Just call me Rudolf

December 19, 2011 (email)

Merry Christmas Everyone!! I hope you all are having a fantastic week! I said call me Rudolf because I've got this silly zit on the tip of my nose that is making it all red. Thank heavens I'm a missionary, and I don't have to look good for a date. And double thank heavens because I don't even have a camera to take pictures with! Hallelujah!!!!

Well, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!!!! Sorry, I don't have a gift, and I won't be making you an ugly cake like when I was a kid. I hope you have a beautiful day! (Either with actual sunshine, or the day looks like the gloomy day you got married, so it makes you all mushy at remembering it, and then the day feels beautiful.)

Here are a couple tid-bits that only a few of you will understand:

1. Sister Kesler knows Mannheim Meets the Mouse!!!!!!! I nearly had a cow when we discovered that! We started singing all over the trailer and dancing too.

2. Our milk carton says best if used by: DEC 25!!!!!! WOOOOTTTTT!!!!! Twice in one lifetime! What a lucky girl I am!!

Now for the week's information.

We usually drive into Farmington once a month....but this week we drove there 4 times in 5 days! Yuck. Monday to pick up our cleaned out and detailed truck. Tuesday to figure out the New Mexico license junk. Thursday to get our new money cards from the office. And on Friday a ward member drove us in for a ward dinner at Golden Corral. Oye. This week we go in again on Thursday for the Christmas Zone Conference.

On Tuesday we went to meet a referral from the sister missionaries in Farmington. The girl's name is Cejay (CJ...ya, weird) and her brother was baptized last summer. She liked the transformation in him and was asking lots of questions. She let us in immediately and was AMAZING!! Her brother had been giving her scriptures to read from the Bible, discussing stories and ideas from the Book of Mormon, given her the movies: Praise to the Man, and the Best Two Years, and was having her read Hinckley's Stand a Little Taller!!!!! Oh, and a Gospel Principles book!!! She was reading it all!!! I have never met someone so prepared! I have been involved with baptisms and people who were prepared, but all of the hard work was done before I got into Shiprock. This is the first person that I will see transform from door to water. It will be amazing. She accepted a "soft" baptismal commitment, which means if she feels its true, she will eventually be baptized. We hope to extend a hard commitment this week, which means picking a day with her! I'm so excited! We are trying to see her everyday, and it is wonderful.

On Wednesday we went to Red Valley and saw Jay. He had completed the pot I had asked him to design, carve, and paint for me. It is absolutely exquisite! I will get a picture of it for you...eventually! He wants me to carry it around wherever I get transferred so I can always remember him, but I'm worried about it getting busted. I might send it home for safe keeping. I just love this guy. We hit a glitch this past week though. We were reading and explaining 1 Nephi 13, and his dream. He got hung up on the blessed people being "white and beautiful" and then that there were imperfections in the Bible. In general the Navajo people seem to struggle with not being worth anything because of their skin. It drives me nuts! I don't see skin color! I just see my brothers and sisters. I just see lost individuals who need love. All he needs is someone who believes in him, who will tell him that he's important, and that his life is not wasted. Oh, I get so fired up when I see people just needing support...I know what they need, and how to give it to them, but I cant physically take care of EVERYONE (as much as I want to!)

On Saturday we were involved in a couple baptisms. There was one for an 8 year old girl who comes from an active family. This ward is weird and has everyone, converts and children of record, go through the missionaries. That's not the way its supposed to work. But I think it comes from a lack of Primary structure, and the culture of the people to expect it is someone else's responsibility to teach their children....Anyways....Rant over and moving on....She was afraid of the water. Deathly afraid. She had 2 panic attacks. Sobbing. Yelling. Screaming at the top of her lungs that she didn't want to get in the water. Her dad was standing in the font, and everyone was waiting, but she just cried. Sister Kesler jumped in and took her hands and walked her to the font. "Just look in my eyes, don't look at the water." Then her dad took over. He held her hands and offered some of the most comforting words I have ever heard a father utter. She was still sobbing and hyperventilating. But they did the baptism. We know she wanted it, because she said she did, and she knew she had to get in the water. She cried that she didn't want to get in, but she never fought back or kicked or anything. She moved of her own choice, just cried otherwise. I was worried someone was going to throw a fit about her being forced into it.....but it happened, and as soon as it was over, she was fine.

Now, as for this next week: we hope it will be good, but there is potential for lots of canceled appointments. The members are all filled with Christmas cheer, and want to feed us, but we want to get in some teaching too. On Sunday, the Christmas program is going to be a pitiful sight to see. Someone volunteered all the missionaries (without even asking us) to BE the program. We are going to be breaking up Luke 2 and each reading little sections. Then between parts, we are being thrown into the "Choir" to sing some hymns. Well....the choir is the 4 of us, and 3 (maybe 4) other people. They have 2 sopranos, so Sister Kesler and I are singing alto. I'm fine, but she doesn't know how to pick out alto part. We don't know what part their men sing, but Elder Wise sings base...but he's not very loud...at all. He knows his part, but he doesn't get up high enough for Elder Buynak to pick out his part. And poor Elder Buynak....the kid is literally tone deaf. Not trying to be mean, but he doesn't pick out different notes well. We all sat at the piano last night and tried to help him get his part. His voice is WAY low, and we figured it out....He can sing an octave lower than the base part, or he can falsetto an octave higher (or 2.) We aren't sure how this is going to turn out.

Please pray that the angels sing with us, or everyone will be slipping down in their seats during sacrament meeting, out of embarrassment for us. This is going to be rough. I'm completely serious, please pray that the angels are with us!

I love you all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Love, Sister Melinda Wilkins