5TH BAPTISM John Moses Pancho

Well, we got our 5th baptism. His name is John Moses Pancho. He is a 14 year old boy who really loves the Lord. We were very happy at his baptism because he had a lot of family who came to see him get baptized. He seems to soak up all the religion we can give him and he wants to be faithful. We are very proud of him. We started teaching him last year with his foster brother and that didn't work out. When we approached his father again about teaching him the lessons, his father said "No he wasn't interested!" After taking some pictures to his house I asked him again, when are we going to teach John again. His father said, "let's ask him" When we called, he said he would be right over. Everything went very well after that and he was very anxious to receive the gospel. He loves the story of the 1200 strippling warriors and we gave him a picture for his room. We helped him find it in the Book of Mormon and he loves that story. Another soul helped on the way to the celestial kingdom.

Life is good.

News from the mission field June

My what a crazy week. The former branch president's family are still fighting. It's hard to stay neutral. We offered to let the family talk about him in sacrament meeting because they never got to say anything at the funeral and they were delighted. Then we received an email right before church started stating they had to work. When we called to see if they would let us read the talk, they said it was against their culture to talk about the dead. Ohhhhh!

Anyway we are doing very good. We had 41 people to church on Sunday, mainly because of the baptism we had. We are very delighted.

When I walked into the church I saw a lizard on the floor. I thought is was a toy and went to pick it up. It jumped right at me and sent me screaming all over the church. I finally found it again on Sunday morning while we were waiting for the font to fill up. Dad caught it and threw it outside. I felt relieved. Then to my dismay, during primary one of the kids opened up the door and the lizard came back in. It was a zoo! That thing can move so fast I jumped up on my chair to stay away from it. It is a fast little critter. You know how I hate wiggly things. Finally the Sunday School brethern heard us and came in to help us out! Thank goodness for the priesthood. BUT they proceeded to tell me that a rattle snake came into the chapel once and they had a terrible time getting it out. Now I am absolutely paranoid over every little thing. Pray for me to be safe ok?

We had another baptism all lined up for next week, but her father saw how happy she was and felt bad that she wasn't going to his church and so he said, "No way is my daughter going to become a mormon! He made arrangments to have her baptized in the catholic church in the Downs. I felt bad because I don't think she realizes that a switcheroo was made on her. When we went to her house, she came running to me smiling. I"m going to baptized Sister Lee. I'm so excited. I knew it wasn't in our church because she had to come to sacament meeting one more time before we could baptize her, but we couldn't get her mother to budge. She said she had to do what the father wanted.

Life is good in the mission field!!! We love serving the Lord

New Mescalero Branch Presidency

Here is a picture of the new Branch Presidency for the Mescalero Branch

Ewell Fossum - Branch President

Murray Naiche - 1st Counselor

Elder Lee - 2nd Counselor

It's going to be good!!

Your Dad was asked to be the 2nd Counselor in Presidency

Well, your dad was sustained to be the 2nd counselor in the Branch Presidency in the Mescalero Branch. After Monte's death the Stake President came and called Ewell Fossum to be the new Branch President and he asked dad to serve as his second counselor.

We are very happy and excited for this opportunity for dad. With all the problems in the branch it will be a great undertaking.

Other good news! We have 3 investigators who have commited to be baptized. Keep praying for them for us will you.

Love mom

Our Branch President Monte Mogan's death

Our beloved Branch President, Monte Morgan, passed awy on June 8, 2011. He served as the Branch President for eight years in Mescalero. His funeral was very good and many of the speakers spoke about his devotion to the church and all he wanted was for the less active members to return. They mentioned his love for the Book of Mormon. We loved him very much and will really miss him.

However, with his death a lot of sadness happened on the reseration. Monte was sealed in the temple to his first wife. He had two daughters. He re-married to another woman, by the name of Viola MOrgan who has been his wife for 27 years. She had a lot of children by her other two marriages, but he loved and helped raise them. These two sides of the family fought for over a week. The first two daughters thought he should be burried by his first wife and Viola wanted him to be buried in her gravesite in White tail. I have never seen such nonsense!!!! They had all kinds of meetings to discuss this and when Viola finally came to the last one, she got so mad she said she was going to have Monte cremated. That threw everyone (including aunts, cousins and other family members) into a tizzy. Push came to shove and it was ugly. After they all gave in and realized she was the one that had all the control, they finally let her have her way and they buried him in Whitetail. We drove for miles up windy canyon roads with rocks flying everywhere. Our car was so dusty that you could hardly tell it was a grey color. We passed many roads that leads to cowcamp, which the wrangers use to drive their cattle on the montain. Finally we found President Morgan's dear "whitetail" nestled in the mountains secluded from everything and everyone. They own about 10 acres out there and beautiful trees are all over. When they finished burying President Morgan's casket into the ground a group of wild horses came running down the canyon. They stopped when they saw all the people and waited for us to leave. It was beautiful. Many flowers and gifts were put on his grave and a bakset of fruit and water to remind them of the fruitful life he had.

Good bye, President Morgan, now your family can rest and hopefully try to get along with each other. Sister Morgan had a large pot luck dinner afterwards, but only half of the people came. The other side went back to Mescalero to have their own dinner. Only time will take care of all this. The words keep coming into my mind "love One another". They certainly need the gospel in their lives.

Swallow Fire in Ruidoso

We had another terrible Fire in Ruidoso!!! On our way home from the funeral we saw black smoke coming up from the trees. The police was stopping all traffic and we couldn't get through to our apartment. They told us we would have to go all around the county and through the back way. So we waited and watched as we saw the fire go up the mountain and completely destroy eight homes. It was devastaing!!! They think it was a smoker behind the Travel Lodge that threw the cigarette into the brush. The winds picked up the flame and it went straight up this gully very rapidly. One of the Ruidoso Member's home was completely destroyed. The picture you see is her home. The police broke down the door and yelled "get out, your house is on fire". They quickly got everyone in the home to leave as sson as they could. The grandma was the last one out the door and her shirt was on fire. You can see by the pictures how devasting it was. The second picture is of their truck, which is nothing but rubble. We have an extreme fire danger out here as we have had no rain for a long time. They have closed the forrest and no one can enter them. Pray that another fire will not start. With the winds we have here it destroys everything in its path.

News from the mission field June

What a week this has been. Our beloved Branch President Morgan died on Wednesday June 8. We went to see him the night before and he tried to talk to us but didn't have the energy. His family all gathered around him at the hospital the next day. It was really sad. They had a family meeting to decide what to do with his funeral, but his wife did not come. There are a lot of feelings with his two older girls (who are from a previous marriage) and his present wife. There is a lot of bikering and fighting. The last meeting they held Sister Morgan came. There was a lot of yelling and fighting. She got so mad she said she wasn't going to have him burried at all and was going to have him cremated. That sent everyone off in a tizzy. She wants him burried in her cemetary plot and his daughters want him burried in Mescalero. Wow, it is a mess. Now no one is talking to anyone and we aren't even sure if they are going to have a funeral at all. It has been very stressful for us. We are trying not to get invovled because it is a family feud. But now the branch will be changing and we are wondering what it will be like.

President Wiser (Stake President) is coming up next Sunday to re-organize the branch. Pray for us. By the way, we had 35 people to sacrament meeting on Sunday, I think some of them came to see who would be the next Branch President.

Cisco Bob's funeral

The Bob family lost their father last week and we went to the funeral. He complained about a toothache, ended up in the hospital, had a stroke and found out he had cancer all over in his body. The funeral was very interesting. It was held up in the mountains outside. We sat for two hours while they gave memories of him. It was really quite good. Then we went to the grave site and a catholic priest gave his sermon. He kept mentioning a book in the Bible, "The Book of Wisdom" and he spinkled the grave with holy water. The most interesting thing was when they brought a HUGE bulldozer down the mountain crashing and trampling over everything, knocking down trees and anything in its path. It landed at the foot of the grave and the large shovel and thing in the back thudded to the ground in honor of him. His career was in driving huge equipment.

The priest gave him a final reading out of his book and sealed his body to come forth on the LAST day of the resurrection. He had never been baptized as a catholic.

Smokey the Bear

We drove past the Smokey the Bear Museum and went to see Smokey. Did you realize he was a real bear that was found in the woods after a 16,000 forest fire in Capitan Mountains. Firefighters found him haning onto a tree and took him home to nurse him to health. They used him as an icon to advertise against forest fires. He became very famous until his death. He was so famous that they had to bury him at 3' o clock in the morning because they were afraid that people would rush upon him to get a piece of his fur. Remember his motto, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War

There has been so much stress over President Morgan's funeral that we decided to leave town on our P-Day and visit Lincoln county, which is about 20 miles away. This is where Billy the Kid shot and killed the lawmen and became an outlaw. He escaped the jail here and fled. The movie we watched said he became famous as the fastest gunman alive and was known all over the world. The jail is where he was kept. They used the jail there to house the prisoners and chained them to U-bolts on the floor. The bullet hole in the wall was suppose to be his last shot while escaping this prison.

The fort you see dad standing by was made to help protect themselves from the Apache's. They have several displays from the Apache's in the Museum too.

News from the mission field

Our Branch President has been in the hospital over two weeks now. They say he is not doing well and might not make it. We have been running the branch for almost four months. It has been very interesting. Our attendance has dropped of but our missionary work seems to be blooming. Since our last expereince with no attendance at the church, we have had almost more investigators at our meetings than members. They say itis because of the feasts that are around the reservation, some don't want to come because President Morgan is ill (they think it is disrespectful) or just plain don't want to come!!!! I don't know what we are going to do with them. However, the Lord is placing more people to teach almost every day. It is great to get back into the teaching mode again.

On July 1 we will be getting a new MISSION PRESIDENT. We are going to Roswell to visit with President and sister Robison on Wednesday. It will be hard to say goodbye to them. We love them so. Keep praying for us. We need your prayers.

YW Primary Activity Two

Well, we had our second YW/Primary Activity on Saturday. Of course I was real nervous about attendance because our attendnace at church is so small. But six girls came and they were a lot of different girls. Many of the investigators we are teaching had their girls come. How about that? We had a lot of fun and played the candy bar game, musical chairs, and the baloon stomp. We read the Young women mottor and received their Faith in God award booklets along with a book mark, and a bookelt with LDS pictures and stories. It was great. The girls didn't want to go home so I guess they had a good time. The girls on the reservation really need these kinds of activities. We made paper bag purses and they were delighted. Enjoy the pictures

Space Museum in White Sands

While visiting President Morgan in Las Cruses, New Mexico we went to the National Space Museum there. They have some of the early missles, engines and information on the first capsules that went into space. It was here that "Little Joe and Ham, the first chimpanzees went into space to test the effect of rapid descent on people. They have lots of pictures of the monkey and he is actually burried there at the site. It was very interesting. I was amazed at how many people have helped with space exploration.