August 20-21 - Monday and Tuesday

Monday August 20
Thanks to Michelle for sending us the mail from Tempe.  Included was our early voting ballots which we completed and mailed in on Tuesday.

We had our weekly devotional at 7:30am.  The new missionaries were introduced.  All the new arrivals were the young Elders.  Many had their families with them.  President and Sister Fenn spoke to us attended Music and the Spoken Word this morning.  

President Fenn spoke about the importance of prayer and how prayer helps us in our lives.  He gave several examples of how prayer and faith have helped him. 

- With his first call a mission president to Chicago, he left a very lucrative job and it was difficult for him initially to decide to go. 

- He almost drowned while as a leader on a youth outing to Havasupai in Arizona.  He was not a strong swimmer and was swimming in a deep pool and couldn’t get across. He yelled for help but no one heard him.  He felt the prompted to turn over and float on his back. This worked and he floated to an area where he could stand and get out of the water. 

- While a young missionary his mother always prayed for his safety.  He was crossing the street with his bicycle and a voice told him to get out of the street.  Just as he got to the other side a truck came around the corner and hit his bicycle but missed him.

- President Fenn has an extreme allergy to nuts, especially peanuts and requires medical help to allow him to breathe if he eats any nuts.  While in Taiwan picking up his son from his mission, he at dinner with a family.  The son had told the family that his father couldn’t eat nuts.  He mother didn’t realize that this included peanuts.  Pres Fenn ingested several peanuts before realizing it and immediately left for the hospital.  It was rush hour traffic and he knew they were not going to make it to the hospital in time and that he would die.  He prayed and then asked his son to give him a blessing which he did.  He immediately recovered and had no ill effects.

We began our training at 9am.  We were instructed on security guidelines for the library. After lunch we went on a tour of the library and then started more training on FamilySearch.  We both completed the first training module.  We hope to be finished within one to two weeks.

We enjoyed a mission dinner that was held to recognize the missionaries leaving and those arriving.  We had a variety of excellent food prepared by the other missionaries.

Tuesday August 21

We have a devotional each day at 7:30am prior to the start of our shift at the Family History Library.  We have the 8am-4pm shift for the next two weeks and then we may be assigned to another shift.  Our training consists of 17 on-line modules to complete with a test at the end of each one (We have to score at least 80% to pass and have three tries).  We are tested on-line at the end of each module and then need to have an assessment done for most of the modules.  I have completed 7 and been tested on 5 of them. 

The Family History Library is a 5-minute walk from our apartment so we walked back for lunch yesterday and today.  This gives us a little more exercise as well.

We attended the 5pm Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple and returned home just after 7pm.  I saw Sister Tolman’s brother David Senior just as I was coming back from finishing our session and invited him to visit us after he finishes as he will going to the 7pm session.  He came by about 9:15 pm and stayed for about an hour.  It was great to visit with him.