Dear Family, My journal entries will tell you what kind of a week it has been for us -- there have been some extreme highs and lows. Today I am especially thankful for my dad. He has been a great support to me from day 1 of my life. He was directed by Heaven in his choice of an eternal companion and that has been a blessing to all of us. I am thankful for all of the fathers in our family who guide, protect, love, and comfort us.
I am attaching a picture of Elder Hunt with an old Joseph City acquaintance, Bill Belshe. The picture title is "Four Heads Are Better than Two!" We send our love to all of you. Elder and Sister Hunt
Monday: The Langkildes were gone so we were on our
own to run our end of the mission office.
The monthly baptism report arrived by email from SLC so after I printed
it out, I checked it against each handwritten report for accuracy (67 this
month). It is a pretty long and tedious
process, but there are always errors that need to be corrected. We have two days to submit any changes that
need to be made before the final report comes out. This is the permanent record that is kept by
the church. I also entered 11 new
baptisms that had come in from the missionaries. Monday is always a busy day for Elder Hunt as
the Key Indicator reports are FAXed in from the Zone Leaders in the morning and
his report is made from those eight zone reports.
During the evening Maria called to visit about
a phone call she had received from Marla regarding my mom’s alarming
condition. After her call, I phoned
Maren to see if she could come down to help out AGAIN. Maren said she would be willing to come and
would try to book a flight for the next day.
Tuesday: I
entered the baptism report information onto a spreadsheet that the NMFM keeps in
binder with the original reports filled out by the missionaries. Elder Hunt worked on cell phone usage
reports.
Maria picked Maren up at the airport in the
morning and the two of them drove to Virden and arrived in the afternoon. They found Marla’s report to be
accurate: my mom was confused, could not
feed herself and could not swallow very well.
She fell a couple of times as well.
Paul called and during our conversation I
asked him if he could email me the Ether 2:12 card he made for me a 6 years ago
for girls camp. Sure enough, he still
had that file and sent it.
Wednesday: Our assigned devotional day is Thursday and
our original plan was to do a patriotic theme for Flag Day, but since we would
be gone on Thursday, we did it today. I
printed out Ether 2:12 on flag paper and also printed out cards for our office
folks. We sang “You’re a Grand Old Flag”
and also “God Bless America” for our hymns of the day. It was good!
We spent the afternoon loading up supplies for our Thursday road trip.
Maria called
my mom’s Dr. and he asked them to take her to the Safford ER. John and Maria took her and after a lengthy
evaluation they admitted her to the hospital.
John and Maria returned to Virden in the early hours of the
morning.
Thursday: We left our yard at 6:15 am, parked our
car at the mission office, and headed out on another road trip in the Silverado
pulling a trailer. Our first stop was at
Kayenta and we had a fun visit with Elders Marsh and Belnap. It was the first
time for us to see the facilities there.
The elders live in a duplex modular home by the church. Two senior couples have trailers parked there
also, but they were both gone. The elders had a district meeting to get to, but
we stayed and finished up a couple of cleaning chores before we left. I noticed a little apricot tree in the yard
so helped myself to the few that were left on the tree. I got my “apricot fix” for the season!
We took
Elders Jamison and Kaulia to lunch at Denny’s in Tuba City before they had to
leave for afternoon appointments and then the work began. Elder Hunt moved in a new washer, dryer, and
stove into the Boothe’s trailer and also moved the old washer and dryer out to
the trailer. What a work-out! Then we
took a stand-up washer/dryer combo over to the missionary couples’ place by the
church. I had a delightful visit with
Sister Olsen while the menfolk took care of the laundry room exchange. She told me that she works in the Family
History center there in Tuba City and has been instrumental in building a
rather substantial Navajo data base by visiting many of the outlying areas from
Tuba City (including Winslow). She told
me that last month their ward did temple work for 600 names that they had
submitted. Before we left I had to go
give Sister Droddy (Jimmer’s aunt) a good-bye hug as they will be heading home
to New York next month. Also we got to
meet and visit with the Littlefields who are gardening missionaries.
Maria
and Maren spent the day with my mom at the hospital and Maren also stayed with
her during the night.
Friday: I spent a good part of the morning on the
phone with Maren and Maria. During lunch
hour I went with Elder Hunt to try to recycle the cardboard crates the
appliances came in that we took to Tuba City.
The recycle place wouldn’t take them so we disgustedly left and headed
back to the mission office. As we rounded
the corner, we saw the big Mayflower sign so stopped to visit with Jimmy and
Sandy for a few minutes. We all needed
the comfort from each other at that time.
Maria took my dad to Safford to visit my mom. Maren spent Friday night
in the hospital again.
After we
left the mission office, we drove to Red Mesa, CO (about 50 miles) to visit
with a member of the ward there who offered to let the missionaries in that
area stay at their place. The elders there need a different place to stay
because the members’ home where they were staying foreclosed. The purpose for our visit was to look the
place over to see if it would be suitable for missionary housing. We had a most interesting visit with the
owner, Bill Belshe! Bill and his family
lived in Joseph city from 1979-1984 while he worked at Cholla. He now owns 60 acres of property in Red Mesa
on which he has a home, very large barn, and several horses, cows, and other
animals. He has built living quarters in
the barn and that is where the missionaries will be staying. They will be the envy of the other elders!
Saturday: Elder Hunt drove down to Escrito to check out
the missionary housing situation
there. The missionaries live in the same
house as “Grandpa Roundy,” a 94 year old icon.
He got home in time for lunch so we called George to see if he would
like to go with us to the neighborhood Chinese eatery – he hopped in with us
and off we went. He has been batching it
all week and we enjoyed his company.
After we got back he helped Elder Hunt with a welding project that he
wants to build: a ramp for moving appliances into trailers. George is a good
welder, guess where he picked that up!
I worked
on P-day chores and spent time in the afternoon on the phone with my
girls. They planned to spend the night
in a Safford motel so they could both catch up on some much needed rest -- then
Maria planned to drive to Payson Sunday morning. Those girls have been angels
this week and John has been a trooper. Words can’t express how heart-wrenchingly
difficult this has been for me not to be there with my mom. John drove my dad
to the hospital for a visit. Mom wasn’t very responsive as she had just been
given a Benadryl type of medication for the painful itching on her head. The doctor told Maren that the lab reports from
the lumbar puncture showed that it looks like the shingles virus has gone into
her spinal fluid and possibly to the brain area. George
is a strong proponent for the shingles vaccine for those over 60 – Elder Hunt
said he is planning to chance being in the 50% that it is effective for.
Sunday: We have
become pretty consistent ward hoppers and today we have decided to try Kirtland
3rd Ward which meets at 11:0 – we have never attended that ward’s
meeting.
