The week started out at a fast pace and only picked up steam as it went on. I think our dam has begun to leak. This has been an emotional week for us. I mentioned in the last post about the Seminary Graduation on Sunday. Monday was our District Meeting. We went to St. Michaels early so that Sis. Rogers and I could do some decorating. It was the Jensens last District Meeting and also Sis. Jensen's birthday. What a fun evening we had. We visited, laughed, shed a few tears, and no one was in a big hurry to go home. The Jensens have been making poster-board-size cards for each of the couples as they go home. I knew I couldn't compete with their talent, so I made up 'Post-Missionary Survival Kits' for each of them. They surprised the Rogers and us and had our cards made up. We had been thinking, since they were going home before us, that we wouldn't get a card. All-in-all, it was great to be together. District Meetings and our association with such wonderful couples is definitely something we will miss.

      Marianya's daddy had his baptismal interview with the Zone leaders and passed. So we planned his baptism for Thursday evening, the 21st. We wanted to do it on Saturday, but with all the graduations going on, it was hard to squeeze it in. Owen had the privilege of baptizing him. The program turned out really nice. I figured that 15 people would be the most we would have attend. To my pleasant surprise, we had 24 people show up. I took care of Marianya during part of the program so that her parents could enjoy the program without worrying about her making too much noise or getting restless.

      The Senior Citizen Center invited us to their Mother's Day/Father's Day dinner. Little did we know it was also a farewell party for us. We had a delicious dinner. Several expressed their thanks to us for the things we have done to help them, and that they wished we didn't have to leave. Then they also gave us several gifts including a Pendleton robe for Owen and a Pendleton shawl for me. They were machine embroidered with “Thank you” (in Navajo) and then our names. More waterworks. The time we have spent at the Center has been one of the highlights of our mission. We have fallen in love with them. One lady thanked us for accepting them, for coming to see them, and sitting down and having lunch with them. That surprised me because I have had the very same feelings towards them – grateful for their acceptance of us and that they would want us to join them for their activities and lunches. I also found out that one of them is a sister to a lady we know who lives in Castle Dale. Small world.

      The leak in our dam got even worse at our Home Evening group. We had twelve people come, two of whom are non-members. We tried to keep to the lesson, but somehow the topic kept reverting back to the Olsens leaving. Talk about mixed emotions.

      We went out to an investigator's home on Friday and finished up the discussions with her. We have asked her before about being baptized, but she always said she wanted to wait a while. That day Owen told her that we would be sure to leave her name for the next missionaries so they could contact her. She got emotional and said she wanted to be baptized while we are here. That took us by surprise. So, we will be having another baptism in the very near future. She has been coming to church on a regular basis since we first met with her; and she won't miss the Family Home Evening group, even if she has to come late because of her work. She is an aunt to the man that was baptized a couple of weeks ago. Quite a special lady.

      We offered to do the chores (feed the sheep and dogs) this weekend for a guy in Oak Springs. He had a very old dog who had gone deaf. About a week ago, the dog was sleeping under the truck, and his wife got in the truck to go to work and ran over the dog. It didn't seem to be hurt really bad, so he thought it would be okay. But as the days went on, it only got worse. So he asked Owen if he would put it to sleep for him when we were there doing chores. That was how the morning of our 45^th wedding anniversary began. We did end the day, however, with a nice dinner at Golden Corral in Gallup.

      One of our sons and his family came down and loaded up another pickup load of our stuff to take home. So we should be pretty well set as these last few days of our mission in LA rapidly come to a close.