Hey,

So I am out in a Branch again, and we only had twenty-seven people at church on Sunday. Which seems like it is less than usual for out here but I've only been out here for a few Sundays so far.

When I got out here I expected to be in small towns most of the time. When I thought small I thought like Stanwood back home (Stanwood is a 4A school for those wondering how big!).  When I got to Ramah I saw what a small town actually is, everyone was related and there were only about 5 streets! Compared to that Toadlena isn't even a town. It really is just a tiny community with a trading post, a couple churches and a gas station that is 12-ish miles from most of the people. Just a tiny little place, but from our trailer and the church, which is at the base of the mountain, we have the best view over the whole place. Some nights we can see the lights of Farmington from where here.

This week was very different from normal. P-day was way good. We climbed part of  Bennets Peak (way steeper than we thought it would be) and then climbed up the mountain behind us. It was also way steep but I just went up the side of it and the view from the top was amazing! Then on Tuesday we got to have a zone conference with Elder Paul V. Johnson of the Seventy. He spoke on some really great things. Some of the most interesting was that they had been considering changing missionary age for about a year but didn't decide until now. Along with that age change comes another change. All missionaries, starting January 1, will spend only 2/3 of the time they do now in the MTC, so for English speakers its down from 3 weeks to 2 weeks. More responsibility will be placed on the trainers of those missionaries than ever before. Its going to be very different out in the mission field in the next few years. And I have already started to see the change in peoples' decisions. A friend from school wrote to tell me she was putting in her papers in the next couple of months. I never thought that she would serve but now she is and she will do a wonderful job out in the field. Then after our zone conference I had exchanges with Elder Vawdry from back home (Arlington 3rd) which was pretty fun and really different from my last exchanges. When I got back to Toadlena I got pretty sick, I think I threw up 5 times on Friday and wasn't really able to work or go out till Monday. We think it might have been some lead poisoning cause I found some shot in the venison I ate the night before, but whatever it was it was not fun. And so i didn't even get to teach in Toadlena this week because of that.

Those days you are sick feel like such a waste of time. Other than that it was a really good week and I can't wait to get back to work.

The gospel and the priesthood truly will and do bless our lives so much.

Love
Elder Alex Huff

Baptismal Font

Hauling wood with our truck.

Old Zuni Mission

Hahhahaaha

Look close and you will see the "roads" on the reservation!

Kachinas painted on the walls.

Sunset over Ward building in Ramah, NM

A Good Place to Be

Ya'ate'eh

This week has been awesome! We spend so much time out doing service, usually up in the mountains hauling wood for the people and trying to get people back to church. Its hard work but it is satisfying to see the change come into peoples lives as we work and help them realize what the gospel can do for them and why it is so important.

My companion and I are starting a diet this week :( no sugar and lots of veggies and chicken. We are also doing the Insanity Asylum workouts in the morning, which is nice since I left the weight room we had in Ramah.

We were hauling wood Friday and Saturday and got way up on the mountain behind us and got some amazing views of the flat lands and of the mountains. Today for p day we are gonna climb a lone peak out in the desert in our area and then take the rest of our district on a hike up the mountain. It should be a really nice day.

We finally met with one of our investigators, who is very different than most people out here. He is a white guy who is rather involved with his faith, both of those things are the rarities out here in the rez.

I have really been noticing the land this last week. I can and have literally seen places that make the scriptures about rough places becoming smooth and smooth rough and cities being swallowed and destroyed, come to life. You look at them and you just know that it couldn't have been like that before but that it is like that now. I love seeing the scriptures like that.

I am way excited for tomorrow we have a general authority(one of the ones I got to listen to at the Stake Conference we had last month) coming down and speaking to us, Paul V. Johnson. It should be really good.

I finally had my first sacrament meeting out here in Toadlena and it was different. The schedule was backward and Sunday School and one of the talks were in Navajo.  I couldn't understand those. I am trying to learn it but it is way hard with all the little differences that it has and how none of it makes sense.I have to say it is the language that makes no sense to outsiders and very little sense to the natives. But it is fun to learn and to figure out and to make a little progress with. Teaching would be so much easier with some of the people if we spoke it already but I see why they don't teach it, since not many people speak it fluently any more.

Daily study is so awesome! I have been learning so much from the scriptures and seeing so much more of the connections that is in them already. I wish I had been doing it at home already.

Something funny that happened this week was that we noticed a rock we always drive by is shaped like a thumbs up, and its funny cause that stretch of road has a crapton of hitch hikers!

Everything is getting cold here and all the leaves on the mountain are yellow or orange by now and tons of them are on the ground already. I am grateful the Lord chose to send me here, its a good place to be.

Love

Elder Alex Huff

New Area

Hey
The new place is really different. The Navajos are completely different than Zunis. Finding is really hard out here once you tract out the government housing, after that you have to go "hogan hunting" which is pretty much taking a dirt road and seeing if people live on it.

It is way hard to find out here. But I like it, it is great! I just have to be real careful with eating fry-breads otherwise i will gain a ton of weight. We usually eat them with powdered sugar or honey, which tastes awesome but when they are the size of a dinner plate you can really be putting on some weight if you aren't careful. I will make some for everyone when I get home.

The people are great, and crazy. It seems like most of them love the missionaries but will never follow through with much. We will go over and talk with them and they will tell us they know the church is true but then they will never show up, which is kinda odd. And if they offer you something you pretty much have to say yes or you will offend them, which is different as well.

The area isn't to much red sand just brown sand. We went up in the hills on Friday to go chop some 'woods', as they say out here. We took 3 axes with us and we broke one, lost the head off another and threw a huge splinter off the third(we didn't have anyone with us, so no chainsaw). I felt pretty bad that we broke 'em but Elder Eging doesn't care. Elder Eging is great, i have been getting along with him really well, although it was a little odd with the change. He cooks really well so we eat pretty well and people just give us food too.

We watched conference with a less active and in Shiprock, and in our district the news about missionaries caused quite a stir. Oh and you will never guess who I have in my district. Nick Vawdry from back home, he was friends with Ash and from one of the Arlington wards. That was quite the surprise to have happen.

The transfer stuff wasn't bad at all, I just went into Gallup early and spent 4 or 5 hours with my zone leader and another elder who was being transferred. We taught a lesson and tried to find some refferals. Then the transfer van came back from Holebrook and picked us up and off we went. We probably got to Farmington around 8 and to Toadlena around 9:30-10 pm.

We had some surf and turf yesterday with the less active which was pretty cool, big ole steaks and some crab legs. We also helped rescue a golden eagle. The eagle had a broken wing and we called the ranger and helped get it into a box and stuff, that was fun and I got some great photos. The views out here are amazing, my camera cant even do them a little bit of justice.

This p day we are going into Farmington and gonna check out some trading posts and jewelry shops that give us killer discounts.I'm looking for a keyboard to start spending a good amount of time practicing when we go home for the night. I have been working on learning Navajo from elders and from the people we visit but it is slow going so far but its only been a week. I would really love a Navajo to English dictionary for Christmas.

I can't think of much else that is going on except we will be climbing Shiprock and Bennets peak on p day next week which will be way cool.

Love
Elder Alex Huff

My First Transfer

Hey Family,

So, I have kinda stopped trying to learn Zuni since I learned that I am getting transferred this week. I have to be in Gallup at 12 Tuesday and will work with one of my zone leaders and another elder as I wait for the transfer van to go out to Flagstaff and Winslow.  Then it will come back for me, and take me up to Farmington. Once I get there I meet up with my new companion, Elder Eging, and will ride back down towards Gallup again to get to my new area. I will be serving in Toadlena, which is deep in the Navajo Res, I will have a real hard time understanding the people. But I will get to go into Farmington for most of my pdays which will be nice, and it will be nice to talk with President a little more often.

 

President is sending me out there to help the elder and the area, I guess. The elder is a little homesick (he only has 6 months left so it is kind of understandable). I guess the area is right on the edge of being super productive, so it will be a really big change and it will nice to have it be different. The area will be super different, out here they have trees and sage and a little bit of grass but out there I guess it is just red sand. If you can think of some of the more desolate places in the John Carter movie then you are probably pretty close to imagining what it is like. They will live in hogans which are their houses, which are circular and one room and dirt floor usually. I have heard there are no cattle fences so livestock: sheeps and elks and cows and deers(as the navajo say), will be all over the road and everywhere else. 

 

This week has been amazing. The baptism went through and both President and Sister Batt were there and they both spoke. On Sunday we got to confirm and ordain him to the priesthood which is amazing. Then he got up and bore his testimony of his own choice which was so cool.  President Gibbons asked me to sing the closing hymn in Sacrament meeting. Everyone knew I was leaving so it was kinda special. Then right after that our Sunday school teacher asked me to sing a song for Sunday school to help her emphasize the lesson which was rather fun. I love being able to share my talent so much with these wonderful people.

 

On Pday Elder Bankhead and I went out to some natural bridges above Ramah. As we were hiking up I split my pants in a big way. I had been patching them with ducktape till I could get another pair but President Gibbons gave me a pair of his which was pretty nice. So I am good for pday and service pants right now. On Saturday we were doing service for some folks fixing a fence on one of their fields and we heard some elk bugling. We went to take a look and I saw a couple but Elder Bankhead said he saw 6 or 7 bulls and a bunch more cows, that was pretty cool.

 

President Batt said something about me training in the future so I have that to look forward to in some of the next transfers. I think that would be really fun but also really hard to teach someone and our investigators at the same time and also to be in charge of an area. Being in charge of an area is kind of a scary thing to look at. I dont know how I'd be able to do it but I know that the Lord will never ask me to do something that he won't support me in.

 

It is so amazing to read through the Book of Mormon slowly and to be praying to learn what I need to know each day because when we do that we get things that we never would have seen or even noticed before, and it just reaffirms my knowledge that this church is true and that Christ is at the helm and that he is teaching us what we need to know as we need it and as we will accept what He is teaching. Christ is my savior and my redeemer.

Love 

Elder Alex Huff

Gamilli

Singing in Sacrament Meeting

Hey,

This week has been good. I sang A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief in Sacrament Meeting this week. It was great, President Gibbons transposed it and truly accompanied it. I feel we did a real nice job. I think it really helped the people of the branch. I will speak on recognizing the Spirit on the fourth Sunday of the month. 

I feel rather adjusted, although please don't ever ask me to be able to understand a Navajo giving directions!  It's a lot of lip pointing and odd distances and semi coherent words. I try hard but they never make much sense with their directions. We talked with four people trying to find this less active and they all gave us different directions, and in the end we never found her, just got what we needed from someone who knew her. 

We were helping out an investigator this week with cutting down a tree. The tree pretty much looked like one of the trees in Hatari (John Wayne safari movie). The Zunis who were with us were kinda going crazy with planning it all out, they went to a lot more effort than I would have but I guess that's just the culture. The trunk of my neck got a little burned that day and it has made wearing white shirts real fun the last couple days.

We have been working real hard to try and get people to accept the gospel but we hardly find anyone. When we do they always have a problem committing, usually to the law of chastity. No one gets married out here, its really sad to see. Our guy with a date for baptism didn't show up this week. We don't have to push his date back yet but he really needs to be there, you can really tell a difference when they come and when they don't. 

This is the last week of the transfer so it's kinda strange feeling, I kinda feel like Elder Bankhead will be going somewhere else and I will have a step trainer but I don't know. 

We are having a sweet potluck this Sunday in Zuni for Branch Conference. There is gonna be brisket and turkey and ribs, so good. They have some of the best fruit down here, melons are way good and the grapes as well. Green chile is really not that bad, you just want to eat it with something cause it can have a boring taste before the heat. For some reason we eat quite a bit of orange chicken in members houses, I don't know why but they seem to really like it. 

Well, that's all!

Love, 

Elder Alex Huff

Keshay!

keshay(hello in Zuni)

The weather you have isn't hotter than down here, it gets up to 90 everyday usually before the storms roll in. We have had some pretty big storms the last couple days! Our truck was all nice and clean then the storm hit and we slipped and slidded all over the road and got mud all over the truck. Elder Bankhead cleaned it all up this morning. He never really lets me do any of the cleaning. 

We got a date this week for one of our investigators. He decided he wanted to get baptized on his birthday, which is guess what? the 28 of September. Talk about a crazy coincidence! ( That is Taylor, Alex's brother's birthday.)  We talked with him on a night when Presdident Batt went around visiting with us, which really helped. He has come so far and will still go really far in the next 2 months. When we act in faith THEN miracles happen, just like with prayer. When we ask for something we have to have enough faith to act as if it will happen and it will. 

Our pday today is going to be laundry in Gallup since we are already up here, then lunch and some sports with the zone at the stake center here i believe. After that we will head back and have home evening with a family in Ramah. 

We went to church in Ramah this week and I have to say I kinda like going to Zuni better. Although I have to talk in Zuni on High Council and Branch Conference Sunday I believe. Then I sing the Sunday after. 

Elder Bankhead and I went through a wolf sanctuary this week and saw some pretty cool wolves. 

They actually ask us to plan service on days other than pday for some reason, but we should be taking down a tree for one of our investigators soon. We never really have enough miles but we try not to do stuff that we don't need to. They never really call us on it. 

We have 5 new investigators this week. A family in Zuni and another single guy in Zuni, as well as a young man in Ramah.  We haven't met the father of the family yet but everyone else seems really interested but we will see. I also went on exchanges this week out to Fort Wingate. It was a hard day for us because it was the first of the month on the Navajo Res. Everyone was in Gallup shopping or drinking. 

The MTC wieght has changed more from fat to muscle with our workouts every morning. President Gibbons really pushes us. Well I can't really think of anything else, so I guess that's it for today.

love

Elder Alex Huff

Oh and if you want to send me some talks from general authorities and such, you can. I have really been enjoying reading them and learning from them. You could invite others to do the same.

July 30, 2012

This week was quite similar to last week. I sent home a couple things. The letter in the package is kind of my ramblings so read at your own risk ha ha! 

I haven't been driving the truck yet but I got the nod of approval from President Batt this week at zone conference. That was pretty cool, President Gibbons came up to meet President Batt and President Batt had him speak to us. Hahaha, I think that I surprised President Gibbons. I did gain some wieght at the MTC but I think I have most of that off and exchanged it for some muscle. The morning lifting with Elder Bankhead and Pres have really done the trick, as well as the change of how and what I eat.

The people we teaching is a weird story. We have been teaching the same people for a looooonnnnng time I guess.  We haven't really found anyone new to teach, which is really hard, but from what I have heard about Zuni there has been tons of people taught but they always stop when it comes to one thing whether its drinking or getting married. Something always stops them from making the step to baptism. 

Again zone conference was great. I got to have a nice talk with President Batt. He explained a question I had quite nicely. He explained that when someone has always done the right thing and is still doing it the Spirit is always with them and they really feel it when it goes away but others feel it in bursts and lose it quickly as well. That just really helped me because I always thought something was wrong but it wasn't. That seemed to be the case with a lot of people I've talked with out here in the field. President Bednar said in a talk that when you have the Spirit always then it doesn't have to shout at you to do something, you do it because you think its right. We see another example of that in 3 Nephi chapter 10, I believe, when Nephi is walking home and pondering. 

President Batt said we can go to the temple with investigators or reactivated members if they are going to the Snowflake Temple. That's pretty much it. Send another one next week.

Love

Elder Alex Huff