Dear Family, We are thankful that it is Sunday -- we are fasting for
each of our family members today with
special needs and that pretty much includes ALL of you!, We have seen
miracles in our own lives and know that there are miracles available to
all of God's children (and we hope that our own family will be
recipients of a few of them!). I haven't been able to attach my journal
for the week so will copy and paste. We send our love, Elder and
Sister Hunt
Sunday: We
went to Kirtland 3rd Ward meetings again so we could visit with the
Yazzie family and set up an appointment to meet with them, which we did. It was the 5th Sunday and the
combined meeting was pretty interesting.
Bishop Warner had planned to show the Priesthood/Relief Society + YMYW
how to access the internet to use the Church’s website for the new lessons that
will be used in 2013. As anyone might
have predicted, the system didn’t cooperate with him – but I thought he handled
it very well and made the point that when you use technology, it can throw you
a curve so it is always good to have a back-up plan, which he did.
At 4:00 we met
Jared at their building and spent some time at the organ with him. He is working on “How Firm a Foundation”
since I told him that it is Elder Hunt’s favorite hymn. He is also working on
“God of Our Fathers Whose Almighty Hand,” which is a bit tricky to play
well. We worked it out so he plays the
fanfare with his left hand on the top manual that sounds like trumpets, then
jumps down to the lower manual for the audience accompaniment. He is sounding
really good. As we were finishing, we
noticed Bishop Payne sitting on the back row enjoying the concert so Jared
offered to drive him home.
Megan and
Maren joined us for dinner with the Paynes and Bishop Payne was even there for
the first time since tithing settlement began. It was an enjoyable time for all
of us.
Monday: It
snowed during the night and the roads were icy, so we stayed home and worked on
projects until noon. We still had the
Silverado parked in the Payne’s yard from our trip to Durango on Saturday. Elder Hunt repaired a broken drawer for the
Farmington sisters and then we took some things to Good Will before going to
the mission office. We took care of
office chores until 5:00 and then called Maren to see if they had big plans for
New Year’s Eve. She invited us to come
by for bean burritos so we took her up on the invitation. Dinner was tasty and the company was
delightful! After we got back to our apartment we went to
bed early and slept soundly until after midnight when the neighborhood
fireworks started. We were hoping that
Daisy was penned up so she didn’t jump the Hunt’s fence again when the Mesa
fireworks got going full steam.
Tuesday: It
was nice to sleep in until 7:00 and have a lazy breakfast. After we both got a haircut and shower we
went to the office. The APs were there
working on Zone Leader Training + Zone Conference materials. We are able to help them with their project
and also purchased some dry erase pens for the laminated charts they made for
each companionship. While we were in
Staples I talked Elder Hunt into purchasing the last little desk they had which
was a close-out and ended up costing us only $30. The other office staff folks took the day
off to celebrate the New Year so we pretty much had the office to ourselves
with the APs. President Batt came in at
5:00 just as we were leaving to begin interviews with the Zone Leaders.
Wednesday:
It was Zone Leader council day at the mission home so we scurried around
pulling things together to send back with them to their areas: a new
cell phone & shower curtain for
Pinon, new DVD player for Tuba City, ironing board for Teec Nos Pos,
cups and
ironing board for the Durango sisters, etc. etc. We always enjoy Zone
Leader days as we get to
visit with the elders we don’t see very often.
We especially enjoy visiting with the elders who serve in the Joseph
City area. We stopped by Maren’s apt
while running errands to tell Megan “hello!”
Elder Hunt had been wanting to get some ideas from her about “data
mining” the 80 page CellularOne phone bills that he has been pouring
through
each month to get data to give to Pres. Batt regarding phone usage.
Megan was able to give him some good ideas. She does data mining for
Zulilly, the company
she works for. We enjoyed dinner with
Maren and Megan at Applebee’s (we got an Applebee gift card for
Christmas) and
had a fun evening visiting with them.
Thursday: Elder Hunt spent most of the day at the AP
house repairing furniture etc. that needed some attention. We will soon be needing those extra chest of
drawers and vacuum cleaners. I worked
hard to get baptism and referral tasks caught up and taken care of
Friday: At
noon we went to the LDS bookstore to pick up some materials for the Yazzie
family that we had an appointment with at 4:00.
We got an Ensign, Friend, Home
Evening Manual, & Gospel Art book.
The Yazzie folks graciously accepted the things we took to them and
expressed their willingness to try holding a home evening. They live across the river near the new
casino in NHA housing. We are glad that
we gave ourselves plenty of time to find their house since we hadn’t been in
that area before and we were also grateful for a 4:00 appointment when there
was still sunlight to help us see where we were going.
On our way
home we stopped at the Thai restaurant for dinner. We enjoyed the Thai cuisine and even topped it off with coconut ice cream!
We were glad to get a text from Maren saying that she and Megan had made it
safely to Pagosa Springs without seeing any wildlife on the road! They were staying at the resort where the hot
springs are their big attraction and close to the slopes for snowboarding.
Saturday: Carole Miller’s funeral was today. She was a
dear friend and my faithful
visiting teacher for the past few years.
We would have loved to be there with their family, but pressing duties
kept us in Farmington. Elder Hunt was finally able to get all of the
car parts needed to repair the front end of our car that was damaged
from our
encounter with a deer near Durango a couple of weeks ago. Repair jobs
like this always take longer than
you anticipate. I’ve spent the day
keeping warm inside and catching up on chores.
We are thankful for the love and support of our family
that we have received during our mission.
One of our New Year’s goals is to go full steam until March 12 – we are
going to FINISH STRONG as missionaries in the New Mexico Farmington Mission!
Sunday, January 6, 2013
NMFM Week 41: December 23-29, 2012
Dear Family, It was good to hear from all of you during the past week.
Christmas 2012 was REALLY good! We are looking forward to a New Year
and its growth and learning opportunities. We woke up to more snow this
morning. I hope our Arizona car behaves itself well in snow today. We
love you and pray for each of you daily. We send our love, Elder and
Sister Hunt
Sunday: We
attended sacrament meeting in Kirtland 5th Ward so we could enjoy
their special Christmas program with music from their ward choir and also the
Primary children with their bells. It
was a NICE program. We hustled over to
Kirtland 3rd Ward building so we could meet the Yazzie family that
Bishop Warner asked us to work with. They arrived early so we did have a chance
to visit briefly with them and then I got to sit with Sister Yazzie during
Relief Society.
President
and Sister Batt came by with a loaf of bread to wish us a Merry Christmas. I was in bed still trying to recover from a
bad headache, but got up to visit with them. They sure are good people! Dinner (fresh homemade potato soup) and visit
with the Paynes was a welcome treat.
Monday: We
put in a regular office Monday and went home early when it started snowing
(3:30) and made Sugar Smackies. We were delighted that Kit’s calendar arrived
for Christmas and also the “ordaments” that were sent from Payson. We had a
Mexican Christmas Eve dinner at George’s home with all of the other Paynes in
the area (there were 20 of us there).
After dinner we had a family home evening program with the Christmas
story acted out by Lauana’s grandkids and narration read by their parents. Maren also told the story of the origin of
“Silent Night” and then played it on her guitar and invited us to sing
along. It was a special evening for all
of us.
Tuesday: Christmas
morning was different for us since we had both decided that the church books we
had purchased earlier in the month would be our Christmas to each other. There were only a couple of gifts under the
tree so it didn’t take us long to go
through that ritual. Elder Hunt went to
the computer and started fiddling around and then called to me and said that my
Christmas present came as an email. It was
a tender experience to open “The Small Plates” sent from members of our family
and to read of their personal experiences and feelings of their hearts. What a precious and cherished gift!
Jimmy and
Sandra invited all the Paynes (same crew) to Christmas Day dinner at their home
in Kirtland. They served a wonderful
prime rib/roasted turkey breast meal with all of the trimmings. The Paynes are such fun people to hang out
with!
Wednesday:
Back in the office with baptisms and referrals to enter and also phone
issues for Elder Hunt to resolve. During
the afternoon we went shopping for a clothes dryer and chest of drawers. We got home at 7 pm just as snow began to
fall.
Thursday: I
took pictures of all of the senior couples at our Zone Conference in Polacca on
December 12 and since I had a little free time, I worked on making a picture
collage for my “Senior Friends” board in our office cubicle. Some of the faces in the pictures are pretty
funny – I’m glad there is a cute one of Elder and Sister Hunt and not a
ridiculous one!
We went to our favorite Maytag store and
picked up a dryer to take to the Teec Nos Pos elders, loaded it into the
Silverado and then parked it in the Payne’s yard for the night. We also mailed some new pots & pans to the
Crystal elders.
Friday: We
were on the road to Teec Nos Pos (30 miles west of Shiprock on the road to
Kayenta) before 8:00 am. We got to visit
briefly with the Mays, the new senior couple who are on a six month mission and
just brought their little travel trailer to Teec last month.. They were headed
to Shiprock to a funeral for a relative of the Teec Branch President so we
didn’t chat very long with them. Elders
Nelson and Bast were happy to get a dryer that works. Elder Bast considers himself to be a mechanic
so he helped install the dryer while I helped Elder Nelson scrub their
microwave and stove and kitchen area. We
felt good that we left the Teec place BTIW!
After we got back to Farmington we spent some time getting our load in
order for our Durango trip the following day.
We thought of
Cherise and our family all day and evening as it was her day to go to the
temple for the first time. We were
thankful for Maria’s called about 9:30pm on their way back to Payson giving us
a brief accounting of the evening. She
said she sat by my mom during the session and other members of our family who
were there included Kirsten, Allyson, Duane & Lari, John (Alysson was
sick), and of course Darren & Shirley. It was a special family time and we
are so thankful that many of our family were there together.
Saturday:
Elder Hunt watches the weather report every day and since snow was in
the forecast for next Monday in Durango, we decided to take our load up and
help the sisters there move into the new apartment that we had gone to see the
week before. Fortunately for us, the
Durango elders were available to come help us so we had three trucks to haul
things to the new place. Both the old
and new place was up a flight of stairs, so it was especially good that those
two elders pitched in like a couple of farm hands to do the lifting and
moving. Elders Sanchez and Davis had an
appointment in Cortez and weren’t able to join us for lunch, but we took the
sisters to The Dough Factory, a nice little sandwich shop. Sisters Tuddenham and Pielstick had an
appointment to keep so we went back to the old apartment and did a bit of
tidying up (including scrubbing the stove and oven—something we have had a lot
of practice doing the past few months!).
Our goal was to be on the road back to Farmington by 4:30 so we wouldn’t
have a repeat of the previous week (we hit a deer just out of Durango!). We made it back to Farmington by 5:30 and
were thankful to be back safely.
Megan’s flight from Seattle arrived around 6:00 (after a few delays in
Denver) and they came over to visit us after they stopped at Sí Señor for a
bite to eat. . It sure was good to see Meg again!
It has been a busy week and we were glad for that so we
wouldn’t get homesick during the holidays.
It has been a good Christmas and we really didn’t miss some of our usual
Christmas “busyness” – baking, making, etc.
All of our Christmas shopping was for our missionaries (beds, pans,
portable DVD players, etc.) and it was really fun. One day as I was driving by Alco in Kirtland after
giving organ lessons at the stake center, I decided to stop and just go in and
look around. After going up and down a
couple of aisles the thought entered my head, “Linda, you don’t even need to be
here!” so I walked out the door and felt happy.
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