Stella's Blessing

I spent this last weekend at a cabin in Pinetop with some friends. I knew that Mike and Stephanie were planning on blessing Stella on Sunday at 11am so I made sure with my friends before going up that we would be back in time for it. It's a three hour drive from Pinetop to Mesa so I told everyone that we would need to leave the cabin by 7am at the very latest but of course time deadlines are almost never met when traveling. We ended up leaving at 7:30am.

The road conditions were the worst I have ever been in. First of all, its hard enough driving on those winding mountain roads as it is, then you add in a down pour of rain, extremely bad visibility (it was VERY foggy) and giant rocks in the road. Those roadway signs that say "Watch For Rocks" had no meaning until now. I'm not even joking we went around two very large boulders that were at least four to five feet tall and just as wide.

Then at 10am traffic just completely stopped. There were about a quarter mile of cars ahead of me but with the foggy sky and the curvy mountain road we couldn't tell what was happening. Before I was stressed and couldn't do anything but laugh from all these elements working against me and my driving. Then when we weren't moving at all I was upset, we found out that it was a rock slide that was blocking traffic in both directions. I thought for sure I wouldn't make it to the blessing. Then after about ten minutes of waiting a plow truck came and moved all the rocks to one side of the road and we were able to start moving again

When we got passed that point Briley called her sister and she offered to meet us at a gas station off the freeway so that I wouldn't have to drive all the way into Queen Creek to drop the other 4 passengers in my car. When we unloaded all their stuff I took off again with less than 15 minutes before the start of their sacrament meeting... (not to mention I've had to pee for the last two and a half hours, but there is no time for that)

I made it to the church building at 11:05, parked on the street and ran into the church building... still in my jeans and sweater, no make-up on, and my greasy unwashed hair pulled back in a pony tail. I walked to the very back of the cultural hall and sat down to hear the very end of the opening prayer. The bishop then stands up and invites Mike and the other priesthood holders in my family to the front to bless Stella.

I barely made it!