A Wing and a Prayer...

January 26 through Feb 2nd

We had a great week of school! The kids were again pretty well behaved. The physical education classes are doing great!

In art class, we made clay sculptures out of modeling clay. Two of the boys made army tanks out of clay and one made “Wall-E” from the Disney motion picture. I had assorted decorations available for use, including beads, feathers, sea shells, drinking straws, toothpicks, etc. We all had a good time. The winds were blowing this week, causing the electricity to go in and out. We continue to have warm weather, at least above 50 degrees in the daytime and about 10-20 degrees overnight (Fahrenheit of course).

Friday evening we learned that one of the school children had a little brother that was still born at nearly full term. I have never been so close to someone in this situation. It was really heartbreaking and I have prayed for this child and family a whole lot. I hope that you will, too.

Saturday started out okay. The girls woke at their usual early time, but they went to play in the living room, leaving Jerry and I to rest in bed for a little longer. Unfortunately, they made a bad decision, one that we had warned them about in the past. As soon as I sat up in bed, I noticed an odd smell. Then Jerry noticed and we both took off running. It was the smell of melting plastic. We found a total of seven Barbie dolls sitting on TOP OF THE GAS HEATER! The Barbie dolls were melting down into the stove. Among the dolls was Abby’s collector’s edition Barbie Cinderella doll. Cinderella’s dress was brown and smoldering! I was terrified. We had warned the girls not to put ANYTHING on top of the gas stove, even before we began using it for heat. Needless to say, they both got a stern lecture about what could have happened and we had to throw away four of the dolls, including Cinderella.

The rest of Saturday was good, we spent the day working around the mission as a family. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed being outside in January without hats and gloves.

Sunday was a great service at Red Sands Christian Church. I had three kids in my Sunday school class, which was good. Then, I had six kids in junior church with me, which was nice too. The kids used puppets and made a puppet show to illustrate using good manners. It was very cute. We had a good adult attendance and after church we had the pot luck meal. Mr. Bill made roast, we brought chess cake and broccoli casserole and Miss Springer brought green beans and rice krispy treats. Some of the other church members supplied drinks and large sub sandwiches to share, potato salad and macaroni salad. It was an excellent meal.

Sunday evening

We did not watch the Super Bowl. I wanted Arizona to win, for obvious reasons! We had plans. Some friends of ours from Corbin were visiting the area and they took us out for dinner on Sunday night. It was a wonderful meal and it was VERY wonderful to see our friends and hear about their travels and answer their questions about our work. Abby & Kelcy were pretty well behaved at the restaurant. Our friends were staying at the La Posada hotel in Winslow, so after dinner we visited their rooms. It is a very interesting older hotel with European styled rooms. They had rooms that were named after celebrities such as Mary Pickford and John Wayne.

Monday morning our friends came to visit us at the mission and brought juices and pastries for the children to share. The children really enjoyed the visit and appreciated the gift of food. I got the chance to show them that I was not exaggerating when I said that you can see 50 miles in any direction from the mission. It was a wonderful visit from our friends at home. They traveled onto their next destination, but the kindness of their visit will stay in our hearts here.

After we left the classrooms on Monday, Miss Springer’s class went outside with their cardboard ground hogs to see if they would see their shadow. They did lots of things with shadows that day.

Next week: Jerry gets older, Marshmallow Wars and a Hot Cheetos eating contests.