September 9-15 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday September 9

Today is President Russell M Nelson’s 94^th birthday.  I know that he is the Lord’s chosen prophet today. I sustain him in his calling to lead the church today.  I am really looking forward to the upcoming General Conference in October.

This morning we attended “Music and the Spoken Word” in the Tabernacle instead of the Conference Center.  The music and singing is much more intense as the building is smaller and the acoustics are amazing.  When we sat down, Sister Tolman indicated that we needed to change places.  The couple next to us only spoke French.  I was able to talk to them a little. We all agreed that the event today was “magnifique”. 

Our meetings were excellent today.  I took an hour nap before church and managed to stay awake during Sacrament meeting.  President Fenn sustained a new Branch President today and he shared a powerful testimony of the restored gospel.  I really enjoy listening to President Fenn.  We are so blessed to have him and Sister Fenn as our mission leaders. 

After Sacrament meeting, we encountered Marlowe Kent Ashton and his wife Mary Anne Ashton.  She served with us at the Mesa FamilySearch Library and previously served as housing coordinator for the mission.  Her husband was a missionary in Tahiti a few years before I served.  We have become friends with them. It turns out they won’t have a car the night of the Tahitian Mission Reunion on October 5 so we will pick them up.  We already requested the evening off so we can attend.  We also talked briefly with President Fenn.  He attended West High School and was there the same time as Marn Coles (Sister Tolman’s sister).  He remembered the Senior family as he lived in Rose Park. The Fenn’s still live close by so they are able to live at home while serving as Mission President.

On the way back from church, an older couple stopped us to talk to them.  They are visiting from South Carolina.  They noticed that we were holding hands and wanted to compliment us.  We had a good visit with them.  We enjoyed meeting and talking to them.

We had two missionaries for dinner today.  They were here at the apartment from 5 to just before 6pm.  Sister Tolman fixed a “bubble” casserole and we had some ice cream for dessert.

We were able to talk to Brooks and Michelle and their family and did this via video call since Sister Tolman’s new phone has that feature. It was fun to see them as we talked.  We sang happy birthday to Elizabeth who turned five on September 8.

Monday September 10

Today is our day off from being at the Family History Library.  We attended the regular Monday devotional which is for all the full-time missionaries. It was held in the Assembly Hall today but is normally held in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  There were eight missionaries who shared a short message focused on helping the rest of us get to know them better.  Sister Tolman and I will be speaking next Monday.  We have to write out talks and we will share them next week.

We drove to Memory Grove which is not too far from where we live.  It is a little too far to walk there so we stopped and went for a walk.  This was a frequent spot for Senior family picnics in the summer as it is a shady spot.  See pictures below.

We drove up around by the capital building and then went to Smith’s to pick up rolls and potato chips for tonight’s cousin’s picnic. 

We picked up the Seniors and drove to Murray Park at 53^rd South and 4^th East.  We had dinner and a lot of visiting.  We were there from about 5:45pm until nearly 10pm.  The weather is still pleasant with daytime highs in the 80’s.  This event is for Grandma Senior’s siblings and their children.  Most of those there were Sister Tolman’s cousins.  We hadn’t seen many of them for a long time.  Here is a picture of the relatives who were there.

Sister Tolman and her cousin Irene

Sister Tolman and her brother David Senior

Tuesday September 11

Christina called this morning and we were able to talk to her for a few minutes.  It is always good to visit with our family. 

We went to the library for our prayer meeting which starts at 12:30pm.  When I arrived the sister who was the Floor Manager told me that Sister Disque who is an accomplished genealogist and works on our floor told the Zone Leaders that I had helped her in several areas and I knew what I was doing.

I was able to help two individuals today get connected to their families plus answer questions for several others.  The first person that I helped was Lionel Penner.  He and his wife are visiting from Canada and had some time to get some help.  He was reluctant at first since he said his wife was the one who was most interested.  As soon as he spoke, I could tell that he was Canadian.  We set up his FamilySearch account and got started.  I was able to find that on his father’s side that his great-grandparents had large families.  I also found his father on the 1921 Canada Census.  These documents were an ancestry.com and I hadn’t found them on FamilySearch.  His time was up and he needed to leave so I emailed some documents to him and asked if he would like me to continue to help after he left and he said yes.  A short time later, I was able to find the large families for his great-grandparents on FamilyTree and after a couple of merges, I connected him to them.  I saved a copy of fan chart and emailed it to him.  I already received a thank you for finding that for him.

I helped a sister who first name is Shirley.  She is visiting from Nampa Idaho with her husband and brother.  She indicated that she wanted to find out more about her mother’s parents.  She was reluctant at first to set up an account so I logged on to my account to see if we could find her ancestors on FamilyTree.  We found her mother’s parents and a lot more information about her family.  With this find she decided to get an account.  Whenever I start an account for a person, I make sure that they can either access their email or receive a text. She could access her email so we started.  We connected her to her mother who was already on FamilyTree.  She really enjoyed finding this information.  We also found a family that needed to be added to the tree which she planned to do on Wednesday morning when she goes back to the library.  

When we help individuals, we use a paper form that helps us keep focused on what the individual wants to accomplish and also makes it easier for someone else to help them.

Wednesday September 12

I helped man from North Carolina who name is Ron Oliveri.  He and his wife visited today and wanted to learn more about their families.  His family lived in Brooklyn New York City and his parents and grandparents on both sides immigrated from Palermo, Sicily, Italy in the early 1900’s.  We found that his father’s parents lost a child as a young infant.  This was emotional for both of us when we found this information.  He thought father was an only child.  

We found his father with his parents on New York Census records and finally on US census records.  We also found marriage information for his father and mother with their marriage date and place.  We finally found his parents on the 1940 census when we changed the search to Betty which she liked better that her given name Sebastiana.  Ron was extremely grateful for what we found.  He has some records at home that he will use to update some of the information that we added.  This experience was different than most that I have because we did not find any of his family on FamilyTree and needed to add all of them to the tree.  Here is a picture of Ron and wife and Sister West and  I.

I helped a sister from Tonga.  She was trying to find any of her ancestors who needed temple work done.  I spent some time trying to find descendants of her ancestors needing temple work but found none.  I encouraged her to continue attending the temple regularly as the work that she does benefits the family of other church members.  

I helped the Wednesday night group that visits the center every Wednesday evening.  I showed one sister the new “Person Page” on FamlyTree.  I also did some quick checking on her tree with her and we found a cousin needing temple ordinances done.  This was a first time for her so she was very appreciative.  During some free time between 7:30 and 8:30 I did some “Indexing”. I also finished the book finding exercise where I needed to find where several books were located in the library.

Thursday September 13

Today is our day classified as our Temple and family research day where we start at 6pm rather than the normal starting time at 12:30pm.  We got our walking exercise today as we went food shopping to Lucky’s and Smith’s and then to Dollar Tree.  There is one nearby but also one right by Lucky’s (Redwood Rd and 7^th North).  We went to the one by Lucky’s.  Sister Tolman continues her excellent shopping skills by finding the best food at the lowest prices.

We got some more walking in as we went to lunch at Johnny Rockets which is about a mile round trip walking there.  It is in the City Creek Mall near South Temple and State Street just south of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We went to lunch about 1:30pm and had two excellent hamburgers with an order of fries.  We had a buy one hamburger and get one free. These were really good hamburgers and the fries were excellent as well. 

In the afternoon Sister Tolman and I completed adding a family to the tree.  This family is related to both of us.  The husband is Fred Watson and his wife is Mary Ann Alcock.  There are two families that with the same names for the parents who lived in Leeds, Yorkshire England at about the same time.  We had to make sure that we had the right family.  This was confirmed by the parents ages and when Mary Ann Alcock’s mother was with them on the 1911 census.  We reserved the ordinances for the children. I reserved the ordinances for the male children and Sister Tolman for the female children.   This was a little imbalanced as the had 7 sons and 1 daughter.  We have some more research to complete as we research the spouses of these 8 children.

We started at the Family History Library at 6pm.  I was able to take over helping a woman who had been successful in finding her family.  The missionary who was helping her just finished her shift.  She indicated that she had not shown her the training resources nor the memories features.  So rather than continuing to try to find more family, I showed her how to find training to learn about adding memories to the tree.  She got really excited and added her wedding picture and a picture of her mother.  Soon after, she and her husband needed to leave so what I showed her was the best thing to do for her. 

The floor supervisor asked me to help an older woman, Sister Wright, who indicated that she had a question and needed some help.  It looked like this would be a quick solution as she had a question about adding “Record Hints” to one of her ancestors.  I sat down to help her and saw that this “Record Hint” was already attached to another person.  For a brief explanation “Record Hints” are possible historic records that likely belong to your ancestor such as a census record or a birth record.  In this case we found a duplicate person on the tree for her ancestor.  This led to about an hour of putting the family together and merging a lot of duplicate records. 

We finally finished and then she showed me that this ancestor was connected to a Mr. Deighton but no marriage detail was added.  We started looking an found out this ancestor showed as a servant living in the household of Robert Deighton on the 1871, 1881 and 1891 census.  On the 1901 census her last name changed to Deighton and on the 1911 census it showed that they had been married 14 years.  He was 20 years older than her.  I complimented Sister Wright on all the research that she had done as she had researched many of her family lines and had been doing so for a long time.  So I was happy to help her straighten out this family and make it so Robert Deighton could have his temple ordinances completed.

We finished at about 8:50pm and all the guests has left our floor so were able to get home a few minutes early.

Friday September 14

We did our Friday apartment cleaning in the morning before 10am.  Friday is a better day since we work during the day on Saturday and have the morning free on Friday.  We then went food shopping at Rancho Market. We go there for fruit and vegetables.  We also got a fresh coconut (for drinking the coconut water) and a papaya to be enjoyed by a former Tahitian missionary (me).  

We visited Glenna at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (she works there as a host on Friday mornings).  We enjoyed a visit with her and tried not to interfere with her hosting assignment. She rotates assignments every hour so we walked with her from the main floor to the Legacy Theatre.  She shared with us her concern about the situation with her husband Larry’s brother Jim Neilson.  I remember Jim and I know that he had a good heart. I don’t understand the circumstances but he had lost his church membership.  He passed away in 1989 and prior to his passing he was reinstated in the church was rebaptized the day before his death and this happened in the hospital.  From what we can see on his page on Family Tree, this had not been recorded properly on the church records.  I suggested what Glenna might do to straighten this out.  See the next paragraph for what happened with help from the Family History Library.

On the way back to our apartment we met talked to two Tahitian Missionary Sisters who are serving at Temple Square.  I spoke a little French and Tahitian to them and Sister Tolman said hello in Tahitian.

We went early to the Family History Library as we had a couple of things to do before our shift.  We signed up for city tour to be held on Monday October 1.  Also, after we left Glenna, I decided to see if I could help with the situation about her brother-in-law Jim.  There is a special resolution center at the library so we stopped there to explain what had happened with Jim Neilson.  I had brought a printout of his family group sheet.  The sister there said she would see what she could do and would check with the expert on duty.  She came back a few minutes later and asked if he had really been rebaptized the day before he died.  I explained that he had and the circumstances.   She went back and a few minutes later she told us that with a few phone calls Jim’s situation was resolved and that his records would be corrected and soon be updated on FamilyTree.  All the people who could help resolve this situation happened to be available and this was resolved in less than 10 minutes.   The final statement that she shared was that Jim Neilson’s rebaptism was recognized and his temple blessings restored. 

I helped Riki connect to his family and start him on the road to connect with his mother’s side of the family.  His father’s side was full and we didn’t even need to enter his record on FamilyTree as it was already there.  We merged a duplicate record for his aunt Delia.  We installed the FamilyTree app and Memories app on his phone.  Riki’s mother is Japanese and was brought home from Japan by his father who was in the navy.  She is still living so Riki needs to spend time visiting with his mother to find out more about her parents and other ancestors. 

Riki and his wife with Sister Anderson and Elder Tolman

I helped a young man name John get started with his family.  He was here with his young son and wife. He set up an account on FamilySearch.org and we connected with his family who came to the US in early 1900’s from Poland. 

I worked as Assistant Floor Manager and then Floor Manager between 6 and just after 7 when Sister Tolman substituted for me when Elder and Sister Hendricks arrived in the library.  I have been helping Sister Hendricks and now her husband wanted to get help as well.  I helped both of them.  Elder Hendricks found a name eligible for temple ordinances and reserved it.  I will continue to help both of them.   It was exciting to see Elder Hendricks show interest.

Saturday September 15

We were busy helping the entire day from about 9:30am until close at 5pm.  I helped a couple Mario and Remy. Their family is from the Philippines.  They wanted to find out more about their parents who were involved in World War II.  It was amazing what we found. He didn’t know his father was in the US prior to the start of World War II. We found his military records as joined the US Army during the war.  We also found him living with his brother in the US on the 1940 US census.  This was a total surprise to Mario.  Sister Tolman found information about Remy’s family.  I was really amazed that we were able to find so much about their families.  

Helped Rose and her daughter visiting from North Carolina.  They had a good experience and found out a lot about their family.  The daughter did the data entry and the mother provided the information.  We talked about Memories and the daughter uploaded a picture of her mother so she picked up how to do things quickly and will have lots of work to do when they get home.

The last person that I helped was Andrew Wells from New York City.  He and his wife both wanted to learn more about their families.  I helped Andrew set up an account and get started.  He knew some about his family and once we entered his parents and grandparents we found a lot more about his other ancestors.  We found census records and marriage records of his family and at the end I showed them how they can add memories to their family members on the tree. They were really excited about that and anxious to get started.  They also plan to talk to their oldest relatives to learn more from them about their families.  They have Jewish ancestors who immigrated from the Russia and Poland area due to persecution so it may be difficult to information and records.

We had a dinner with the missionaries who arrived at the Church Headquarters Mission the same time that we did.  It was really great to enjoy a pot luck dinner and be able to visit with them.

Here is our shift schedule for next week.  We change our shift for Tuesday and will be working from 8 to 5.  Sister Tolma will be answering phones in the missionary department in the Church Office Building.