Robert vs. The Spiritual War

We finally got some pictures from Robert!  Enjoy!

 Hopi Christian Book

 Jay (pronounced J-eye)

 Mom and Dad got a package in the mail from Robert with a bow and arrow set

 and some Hopi earrings

The large dog on the left is "Sparky".  He follows Robert around town and reminds him of Hunter when he jumps up on him.

Loloma!!!

T'was a good and not so good week this week.  Yesterday we had some pretty cool experiences.  My main man Chris came to church and he blessed the sacrament for his 1st time and nailed it!  He said he has to keep a perfect record.  He did such a good a job and really emphasized the prayer, gives a stronger meaning to it when it is read slower.  Everyone was giving him hugs and stuff it was good to see.  I'm telling ya...this little branch is the best the church has when it comes to fellowship and family.  We had a few investigators come to church.  We were expecting double digits but we got about half.  You can almost literally see the spiritual war thats going on out here.  I can certainly feel it happening all around me.  I mean literally....like evil spirits and good spirits....everywhere.  Maybe my spiritual side has gotten a lot more Indianish I don't know, but I feel a lot more sensitive to stuff like that now since I've been living with the Hopi now for 4 months.  I'm gonna beg President Batt to keep me here for at least 9 months.  I feel that will be sufficient time.  There is an older couple that has come to church off and on since I got here and it turns out to be that they are NOT members and this whole time I thought they were.  It also turns out that they are our Branch Presidents In Laws.  They invited us over for dinner last night and we went with our Branch President and his wife.  We had a good talk, about the spirit world and temples.  They went to the Gilbert Open House and loved it!!!  I mean how can you not?  Its a flippin temple!  Apparently its bigger then the Salt Lake Temple.  It has 3 stories, I wanna check it out but that won't happen since its about 6 hours away.  Brother Choyou (the investigator) said that when he walked by the baptismal font he felt someone literally push him towards the font and someone whispered to him "Jump in!"  and he almost did, that would have been pretty funny actually. But in their family they have had many deaths and lost a few children due to tragic events.  We told them all about the spirit world and who was "pushing" him to the font.  Now the Choyous are an older couple and Brother Choyou is an extremely respected person in the Kiva.  He is a leader for the Hopi here when it comes to ceremonies and stuff.  They both come to church every week now and want to be baptized.  So we are going to go over to their house starting tomorrow with President Funk and start lessons.  Good stuff!!  The work is moving along here on Hopi.  Brother Choyou said that his parents and grandparents told him that some day there would be an LDS church in Polacca and all Hopi needed to go to that church.  But Satan has a such a strong hold on people and he blinds them to the obvious truth about the traditions of their fathers.  See even the clan leaders and ceremony leaders know that we are right!!!  But they don't wanna stop doing they're messed up ceremonies.  They used to be correct with the traditions but its just all sorts of messed up.  I can't tell you how many prophecies and whatnot I've heard....No way this stuff isn't real.  Sister Funk said she had a vision one day when she was driving to church....she saw a temple at the bottom of one of the Mesas in an extremely sacred place where a lot of the Tewa have buried their dead.  She was staring at it the whole drive and then when she got out of her car it was gone.  I believe it.  It's gonna happen someday.  In the near future many Native Americans will be leading this church.  Which is a prophecy in itself....us Bahana are basically carrying them on our shoulders until it is time for the church to return to the original covenant people...which is the house of Judah and Joseph (Jacob). Read 3 Nephi 21.  BOOM!  The two sticks!  (Ezekiel 37:15-22)  Truly they will "Blossom as the Rose" (DC 49:24)  I can't wait. Also...as long as we Gentiles stay faithful and anyone attacks us....the House of Jacob will protect us....3 nephi 21:12-13.  Good stuff.  

Other then that we started a Book of Mormon class on Thursday nights and about 5 people came and we are inviting everyone so hopefully sometime we will have such a big class that we will have to move into the chapel.  Also we got a Ward mission leader now!! Brother Dukepoo.  Apparently Polacca has never had one before.  Woohoo!!  Aw yes, I'm happy to hear that my bow and arrow got home.  There isn't really a story behind it...Elder Pebbles got it when he was in Pinion.  It is hand made but its not really an authentic bow.  I got more bows and junk to send home now.  Anyways all that stuff Pebbles didn't want to carry around with him, but I knew if I showed any interest in it then he would take it.  So I acted like I didn't care and then the day after he left I'm all...I'm sending this stuff home before he wants it back.  It's mine now hahaha. "Thats my hat now!!!" Name that movie.  Mom and dad, you won't get it.    I have a Navajo ceremony shield I'm sending home as well. Good times!  Well that's about all she wrote for this week!  GO SEAHAWKS!!!  GO BRONCOS!!!..the real broncos...not this Denver junk. 

Love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. Broken Glasses

Loloma!!! 

 

"We send our little Indian boys and girls to school, and they come back talking english, they come back swearing.  There is no swear word in the Indian languages, and I haven't yet learned to swear." - Zitkala-sa  (yanktan sioux)

Well needless to say it has been a hectic week.  Oh where to start....Well first off, the mission did a revision of mileage allotments to each area and apparently we are now at 1800 per month.  Which is nothing.  We use 1100 miles just to go to district meeting every thursday, and this revision took place last week and we are already at 1600 as of LAST Thursday...which is the night that we decided to play some basketball with some members and other kids and I was going up for a rebound and SMACK! I got punched in the face by my own teammate!!  My right lens broke off and the string attachment thingy connected to the last snapped as well so they are shot.  I was decked out in my BSU shirt and shorts though so despite the blood I hopped back in because I had to represent.  I called sister Batt that night and she told us to just hang tight because I couldn't drive anymore and Elder Yazzie cant either.  We walked to our nearest village one day and that was an experience.  It took about an hour and....one thing about reservations for sure, it doesn't matter what time of day it is...there are ALWAYS drunk people on the road. Its a given fact.  Don't think we will be walking anytime soon, the "sidewalk" of dirt is inches away from the road so no bueno.  Plus when we were in Polacca walking around for some reason the Rez dog population increased by 100 over night because they were EVERYWHERE!!!  I was messing around with one of them and we turned the corner and there was about 8 big ones just sitting right there staring at me....i about had an accident.  Luckily they are nice dogs or else we would have been back to back fighting off dogs again just like the good old Shiprock days.  Other then that adventure we had a wonderful baptism service on Saturday morning for sister Lynette Poleviyaoma and yes she is the one that drew that painting I sent home.  Did you get my Bow yet by the way?  First off saturday morning about 8am we get a knock on the door, i open it up and the young men and elders quorum of 2 guys were loaded up in their cars ready to go chop some wood, and they were trying to drag us along.  I said we got a baptism at 11 we gotta fill up the font!!!  They all yelled back at me and grabbed our axes and threw them into their truck....so we got dragged out there and they promised that they would get us back at 10:15.  Fine.  Elder Kamka filled the font.  When it was about 10 I told Bro. Crowfoot we had to go and we loaded up and for some reason he decided to go on some back road.  He said don't worry Blackfoots never get lost....well we got lost and ended up getting to the church right at 11.  They delayed the baptism until we got there so that was nice of them.  

Sunday morning was a rough start for sure.  We walked out the trailer door and right when I closed it I realized that I left the keys inside...but it was locked....the truck was locked also...and the church was locked.  It was 8am and and about 15 degrees.  We were stranded out in whatever the wind wanted to throw at us for about 40 minutes until President Funk came over and let us in the church.  Our senior couple has another key to our trailer but Elder Kamka is on the high council so they left early to tuba city to speak.  Rough morning.  But we got lynette confirmed and then right after church the kamkas got back and so we didn't have to live in the church for the day thankfully.  Chris wasn't able to come this week so next week we are gonna help him bless the sacrament.  

Just got back from Holbrook.  Got my new glasses ordered as well and my old ones fixed.  They really fixed them up they were destroyed and they didn't charge for it even though they put all sorts of new fancy stuff on it.  Every person in the office was LDS already except the receptionist but she seemed to know everything about LDS people and she even knew where our mission HQ was and everything.  You never know who is watching....Well no too much happened this week but it sure was stressful.  I need a hot tub bad....and a baseball game.  Oh ya by the way, GO SEAHAWKS!  For some reason Peyton Manning reminds me alot of Derek Jeter so even though they are pretty respectable guys just because I have never liked the Broncos or the yankees....Im going for the hawks.  Anyways I'm looking forward to a good week here.  Only got about 50 more sundays!!  that seems sooo short...I'm sure it will go by super fast.  

Ha'go'nee!!!

Love Elder Christensen 

Robert vs. The Kachina Dance

a couple more shots of Hunter

Ya'aat'eeh!!! 

 

"Look at me- I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation.  We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right.  Riches would do us no good.  We could not take them with us to the other world.  We do not want riches.  We want peace and love."  - Red Cloud (Sioux)      

Now thinking of that movie I am obligated to say the Irish jokes.  " a frenchman, a german, and an irishman sit down at a bar and each have a pint of ale, there is a fly in each ale....the frenchman says mondieur!!!  I can't drink this....so he leaves.  The german flicks the fly out and drinks the ale.  The Irishman grabs the fly turns it upside down and yells SPIT IT OUT!!! SPIT IT OUT!!!   -God invented whiskey to stop the Irish from taking over the world.  I love that movie, so funny.  

This week was a good one for missionary work on Hopiland.  We had dinner with some members last night and the Brother is the Chief Prosecutor for the entire reservation.  He worked for Navajo as well and other tribes when he lived in Oklahoma.  They are a Bahana family but they seem to be accepted by the Hopi here.  I could listen to that guy talk for hours, he has lots of wisdom.  He and his wife actually were "tracted" into by missionaries in Oklahoma about 30 years ago and thats how they joined the church.  One of the few that are a success when it comes to knocking on doors but hey it works. Can't remember where I was going with this...oh well. 

But ya church was awesome yesterday!  Elder Yazzie has a problem with talking in front of big groups of people.  I have noticed so I don't know if I'm a jerk or I'm being a good teacher here, but Sunday Morning I just said Elder Yazzie your teaching Gospel Principles. I usually always teach and I felt that Chris would want to be in the adult Sunday school class for the 1st time...and yep thats exactly what happened.  So I stayed with Chris and Handed Elder Yazzie the book and said have fun!  Refiners fire baby.  When I asked him how it went he gave the thumbs up sign and then waved around all directions.  Good, he's learning.  But an interesting experience this week...We got a call from Chris one night and he invited us to a Kachina dance which is extremely rare because they usually only do that in February.  I said yes without really thinking because of how cool an experience that would be and very few people in the world get to actually see one that aren't Hopi.  But right when he asked, I had a voice pop into my head and say "its a trick."  Not from Chris but from the guy down below.  After we hung up I started thinking about it and then Gerald called thanking me for the scriptures. ( I hid them underneath some papers on his table to see how long it would take for him to find them)  Anyways I told him we got invited to a Kachina dance and he said not to go because thats worshiping false idols.  After thinking about it, its true.  So then I knew we had to call Chris the next day and say we couldn't go cause of that and if people saw us and then the next day we knock on their door....ya that would be weird.  Come the next day I said a little prayer before I called Chris hoping he would understand and wouldn't be offended.  He was only being nice and wanting to share his culture with us.  I called him and said I don't think we should go and then he said Thank you!  After we hung up the night before he got this feeling like...he shouldn't have asked us and he shouldn't go anyways.  He prayed about it and then felt like we would call the next morning.  He was waiting for us to call.  Good stuff!  So instead of going to the dances, we had nothing planned at all so we went on a hike lesson with Chris.  We talked about him receiving the Aaronic priesthood on sunday and then about him getting his patriarchal blessing.  He was real excited and after explaining a bit about some of the different gifts of the spirit he thinks he is Manasseh because He has lots of crazy dreams that tell him stuff.  We will find out.  There was a Zuni man that got his and it said he was a direct descendant of Joseph the Brother of Nephi.  Interesting eh?  But ya we hiked all over this mini mesa and just talked about scriptures and stuff.  Almost stepped into some ancient natural well that was used a looooong time ago, there was still water in it.  We actually have to watch for Rattlesnakes around here cause they get pretty common to see come a few weeks when it gets warm apparently.  

The sister thats on date for baptism this weekend is looking good and ready.  Her interview is on wednesday but I don't have any worries.  After all...if a person fails an interview...its our fault not theirs that we didn't teach them correctly.  I think we did good. We also passed the Aaronic priesthood to Chris and that was awesome.  He is a Priest now and Hopefully bless the sacrament next week.  Good stuff!!!  Other then that we are teaching a few people that I am excited about and am sure will be baptized within 6 months or so.  I want to spend at least 9 months out here.  The Hopi are very accepting of Elder Yazzie being Navajo.  Its pretty awesome having a native companion.  People seem a lot more comfortable then with 2 white dudes.  Yes i am of course Monopoly King the record is 8-2.  Surprisingly we have only needed to trade a couple of times and I try to be fair.  He is catching on though about how to annihilate someone so I have to "fudge" a little bit on my tactics....not cheat...just "fudge a bit" to hide my plans.  anyways thats all for this week in Hopi!  And yes I got your package! thank you!!! 

Love Elder Christensen 

Robert vs. Mothers

Robert's "Hunter Puppy" passed away last Thursday.  We all took it pretty hard, especially since Robert is so far away and didn't get to say goodbye in person.  We know Hunter is happy now though and not in anymore pain.  He was a great dog and always wonderful when the nephews would come for a visit.  Miss you, Puppy.

Loloma!!! 

Since I forgot to put a Native quote last week I will put two this week to compensate.  I have them all written down and I am going to start forgetting which ones I put down already if I don't do them in order even though some of my favorites are later on but here they are.

"It does not require many words to speak the truth." -  Chief Joseph     Amen to that. 

 

"How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look wrong, and wrong look right." - Chief Black Hawk (sauk)   Amen to that as well.  

Well I'm gonna be honest...I cant really think straight right now knowing that my dog is gone.  It will take me awhile to figure out in my head that when i get back he wont be there.  He was my best friend for sure and I had a closer bond with him then with probably anyone else.  Only got to hang with him for 8 years.  I know I am probably taking this a lot harder then I should but what can I say...He was my brother.  Hopefully I will be able to look past it fast enough so I will be able to not dwell on it.  I will share a couple of experiences I had this week and then that'll probably be it for this week, don't really want to email today. sorry.

First off a few days ago we had a good experience with Chris.  He invited us up to his Aunts house in Old Oraibi to visit.  We were talking about his situation and then we decided to bust out the scriptures and I wanted to pound in his head that he could find the answers to his problems in the Book of Mormon and about how the Book was written for him to remember his ancestors and their dealings with God.  Moroni 1:4....and thats just one of many scriptures that talk about how the record is mean to help the Lamanites "in some future day according to the will of the Lord."  Chris took that to heart I think and then we got straight to it and Opened up to Alma 24...which has been entitled by all missionaries that serve with the Hopi..the " Hey that sounds like Hopi!" chapter....cause every time you show it to someone they always say something like that or their facial expressions get real big its awesome.  Anyways we were getting into the chapter and then Todd...Chris's cousin brother came in and he is extremely traditional but is starting to question a lot of things.  In fact the house we were in happened to be one of the Village leaders so even having us in the house made everyone but Chris very uncomfortable( Which is typical here, thats why its so dang difficult)...But anyways Todd came in and asked us to leave as soon as we were done. We said we would and then he sat down and started reading with us...remember that billboard sign, i cant remember where it is but it says "Don't read the Book of Mormon, thats how they get you."  Obviously put on by some church that doesn't understand, or they understand perfectly.....because its dang true!!!!!  As soon as Todd started reading he got really into it and started asking tons of questions and then when we got to the "burying of weapons" stuff he just sat back and entered into the "hey that sounds like Hopi" face...it was great.  But ya he got really interested really quickly.  After the chapter was over the mother of the house came into the room and the spirit of awesomeness left and Todd said we had to leave.  Definition of "seed planted."  

Anyways Chris called us up to come back a few days later and we went around back to help them shovel some coal out and then Todd just started it up, you could he was anxious for us to come back.  He asked whats the difference between Mormons and Christians first and then it just went off and he got real interested...then he said I will invite you in because the mom isn't home but as soon as she gets back we have to go.  As we walked into the house Chris just had the biggest smile on his face, I think he is happy to have one of his family members start to understand a bit, and Chris told us that Todd had been asking him questions since we left and he didn't know how to answer them so he is glad we were there. We all talked for a good half hour or so and Todd said he really interested in what Chris was learning.  That was actually on saturday so come sunday when Chris came to church he said Todd was wanting to ask about church all morning and Chris could tell he wanted to come, but the mom gave a bunch of chores and Hopi stuff to do....but its awesome because Chris now has something to keep his mind off of his situation a bit and he can be an example to his family.  Like I said before which is in the village of the most deeply initiated traditions in all of Hopiland.  Thats a miracle and a half that we were able to even enter into that house.  Success of time in Hopi.  Chris will soon become the "Hopi interpreter" like he wanted to be.  Also it just so happens that Chris is a really good radio DJ...and he's got hookups with the Hopi station and people still remember him being on the air over 5 years ago and everyone loves him.  Coincidence that he be one the first to bring the "remembrance of the traditions of their fathers" to the Hopi's...I think not.  I will end on that awesome note that the Hand of the Lord is working on the Nephites still. 

 Love Elder Christensen