Hello!
Well I eventually made it out into the field safely! After staying my first night in the mission field in a hotel we made it back to the airport and made it on the flight, I am suppose to be reimbursed for the costs. I had some trouble getting through security because my drivers license, mom have you received my new one so you can send it to me? So we flew into Durango and one of the senior couples that works in the mission office picked me and elder Eging up. It was about an hour drive down to Farmington where we met Sister Jones at the mission home. The first thing she did was apologized to us and tell us a story about how she missed her plane once. President Jones got to the home a little while later and we all had lunch, the Elders that were going home were there as well. The two trainers were also there so after our interviews he made our assignments and we took pictures with our "father's", my companions name is Elder Sharp. I spent most of my time in my interview talking about FFA and 4-H and animals. President graduated from BYU with a degree in Animal Science. We have a lot in common. After we got our new companions we had to go to the mission office to have a brief introduction to everything. Once we were done we had a two and a half hour drive to our area. My first assigned area in the mission field is on the res. in Window Rock. The area just got split so we cover half of the ward then the other elders cover the other half and a small branch about 20 miles up the road. We all live together in a trailer behind the church. It's fun we all get along really well. My "brother" Elder Chappel, and Elder Taylor the other missionaries are awesome, we all have a lot in common.
It's a little different here. Everything on the res. is so laid back, and there's dogs EVERYWHERE. They also just let their animals roam around. The other day there were a couple of cows just walking down the sidewalk, can't say that I have seen that before. There's also horse's that just run freely if people want to ride there horse they like have to go out and find it and catch it first. It's kind of hard here. If everybody in the ward was active there would be almost 1000 people. But there's usually on average 120 people that come to church. But yesterday there wasn't even that many because the girls basketball team made it to state so pretty much everybody was in Phoenix, and then there was a bad storm and nobody could get home. they won state so last night when they got back it was like a big party. My first day we were going to go to the store so I could get some food but we couldn't make it into the store we kept getting stooped by Glaani's (drunk people) and they wanted us to pray for them. It's kind of difficult because they know who we are and they know whats right but they don't want to give up their ways. There's a lot of work to be done. I'm working on my Navajo, I think it's coming along kind of well I need too because people speak in English and they throw Navajo words in. They also point with their lips its kind of funny. I'm starting to pick it up.
Elder Sharp is from Utah. he wants people to write him but hes kind of a loser so he can't get any girls to write him. He told me to put that in so I'm obedient to my father. I assume he might only be here for one more transfer because hes been here for over four months. He's the district leader. We get along pretty well. He's been out for about seven months, he says it doesn't seem like it and that time flys by, which I can see because it seems like just yesterday that Mom and Dad dropped me off at the MTC.
We didn't get in from Farmington untill 9:00 on Tuesday so we couldn't go out, I had to unpack so I didn't get to bed until like 11. The next day we had one set appointment with a kid named Rodney, well hes 20. We talked about the Book of Mormon and we committed him to baptism. Hes getting baptized on March 19, so that's pretty cool. He is definitely ready. Elder sharp was saying that he is probably the most doctrinally ready investigator he has ever had. We have a baptism this week as well. It's a little girl who's mom was inactive and started coming back so the elders have been working with her. So it's pretty exciting.
So how is everything at home? I'm glad to hear you are getting ready for some animals, I'm sure the boys will be excited to come up and see some since we haven't had any for so long. Well I better get going. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Schmidt
my address is: p.o. box 203
Saint Michaels AZ 86511
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