San Carlos to Blackfoot Week 11-How It All Ended

This is NOT how I envisioned our mission ending.  As each day went on, we heard about more missionaries being sent home, mostly from Europe and overseas.  It was obvious things were getting serious: quarantines, schools closing, businesses shutting down, and with all church activities canceled, we had an abundant amount of free time.  We drove to Mesa to stock up on some items (Diet Dr. Pepper etc.), took our time cleaning the church on Tuesday morning, I was able to sew a new quilt top together, Quinn made cinnamon rolls, and we killed time watching old reruns of Burn Notice on Hulu.  The missionaries were here to eat the cinnamon rolls on Wednesday night when we got the call from President Andrews that we were being sent home. Even though we had discussed this possibility and knew all signs were pointing in that direction, something about the finality of it just overtook me.  This mission has dominated my thoughts, plans, and life for almost a year and suddenly it was all over and I wasn’t willing to let it go. It felt too unfinished, and there were things I still wanted to experience. I couldn’t seem to stop crying that night (or yet).

Thursday morning we still had to attend district meeting in Globe.  We planned to go and say our goodbyes to the other missionaries. We found out the senior sisters had received the news to leave that morning, and that Elder Robinson would be leaving immediately too because he had hit the 21 month mark. We also got a call that morning from Sister Bay setting up an exit interview with President Andrews for late afternoon in Mesa.  After we left the district meeting, we met up with Sister Gourdin the branch Relief Society president to hand over the six quilt tops and say goodbye. We drove our final time to "the valley" as the locals call it, met with a very tired looking president, and ate a good meal at Jalapeno Bucks which has no indoor seating.

A 9-patch made out of all plaids.  My last top for the branch.

Sister Harston from Rigby, Idaho. We were in the MTC together and she came out with us. Sister Satersmoen from Minnesota.  She was lively and funny and had no filter.  

Elder Belnap from Ogden, Utah.  He was here the whole time we were and his mission was cut short by three months so he will go home the first of May.  Elder Austill from Georgia but his family moved to Utah right before his mission so he will go home there.  His mission ends early September.  These two were San Carlos missionaries so we saw them the most.

Elder Robinson who has already served 21 months and will go home soon.  Elder Davila Aleman who was raised in Peru? and I don't know when he leaves.

Sister Davis and Sister Flores.  They served in Globe and Sister Flores came from the Philippines so I made her make a video to send to Peachy talking in Tagalog.  

Finally I got a shot of the waterfall that formed this spring from all the rain.  It is on the drive through the canyon on the way to Superior.

This is Mt. Picketpost and is near Superior, AZ.

I took this picture for the pink flowers along the road, but it is also a good view of Mt. Triplet.

Before we left on Friday, it was important for us to tell some of the branch members ourselves that we had been sent home and say our goodbyes.  Quinn made a batch of bread and I made some pies and one last loaf of banana bread. We made the rounds to the following:

John Sanchez and his half sister Karen Martin. 
John is the facilitator for our ARP and has been sober for over 29 years!  I love to hear him talk and tell his story.  He is an inspiration for others.  He also has a funny sense of humor.  Karen would come and bake the birthday cakes in the trailer and take us around.  We missed doing it in March because she got sick with bronchitis.  She went through a difficult patch and strayed from the church but found her way back.  She has also overcome alcohol.

Veronica, Anthony (Gordo), Alyssa Bonilla and Michael Valentino (Tino) Garcia. 
The three older kids were in our seminary class.  

Patra and Freddie Lupe--lovers of banana bread.

Sister Woodie
She was on the Indian Placement program and has been active all her life.  She lost her mother recently and a daughter in November.  She is raising her daughter's two youngest sons now.

Sister Curley
She is the grandmother to seven of our seminary kids.  She has three living daughters and they all live on the reservation with her 20+ grandchildren.  Her son has health issues and she is caring for him herself rather than putting him in a facility.

Sister Shorten
She was also put on Indian Placement as a girl.  She graduated from BYU and served a mission in North Dakota.  She is sister to Sister Woodie.  She teaches the Sunday School lesson and gives a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon.

David Wood and Mary Early Bird
Her kids are grown and then she was 'given' a baby to raise.  The little girl, Summer, was taking a nap when we were there.  Summer isn't walking yet.  She has outlived two husbands ("I didn't kill them.  They just got tired of me and there was no other way out.  I also wasn't a good cook.  That's why David won't marry me--he doesn't want to be #3.")  Can you tell she has a sense of humor?

This graffiti is on the youth center and the missionaries like to take their picture by it.  We also visited Will Hadley but I can't get his picture to download and Sister Boni who is featured in an earlier blog.

       When we got back to the trailer, Elder Belnap and Elder Austill were there to say goodbye before we got serious about the task of trying to fit everything into the car.  In a matter of hours we packed, cleaned the trailer, wrote out instructions for the next occupants of the trailer, and we were on our way. As we were stopped to lock the gate behind us one last time, the neighbor across the street Darrell was out picking weeds in the yard with another guy.  Darrell had come asking for food a couple of times and I had visited with him in his yard. He was a very soft spoken sweet man. I had Quinn take him and his helper some cold bottles of Dr. Pepper and tell them we were leaving. As we drove off, he gave us a big farewell wave.

We drove home by way of Show Low, AZ.  We had never been on that road and it takes you through Salt River Canyon which reminded us of Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier Park because it is so steep and vast.  Beautiful views, but too narrow of a road for me. We stopped to get pictures and followed a little path that lead to a CLIFF! I was way too nervous to get as close as Quinn did, so he took some of the pictures.  Then we went through Snowflake so I could get pictures of the temple we never got to attend. Next, was Winslow, AZ, which carried NO significance at all for the elders when we told them we were going that way. These elders are such babies!   At least our bishop understood when we sent him a picture on the way home. We stayed the night in Kanab at the same hotel we stayed in on the way down. The next day we had an uneventful trip home. We arrived to find all was well with a festive greeting thanks to Katie and Matt and some food in the fridge thanks to Audrey.

Views from the drive at Salt River Canyon.

Quinn at the end of the trail.  In front of him is a drop off that I refused to go near. 
He took the next picture looking over the edge!

Snowflake Arizona Temple

One of the corners in Winslow, Arizona.  Another one below.

What we saw when we arrived home.

       I think San Carlos was saying goodbye to me without my realizing it.  Our last night at the Detention Center went very well with two inmates asking for blessings from Quinn, our last seminary class was the best one we ever had with them actually interacting with us, the red bird showed back up and was flying from tree to tree as I walked around the parking lot for the last time, and we had one last beautiful sunset: