Visiting the Navajo Nation

After El Morro, we headed for our hotel reservation in Window Rock, Arizona which happens to be the capital city of the whole entire Navajo Nation which is a bit bigger than the state of West Virginia. We arrived in Window Rock around 6:30 p.m. hoping to find a local diner with some local flavor. The hotel clerk informed us the hotel's restaurant, The Dine' (Navajo for "The People", prounounced din-nay) had already closed for the evening at 6:00 p.m. It was Saturday night and everything was closed, except McDonald's. She suggested we drive back to Gallup, New Mexico if we wanted a decent restaurant. Having just come from Gallup, we headed for the local grocery store. K picked out some chicken tenders from the deli. I spied the tamales and also picked up a small package of sushi. We took it all back to our hotel room, hauled in the cooler for supplementation, and enjoyed our "traditionally Navajo supper" there in the nation's capital.

The next morning, we got ready for Church. Even lds.org didn't have an address for the church, but K said it was "somewhere on the highway, less than five miles or so." We drove and found it on the right hand side of the highway in St. Michael's. There was a cattle guard to cross as we entered the parking lot. We didn't know how long we might be lost, so we were actually ten minutes early. We shook hands with a lot of missionaries in the foyer and found a seat in the chapel. A sister sat by me in Sacrament Meeting and I found out she had participated in the Indian Placement Program. She had a good experience. She is recently widowed because her husband was killed in the line of duty (police officer). She took that money and "came back home" to build a nice new house. Another lady drew a map for us as an alternate route to our next stop. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. I wish I could get to know them better and ask a lot of questions. When we told people we were on our way to Canyon de Chelly, every single face lit up with a smile and bright eyes as they exclaimed, "Ooohhh!" They were suggesting four-wheel-drive roads and special hiking trails. They love sharing the beauty of their land with visitors.

The first speaker was a bishop's counselor and he is a New Zealander! I still wonder how he wound up in Window Rock. The other speaker was Brother Yellow Hair. His talk was mostly in Navajo with a few brief summaries in English. He was talking about the thirteenth Article of Faith so he would say, "Navajo, Navajo, Navajo, good report, Navajo, Navajo, Navajo, praiseworthy, Navajo..." You get the idea. We followed the best we could. He did speak enough in English for us to find out that he sent one of his eight children to the Indian Placement Program. They started getting letters from their boy, "Dad, I eat good, got a nice family, we do this thing called Family Home Evening, and you need to find out about this Church." That's how they were baptized and Brother Yellow Hair went on to serve in various bishoprics for fourteen years. Now he's on the high council.

Relief Society was great. All the Navajo sisters were sporting some form of turquoise but they admired my black Hawaiian pearls guessing they might be hematite. The lesson was about the Word of Wisdom (Lord's law of health) and the teacher said something I just did not comprehend. She was showing good foods we should eat such as tomatoes from the garden, oatmeal, etc. She held up a small silver can and smiling mentioned, "This is where I keep my cedar ash." She put the can down and moved on. The other ladies just nodded, but I was left in the dark. I don't keep any cedar ash in my pantry. I later found out that it is the green parts of the juniper they burn and then they save the ashes to flavor traditional Navajo foods such as corn mush. They are all wonderful women.

On the way to Canyon de Chelly, we stopped in at the Hubbell Trading Post, another park service site. Ranger Becky Begay was our tour guide and inside the Hubbell Home I spied a pot on top of the piano! We met Shadow, a retired park ranger horse from Washington state.