We have just returned from a few days in Northern Arizona sharing gifts we have been working on since last Christmas. We originally planned for 500 children this year, but a few weeks back, those numbers were revised to 340 kids ranging in age from 3-14. That is quite a span, and it was difficult to plan something that we felt would be appropriate for each age.
The weekend began last Friday as company began arriving to participate in the project. My parents came, as did Brad's. We had hamburgers on Friday night and then went to L's last choir concert for her women's choir. I stayed behind to put the little ones to bed. Surprise. I heard she did beautifully!
Saturday morning I really needed to get a Christmas package off to my missionary! I gathered for the morning, and stuffed a box full of fun surprises. We sent him three white shirts I had purchased earlier, and I had everyone that was here (Grandparents included) write with permanent marker on the tail of the shirt. When he wears those shirts he will have love notes tucked in on the bottom! :) I think the turned out cute! We sent a new pair of shoes, a couple new ties. Some marble games from last year for him to share, and a couple super simple nativity scenes that I had purchased for him to share. We also decided to send him some of the Book of Mormon figurines. S had come with me to shop, we stopped at Deseret Book thinking we were trying to pick up the new MoTab CD and a story book. We came out with about 6 of those figurines in addition to the other things. I think he will have fun with a little figurine of Ammon, Joseph Smith, Nephi, Captain Moroni of course, some missionaries, and a Liahona to share after sharing testimony of those heros! I hope he will give them away and not try to pack them in his suit case to move too many times. S loves those figures.
Then Saturday at 2:00 we met at the building to pack the trailers. We had lots of help - thank you all! It went very smoothly. L had created spreadsheets of how many of what each school needed packed together, and my Mom delegated out the jobs of overseeing for each item, and then each school. We assigned some (B, D.C. & B) to load the items as schools together in the trailer in reverse order of when we would need them so we would access to the right items. It worked like clock work! By 4:30 we were done! B and D then realized that the trailer we had borrowed had a couple really bad tires, so B and my Dad hurried off to the tire shop to get them replaced.
Sunday we went to church and then wanted to be on the road within an hour of getting out. We didn't leave quite that quickly, but we were on the road by 4:30 and traveled without any mechanical incidents to the Hopi Cultural Center in Arizona with K&J and family and their friends J&M and their kids who had all arrived just before 2 on Saturday. They had stayed at my house, and I will just note that we didn't have any hot water left on Sunday morning as we all tried to prepare for church! Lots of people my home. It was pleasant to have them here! Thanks for coming to help us!
Monday morning we were up and out by 7:45 with everyone, headed to our first school. We started with 17 headstart kids, ages 3-5 and they were cute! After much deliberation, we decided to have B share the Christmas Orange story, and we shared this video of the nativity.
We focused on the giving of Christmas, and how we were there to give to them, and how grateful we were for the giving of God to share his Son with us! B did great, and the programs were each different, but good. We tried to sing about three songs with each group... Jingle Bells, Rudolf, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
We divided that first school up into headstart, then K & 1st, 2nd & 3rd, then 4th, 5th, and 6th, and then finally 7th and 8th. My Dad played Santa beautifully for all but the last two groups. We shared out gifts and told them that someone cared about them. It felt good to share!
We were thrilled to have the LDS missionaries serving in the area join us for the morning. The mission president was hesitant to have them come, expressing concern that they constantly battle an attitude of entitlement and handouts and that he was doing all in his power to reverse those attitudes. They are so embedded. We certainly have the same concerns, and in fact we won't be doing this project again because of those attitudes. We want to give and share... but where?
After finishing at the school, which I will post pictures of soon, we went to a village in Second Mesa. It is a neat place that I have fond memories of from two years ago. It was snowing when we were there, and I prayed for the others to all have a good experience sharing with elderly in the community. I stayed in the car with my two littlest ones, while everyone else took blankets, beautiful apples, handmade hats, etc. we had brought and other gifts to share. I hope they will remember that with fondness and humility.
That evening, due to snow, we returned earlier than normal to the cultural center where we were staying and having dinner in their restaurant that night. We had a fun night together, and gathered after dinner to play the "tie" or as we played that night, the Hat game! We had a fun time as a group for those who chose to come participate.
The next morning we were to be up and out early again, and so we did. B&I were up and out earlier to meet the Wilkensen's and to share some of the gifts we had collected with the Hopi School they were doing that day. It was snowing that morning, and despite curling my hair before 7, it was wet and straight by 7:45 time to leave! Literally as we were pulling out, we had sent C&D ahead, they volunteered to pick up the Elders that morning, and we were on our way when we learned that the school had closed that day due to bad weather! Time to regroup and make a new plan! We tried to make a plan, but of course it changed 10 times before finally it was decided that K&J and J&M were worried about the weather, and they headed home. We called C&D to come back and not pick up the Elders, and then Harr's decided they too were leaving. That left my family and my parents. We decided to go help Wilkensen's with the Hopi school we had done in years past. They were there with only three of them, and we wanted to interact with the kids, that's why we were there! We also decided that we didn't want to simply drop off our gifts for them to rummage through, we wanted to give them, and we would find someplace else to share them. We will find the right place, it must not have been that school. We helped them, and in a few short hours, we too were on the road. The horrible storm everyone had predicted, didn't happen during daytime hours, we drove home on nearly dry roads the entire way. The worst roads were right as all those others were leaving. It was too bad they left. We hope they will have fond memories of this project, and that they were able to interact with kids!
The weekend began last Friday as company began arriving to participate in the project. My parents came, as did Brad's. We had hamburgers on Friday night and then went to L's last choir concert for her women's choir. I stayed behind to put the little ones to bed. Surprise. I heard she did beautifully!
Saturday morning I really needed to get a Christmas package off to my missionary! I gathered for the morning, and stuffed a box full of fun surprises. We sent him three white shirts I had purchased earlier, and I had everyone that was here (Grandparents included) write with permanent marker on the tail of the shirt. When he wears those shirts he will have love notes tucked in on the bottom! :) I think the turned out cute! We sent a new pair of shoes, a couple new ties. Some marble games from last year for him to share, and a couple super simple nativity scenes that I had purchased for him to share. We also decided to send him some of the Book of Mormon figurines. S had come with me to shop, we stopped at Deseret Book thinking we were trying to pick up the new MoTab CD and a story book. We came out with about 6 of those figurines in addition to the other things. I think he will have fun with a little figurine of Ammon, Joseph Smith, Nephi, Captain Moroni of course, some missionaries, and a Liahona to share after sharing testimony of those heros! I hope he will give them away and not try to pack them in his suit case to move too many times. S loves those figures.
Then Saturday at 2:00 we met at the building to pack the trailers. We had lots of help - thank you all! It went very smoothly. L had created spreadsheets of how many of what each school needed packed together, and my Mom delegated out the jobs of overseeing for each item, and then each school. We assigned some (B, D.C. & B) to load the items as schools together in the trailer in reverse order of when we would need them so we would access to the right items. It worked like clock work! By 4:30 we were done! B and D then realized that the trailer we had borrowed had a couple really bad tires, so B and my Dad hurried off to the tire shop to get them replaced.
Sunday we went to church and then wanted to be on the road within an hour of getting out. We didn't leave quite that quickly, but we were on the road by 4:30 and traveled without any mechanical incidents to the Hopi Cultural Center in Arizona with K&J and family and their friends J&M and their kids who had all arrived just before 2 on Saturday. They had stayed at my house, and I will just note that we didn't have any hot water left on Sunday morning as we all tried to prepare for church! Lots of people my home. It was pleasant to have them here! Thanks for coming to help us!
Monday morning we were up and out by 7:45 with everyone, headed to our first school. We started with 17 headstart kids, ages 3-5 and they were cute! After much deliberation, we decided to have B share the Christmas Orange story, and we shared this video of the nativity.
We focused on the giving of Christmas, and how we were there to give to them, and how grateful we were for the giving of God to share his Son with us! B did great, and the programs were each different, but good. We tried to sing about three songs with each group... Jingle Bells, Rudolf, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
We divided that first school up into headstart, then K & 1st, 2nd & 3rd, then 4th, 5th, and 6th, and then finally 7th and 8th. My Dad played Santa beautifully for all but the last two groups. We shared out gifts and told them that someone cared about them. It felt good to share!
We were thrilled to have the LDS missionaries serving in the area join us for the morning. The mission president was hesitant to have them come, expressing concern that they constantly battle an attitude of entitlement and handouts and that he was doing all in his power to reverse those attitudes. They are so embedded. We certainly have the same concerns, and in fact we won't be doing this project again because of those attitudes. We want to give and share... but where?
After finishing at the school, which I will post pictures of soon, we went to a village in Second Mesa. It is a neat place that I have fond memories of from two years ago. It was snowing when we were there, and I prayed for the others to all have a good experience sharing with elderly in the community. I stayed in the car with my two littlest ones, while everyone else took blankets, beautiful apples, handmade hats, etc. we had brought and other gifts to share. I hope they will remember that with fondness and humility.
That evening, due to snow, we returned earlier than normal to the cultural center where we were staying and having dinner in their restaurant that night. We had a fun night together, and gathered after dinner to play the "tie" or as we played that night, the Hat game! We had a fun time as a group for those who chose to come participate.
The next morning we were to be up and out early again, and so we did. B&I were up and out earlier to meet the Wilkensen's and to share some of the gifts we had collected with the Hopi School they were doing that day. It was snowing that morning, and despite curling my hair before 7, it was wet and straight by 7:45 time to leave! Literally as we were pulling out, we had sent C&D ahead, they volunteered to pick up the Elders that morning, and we were on our way when we learned that the school had closed that day due to bad weather! Time to regroup and make a new plan! We tried to make a plan, but of course it changed 10 times before finally it was decided that K&J and J&M were worried about the weather, and they headed home. We called C&D to come back and not pick up the Elders, and then Harr's decided they too were leaving. That left my family and my parents. We decided to go help Wilkensen's with the Hopi school we had done in years past. They were there with only three of them, and we wanted to interact with the kids, that's why we were there! We also decided that we didn't want to simply drop off our gifts for them to rummage through, we wanted to give them, and we would find someplace else to share them. We will find the right place, it must not have been that school. We helped them, and in a few short hours, we too were on the road. The horrible storm everyone had predicted, didn't happen during daytime hours, we drove home on nearly dry roads the entire way. The worst roads were right as all those others were leaving. It was too bad they left. We hope they will have fond memories of this project, and that they were able to interact with kids!