What a great experience. The Temple is usually closed on Monday. However, President Jones made special arrangements
for the whole mission to go through it. We had three sessions starting at 9:30 am. We started picking up our zone at 5:45 am, then drove 2 1/2 hours to get there. Some had to drive all the way from Flagstaff/Winslow to Monticello a 5 1/2 hour drive one way.
After the session the Monticello Stake had lunch for us, then we packed up and drove home.
It was awesome, to be in the presence of so many missionaries in such a special place doing such an important work on their preparation day.
Where else would we ever want to be and having such a great time? I guess the only answer I can think of, that has a promise of being better, would be in the Celestial Kingdom with our loved ones.
We had one of the Dulce Branches long time member pass away. Sister Audrey Tofoya died. She was a great lady with an exceptionally strong testimony.
There were over a hundred people at her funeral, standing room only in our branch building.
Pagosa Springs Resort.
We had a great time visiting the shops, eating a prime rib special at Boss Hoggs restaurant and pool hopping from a cool 95 degree pool to a hot 110 degree pool until after 10pm at night.
It was so cold that our towels and robes were frozen going from pool to pool.
We met people from Hawaii and Michigan enjoying the same hot water. Most were there by virtue of skiing in the high mountains of Colorado known as Wolf Creek Pass only 30 minutes away.
We got up the next morning and just made it to church on time. After church we ate the left over prime rib with potatoes and corn. What a mission! If we go on another mission the Church will probably send us to Siberia, Russia!
We had a party in the Dulce Branch for Christmas and guess who came, Santa.
We also visited a wonderful Christmas Nativity displays put on by the Bloomfield Stake.
We spent Christmas eve with Elder and Sisters Barr at their house and made pizza. We then enjoyed Christmas day in our 5th wheel.
We slipped out one afternoon to find the hidden bull elk herd that the Jicarilla Apache Reservation has. I have been told they have two hundred head, all bulls in this field. We weren't able to get to close but you can see, there are a lot of horns.
My 68th birthday. Sister Langkilde as usual goes overboard in her decorations. The office area was all done up as you can see. We actually had three birthdays. Elder Fallon's will be on February 1st, and Elder James and I had ours on January 21st. We are twins with two years and two mothers separating us. He is Elder in more ways than one.
We drove to Pagosa Springs, Colorado to finish opening a new apartment for the Elders then went on to Dulce Friday night. We spent my birthday (Saturday Jan 21st) in Dulce just relaxing. I actually opened a new Bissell vacuum cleaner box and tried the vacuum out.
The members of the Dulce Branch had a large cake and sandwiches after church on Sunday to celebrate my birthday too.
On are way back from opening the Pagosa Springs new apartment on January 22 we saw these deer and elk along the highway.
While in the Pagosa Springs area we drove up to Wolf Creek Pass. The ski resort is about one mile down the East side but our Mission boundary is across the top so we didn't go down the other side.
We had a great Chinese dinner at the Dulce Branch in February. I cooked sweet and sour chicken, my special romaine lettuce dish, shrimp foo young, kikoman chicken and of course rice. We did have some ice cream with a mandarin orange on top.
It was a fun time and we were able to get a few people out that we had been working with for some time. In all we had about 21-24 there. No children.
We have a new couple that are spending some time in Dulce, because the trailer for them in Tsaile is not ready for them. They are ranchers from Idaho and fit in really well at Dulce. We hope maybe they will stay there and continue to work we have been doing.
Here are some of my thoughts while in the mission field.
The senior couples here constantly refer to themselves of having so much "fun"?
Just before we came and helped open up this new mission that was the expression used by Elder Jones (cousin to President Jones) who preceded us by four weeks. Elder Jones and I had been BYU roommates with the new Mission President, Spencer V. Jones who was released from the Quorum of Seventy to open up this mission.
It puzzled me how he could use the expression "having fun", when one is dealing with the business of opening a new mission office, i.e.,busy work of setting up all the accounting functions, etc. We both are accountants and relating to office work as "fun" was a little strange but interesting. Sister Langkilde and I also have the added pleasure of driving 180 miles round trip twice a week to proselyte and help the Branch in Dulce, NM, home of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation.
It indeed has been "fun", and as we contemplate our release date of June 26, 2012 I often pondered what other things we could do after our mission that will give us as much "fun", or satisfaction, i.e., go back to work, vacation, or visit our eleven children and thirty-nine grandchildren?
I have just read the words of Enos 1:26 "...I must preach and prophesy unto this people, and declare the word according to the truth which is in Christ. And I have declared it in all my days, and have
rejoiced in it above that of the world."
I have concluded with the help of Enos, that this "fun", is really "rejoicing in the work", and indeed is above anything we can contemplate doing (in the world).
Here is another thought.
Jacob 4:13
13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old.What does the word really mean? Have you ever been asked after making a statement, oh really? To me it means one is expressing the truth with no doubt, no wiggle room. It could also mean one is honest, without question, factual, no imaginary or hypothetical connotations.
In other words everything we are experience as a human being is a reality, and what we read in the scriptures will really come to pass. Bottom line, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is REALLY true!
March 10th we drove to Montezuma Creek and Bluff, Utah to check out the newly assigned area for housing for the Elders. While in Bluff we ate lunch at the Twin Peaks Trading Post Restaurant and then were able to drive the car on a jeep road down a canyon along the Coral Ridge where the San Juan River runs.
This is where the Mormon pioneers went around the Coral Ridge to get to Bluff.
Wagon wheel marks can be seen here.
Their were 250 of them with horses and wagons. They had to go up what they now call the San Juan Hill which was very treacherous. We hiked it the slope and it took about an hour up and back.
Here I have been working out and got a bruised left heal and Sister Langkilde hiked it without any after affects.
On Sunday March 11th we drove to Dulce then on the way back we check out a remote area called Pueblo Pintada where there is a chapel and missionary trailer.
We had ordered new mobile homes for the mission and in late March they began to arrive.
The first one was installed at Bitter Springs, Arizona near Echo Cliff. The new chapel is like a rose bud in the desert. It is beautiful. We had our replacements with us so unloading the pickup and furnishing the trailer was very enjoyable. While there Elder McNeil the senior couple zone leader came by on his way to Ganado. It was great to visit with each other in the field of labor.
This location is interesting. Let me tell you the story. When Janelle and I were living in Utah with two of our children (Irene and Andrea) she wanted to to home for Thanksgiving. The weather wasn't very good and I didn't want to go, but she insisted so we rented a plane and started out for Mesa, AZ. Before getting to Lake Powell we got boxed in with a winter storm. The road beneath us was windy and snow covered, so I had two choices attempt a landing or climb above 12,000 feet to get above the highest mountain and hopefully break out of the storm as we continue to go South towards Mesa. Well thankfully we did break out of the storm near Cameron, AZ. I maneuvered below the clouds and landed on the highway where there was a Chevron service station just where the road comes down the page hill and at the foot of the hill turns East or West. This is where Bitter Springs is now located but the service station is no longer there. We were able to get gas for the aircraft and flew back to page. Then we called Janelle's parents and asked them to come get us. What a memory.
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