Robert vs. A Big White Dog

 

 

Ya'at'eeh!!

 

Well this last week was certaintly not very productive at all but that happens every now and then.  I was able to watch the training yesterday, that was really good.  I wish I was there for the family reunion but I think I have grown a bit attatched to the hot sun and sand.  The language is coming slow, its hard to stay motivated to learn it because its so difficult.  Right now im figuring out all the animals and foods but haven't really put together sentences yet.  I am taking pictures but the computers here don't have a port for cameras so I guess you will have to wait sorry.  We are butchering a sheep (dibe) today and its gonna be messy!!!! lots of Dil (blood) and dirt so good times. I will be trying so ach'ii or  intestine and possibly some na' dibe or sheep eyes we will see.  

 

Okay fun story of the week....ya in cortez every now and then there would be an angry dog or two but never really any that wanted to eat us or really chase us down.  WELL THAT CHANGED!  I see about 150 dogs a day here, no joke.  They are everywhere and some of them are nasty and diseased.  Well we were on day exchanges for a few hours. I was with Elder Phillips and we were knocking on some doors cause we had nothing better to do.  Anyways so we come up to this trailer and there is a platform with stairs leading up to it which led to the door.  As we approached the stairs Elder Phillips said that he saw a dog or two underneath the platform...well I didn't really hear it I guess.  I walk up to the door and knock...right when my knuckles hit the wood there was a big WOOF! from underneath my feet....it made me jump bad.  I knocked again and of course nobody was home to save us haha.  Well it so  happened that there were these little posts that were evenly spaced out and I decided I was gonna jump from the platform onto one, and from there to the other and so on until I got out of the close area of that big dog.  So I was standing on one of the posts and a car came drivin by and I didn't want to let people think that it was just us missionaries messin around so I decided that the dog wasn't so big and I jumped down....big mistake.  I turned and looked under the platform to see if the dog was chained up or not....it wasn't.  Elder Phillips had already vacated the premises and was on the road.  I kinda froze for a sec as the dog just started growling at me and it did like a fake charge at me...I flinched like I was going to run of course....another big mistake...okay now if you have seen "THE SANDLOT"  there is a scene where the kid runs from the dog says Oh crap!!!! and books it....well that's exactly what happened. I freaked out and started to run as this Leechaa'id Ligai Nez...(big white dog) is runnin me down.  I turned my head as I was running and saw that it was gaining on me so I thought about pullin my knife out of my pocket and get prepared to do some thrashing but I just felt like I didn't need the knife....I instead turned around and RAN BACK AT THE DOG....smart right?? Well I ran back at it and opened my arms as wide as I could and screamed a few times! it was great haha.  I stopped it in its tracks and we had a grin off Davy Crockett style for a few seconds. It would make little jukes at me like it was gonna jump me but I stood my ground! Elder Phillips is over on the road dying of laughter of course while I'm wizzin myself.  Anyways this dog had big nasty black and purple looking teeth...it reminded me of a vampire dog, it was gross.  Come to find out it wasn't even owned, it was just a random Rez dog! FUN TIMES ON THE REZ! but I walked away after the showdown and it didn't follow me.  be prepared eh? 

 

Anyways its all good here, we got a new bishopric and I feel that we will have a lot more work.  This mission is basically one big less active pool...its very rare to get a NEW investigator here.  Everybody went on the placement program and has already been baptized they just don't understand anything or don't care about church no more.  We are having 2 baptisms this Saturday the 29th though! I will be confirming one of them on Sunday! fun stuff!  Yes I do point with my lips at some things for fun, but it hasn't really been ingrained in me yet.  I do say "over der" "da" "dat"  dis dey and whatnot sometimes without noticing it.  I have bought a few cool lookin Indian shirts.  Everything is awesome, I love being a missionary!

 

Ha'goonee'!!!

 

love elder christensen

 

 

 

Robert vs. Horseshoes

Ya'at'eeh!!!

I'm doin dandy down here in Shiprock! or Tse' bit' a' i' in Navajo.  Its nice and hot and extremely dry....just the way i like it... not really, but oh well.  It did rain a tidbit the other day which was much needed but the next day it went back to normal.  So i have now been to a Navajo church twice and its pretty interesting.  They hold a gospel doctrine class in Navajo for the older members of the ward that cant speak good English.  We were asked to sing in that class it was kinda weird, ive never sung in front of people before except elementary school and church stuff with big crowds. But it was fun to sit and listen to the Navajo language. I can pick out a word here and there but it its extremely difficult.   The Navajos assume that because we are biligaana (white man) that we know how to do everything....piano, sing, lead music....everything.  So we get asked to do alot of junk that im not too fond of doing.  The prayers in a native American church are very long and seem to be much more respectful and personal.  When they say things like "thank you for this earth" or something they go into a very long description about what exactly they are thankful for about the earth and then they move onto the next subject so its its pretty cool.  

I have had angry rez dogs chase after our truck and me sometimes but i will swerve into them and they run away or I just run or yell at them and then they get scared. I LOVE IT! My companion and i are doing awesome and we are becoming very good friends. Since he is a professional horse shoer he has permission to trim peoples horses out here. We had an appointment the other day with that. I learned a lot and my love for horses has grown a lot, they are amazing animals.  The people he trimmed for invited us to go and rope some calves so we did that, that was way fun.  I'm a ropin cowboy brandin missionary now!!!  

About the Shiprock ward.....so the Navajo people get attached to certain people if they are liked very quickly and they DO NOT like change at all.  About 10 years ago the bishop was Bishop Clah and he was a great bishop apparently.  There was over 200 people coming every week.  Once he was released....less then 100 came.  The new Bishop even had a number of "opposed" votes which is sad. Now there are probably about 100 that come a week on a good week, and we are getting a new bishop next week.  So we will see what happens. They are very stubborn people sometimes and once they find a comfort zone they stick to it and never change unless something crazy happens.  We are having a meeting with President Batt today to figure out ways we can improve missionary work with the ward here because NOBODY cares....it seems about half the ward only comes because they are on welfare and they have to have a certain attendance % to get financial help. Sad. So its kinda hard but i still enjoy it.  

Anyways things are goin good i guess! I have become attached to the Navajo people though already.  There is a big flea market every Saturday and i bought some shirts, one is an air jordan symbol but it has an Indian headdress on it its sweet! The other has a picture of a big chief on it with an eagle haha. Awesome. 

Love Elder Christensen

oh also......I'm butchering a sheep next week just thought id throw that in there

Robert vs. Shiprock

Ya'at'eeh!

 

From Shiprock, NM!!!! So we email at Dine College and they have a 1 hour time limit and then the computer shuts off at 0, its dumb. So my letters will probably be significantly shorter for awhile. My new companion is Elder Cody Bunderson from Preston!!! He is awesome! He is a professional horse shoer and he dates a rodeo queen.  Lucky guy. He is about 145 lbs and 5'6 but he is a 2 time state wrestler so I haven't tested him out yet.  Anyway we are doing great and having the funnest time on my mission so far.  I am in the Navajo reservation and holy cow.....ya aint seen a white person in awhile, I've already gotten used to it.  We went tracting the other day and a man came and talked to us for 2 hours telling us a Navajo creation story.  It was really cool!!  It's very intersesting to see that the "traditional" beliefs are so similar to our beliefs.  Its been over 100 degrees twice this last week and its only gonna get worse.  There hasn't been rain here in over 2 years or something like that.  It's a dust bowl, everyday I see big dust tornadoes.  I got to eat some mutton stew and have had lots of fry bread.  My Navajo has grown a lot in just a week. basically I just know a bunch of random words still but am starting to put together some phrases.  I am having a blast out here with most of the people even though they don't want anything to do with us, they know who we are and respect us.  I have dealt with lots of drunk people and angry dogs that chase me.  I see new dead dogs every day, they are everywhere!!! and a lot of them are not afraid of us and they will run right at us.  But don't worry I carry my big knife I got and so far I just have to act like I'm pickin up a rock or run back at them and they back off. Its fun!!!! well my time has almost run out! got to go!

 

ha'gone'!

love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. The First Transfer

 

 

Branding Cattle

 

 

Ya'aat'eh!

 

Sooooo.........guess what?  I will be saying ya'aat'eh alot more now.  I am being shipped off to Shiprock, NM!  Which is not a very deep part of the reservation but hey it works!!  We also got an email from President Batt saying that missionaries on the reservation are required nnow to spend 30 minutes a day learning Navajo from the CD's and workbooks the mission is providing.  It looks like i arrrived at the exact right time!  This is going to be a blast.  I have gotten mixed remarks when i told people i was going to Shiprock.  The white people were mostly like..."so do you get a bulletproof vest?" or " I hope you get to carry a gun!"  And the one Navajo man in the bishopric of 4th ward said " be careful. But its a good place"  So I guess i will find out huh!?  From what I've heard about Shiprock is that it is kinda like the Garden City of the reservation.  Quite a few people and its pretty trashy but hey sounds fun right?  My new companion is Elder Bunderson. Haven't met him yet but I will tomorrow when I get down to Farmington, he will pick me up and we will be in Shiprock before Noon!!  Good times a comin.  

 

A cool story on my last day of work in Cortez on Saturday.  Elder Nielsen and I had a dinner appointment at 6 waaaaay out in the boonies.  I have memorized alot of these backroads and when people say for example..."so get onto 145 take a left on empire right on mildred left on Road L right on Road 25 get up to 26.4 and then take a right on T, go to 28.35 and one more left on 29.7 and you'll be there" ya....i can get there.  It's good stuff. ANYWAYS we decided to do some tracting out near our dinner since it was way out there.  We got there about an hour beore, knocked on some doors, nothin. Then our dinner calls and cancels on us...dang but they gave us $20! so sweet!  We decided to walk up this one farm road and we came up on a scene that I usually would be a bit hesitant to approach.  There were 2 men outside underneath a barn/shed thing with their shirts off workin on some big chainsaws. Ya they looked very redneck.  There was about 10 kids out runnin around in the yard and some that were just sittin in a lawn chair in the yard.  I thought, i bet dad got this all the time.  It looked like louisiana backwoods people.  I almsost said lets keep walkin...but i thought hey if Peter and James and John and Alma and all those guys could walk up right to the people that hated them and not get hurt....so can I, but I'm not saying that they hated us, it was  just an example. We went and talked to them and they were really nice but they kindly refused and said we dont want to waste your time.  We left and kept goin down another road and knocked some more. Nothin.  We came back up the same road towards our truck and I saw in the distance someone walking towards us....I noticed it was a young boy probably 12 or 13.  Then I realized that it was one of the boys from that family out in the yard...and I  noticed he was carrying 2 water bottles.  I made the connection and was like nooo way....he came up to us and gave us the water.  Then the father who rejected us came up and asked us if we had eaten yet?  We accepted his invitation and they plopped 2 chairs down in the middle of the yard. They brought out some hotdogs and said go at it.  Everyone else was eating as well, but while all the kids were runnin around the mother sat and talked to us.  Come to find out she was actually married in the Mesa temple!  Then divorced and 4 of the kids were hers and the rest were cousins and nephews and whatnot.  That was pretty cool.  After everyone got done eating...people started trickling in left and right...within a few minutes there was about 15-20 people sittin on the grass and in chairs around us in a semi-circle like we were a little campfire.  The father came over and said.." alright boys...I got some questions for ya"...YES!  It was awesome, it led into one of the funnest, coolest experiences I've had so far.  He was drillin us with questions it was awesome! so much fun and we answered them to the best of our abilities. Honestly i felt like I was being interviewed to date one of his daughters or something thats kinda what the scenario was like haha.  We were there for over an hour just talking and we have a return appopintment with them tomorrow at 6:30.  Too bad I wont be there....dang.  

 

Another sad but good thing.  I have made very good friends with some of the people here.  Gay and Judy Balfour for one.  They have treated me like I was one of their grandkids. 

 

The other good friends I have made are my ward mission leaders.  Bro. Pack in 4th ward and Bro. Smith in 3rd ward. I have spent alot of time in both homes but the Smith family is awesome!  They have a sone named Conover who just left this morning to South Carolina for basic training in the Army. He turns 18 when he gets there next week.  I have become very good friends with him and he gave me 2 blue ties for me to take pictures of wherever I am and send them to him. I gave him one of my favorite ties as well so hopefully we will stay in touch. 

Thats all I've got! Goodbye Cortez!!! 

 

love, Elder Christensen