CHRISTMAS 2012

Our Branch Christmas Party was a big success. Nathaniel  doesn't look very happy. The girls were called up first and he was upset.

A family from Mesa come every year with gifts for all the children and oranges for the ladies. Their ward donated the oranges and gifts.  For some of the children this is their Christmas. Notice Elder Earl in the lower right . The branch had a clothing exchange along with the dinner and he found the perfect PD shirt.

Here are some of our favorite people(top left) just finished eating and waiting for the gift exchange. The primary sang several songs and the Elders did a skit about the true meaning of Christmas.
As the people kept coming in and we served food to them it felt so wonderful to see all those we work with at the church at the same time. Last year we were new and didn't know anyone very well, now we love them all. We fed 140 people in our little building which left no room to spare but everyone had a good time.

This was a great Christmas present that came. Our daughter Shawna, Terry and the kids Spencer, Jayson and Megan arrived Christmas eve all the way from Alberta. We had a great time and were able to take them on a hike to the Whitehouse ruin in Canyon de Chelly.  They left Friday morning on their way to the Grand Canyon. Our trailer feels rather empty and lonely now so we better get back into our missionary duties.

Our children and grandchildren made Christmas angels of themselves and sent them to us. Our little tree  is full. They were all very creative and we had a good time unwrapping each one. Thanks to everyone for your cards and gifts. It made us feel a little closer to home.
We appreciate all our friends and family and wish you all a Happy New Year.
We love you all,
Elder and Sister Lybbert

Jingle all the Way

Merry Christmas everyone. As you may have noticed we did not post our Blog last week. Our internet totally died last Saturday so we have been out of touch with the world this past week so the events we have posted happened not this week but last.
I am now doing my best to post this with our good neighbors computer


This week we have had several activities, a Temple trip, Zone Conference, School concert and our Branch Christmas party. Its been a fun week.

At our Zone Conference this week our district was ask to perform so Sister Balling and Zalenski decided to play their  ukuleles and have us sing Mele Kalikimaka and Jingle bells. This is probably the only time you will ever see a picture of Elder and Sister Lybbert in a musical performance so I thought it should be recorded. We thought we could get by mouthing the words but the rest of the group were not a whole lot better than us so it was entertaining if nothing else.
It was a great zone conference and it was great visiting with the other senior couples and having President and Sister Batt talk to us.

One of the Sister Missionaries brought her Jingle Dress that she had made.  They are made of cotton fabric and then metal cones are sewn on. The cones are made from the tops of snuff cans and bent around a wood dowel. At Pow wows the Jingle dance is performed by light footwork close to the ground, the feet never crossing and never turning backward or in a complete circle. As they dance a pleasant tingling sound is made.

The Elementary School concert was a fun to watch. What they lacked in talent they made up in enthusiasm. This little girl always gives us a hug every time we see her and she especially likes Elder Lybbert. We met her several times when we visited at Antonias and she hasn't forgotten us.

The mission had a Temple Excursion to Snowflake for the young missionaries and us Seniors could go if we took the Elders in our area. They had a special session for us on Monday and it was a great experience to be in the Temple with all those cream of the crop young people. One of our missionaries, Elder Earl is next to me and Elder Amott is on the back row second in from the right. Great missionaries.

Last week was an exciting week, taking goodies to friends and giving the Christmas message. There are so many needy people here we have no problem giving at Christmas time. Today a Sister phoned to ask if there were any gloves in some second hand clothing we had at the Church because she would like to give her husband a gift and he needed gloves. I told her we would find some gloves for her. She then asked if we had any of that pretty paper and if I could wrap them for her and put her husbands name on it.  We went to Bashes and bought some gloves and wrapped them for her.

Hopefully next week we will get our internet back and I will tell you about our fun Christmas party.
Thanks to all our friends and family who like us enough to read our Blog. We love and miss you all. We do love the work here and will miss our friends here when we leave.  You really do learn to love the people you serve.
Love to all,
Elder and Sister Lybbert

Home Improvements

This is our latest addition to our trailer. We went to Flagstaff this week since we had several things that needed doing. On the way we stopped at Winslow to get my tooth fixed which was successful. The dentist was LDS and charged half of what it would have been since we were missionaries.  Notice the  TV screen. Last month we invested in a new TV so we could play our DVD's and then the remote didn't work so we took it back and were more successful this time. This is our Christmas present for this year.
Notice our tree is up. It was in the closet here and we bought a few decorations for it so it makes our little home here feel a little like Christmas.

The mission brought us some new furniture a few months ago so this is a lazy boy lying in his Lazy Boy.  Elder Lybbert has enjoyed having a place to go when bed gets too uncomfortable. The plant is a Pony Tail Palm that Elder Orme brought us several months back because it was looking pretty sad.  Its doing great now and its nice to see a little green.

Remember in the spring our screen door blew away. Well, it has finally been replaced with this steel security door. It does have a heavy screen, a good lock and it would be much more difficult for someone to break in.  It would only take a good kick to break the regular door so we feel much more secure now when we have to be gone and even when we are home.  Things here have a habit of walking away if they are not secured very well.
A lady in our branch has a daughter and grandchildren in Winslow and she has no transportation so we offered to take her to Winslow and pick her up on the way back. She entertained us with Coyote stories. When she was growing up her parents would tell the children stories about the coyote and each story taught the children something. She told us about the coyote and the horny toad. The coyote is  the bad guy that is greedy and lazy and doesn't plant any corn. The horny toad plants corn and works hard but still shared with the coyote when harvest came but the coyote ate him anyway so in the end the horny toad cut his heart out with his spines and the coyote dies. Thats a very shortened version. We have had several of the older people say that their parents were always teaching them and the younger people don't teach their children.
We have had a busy week this week with all our travelling and keeping up with things here but all has gone well. I am just finishing a batch of cookies for our cookie monsters tomorrow and then we go to take Eloise to catch her ride to work.
Love to all,
Elder and Sister Lybbert

Roasting Pinon Nuts

Because of the sunny beautiful days Pinon picking is still going strong. 

Eloise gave us some Pinyon nuts for taking her to work so I asked Sarah to show me how they roast them. She put them in a sieve and washed them, then laid them out on a Bluebird flour bag and dried them.

and She then put them in a frying pan and heated them stirring the nuts continually. Soon they started to pop and smell differently.

She then poured a little water over them and sprinkled salt on the nuts. After they cooled we sat at the table and were eating some when my front tooth started feeling funny.  When we arrived home I looked in the mirror and sure enough I had lost a filling that had been put in my front tooth years ago where  my tooth had been discolored.  We were planning a trip to Gallop so phoned for an appointment with an LDS dentist there.

Before leaving for Gallop Wednesday morning we had to take Eloise home so rather than travelling back on Water Tanks washboard road which is terrible we decided to continue on cross country till we hit pavement again. We hear of people going that way often. We weren't sure we were on the right road since it looked more like a cow trail at times but we phoned a neighbor and he assured us we were going the right way.  After about 40 kilometers we saw these houses and new we were coming to civilization.

When we saw this pavement we new we had arrived. The paved roads here may be narrow but they sure look great after the washboard of the dirt roads. There is next to nil upkeep and grading done on the roads so the washboard is getting very bad. Even the trail we took was washboard.

We arrived in Gallop and decided to go to Sizzlers (missionaries get half off there) even though it was only 3 oclock. When we walked in a lady across the room started waving. She was from Pinon and had come to Gallop because her 92+ mother whom she lives with had fallen and broken her hip. She said she had been wanting to phone us so Elder Lybbert could give her Mom, Ruth, a blessing but hadn't brought our phone number. Small miracles. Ruth was in surgery but since we were planning to stay over we said we would meet her at the hospital next morning.  Next morning they had Ruth sitting up in a chair. She  was happy to see us and have a blessing. The native people have great faith in prayer. She does not understand English so her daughter interpreted for her. She is a tough little lady.
After the hospital we went to the dental office, filled out the forms, sat in the chair. the dentist came, a nice young man and said he could have my tooth fixed shortly IF the equipment was working which it wasn't.  I would have to come back tomorrow and maybe it would up and running. Not possible so my tooth still needs to be fixed.
It has been a good week. Today Roxanne and Larry moved from the Hogan to her mothers house up on the hill among the juniper trees. The house has not been lived in for 10 years and has been vandalized so no wiring and few windows.  There is more room but no power or water. We helped out by cleaning cupboards and washing dishes.  Roxanne is blind but its amazing how she knows just where things are and whats what.

Love to all,
Elder and Sister Lybbert