Monday

Elder Asher and I finally had time to email on the Steamboat computer today, so that was exciting! After emailing, we drove out to Ganado to catch a ride with the Ganado missionaries, who took us to the field to play softball again. After that, we helped the guy who owned the field chop wood for a bit. We visited Sister Hildreth back in Steamboat after we were done, and we met Quinton there, the voice actor for some characters in "Finding Nemo" the Navajo translated version! They call him Navajo Nemo. He is very talkative and loves being around missionaries.

Thursday

Happy Thanksgiving! I haven't eaten so much in my LIFE! We went to a Thanksgiving feast at 10 in the morning to start off our free day. Then we got together with the Ganado Elders and went to another Thanksgiving feast with Roselyn in Beshbito (that's where she is from; it's a Steamboat area) around 1pm, then went to ANOTHER Thanksgiving dinner at the fire station here in Steamboat right afterwards. I was still full before we went to the 2nd feast! After the fire station we went and played softball again at the same baseball field, then went to Ganado and had another Thanksgiving feast. The member who fed us over there was Brother Wilson, and we played some fun games with cards and paper over there. We did that until we had to run to Steamboat before it got too late.

Friday

We did our weekly planning this morning, then spent a while printing stuff on the computer to give to President Yazzie. We gave the printed stuff to him, then went on to visit Lola and Edison, who we helped stuff a full sized Christmas tree into their tiny Dodge Avenger car. We later visited a returning member who hasn't been to church in a while named Nora, and she told us she would come to church this Sunday. After that, we helped chop wood for Grace again, then had to go back to the computer to print a billion other things for President Yazzie. We turned in after that. Not really the most exciting day, really. I did, however, receive news that I was to play the piano for a special Christmas-themed musical number with my district during our next zone conference. I started practicing "Away in a Manger" for that.

Saturday

I had almost as much food today as I did on Thanksgiving! In the morning, we decided we would go across the street from the church to visit some people in the NHA housing. We ran into Raymond, it's always good to see him around. After seeing him, we went and knocked on Sister Lincoln's door to ask her if she still needed any wood chopped, but when the door opened we were surprised to see another Thanksgiving meal that hadn't been touched yet along with a bunch of her family members. Sister Lincoln invited us to come in, and after a short prayer we had yet another Thanksgiving meal quite by accident. Sister Lincoln's tiny dog was locked up in another room, and it would scream instead of bark. It was kinda funny, her dog's scream sounded just like the Wilhelm scream that you often hear in movies. After stuffing ourselves, we went to a birthday party at the fire station for Jeremy and Jewel's son Jacob, who turned 5 yesterday. We tried to eat very little, because we had gotten a text previously from Roselyn asking us to come by and eat some enchiladas. The kindness of the people in Steamboat amazes me! We went over to Roselyn's home after eating more food at the party, and luckily we talked her into letting us chop her wood so that we could digest a little bit before eating. After chopping for around 45 minutes, we were invited inside to try their enchiladas, which tasted super good. They were made from leftover turkey! We had to leave that place quickly so that we could have time to visit Sister Joseph, who had asked us to come to her house out in Jeddito because she was sick and wanted a blessing from us. Well, we got fed manudo at her house. Actually, only Elder Asher ate some. He was handed a bowl before he could say anything, but I got the chance to ask for a to-go bowl so I could eat it later. After visiting her, we went back to Sister Lincoln's home to share Light the World with her, and she gave us a full pie to take home.

Sunday

Since Sister Joseph was gone and President Yazzie was the only member of the presidency who showed up at church, Elder Asher and I had to give the lesson and I passed the sacrament. We taught about Jeremiah's life and how rough it was. Despite serious threats to his life and lots of persecution and imprisonment, he stayed firm in the faith and continued to testify boldly. He is a great example of loyalty to and faith in God. Nora came to church, and it turns out that she and Gean (active member) are good friends! Hopefully we will see Nora next week. After church, we got on the computer with President Yazzie to purchase some teacher manuals online, but when the printer booted up it started printing endless amounts of papers with unusual symbols only lining the top of the page. I tried everything to get it to stop printing, but it just kept going until the entire paper cartridge was empty. I even turned it off and on again! But it didn't work, so I made an 'out of order' sign and put it on the printer. If anyone I am emailing has any ideas on how to fix this, let me know! The Steamboat branch only has one printer, so we need it fixed.

That's about it for my week. If you're wondering where Tuesday and Wednesday went, I was just too lazy to write about them and those days were pretty boring, anyway. But here's some pictures from my week!

-Elder White and Elder Asher. Elder White stacked up a bunch of Gatorade bottles really high! 

-This cat is gonna get wet lol

-My strawberry plant is growing really good! 

-I set up my new Christmas tree. Thanks to my family for sending that to me! 

-Jamie (someone we recently met) took this picture of me and sent it to me to show my mom. Here ya go!

Have a good week! Until next Monday, 

Elder Dittmer

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Yes, I chop wood a lot! I don't think it builds my muscles up too much, though. I think my accent is pretty much the same, too, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'm getting a rezzy cowboy accent without knowing it.

I can't open duolingo anymore!  the app that prevents us from downloading anything was updated and they accidentally blocked Duolingo! So I haven't been able to get on it, either. Hopefully that gets fixed soon. 

Yep, I have definitely learned a lot from serving my mission. It has really helped put into perspective the way I should be living my life. I understand way more than I did back home about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how eternally important it is to keep the commandments and live a righteous life. I am thankful to be on the Lord's errand! 

I chop wood all the time because literally everyone here using a wood-burning stove and likes to be extremely warm all the time. Like sometimes I walk into a house and it feels like 80 degrees in there.

Also, my companion and I are becoming well known for being helpful wood choppers, so we get a lot of calls asking for help. 

Monday

The highlight of my P-day was probably being able to play piano. I got to play basketball with the other missionaries in my district also, but I forgot to bring tennis shoes! After the P-day hours ended, we were able to talk with President Yazzie for a while before we had to get home.

Tuesday

We were super busy today! The first thing Elder Asher and I did was clean President Yazzie's bus so that it can pass inspection at the fire station. After that, we went to Sister Gorman's home (she called us again) and we chopped/stacked her wood. Then we got a text from Sister Allen asking us to come and help her stack wood, so we went and did that, then we got a phone call from Sister Bowman again, so we went over there and chopped/stacked her wood also. We accidentally left our axes at her house and didn't realize it until we pulled into the church, so we did a 180 and drove back out there, grabbed our axes, and finally found the time to do our studying for the day! It didn't last very long because we had our Book of Mormon class. I spilled a giant glob of honey mustard on my slacks while I was over there, and miraculously it hit nothing else, not even my shoes! It's a good thing those slacks were machine washable!

Wednesday

We went over and helped Grace get some wood chopped for her and her family, and when I found out that they didn't have an axe, I gave them my wooden one. I didn't really need it because I have another axe, so I decided it would be nice to give that to her family. After that, we drove out to Jackie's house in the middle of nowhere and we chopped some of his giant logs! Looking back, I wish I had taken a picture of that. Later, we drove out to Jeddito and met with Tasha again, who was going through a lot and was very happy that we remembered her. We gave her and her husband Chad a copy of the Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. We also visited Sister Norris a couple houses down, and we met her grandson, Angelo! He straight up said that he wanted to get baptized, so we are very excited for him. He has a sister who we think wants to be baptized also! The problems with that is that Sister Norris doesn't have any transportation to make it to church and she doesn't have another man home, so we can't go into her house without bringing another man. We are going to do our best to make it past these stumbling blocks. Afterwards, we drove back to our trailer and turned in for the night.

Thursday

We had district meeting this morning, where we learned that we now don't proselyte on the major holidays! Instead, it is like an all day preparation day. Since Thanksgiving is already coming up, our district is already starting to make plans for what we will do on Thursday, but nothing is solid yet. After district meeting, we visited Brother Nelson, who was working on his car next to his house. We talked for a bit, then later went to visit Jackie's neighbor, who we chopped some wood for. Afterwards, we were able to have a lesson with Colon, which went very well. We know Colon as the guy who works at the gas station here in Steamboat. He is very smart and even holds the lesser Priesthood currently. After his lesson, we visited with Hannah again, and we had a lesson with her involving a pyramid made out of cups! She asked us a lot of good questions which we were able to answer. We drove home after that and turned in.

Friday

Elder Asher pulled out my recipe booklet and made the both of us German pancakes for breakfast! They were very tasty. Today was kind of boring, we mostly did weekly planning then chopped wood for the Vasquez family. We visited President Yazzie also, and he gave us MRE's and Gatorade, which was very nice of him. Someone turned off our water last night, hopefully they come back and turn it back on at some point. 

Saturday

Our water was still off, so we took to the opportunity to take SPONGE BATHS! that was interesting, to say the least. We were invited to a luncheon with the Jim family, so that is where we went first. They fed us a lot, and had us take even more to bring back home! After eating, we offered our service to them by going on a wood haul with them. It was fun! We gathered a lot of wood from chopping down trees. After saying goodbye and a short prayer with them, we went back to the Vasquez household to finish what we started. We chopped logs into the night, and when we were finally done, we drove home only to find that our water was still turned off, so we called someone from Facilities Management, who directed us to another FM person, who directed us to ANOTHER FM person, who had us grab a water key and try turning the water on, and when more needed to be done, he directed us back to the 2nd FM person who had us grab a flathead screwdriver and shut a valve on one of the pipes. After we did that and turned the water back on, it finally was working perfectly! They had us test all the waterworks to see if they are working okay, then we were able to turn in and enjoy not having to take a sponge bath again.

Sunday

We had little attendance at church today. I only played hymns this time though, because our Sunday school teacher was finally able to make it to church. She had been sick for a while. After church we visited with Gilbert, a man who was not in the right state of mind at the time we visited him. We were later able to meet up with the Jim's again so that we could share a short message about the 10 commandments. We visited James after that on our way back, but since the rest of the family wasn't there, we just left him with a commitment and went on our way. We drove out of our way to visit the other Kee family, and we were actually able to share a message with them! We did the cup pyramid thing again. We turned in after that.

If anyone has any questions for me, please let me know! 

Hagoónee, 

-Gaamalii Dittmer 

James and his kittens.

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We have taught Sunday school every week until yesterday, which is when the Sunday school teacher showed up after being sick for a long time. Yeah, we do all three hours of church even though we get such a small amount of people. We had 2 other people at Priesthood class, which is especially small.
One thing led to another, and we ended up showing the young man who showed up how a blessing was done, by us giving a blessing to he-who-I-will-not-name-for-privacy-reasons, and we gave him a blessing of healing, and after that we gave the young man a blessing of comfort for his anxiety/stress.

All we have are concrete curbs in one small neighborhood 

If you're curious about my mission area, imagine sage brush as far as the eye can see with the occasional hogan (circular house made of dirt and/or wood) every few miles. Sure, there's not much out here, but there are Native American artifacts all over the place just sitting on the ground! That's pretty neat.

(I send him Chick Fil A sauce on occasion)

The best for last.

Yá'át'ééh!

Elder Asher and I were super busy this week! We were getting calls left and right over the last few days, so we were all over the place. We chopped wood, helped haul wood, and moved wood for people all over the place. It was fun, but it filled up our schedule with things that we hadn't planned on. We were, however, able to visit with a great family who I think will eventually start coming to church! It is a family of 8, and they are the best! They like to joke and have already given us nicknames: mine is Rondo and Elder Asher's is the Shack. We are going to be visiting them a lot, and hopefully we can help the ones who haven't been baptized eventually be able to do so!
Other than that, this week went by pretty quick. Sorry for the short email, I had to type it out on my phone again. Hagoónee! 

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My week was very busy! Sadly I wasn't able to use the alpha smart, so it will be another short weekly email today. The reason I haven't been able to use it is because Elder Asher and I have been very rushed by the senior couple in Ganado to go places, so we don't have time to use the computer in Steamboat.

I have been going places on Mondays, and often times we are super rushed to go so I barely have time to shower. Simply put, the only means of emailing for me would be my phone. Hopefully I can stay in Steamboat long enough next week to prep a better weekly email. 

-on a video call with the district

-me resting while playing basketball at the church in Window Rock

Unfortunately, we do not have a computer to send emails this week so I am typing this out on my phone.

Transfers! Elder Asher and I are staying in Steamboat! He is by far the companion that I've stayed with the longest. He is super fun to be around and is a good friend. I am happy to be serving with him for another transfer. 

As for my week, we found a bunch of new people and are now teaching some new people we found a few miles away from the church. Their names are Edison and Lola. They had us help them clean out a birds nest, which was fun. I wanted to take a picture of it, but Lola was looking at us through the window 

Well, hope you all have a good week! 

Hagoónee! 

-Elder Dittmer

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Church attendance averages at around 15 or 20 people. The branch presidency is generally good at coming to church, they will come when they can.  We have an automatic heater, so we don't need wood. 

I taught Sunday school and played piano. I didn't do as much as I normally do, surprisingly. Did I ever tell you that the missionaries have been the branch clerk for a few years? Well, one of the members here (Jeremy) got called to be the branch clerk! He is probably the only one who knows his way around a computer at all in the whole branch directory.