Elder Dittmers Journey to New Mexico

Monday

We drove out to Ganado after emailing time was over and we played games with the district leader, his companion, and the Ganado missionaries. We had fun playing 3-hit kill with a hacky-sack and playing the "Bean-Boozled!" jelly bean game. After our preparation day hours were over, we drove to a couple of appointments on extremely damaged dirt roads, which was pretty exciting. We ended up staying out a bit later than normal, so we drove home on damaged dirt roads in the dark.

Tuesday

We helped Sister Rosie Allen weed her garden early in the morning for a couple hours, then later visited a really old lady who could barely understand us. We later visited the Namokie family and we did a fun lesson where you have to find all the letter 'F's in the first verse of 1Nephi chapter one. We went back to the church after that and we did the Book of Mormon study class and read about Abinadi and Alma.

Wednesday

We got up at around 6:00a.m. to head to Ganado and get a ride with them to zone conference in Gallup, NM. At zone conference I got to talk to a bunch of my old companions, including Elder Briscoe, Elder Barajas and Elder Bruning. At zone conference, President Ackerman challenged us to testify of Jesus Christ in every single lesson that we have. When we arrived back in Steamboat, we participated in young mens/young womens combined meeting and we made pizzas! We also watched "Johnny Lingo" while we ate our pizzas.

Thursday

This morning we went with Elder Wetzel to remove some church gardens that people weren't using. It required a lot of effort to remove the poles that were stuck in the ground, but it was pretty fun. After we got changed and did studies, we drove out and visited Laura again, who explained a lot of her concerns about the LDS church. Since we heard that President Yazzie, our branch president was back in town, we decided we would pay him a visit. We mostly just correlated about missionary work. I almost fell asleep a couple of times. He was super nice though, and he gave us a bunch of different varieties of drinks to take home afterwards. Later in the evening, we made some strawberry jam with Sister Wetzel. Jam requires a LOT of sugar!

Friday

This morning we had interviews with President and Sister Ackerman in Ganado. They were super nice and we mostly just talked about random stuff with them. I got permission from President Ackerman to practice piano for 30 minutes every day during our companionship studies, so I am super hyped about that. After the interviews, we drove out to the rezzy wastelands of Steamboat and tracted for a couple hours without success, but still having fun exploring Steamboat!

Saturday

We were gone almost all day today driving down to Shiprock with President Attson to help him haul some hay. We got permission to go on this trip, so we made the best out of it while we could! President Attson drove us up Buffalo Pass and at the top of the mountain we got to stop and check out the view. I got some neat pictures of that. If only I had brought my actual camera! The view was really neat. After another couple of hours driving, we finally arrived at Shiprock and we helped President Attson fill up his truck bed with hay. It was pretty messy. President Attson got us some steamed corn for free from the farmer's market in Shiprock, and he later bought us some drinks and food from Sonic. He gave me a brand new hat, also! He is super nice! The drive back took a couple more hours, and it rained a ton on the drive back. We helped unhaul the hay from the truckbed in the rain and then President and Sister Attson gave us a pizza. Elder Dye and Elder White (the Ganado missionaries) were completely soaked and muddy when we met up with them back at the Ganado church because of the intense downpour. They had been chopping down trees in the woods when the rain began pouring down. By the time we got home, we didn't have any time to proselyte, so we did some studies and turned in for the night.

Sunday

I played piano for church again. I think the members here aren't used to having someone play piano for prelude/postlude for sacrament meeting. It is an automated piano, so the are used to the robotic hymns that play automatically. We had to teach the Sunday school class again today, and we will have to do it again next week, too. Sister Wetzel made some meatball stuff for lunch, and we had it after church hours were over. It was really good! We later got to go and eat dinner with Roselyn and Raymond, and we taught them the third lesson in the Preach My Gospel. It rained really hard during our lesson, and it only died off as we were trying to get back home. There was a torrential river in place of the road we were taking to get home, so we took a bunch of pictures and waited a little while. After a long time, we decided to turn around and try our luck on a different road, and we made it home that way. Because of the flooding, we weren't able to see any more people that day.

Thanks for everything!