture of her and her sister and mom if I have time! We have been teaching a girl named Stevie also. She married an RM and then started to become interested in the church and she is going to be such a solid member! We have seriously taught her everything we possibly can: patriarchal blessing, temples, etc. She was baptized by her husband up in Chicago (he is there for a few months because of the Navy) but will be confirmed in our ward next Sunday.

Aimee should be expecting a surprise in the mail sometime this week or next! Thank you so much Aimee for diligently writing me letters every week, I love getting to read them! I'm glad you're having a fun time :)

I have been eating a lot of fry bread and tortillas (Navajo tortillas are different from Mexican tortillas, they are more thick) and some lamb and mutton stews. I actually has menudo with tripe (stomach) this past week.

Regards and love,

Elder Schaelling

August 6

Overall there is one set of missionaries per unit (ward/branch) but we have two sets here in Shiprock since there are so many missionaries in our mission.

Yes, I am in a Chevy 4x4! They are good trucks. There are a few Nissan Frontiers and Tacomas. The Navajo tacos are pretty much the same as the ones as Navajo Hogan! The fry bread is really good down here. Kirtland has five wards and we are in the Kirtland Stake, there are lots of members over there. I couldn't tell you percentages or anything though. We just wear our suit to church or meetings. Between the two conferences we don't have to wear our suit and if it's over 70 degrees we don't have to.

Last week I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders so I spent the day in Kirtland with one of the zone leaders who is from Farmington, UT. It was a lot of fun and had some funny stories in connection to it. We wrestled a ram at a farm and it got pretty intense, we vacuumed up a bunch of wasps (about 30 of them!) outside of their house. We also found a horned toad, those are good luck and protection in the Navajo culture.

I've got to get off but I love you guys and I hope you're all having a wonderful time!

Love and regards,
Elder Schaelling