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Show # 13, P 2 out the area and make another room where we could put the washer and dryer and have space for storage, also a place to start seeds to get early plants for the garden. As the excavation proceeded we found that the posts which held up the porch were rotted and we had to take the porch down and make a new start. Delays of delivery of materials and then weather conditions resulted in the job being as yet incomplete. Fortunately we had some indoor work for the Navajo lad who takes over the heavy work, so that he didn't need to be laid off. We like to brag that snow doesn't last long around here, but the ground has been white for weeks now. At times the mail has been held up, both from North and South, and as our Post Office is closed on Saturdays it h~s ma'de a five-day period without. mail. ' At the busiest time I had to take a three-day "rest" in the hospital; I ,got out Christmas Eve and found that Joan and Helen, with helping Navajos, had everything under control; the corn was popped and candy bags made up. Joan and some of the girls had done a beautiful job of decorating the church with trees, branches of juniper and lights. I hasten to say that I am much better but under orders to "ta~e things easy" and let some one else do the heavy work that I lay out--and that is really work for mel A blessed New Year to you alII The two pictures shown on this page are supposed to illustrate some sort of contrast-- and we hope improvement: the sermon period in the hogan church of Saint Mary of the Moonlight in 1953 (picture by Clyde stovall) and the same in the new St. Mary's at its formal opening. AND HELEN ADDS: Visitors often ask: How can a few missionaries make any real impression on a huge ' reservation? Our Bishop re cently 'reminded us that the Christian Religion started with a very small group of believers. When a few of us came from Bluff to share Fr. Liebler's "retirement" here, we looked, hopefully at ,a group of hogans some ten miles to the South-they had had some Church background, but were far from any church. After friendly visits and some instruction, about twenty were baptised and became loyal communicants., Not long after, one of the young women said "We have a great-grandmother who is nearly deaf--she was born two years after Kit Carson brought our People back from Fort Sumner. She wants Baptism." The old lady lived only a few miles down the wasl'i--"you can get there in your Jeep if the wash is dry." She was duly baptised, and the Bishop bumped his way to her hogan to |