TONS of change this week...

I honestly don't know how to sum up my experiences and thoughts from this last week.  It has been incredible and humbling to serve this mission so far. 

Transfers happen every 6 weeks, and so we just recently found out the news. Elder Lloyd, my companion who was training me, is leaving to Farmington. Usually, when elders train, they stay for at least 2 transfers here, so it's sad to see Elder Lloyd go!! Elder Tucker got emergency transferred as well, because of a stupid ward drama (if you ever have an issue with someone, don't ever start drama at church it's a waste of everyone's time). So now it's just me and Elder Livermont here at the trailer, and we both get a new companion tomorrow.  I'm really nervous. Elder Lloyd is the one who knows where everything is, and I guarantee I will get me and my new comp, Elder Gwilliam, lost a few times. So even though Elder Gwilliam will be my trainer still, I will essentially be running the area, because I know everyone, and where things are. It is a LOT of pressure. I hope I do alright. 

TONS of change this week.  I always get really nervous, and miss how comfortable I was when things like this happen!  It is going to be awesome...eventually!

On a SUPER positive note:
We were driving by Georgina's house the other day, and her truck was home!!  We had left her messages, notes, and had knocked her door SEVERAL times, but hadn't been able to catch her.
We went to her door and knocked.  I was really nervous because we were both pretty sure she had been dodging us for a month and probably wouldn't want to see us. I said a quick prayer and just said "God, don't let this be horrible."  Georgina opened the door and immediately a huge smile spread across her face! She welcomed us in!  "These are my friends!" She said, introducing us to another lady in her home.  We went on to have a lesson with her about the Plan of Salvation.
It was an amazing reassurance that she would see her family again, and that through Christ, all of our sins can be removed.  She confided in us, telling us that her preacher doesn't let her take the bread and water because she wasn't married in their church.  She also told us that her husband passed away exactly 5 years ago.

We told her of how Christ overcame death so that we could all be pure again, and return to our families. We promised her that she could use the atonement, and be with her husband again.  She told us that she had read some of the Book of Mormon since the month of not seeing her!!!  We were so excited.  She promised to keep reading, and to pray about what we taught, and the things she would read in the book. 

 

Keep Georgina in your prayers!

This week has been VERY successful.  Since last week, we decided to do mostly recent convert, and less active work, and we had 45 lessons which is UNHEARD of. 3 people have already asked us if we had crappy lessons and just tried to get a lot. Which really sucks, because we worked REALLY hard this week. We had an average of 7 lessons a day, with several different less active members, and a handful of investigators! I feel really happy about the work Elder Lloyd and I have accomplished this week.  Elder Lloyd was super excited too because it was the most lessons he's ever had so far on his mission so far and he's been out a year!  And the mission isn't about numbers, but it feels good to have a filled week.  We have helped so many families this week, and we can feel the difference in the homes of a lot of our less actives. The spirit is more present in their homes. Many of them have began to come back to church, or commit to coming more, and reading and praying often.

In conclusion, this has been a fantastic, crazy week.
Love you guys all a ton.

Funny story:
There is a man in our ward (won't mention the name) who "prophesies" for everyone. He loves receiving revelation for people! So at dinner this week at his house, he told us that the "spirit of the Lord was upon him" and he said that he was receiving a message that there was a storm approaching. We would need to start warning people about emergency preparedness!!! It was so funny. He tells everyone there is a catastrophe coming and that "now is the time to prepare!"  So I started trolling, and with a straight face, asked if it was necessary to begin building shelters right now?  He began unveiling several details of what the storm would do and how we could prepare. I kept asking dumb questions until Elder Lloyd couldn't take it anymore. 

 

People in the ward are:

a) freaking out about this upcoming storm

b) laughing and wondering what this guy is talking about
c) rolling their eyes

HAHAHA!

Have an amazing week everyone.

Elder Tucker and I before he was transferred!
Now I don't have anyone to talk to about RuneScape with, or Avatar, or Pokemon!!! :(
R.I.P. Tucker

 

The Brochure Didn't Say Anything About Butchering!

***If you have a weak stomach, skip the pictures!***

I can't believe I've been out on my mission for almost 2 months!? It doesn't feel that way.

This week was AWESOME!

First off, we were called a few days ago.  "Come over, I need your help."  So we went over to the Tullies, Elder Lloyd and I, the other two Elders, and the Sisters.

Brother Tullie looks at us and says: "Well, it's time to butcher!"

As the following turn of events ensued, a lot of cutting, a lot of blood, and a lot of guts took place.

They first tied the sheeps legs together. Then as tradition requires, they rip some wool from its hind and wet it with the sheep's saliva. They say "may you be reborn" in Navajo and then put down the wool.

Then they hold it down and cut off it's head!  It kicks and screams and the blood starts GUSHING out.  One of the men holds a bowl under the neck to catch the blood so they can cook Blood Sausage with it. Yum.  After the sheep is done kicking and all the blood is emptied, they snap the neck and cut it off all the way. Right after the head is removed, the head is cast into the fire!  The sisters were given the bowl of blood and immediately had to begin "kneading it".  Sister Herrah almost cried I think.  It was all warm and thick and chunky and steamy! They had to knead it to get out the blood clots, they said it felt like warm jello.

 "We eat ALL of the sheep, besides the eyes!", said Brother Tullie.

"Why?" -Elders

"The eyes are gross!!", he said.

We all laughed because the rest of it looked pretty disgusting too.

The best part of this whole experience was that the old shi'amas came out and were ALL OVER this sheep. They pulled out sharp knives and started to saw away at the fur, and various body parts, preparing it for butchering.  They hung up the sheep once it was skinned, and started to cut into it's insides.

This is when the shi'ama wrapped me into helping her. She told me to stop taking pictures and get involved. My first job was to pinch the open bladder shut, so she could keep pulling out its intestines.....my arm was inside the sheep's stomach, and the bladder was still warm. When I didn't pinch hard enough, urine got all over us! And a lot of poo from the intestines was everywhere! It smelled...great.

They took out the chaa' (poo) bag and started turning it inside out to clean. It was the worst smell in the world, my hands still stink! Apparently they cook their blood for the blood sausage in the chaa' bag.

Next, they had Elder Tucker and I begin cleaning out the intestines. They were slippery and long, and our job was to put water inside of them and squeeze it all the way through to get all the chaa' out! We wouldn't want any chaa' in our ach'ii! (that is sheep fat wrapped in intestine and grilled).

So we began squeezing away at the mile-long tubes. It was pretty gross at first but once the smell of chaa' fills your nose and you can't even smell it anymore, then it's pretty fun.

The weirdest was when Brother Tullie cooked some of the sheep while we were doing this, and he came around giving us all pieces. I had a hot piece of sheep meat in my mouth WHILE I was cleaning out its WARM intestines, right next to its body that was STILL BEING CHOPPED INTO.

While I was munching away at the piece of meat, I heard the old woman say, "oh dear, it had two babies" as she casually pulled out the fetus. That's when the taste was too much for me.

Overall, an awesome experience.
I'll give it a 9/10 on rez culture experience, a 2/10 for the smell, and a 10/10 for "That was WAY cool, but, I could go without doing that again".

Still smell like chaa'. That's the word of the week.

In other news, this last week has been really weird, but successful in Fort Defiance.

ALL of our investigators except 2 have dropped us, or we have decided to drop. They don't show any interest, and we realized that none of them even really cared if we came over. They would listen to us, maybe even with moderate interest, but they had no desire to learn and progress on their own. We were essentially wasting a lot of time on them.  So we decided to stop looking for investigators and spending our time there, and have been working with our inactive members, and our recent converts (most of whom are already inactive).  Inactivity on the Rez is a BIG problem! Tons of people just stop showing up! Lot's of people don't have cars. Some ladies hitchhike miles and miles on Sunday to get to church.  But Elder Lloyd and I don't think that there will be much progression with investigators until the ward itself is stronger.  We are working with the ward missionaries and the ward mission leader to get the work rolling.

Initially, all of these leaders didn't know what to do, they were new and busy, and the missionaries were kind of left out to dry. But we've been working a lot with them, and things are starting to flow more smoothly.

The Harveys are allowing us to have less actives and investigators over for family nights!  We are really working on fellowshipping people here. 

Through a less active woman, we got a new investigator a few days ago!  Her name is Hashke, she is almost 10, and she LOVES the bible.  She knows all the stories, and she answers our questions very intelligently.  We started teaching her the lessons and gave her family a goal to help prepare Hashke for baptism by December 21st. They accepted! So we are working hard with her!

One crazy experience. Hashke's house is built on an old battlefield, and people are very wary there. Her mother told us how people in the neighborhood see a little boy running around at night. He is a spirit, she says.  She said that there was a dark man who was in the back corner of the home sometimes, he was tall and wore a big hat. She said they are scary, but they don't harm them, and they always pray for them to leave, and they do.

When she said that, I got the goosebumps and the front door swung open.

She yelled "ha'ii!" and jumped.

We all looked at eachother, and then Elder Lloyd and I just finished the lesson and at the end we had a prayer with them.  It is really common to ask for a blessing on homes to only allow good spirits to enter.  We left a blessing on the family and the home, and the spirit was immediately present! Hashke was really excited about the lesson, and we said goodbye.

We told her mother and grandmother that baptism is a BIG commitment and that they needed to be at church if they wanted to help her meet the goal.  So incredibly enough, we saw them all at church on Sunday! They hadn't been in over a year!  It was really rewarding to see them there!

Anyways, I miss you all a TON.

If you write me a letter, I usually get it 6 days after you write it, because the post office on the Rez is so wacko. But write me!  I love to hear from you all!

Jesus Christ is our savior, and God loves us all so much.  Life gets hard, but just push through it all, and have trust in the Lord, and most of all, just have fun!!  I'll see you all next week!

Diyin nihil holo doo.

 

NOTE FROM MOM:  If you know Davis well, you will appreciate how far out of his comfort zone this all was!  He HATES dirty work and anything disgusting!  Missions are SO awesome!  >:D

 

My favorite Shi'ama <3

She doesn't speak English and she is the nicest, most INTENSE lady EVER.  She got down on the sheep, sawing and hacking away at the guts, it was so awesome.

 

They put the head in the fire RIGHT after it's chopped off!

 

 

The sisters had to knead the warm blood to get all those jello-y clots out.  It was all hot and steamy and thick :D  Traditionally, it's the females job.  So was cleaning the intestines apparently....

 

  Here's me eating some cooked sheep as I'm still cleaning out the chaa' (poo) from inside it's warm intestines <3  It's kind of fun, you grab the intestines and put some water in the tube, then squeeze it down the tube until it pours out the end. It takes like 10 minutes because the intestines are so long. At least they are warm and slippery so the job is easier.

  Selfie with my dead sheepie.

  TOLD YOU she's intense!

 

Ya' at' eeh!

CRAZY WEEK.

Monday, we climbed into some old Navajo ruins, using a HUGE ladder. Mom, if you knew how dangerous the ladder was you would kill me for climbing it. Usually I am a wimp about that stuff but I was the first one up, I had to see the caves! The base of the sandstone where the ladder was placed was sloped and crumbling so the other elders had to hold it in place! I'll send photos!

Yesterday I went to a real indian Powwow! They had tribal dancers, feathers, jewelry, beads, turquoise, drums, the whole deal! Vendors sold Indian garb on the side, people ate blood sausage, it was intense! The drummers pounded away in unison and they sang in their awesome native yodeling style. They even did the thing where they yell out loud and put their hand over their mouth over and over. It was CRAZY! Everyone was up and dancing.

There was an article in the NY Times about missionaries on the Rez last week, and I  met the photographer and author of the article at the Powwow! So crazy!

I bought a bunch of Navajo jewelry for family and friends!  

The rest of the week, we really focused on our investigators. We decided we only have about 5 who are actually making progress or have serious potential. So we made it a goal to be consistent with them and work on them as much as possible.

We were dropped by 3 of them this week.

It has been really rough.

This week we are going to focus on finding new investigators, and on strengthening the less active members of the ward. I hope it goes more smoothly.

FIRST BAPTISM THIS WEEK! Skye was baptized on Saturday! She is such a sweet girl, and I am so proud of her. She has pulled her family back together, and helped to reactivate her mother. She has this energetic spirit and is so awesome. With such a hard week, it was really rewarding to see her happy smiling face, and the faces of her whole family together at the font.

We confirmed her today and then had a huge dinner at her house to celebrate!

To everyone:

We have a Savior. If we ever get caught up in life, struggles, or find ourselves at church as a chore, GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES.

Pray to your God, who is so EXCITED to help you and lift you up. Truth is on your knees. Only through sincere, honest prayer, do we find our answers. Anyone can tell us what to do or what to believe in. But without prayer, we will never KNOW for ourselves of truth. Pray for strength from your Savior, Jesus Christ. He died for you. He bled great drops of blood for you.

He allowed Himself to be crucified in your name.

And He did this all because He loves you.

You have been told this all your life. BUT GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES IN HUMBLE RESPECT AND HONEST PRAYER TO YOUR SAVIOR, AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF IF THIS IS TRUE.

 

Open up your bible and read about His life. Read about what He did for you. Anyone who claims to be Christian but has not read the New Testament, and studied His life, trying to apply His word, is not what they say. Read the Book of Mormon. It is another strength to you as it witnesses in His name.

I promise you, you will feel the love and support of Jesus Christ. You will overcome ANY temptation, sorrow, or struggle. He loves you.

We will be with God again in heaven. With our amazing families. And with our Savior Jesus Christ. What a glorious day that will be.

I love you all so much. I miss you all so much.
I am so happy to be here as His servant, helping the people of Fort Defiance in any way I can.
This is the hardest, most discouraging, exhausting, most lonely thing I have ever done.
But it is the best thing I have ever done.
Your prayers are all so needed, and I thank you all for them. I pray for friends and family every day!

Love you all so much.

Diyin nihil holo doo.
God be with you.

 

 

Looking down from cliff of ancient ruin cave

 

Built into the side of a sheer cliff way back in a hidden gully

 

Inside cave

Hello!  Who gets to do this!!?!!

 

View ancient inhabitants enjoyed form their cliff cave! 

Elder Livermont and I   

Typical Navajo front yard with goats

Skye! She draws us pictures all the time, and grabs our arms and drags us around to show us stuff. She gave me a card today that said "thank you for being my missionary. I am so happy to learn new things. you teach me a lot. I love you". and it had a penny attached to it because I taught her tithing :)

This is Elder Lloyd and I with all of Natasha's children. Skye, the oldest, was baptized! Their last name is Foster so we call them the Foster Children, haha! Halloween Party!

 

Shelly (on the left with the rad eyes) and Rainie (zombie face) Bennett!
They are awesome! I love the Bennett family so much! Their son, Thomas Bennett passed away while on his mission in August. They are so spiritual, and his death brought their family back together. Brother Bennett got his priesthood restored, and Shelly has been reactivated! They are my Navajo family :)))

Just frolicking with some friendly neighborhood horses!

The font!  Built right into the floor of the building!