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.
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