April 21

Kaitlyn Hall's fantastic quote that Matt referenced (she was one of our Youth Speakers in Sacrament Meeting yesterday), "The Savior's arms are always outstretched to us, but if you want to be lifted up you need to hold on."

My questions:

1) Do you get many dinner invites in Steamboat?

2) Did you have any Easter Sunday plans besides church?

3) Can you look at the Mormon Channel website or are limited to lds.org?

4) We love your e-mails no matter what day they come, but curious as to why you've written on Tuesday the past couple of weeks?

5) How are Iris and Esther doing?  How old is their mother if they are in their 70's?  Hopefully they're still on target for their baptism.

6) What is the percentage of Navajo people that are LDS?

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Mom,

I sure did get the Easter tie from you guys and I did wear it yesterday! Thank you very much for sending it to me. I love the Bible Videos, I think they are done very, very well. It is so nice to watch them and see and hear how these things may have happened, because I think they have been a lot more accurate in their portrayal of biblical events in these videos than they have in any other video with scenes from the bible, whether it be produced by the Church or someone else. That is a fantastic quote from Kaitlyn! That is crazy that she is a senior, but I suppose it is also kind of crazy that it's been almost 3 years since I graduated high school.

I sure wish I could have been at Hires Big H this past week with you guys! That's too bad with Aimee and the elections! Growing up can be full of disappointments, but it's how you handle them that counts. I sure hope that she can find something fun to be involved with next year! 

Yes, we still wear suits to church and all other meetings. The weather hasn't been quite as nice all this week as it has been in some past weeks, but it is still pretty nice. Funny story, we usually use our heater at night because it still can get down to the 40s or so at night and we use it to warm up our camper in the mornings but our carbon monoxide alarm went off on Saturday morning so Elder Olsen (a senior elder who is in charge of all the RVs in the mission, there are only 7 of them and rumor has it that ours is the smallest haha) came by to check the carbon monoxide and took out the furnace to have it checked out in Gallup and turned off the propane to keep us safe. So... now we don't have any heat or hot water or stove and we've been sleeping in sleeping bags the past two nights and will continue until we get it all figured out. It's been fun, Elder Aguilera said he had never slept in a sleeping bag before or even been camping because he grew up in Chicago and Houston. There's my fun mission story of the week!

1) Not very many set dinner appointments as would be the usual in some other areas, but people feed us dinner here and there when we come for appointments or if we're just stopping by and they have cooked they'll usually offer something to us. There are a lot of very hospitable people here, because that is the traditional Navajo way.

2) Nope, not really. Today we're spending the whole day in Window Rock and even proselyting in Window Rock and then going to zone conference tomorrow in Gallup. This weekend we have Stake Conference, so there's some exciting stuff happening this week! 

3) I think we can go to Mormon Channel. But most everything on Mormon Channel is probably also in the Media Library (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video?lang=eng). We don't really have much computer time, though.

4) Because being in Steamboat we don't always have a reliable place to use the computer so we've had to work with what we could find. Last Monday the chapter house's computer lab was closed so we came back during lunch on Tuesday and emailed. Right now I'm emailing from Window Rock's employment resource center. 

5) They are hard to catch, they are always running around and are never home it seems like so hopefully we can get in with them this week! However, they did come to church yesterday which was great! Their mother is in her 90s (I think 95), but she is still doing amazingly for her 90s! A lot of the elderly Navajo people must have found the fountain of youth, because they herd sheep into their 80s and are still up and moving.

6) As far as on the reservation or tribal membership? I guess it doesn't really matter because I don't think I could answer either question. You could probably find the answer online somewhere. The biggest religions on the reservation is first LDS I believe and then second Native American Church (all night tepee meetings [just to clarify, tepees aren't Navajo, they are from the Plains Indians but Natives across the continent have NAC]). Even though the membership is high, the activity rate is very low down here.

I love you all! Tell them all "hello" back for me! 

With Love and Regards,
Elder Schaelling

April 15

Questions:

 1) What is the weather like there now?
 2) How are Elder & Sister Harris doing?
 3) Did you get a package from me today?  I mailed three last week.  One on
 Wednesday (copies of the Illustrated Book of Mormon), one on Thursday (an Easter package for you) and one on Friday (an Easter package for you and Elder Aguilera).
 4) Are you still doing your exercise program that you began with your previous companion?

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Mom,



Iris and Esther's mother has been sick the past week and so we havne't
been able to see them and they weren't able to make it to church so
we'll have to reschedule the baptism, so I hope that we will be able
to still help them progress. However, we were able to set up another
baptismal date with an investigator named Bill for June 7th! His is so
far away because he and his significant other need to get married
before he can be baptized and there is some paperwork that might take
a month or two, but he is such a cool guy. Both him and Flora know
alot about public policy so I always have a good time talking to them
abuot that kind of stuff.

That's awesome about the NAPI flour you bought! Haha, there were a lot
of people in Shiprock who worked at NAPI because it is only about
30-45 minutes away from there. They have been selling the Navajo Star
Wars at the Walmart in Gallup, I might have to buy one so that I can
watch it after my mission!


1) The weather has been pretty good the past few weeks with the
exception of yesterday and Sunday, it was kind of cold and it rained a
little on Sunday. We are out of suit season now so I am wearing short
sleeves again and it feels so very nice.
2) I think they are doing pretty well. We don't see or talk to them
nearly as much as we did the Pattersons. They seem to be keeping
pretty busy helping people with their gardens.
3) I have all three of your packages as of now, thank you very much!
The Book of Mormon Stories books are so awesome and we've been able to
go over them with a bunch of people so far. We should have enough
copies for a while though.
4) When I got with Elder Aguilera I was sick the first week with him
so I would sleep in until 6:30 (we usually would wake up at 5:30 or
5:45 when we were exercising) and then we got lazy and didn't do it
anymore. But, we just started again this week and we did it yesterday
morning and this morning.

I love you all! Thank you so much for everything, it's always awesome
to hear from you all. Have an awesome week!!!

Love,
Elder Schaelling

April 8

My questions:
1)  Have you gotten the President Monson DVD and the illustrated Book of Mormon?
2)  Where did you watch Conference?
3)  How are things going with the new Senior Mission Couple?
4)  Are you in need of anything?
5)  It's a ways away, but do you have any ideas of birthday gifts you would like that will help you as you serve so admirably?
6)  How many Primary children come to church on most Sundays?

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

Mom,

Not too many people showed up to conference so we watched it all in English. The barbeque didn't have much of a turn out, but we were lucky to have Brother Joseph show up! It was us, him, Elder Harris (the new senior missionary) and President Yazzie. Brother Joseph didn't stay for the entire Priesthood Session and left after Elder Uchtdorf's talk, but that is okay with me. A two hour session can be a long time for someone who isn't fully into the gospel yet haha. We also had a lesson with Brother Joseph last night and he committed to come to church on Sunday--that is, after much deliberation. Haha, he believes that church is a good thing, but not an essential thing to worship God.

We're really hoping to get some of the members, less actives, and investigators here in Steamboat involved in family history. That'd be totally fine with me if you wanted to make a basic four-generation pedigree chart for me. The main things I would like is just a small portrait of each person if available with their name, birth date and place and maybe the death date and place as well. If it's not too difficult, it might not be a bad idea to laminate it so it stays protected as I carry it around in my backpack and whatnot. Here is a really good video about family history work in the Rio Rancho New Mexico Stake. One of the four families they follow is a native American family as well and so I cut those sections of the video so it is trimmed down to 10 minutes instead of 33 minutes and put it on DVD so we can show members here to help them see that family history work is possible on the reservation even though there's not as many records available as other areas of the world. If you get the chance, it's a cool video. https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-04-01-the-turning-of-our-hearts-rio-rancho-new-mexico-us?category=family-history/02-member-experiences&lang=eng

Kelly and Kyle are doing well also, we are now going to start meeting with them twice a week which is really good. The youngest son, Kyler, said he wants to be baptized so we're excited! We're still trying to work with his older brother and Kelly to help them understand the gospel and importance of baptism. Hopefully Kyle will be able to get the priesthood so that he can baptize his family too! Serafin doesn't seem too interested. In our last lesson we essentially just hit a stalemate and it just seems too difficult for him right now to accept the Book of Mormon. We've seen Pat a couple of times, he's still doing well. We also have been meeting with a new guy named Leroy and he's really awesome. He has a bunch of deep questions and we're really hoping we can help him get answers from the Book of Mormon! Lastly, we put two long time investigators on date, Iris and Esther. They are sisters and are both in their 70s or so and they are some of the nicest people in Steamboat. They've been kind of slowly investigating the church for about a year almost I would think but things just never really progressed. We met with them last Thursday and invited them to be baptized on May 3rd and they accepted so hopefully we'll be able to progress with them to that date! They went down to Phoenix this weekend so we haven't been able to see them since then.

1) Yes, I have. Thank you so much! The Book of Mormon Stories book will be very helpful. I wish I could get one for all of our investigators because it does make the Book of Mormon make more sense. I told Kelly and Kyle about it so they could use it with their kids and we'll start to use it in lessons with them and go over a story and invite them to read though that chapter(s). 

2) Just at the branch building. Here conference is broadcast to all the buildings in the stake because of the rural nature of the reservation and the fact that not too many people in Steamboat have cable or easy access to drive to the stake center. 

3) Things are going great, and they are from Nephi not Lehi. They seem very excited to be here and willing to work very hard!

5) I don't know. I've gotten stains on all my nice ties that I liked, so maybe just a few nice slim ties that aren't expensive because I'll probably get stains on these ones too. You can usually find some good stuff at Nordstrom Rack and Ross, I think. Maybe CDs. BYU Men's Choir or something else good that is covers of hymns like The Lower Lights does. 

6) It depends, anywhere between 3 to 10 or so.

Conference was amazing as always. I loved the Saturday Afternoon session because I felt like Elder Nelson, Elder Scott, and Elder Hales all hit me pretty hard right in a row. I always love President Uchtdorf's talks, it's impossible not to. He is probably going to be the most iconic leader of the church from my years of young adulthood or whatever you would call the the first half of my lifetime. He always has the best stories to tell to illustrate a point. I really am trying to think about how I can develop that general grateful disposition rather than simply being grateful for things. I also loved Elder Bednar. I love everything about general conference, now I just have to count down the days until the next Ensign gets here and until October Conference!

I love you all so very much, continue to stay true to the faith and strong in your service to God!

With love and regards,

Elder Schaelling

April 1

Questions that I asked:
1) Have you gotten the package with President Monson's DVD and the Book of Mormon picture book?  I mailed them last Wednesday.
2) Did you get your taxes mailed?

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

Mom,

I am doing great! Last week was a pretty good week. The weather has warmed up a bit here and I am looking forward to general conference this weekend. We are going to have a cookout before the Priesthood Session for all the men but really focus it on the young men and their fathers because there really aren't any activities for the young men to attend here. The weeks sure do fly by quickly! The further out you get on your mission, time flies. Last transfer just flew by, and I know this one will also. 

We haven't really been able to see Molly for a while now, we didn't catch her home last week and stopped by earlier today to see her but she wasn't home. TJ wasn't at church this past Sunday, but I hope he'll join us this Saturday for the Priesthood Session! We are really working on getting Brother Joseph to read the Book of Mormon and we are hoping that if he does that then he will start progressing in the gospel. Kyle and Kelly are doing pretty well, but didn't make it to church on Sunday for one reason or another. 

That's awesome that Nate and Natalie were able to pass through Shiprock! I miss that place. It felt really good to be able to pass through there on my way to and from picking up Elder Aguilera from Farmington. 

I'm glad you three were able to go to the General Women's Meeting! I think it is really cool that they combined the meeting with the various age groups. 

I'm glad the Watts didn't forget to bring the box to Utah! That's so nice of them to deliver it for me. Elder and Sister Watts have got to be one of the coolest senior couples ever. I hope you and dad get the opportunity to meet them sometime! I think their mission is ending in just a couple of months. 

1) Not yet. The Ganado Elders probably have it, I'll check with them. 

2) Yes, I got them sent off last Thursday out of St. Michael's. A lot of the packages and some mail that comes through Ganado seem to have been tampered with so I was slightly hesitant to send anything sensitive like that through there. 

I am excited to Skype then as well! Time has flown since Christmas. When you hit about six months in your mission time goes by quickly.

I love you! Have a great week back home. 

With Love and Regards,

Elder Schaelling

March 24

My questions:
1) Did transfers affect you and/or Elder Aguilera?  Be sure to give me your new address if you are being transferred.
2) Were you able to mail your taxes?
3) Did your thin mint cookies make it to you?
4) Would you like any food items mailed to you?
5) Have you learned anything about the Senior Missionary couple that will come after the Pattersons leave?
6) You mentioned that President Yazzie is building a new hogan now.  Is that for him to live in?  I see several regular homes around the church on google maps, but do some people still live in hogans?

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

Mom,

I've been thinking of Meme and other family members a lot because we've been doing some family history work. Why is it that when I go on familysearch.org Grandma's family history isn't on there? Is there any way you guys could fix that for me? I want to make a four-generation pedigree with pictures of everyone but I don't really have any resources down here.

That's awesome that you were able to attend a caucus meeting! I am assuming you read the article in the Ensign back in February (I think) that was about being informed and involved.

Molly hasn't been able to listen to the tapes yet. We took the tape that has most of 3 Nephi on it to her last week but she said she didn't have a tape player so yesterday we took her a tape player from the church for her to borrow. We'll see how it goes! It's pretty hard. She's changed a lot since she decided not to be baptized. Serafin did attend church yesterday, but I think it is kind of different for him still. I payed more attention and tried to see church through his eyes since he can't understand Navajo and realized that probably the only class he can understand at all is Elder's Quorum because Elder Patterson teaches that, but the EQ class is pretty small and is focused all on latter-day prophets so I think it's pretty foreign to him. He can't really understand Sunday School about the Old Testament because President Yazzie taught it the past two weeks and it is mostly in Navajo. Serafin is kind of uncomfortable about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and I realized church is probably weird for him too because that's all he hears about in the parts he can understand.

1) Nope, both of us are staying in Steamboat! 

2) Not yet, I am in St. Michaels today so I plan on mailing those out today. 

3) Yes they did! Thank you so much! I have been enjoying them very much.

4) You can send me some food if you'd like. I can't really think of anything that I'd need too badly. One thing that I could use is Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon picture book. 

5) Their last name is Harris and they are from Lehi, Utah I think. That's about it, but they should get here a week from today or tomorrow!

6) Not really. Most people here live in trailers or in small homes, but a lot of them have a hogan right next to their home either for ceremonial purposes or just to have for family gatherings and even storage. Some people do still live in hogans though, but not a ton. Hogans are pretty nice though! They are a lot bigger inside than they would look from the outside.

I love you all and hope that things go well this week with the Phillipps and Norris families! Thank you for your prayers and support!

With love and regards,
Elder Schaelling

March 17

Questions:
1) You mentioned a quarterly interview with President Batt, do you ever see him more than that?
2) Where was your quarterly interview held in Window Rock?
3) How is Elder Aguilera doing?
4) Any idea on how it will work when he get his Visa?  Would they have him leave right away or wait for a transfer day?

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

Mom,

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you too! I don't think I have any green whatsoever, but I have made it alright so far today. I don't think St. Patrick's Day is a big thing in Steamboat, haha. .. I did get the package with the Navajo Book of Mormon tapes just fine, thank you very much! I haven't used them with any investigators yet, but I am planning to use them next time we see Molly. Unfortunately, she has decided that she doesn't want to be baptized for now. It seems like her family and kids are pretty traditional in the Navajo ways of religion so they talked her out of it. I pray that listening to these Book of Mormon tapes will help her receive an answer from God regarding her path forward. 

It truly is a miracle all the things that are able to happen each week in a small area like Steamboat! We found yet another really solid investigator this week. He is Latino (the only Latino in Steamboat aside from Elder Aguilera) and just moved up here with his girlfriend who is Navajo and a branch member and we have taught him twice this past week and he even came to church! It was awesome. I'm not sure how much he understood, because about 75-80% of the sacrament meeting and Sunday School was in Navajo, but I'm glad he came. His name is Serafin. Kyle and Kelly (the family we found last week) and their two boys came to church yesterday and it was awesome! It seemed like President Yazzie's talk in sacrament might have really touched Kelly. He spoke about family history and talked a lot about how he grew up on the reservation before it had become more "modernized" like it is now. He spoke about the entire family living inside of the one small hogan and how they would just eat all off of a wooden board of the floor in the middle of the room and everyone would sit together and truly talk, but now people take their phones and go into other rooms and eat their cereal alone and whatnot. The Joseph's are doing well (their daughter is on the mission), we are going to see them tomorrow night. Sister Joseph and her son went to Utah this weekend for something. I think they were visiting her foster family, I'm not sure what part of Utah. Quinton is doing pretty well. Zach isn't coming to church anymore and we haven't taught him for a few weeks now. We haven't really seen Paul and Helen since the first encounter. They've been gone a lot and I don't think they are very interested. Molly's grandson TJ is doing awesome. He's in Shiprock this week visiting his dad for spring break though. 

There weren't any youth at church yesterday so we sat in Sunday School and Elders Quorum for the first time since I've been here. I think I like working with the youth more, it is pretty fun and engaging to work with all of them! We haven't gotten a Boy Scouts leader yet. 

1) When I was in Shiprock I would usually see him about once a month when we would stop at the mission office, but it is just a "hello" in the hallway. We see him once a quarter for interviews, and once a quarter for zone conference where a couple of zones get together to receive instruction from him and Sister Batt and the assistants to the president. 

2) It was originally going to be held at the church building which is technically in St. Michaels, but it is the Window Rock Ward. Ganado's truck wasn't starting so he and Sister Batt ended up just driving out to Ganado and we saw them there because they had to go up to Chinle that afternoon anyways. 

3) Elder Aguilera is doing pretty well. He's a pretty quite guy, but he is adjusting very well. He hasn't really dealt with any homesickness or anything of that sorts from what I see. It seems like sometimes all the decisions we have to make a missionary might stress him out a little, but as far as being in the mindset of being a missionary he is doing really awesome.

4) He will most likely wait until the end of the transfer. Even if he gets his visa in the first or second week of next transfer, they probably wont tell him until the 5th week of the transfer and tell him he'll leave at the end of the transfer. That's how I've usually seen it with other visa waiters. 

I love you all! Thank you for the love and support. I always enjoy hearing from you guys and hope you all have a great week! It's been pretty windy down here the past few days. Hozho'o nan'nah! (Take care of yourself) 

Love,

Elder Schaelling

March 10

Questions I asked:
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,

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. 

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. 

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