“How We Love Our Neighbors,” Liahona, July 2024, United States and Canada Section.
How We Love Our Neighbors
Church members in and around the Navajo Nation talk about how they live the second great commandment: “Love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).
The Savior taught that the first and great commandment is to love God and that the second, which “is like unto it,” is to love our neighbor (see Matthew 22:37–39). The Four Corners area—where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah come together—is home to the Navajo Nation, a place where, for Latter-day Saints, “love God” and “love your neighbor” have become a way of life. Here’s what some Church members in the area have to say about living the second great commandment.
Daughters of Anthony and Alohilani Clah
Photographs by Leslie Nilsson and Cody Bell
A Different Kind of Gold
“Thy people shall be my people” (Ruth 1:16).
“Before my mission, I studied geology,” says Anthony Clah of Shiprock. “I thought, ‘I can learn where gold is formed, find it, then retire.’” He smiles. “But my priorities changed. At the end of my mission, I felt impressed that I should spend my life helping as many young people as possible. I thought, ‘Coaching and teaching is the best way for me to do that.’ So I decided to pursue a degree in physical education, and that came with a coaching certificate.”
He soon met and married his wife, Alohilani, who is from Hawaii. After three years in Shiprock, Anthony was hired as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Then it was on to a similar position at BYU–Hawaii, much to Alohilani’s delight.
“While we were there,” Anthony says, “I learned about the ‘aloha spirit.’ I had never seen anything like it before. I knew that God had brought us there, particularly me, so I could learn what it means to have a loving spirit.” The family also enjoyed living near the temple, attending regularly.
After a few years, however, Anthony felt prompted to move again, not to become a trainer in the National Football League, although he had received such an offer, but to return to the reservation.
“But Hawaii was my home,” Alohilani says, “and he knew I would want to stay.” The family fasted and prayed. Then Anthony and Alohilani went to the temple. “I kept remembering something I had recorded in my journal—a dream where I was standing in front of a group of Native American children, teaching,” Alohilani says. “I knew we needed to be with Anthony’s people.”
Today, the Clah family is, in a way, refining human gold. “We’ve brought the aloha spirit from the islands to the reservation,” Anthony says.
The Clahs often host kids who are struggling. As a high school football coach, Anthony helps draw out the best in student athletes—three have now gone on to play in college. Three of the Clah children are on missions, and the younger ones are building friendships and strengthening the Church where they live. And Alohilani is teaching Native American children.
Yellowman family
Bring a Friend, Be a Friend
The home of Tom and Gina Yellowman, in Kirtland, New Mexico, is a place where friends and neighbors gather regularly for dinners. “But there’s a catch,” Gina says as she, her son, and her daughter prepare fry bread in the kitchen. “You can only come if you bring someone from your ward who hasn’t been attending church or someone, member or not, who needs a friend.”
She explains: “We kept meeting people who felt isolated. So we decided to have a barbecue where they could get to know others. For example, my niece came. She’s a high school volleyball coach, and a couple of her players and their families came too. Two of the girls on the team hadn’t realized before that they are both members of the Church.
“And there are people who live across the river on the reservation, but they didn’t know each other. When they came here, they figured out, ‘Hey, we’re neighbors,’ and now they have friends nearby who share the same standards, people they can turn to for help or just to borrow a potato because they live far from the grocery store. That was our goal—to bring people together so they can support each other.”
A Tradition of Giving
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat” (Matthew 25:35).
The Yellowmans say that the dinners are an extension of a family tradition of providing food to others. Tom explains: “It started one night when we took our children out for hamburgers. We didn’t have a lot of money, so it was a special treat. When we got there, we saw some homeless people in the parking lot. We bought a couple of extra meals and let the kids hand them the food.”
After that, each Christmas season the family prepared small bags of food to give to people without a home. Extended family members joined in, so did friends, and soon they were distributing 75 to 100 bags in Farmington and Shiprock.
“When my kids and their cousins hand out these bags,” Tom says, “they tell people how grateful they are to be able to give them food.”
“One man even asked us to pray with him,” says Toma, Tom and Gina’s 22-year-old son. “That made the experience particularly meaningful to me.”
Charity Begins at Home
The Yellowmans also know that loving your neighbor starts with loving your family. That includes Sister Yellowman’s father, Wallace Thompson, who lives in an outbuilding next to the family home. Daughter Tayla, age 27, says she likes having her acheii (maternal grandfather) nearby. “He’s helped me to learn about our native language,” she says. “I’ve also gotten to know him as a person. He’s such a character! He’s got his own style of humor. He’s also very direct, so be ready for that. But it’s been a blessing to really get to know him.”
Trevor, a 19-year-old son, says he helped care for acheii after he had open-heart surgery. “He didn’t have full use of his hands, and he couldn’t reach his back,” Trevor says. “So I helped him to bathe.” As he served his grandfather, a bond of love grew between them.
Adeltha Collyer (right) and Carol King
More Than Enough
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these … , ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).
Another couple in the area, Bertram and Adeltha Collyer, ran a produce stand in Waterflow, New Mexico, for 52 years. It provided a living for them and their six children. It also provided a lot of love to the neighborhood.
“We had 40 acres, and we employed more than 800 people off and on. We’d always find work for anybody going on or coming off a mission, mothers who needed income, or people who needed a job,” Adeltha says, now age 82.
“One day a lady up the road was taking a truck full of empty boxes to the dump. I told her we’d trade produce for boxes. She asked, ‘Can I give some to my neighbors who are in need?’ I told my helpers, ‘Let her have what she wants, no charge.’
“Carol King, a member of our ward who works for me, would help me make big boxes of surplus produce—squash, cucumbers, melons, corn, tomatoes, or chiles. Her son would take them to neighbors, Church members or not—it didn’t matter. It was a joy for us to give to people in need.”
Jennifer Zahne and her sons
Love All Your Neighbors
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
Derrick and Jenn Zahne of Shiprock also faced a decision about seeking worldly success or strengthening the Navajo. For four years they had lived in Phoenix, Arizona. When Derrick, an accountant, had been unemployed for nine months, their prayers became more and more fervent: “What wouldst Thou have us do?” Even when Derrick found another job, something still didn’t feel quite right.
“We came home to Shiprock, which is Jennifer’s home, to visit for the weekend,” Derrick recalls. “In the parking lot after church, I looked over and she was crying. I knew instantly that she had received a prompting to move home. At first, I was upset. But then I thought about our prayers, and I knew we should move.”
They arrived in Shiprock wondering what they should do. The Zahnes decided to become involved in their community as well as in the Church. “We spend a lot of time with dog rescues on the Navajo Nation,” Derrick says. “And we help with community sports—baseball, basketball, and, most of all, cross-country because Jennifer and I are ultra-runners. We run races longer than 30 miles (48 km). We teach kids, ‘Hey, running can be fun. You just have to work at it.’ We try to build people and set an example.”
Their involvement naturally creates missionary opportunities. “When our boys miss practice on Sunday,” Derrick says, “their buddies ask, ‘How come you weren’t there?’ ‘Because it’s the Sabbath, and we go to church,’ they say. Same thing for Jennifer and me. A lot of our races are on Sundays, and our running friends ask, ‘Why weren’t you there?’ We’re having the same discussions as our boys.”
Derrick now works as chief financial officer for a construction company owned by the Navajo Nation. He is also bishop of the Shiprock Ward. “We’re building the ward too,” he says. “We’re trying to teach by example that ‘love your neighbor’ means all your neighbors. It means to do what we promised to do when we were baptized. It means to serve as Christ would serve.”
The author lives in Utah.