NMFM Week 42: December 30 – January 5, 2013

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 3^rd 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 5^th 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!