Our church was in Navajo. When we were growing up, we didn’t have a church. So sometimes, a lot of times, we met in a hogan down in Tohatchi. Other times we met like in a school, part of the school. But I remember just a hogan, and then years later, we got the chapel there in Tohatchi. And it was in Navajo. And when she married my stepdad, he just really had belief in the gospel, and pretty soon he was branch president. So, I just remember growing up with my father being the branch president, my mother being the Relief Society president. And by that time we have the chapel, and I just remember our lives just revolved around that. But I also know that they still had a hard time letting them go of Navajo culture and Navajo ceremony. And so for them, they wove the two together. And it never bothered me.
I remember people saying, you know, I hear people say, “You need to leave your culture. You need to leave it behind.”
And I’ll give you an example. When I was newly married, my mother was participating in the ceremony, and she had gone through the temple. And to me, this is not for me to judge. This is just between her and the Lord. And she was going to participate, and I was going to go and help. And we were going to camp for those days that she was going to be participating because she’s my mother. And I remember a cousin coming to me, and she was LDS also. And she said, “How can you do that? And you’ll need to repent of participating in that ceremony. And don’t you know that your religion is Mormonism?” And I don’t know why or how this came to me, but I said, “If your next-door neighbor was having a bar mitzvah, and they asked you to help, would you say no to them? And if your next-door neighbor was Catholic and their children were having a catechism and they wanted your help, would you say no?” Well, of course not. And I said, “Well, then why would you not help for a Navajo ceremony. And I feel like there were things like that that the Lord blessed me with, and for me, I just think, “Wow, I was lucky that that happened.”