It's a New Year in Zuni

January 2, 2016

Happy New Years to All,

            It has been a quiet week in Zuni this week.  Many of the people are still celebrating the fast, not cutting wood, and not taking garbage out.  You should see our outside garbage can – can’t fit one more piece of garbage because the pick up men; haven’t been here for going on three weeks.  No problem because on Monday their celebration will be over and all will be back to normal. 

            Zuni has been cold but not as cold as Utah.  I think our low has been around 10 degrees.  Some snow but it melts quickly.  It doesn’t accumulate on the ground.   Christmas gifts from our family have been perfect.  Scarves, warm shirts, gloves, wonderful boots, a warm car blanket to use between each site, all kept us almost warm.     Can’t wait to wear the beautiful warm sweater I have but have been teaching Primary last few weeks and don’t dress  up too much.  I now have foot warmers.  Wow warm feet feel great.    Everyone has been so nice as they send us warm things and we wear them  

            We have been blessed with visits with wonderful members and less active members.  The sweet Young Women made a box for Megan Salt, the Sister Missionary serving in Texas.  They brought items they had and made a great box.  They talked about how fortunate they are.  I told them about some of Ryan’s experiences in Ghana and they said wow they must really be poor.  They are great girls for sure.  Taylor sent them some DVD’s as part of her Honor Bee work for Young Women’s.  Thanks because they are thrilled to have these.   The Young Men are doing so well.  There are only three of them but last week Elder Dattage had them come to our trailer with Brother Park  and learn about the restoration.  They ate most of the left over Christmas candy and I was glad.   

            Such amazing people as they invite us to eat with them and share their food with us.  They are great cooks and love tamales, corn tortillas, homemade tortillas shells, Indian fry bread,  corn on the cob cut into three  pieces, kool aid and always  some sort of red or green peppers. 

            We have been blessed to be working with three families in which one or two people are members but not all.  They say they want to be active.  Some of them are nervous.  We have a boy who is a Teacher in the Priesthood but too afraid to come and help with the Sacrament.  We hope our Branch President can help him overcome this and he can move on.   Many family are coming but a lot of part family.  We pray for all of them.  They are indeed very humble.  They have a hard time overcoming all of the religious traditions they have been involved in.  This is an area steep in tradition.  When they have faith they can start to make the changes they need to become faithful members. 

            Our only wood experiences this week have been taking wood from the Branch Stockpile to members, less active and non members.    Starting on Monday it will be back to cutting down trees and building up the stockpile.  We did try a little bit of cutting up with the new Sawsall that is Eldens pride and joy .  Thanks kids .

            Today was fun.  A Missionary couple serving in Granado stopped by and we showed them around Zuni.  Doesn’t take very long but great visit and enjoyed them.  They are going home this month and hadn’t seen Zuni.  Most people haven’t seen Zuni but they should. 

            On New Years Day we enjoyed traveling through Canyon de Cheley National Monument Park near Chinle.  It is about three hours from here.  We were able to see a lot of  cliff dwellings.  We rode around it seeing if it would be a fun place to take visiting grandkids.  There is some hiking involved but it was so cold we just went to the overlooks and went down a bit.  Should be a fun place.  Pretty amazing the way they have saved these sites for us to learn from.    

            We love our Mission and the people.  Even more we love our family back home.  We hope you are all doing your best and doing well.   So much fun as we have laughed over pictures that came.  Love that Andrew is ice fishing and enjoying seeing pictures of Indians ice fishing here.   Good parties with good friends,  They are great teen agers, middle schoolers , grade schoolers and our preschoolers.  Love everyone of you.  We are proud of you and hope you can go back to school feeling good about the person you are.  You should you are amazing examples to us and to others.   A New Year and a new time to dwell on all that is good.  I made a goal that at the end of each day I will look at my day and remind myself of all the wonderful things that have happened on that day.  Let’s as friends and as a family try to be very grateful for all of our blessings.  We have so many. 

Happy New Year to all of you friends and family.

Elder and Sister Dattage sent a selfie from Gallup where they celebrated New Year's Eve and Day!!

 Drive and view in Canyon de Vheley National Monument Park!

 One picture from lastg week of Taylor and Jordan arriving!!!

Elder and Sister Dattage wanted to share a few more pictures from the Branch Christmas Party!  They had nearly 120 branch members attend!!  

 This nativity was so tender!!

 At all of the branch parties the Young Women serve everyone!  Here is a picture of Sister Dattage, Taylor and Jordan helping serve.

 Taylor dressing kids for the nativity

 This cute family just got their brand new baby home after he was in the hospital for nearly 6 weeks!!  S beautiful!!!

Elder Dattage is seriously a celebrity down in Zuni!  The branch members LOVE him!!  This picture is SO true to his character!!

Last, but not least…  The Watrins make sure to send Elder Dattage video of everyone of Hunter's wrestling matches.  Elder Dattages puts on his MC wrestling shirt and cheers Hunter on! I can just hear him yelling "turn him"  "turn him"  And Sister Dattage is probably in the back yelling "Short time!!"    LOVE!