November 18-24 - Sunday to Saturday

On Saturday the 24th we had our first snowstorm.  We can also now enjoy the Christmas lights on Temple Square which started on Friday the 23rd at 5 pm.

This week we had a shortened work week at the library due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  We worked a full day on Tuesday from 8 to 4, four hours on Wednesday from 5 to 9 pm and a full day on Saturday from 1 to 9 pm with 6 to 9 m at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) at the Discovery Floor.

Sunday Nov 18
We enjoyed Music and the Spoken Word with a Thanksgiving theme.  We attended Church as usual. We are encouraged to volunteer to feed the Young Elders from time to time on Sunday evenings.  Today Five Young Elders arrived for dinner.  Sister Tolman fixed artisan bread, egg drop soup, pork wontons, and Chow Mein.  I have an amazing chef for a missionary companion.  The Young Elders left us the following thank you note.

We watched two episodes of Relative Race Season 4 on BYUtv.  We have seen the first five episodes.  This series shows really enjoyable experiences as individuals in the race meet relatives whom they have never met before and compete for a $50,000 prize.  During this week we watched the remaining five episodes as our work schedule was lighter.  One contestant met her father on the last day of the race.

Monday Nov 19

We attended the mission devotional that was held at the Assembly Hall today.  During the meeting President and Sister Buffington were released from the mission presidency and Elder and Sister McKnight, our Zone Leaders, were announced as the new members of the mission presidency.  They are a great choice for this important and challenging assignment.

We attended the Book of Mormon study night led by President Fenn.  We discussed Helaman chapters 3 through 5.  Helaman chapter 5 is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon.  I enjoy reading about how Nephi and Lehi, the sons of Helaman, changed the lives of 300 Lamanites and dissenters who imprisoned them and wanted to kill them.  These 300 men were converted and became effective missionaries sharing the gospel with their people.    See comments below.

Tuesday Nov 20

During our 7:30 am prayer meeting, the new zone leaders were sustained.  Our new Zone Leaders are Terry and Kathy Dahlin.  They will do a great job.  Sister Tolman and I will continue as Assistant Zone Leaders.  One of our main assignments is training,  We are pleased to stay as assistants as this means we will continue to be able to help guests as they visit the library.

I helped a member print out some temple baptisms using the new Ordinances Ready function.  She had completed the first step in adding the ordinances to her temple list but needed help to print out the cards.  

Sister Tolman and I helped a family where the wife was Japanese born in Japan and the husband was born in the US and is caucasian. They and their two children live in Las Vegas but travel to Japan each summer.  The two children speak Japanese in addition to English.  I helped the wife, another missionary helped the husband and Sister Tolman talked to the children. They didn’t have a lot of time since they wanted to attend an organ concert in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. We at least were able to help them get started and they plan to return to the library this week.

I showed an older member sister some of the recent changes on FamilyTree with the updated fan chart and the new portrait option. She is working on a book for her family.  She asked me what happens to her pictures on FamilySearch after she dies,  I explained that all she needs to do is identify and tag people in the pictures and they won’t be lost.  I encouraged her to add some of her favorite pictures of her immediate family in Memories as she has not done that yet.

For dinner we went to Dairy Queen in Woods Cross and for dessert we used our Blizzard BOGO.

Wednesday Nov 21

We attended the 8 am Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple.  It was way busier than normal.  The Temple closes after the 10 am Endowment session and doesn’t open until Saturday.

I have been working on arranging and communicating information for our December Sunday meetings including Sacrament Meeting speaking assignments and prayers and the Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society lessons.  The US/Canada Zone has the lessons and our Help Services Zone has Sacrament talks and prayers.   

I helped a man named Edwin from Colorado start importing his tree from Ancestry.com into FamilySearch.  He had started adding some of this family but he has over 6000 people on his tree.  I showed him a way using a tree download (GEDCOM) to the Roots Magic program. Roots Magic has a good interface to FamilyTree which eliminates most of the manual adding of names.   I showed him how to do this and he will continue when he returns home.  We found that most of those on his ancestry tree are already on FamilySearch/Family Tree.   Ancestry.com has built a direct interface with FamilySearch/Family Tree but only for those with the free accounts for church members.

Experience submitted by Sister Tolman ***********************

At about 3:30 I was asked to help someone.  She had several what they thought were complex questions.  It turned out that none of them were that bad.  First of all she said her daughter was no longer a member of the church and she had an account but hadn’t been able to make any connections.  I told her that had nothing to do with her not being a member.  It most likely had something to do with her not adding the living people by name and details before trying to add the deceased ones.  We need to build a bridge from living parents and grandparents to deceased ancestors.

Second question was that someone had entered her mom as deceased and she wanted to know what to do about it since she lives with her mom.  So we marked her mom as living and then made up a case so that the church would change this.

Then her father had duplicates and his death was not entered.  I told her to go to her ward clerk and have him check to make sure that her father’s death information had been entered.  After she does that we can combine the duplicates and his records should show up just fine.  We didn’t combine the two records because one of them had a living spouse and one had a deceased spouse.  We want to resolve that problem first.

Then she talked to her daughter on the phone and we got her records all straightened out so she could see all of the generations back.  It was exactly what I suspected she hadn’t added the living people or was trying to do it with an ID number that does not work for living people.  But all is good now.

*********************************************

Thursday Nov 22 - Happy Thanksgiving

We picked up mom and Dad Senior and went to Marn and Mike’s for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Three of Marn and Mike’s children and their children were there for a total of 22.  The oldest grandchild there was 12.  Their daughter Katie and her family live in Albuquerque and were not there.  Sister Tolman fixed a salad and brought a berry pie.  After dinner we played Bingo and everyone won a prize based on the way we played.  We never cleared the board so eventually each person got bingo and a second prize was given for the first person to cover all squares,  I was the first one to get Bingo but I didn’t get the second prize.  We later sat around the table with the adults and several of the older children and shared what we are thankful for.   We did that while lighting a match and sharing blessings until the match can no longer burn (a Senior tradition started by Sister Tolman's Grandma Ethington).   

Marn and mom and dad Senior

Left to right from the head of the table - Kyle, his wife, Chris and his wife, 

Carlie and her husband.  The others are several of their children

Friday Nov 23

We went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in the morning with the Stotts, another missionary couple, so they could show us how the Discovery Center works as we will be working there on Saturday night from 6 to 9 pm.

We went shopping and then went to visit with my sister Gerri and her husband Dave.  We first went to Walmart and purchased a cookbook for Sister Tolman and some Christmas movies.  We then went to Pepboys as we had a $15 reward.  We bought windshield washer fluid since regular water won’t work here in the winter, a brush and scraper to clean off the snow and some antifreeze.  We then went to Seagull Book and bought some Christmas presents.  We arrived at Gerri and Dave’s house at about 12:30 pm and then went to lunch at Wendy’s.  

I helped Gerri with some Family History and we finally solved the question that I have had as to where exactly on West Temple that Grandpa and Grandma Tolman lived.  Grandpa Tolman’s death certificate showed that they lived on 130 N 1st West which I had interpreted as on West Temple.

My memory was clear that they lived in an apartment building on the west side of West Temple.  Based on our address of 185 N West Temple for our apartment building which is on the west side of the street, their home had to be on the East side of the street.  Gerri showed me a picture of her next to their apartment complex indicating that it was on the west side of West Temple as her memory also was that they lived on the west side of the street.  Then Gerri remembered that when Grandpa Tolman died they had been living for a short time with my dad’s sister Flora Tolman Fisher and her children one street west of West Temple.  We then remembered that in 1959 and until some years later First West was 200 West and not West Temple.  Mystery is solved.  Their apartment used to be right on the site where we live now.  I found from a 1956 Directory on Ancestry.com that indicated they lived at 167 N West Temple Apt 5.  

Gerri showed me a lot of pictures that she has.  We encouraged her to bring these to the Family History Library and we can help her scan them.  Below is a picture of my mother Adele Kerr with her brother Knight Kerr and my grandmother, Marion Adeline Belnap Kerr.

I helped Gerri get five names for doing initiatory work using the new "Ordinances Ready" feature of FamilySearch.  I also printed some temple cards from my temple list for her to complete baptism through initiatory ordinances.

Gerri arranged for all of us to meet my sister Glenna and her daughter Lori for dinner at about 5:30 pm  at Chili’s Restaurant not far from Glenna’s house.  Both Sister Tolman and I had really tasty hamburgers and fries.  We had a good visit with them all.  Our drive home was challenging as it was dark and was raining.   

The lights on Temple Square were turned on tonight and here is another picture.

Saturday November 24

It continued to rain all night.  This morning after we got up the rain turned to snow and we now have our first snowstorm in the city.  Here is a picture of Elder Tolman getting ready to throw a snowball.  

Looking at the snow from outside our apartment window

When we first arrived at the library at about 12:15 pm, we ate lunch as one of the Sister Missionaries had brought lunch.  There was plenty of food.  We ate homemade noodles and turkey soup.  We also had stuffing and pumpkin pie.

I helped a women, Jeanne Butte, from Laguna Niguel, California.  She visits here often as her son lives in Midvale.  Laguna Niguel is just south of Newport Beach.  She couldn't remember her FamilySearch account password and wanted to just learn about some of her ancestors.  She previously had an account on ancestry.com.  I used my FamilySearch account and we found a lot of her ancestors already on the tree and added some more including her mother and her only brother who died at age three of Leukemia just before she was born.  We added this brother to FamilyTree as he was listed on the 1940 US Census and also found his death information.  We were able to verify information about her grandfather who was born in Germany and the rest of his siblings were born in the US in Wisconsin.  She had heard that the parents married after arriving in the US and we were able to verify that.  She has some more information at home and will continue when she returns home on Monday.  It was really enjoyable helping her find and add more information about her ancestors to FamilyTree.

From 5:30 pm to 9 pm we helped at the Discovery Center in the JSMB.  It was really busy with a total per Sister Tolman of 741. We had enough help with over eight Young Elders helping plus Sister Tolman and me.  We had about 10 minutes of clean-up after 9 and didn't get back to our apartment until after 9:30 pm.  We are tired. 

I met a family whose son is serving a mission in Tahiti.  They took a picture of me and a missionary who is serving from their ward.  I taught them a couple of Tahitian words that they can share in their next letter to him.

I helped a young man from Thailand set up a FamilySearch account.  He is an exchange student and will be able to add more information when he gets home.

I helped a couple several times during the evening.  His name is Webb Johnson.  I showed them the Ordinances Ready App and some of the other new features in FamilyTree.  I showed them how to tag people in photos he added.  They plan to visit the library on a Saturday morning to get more help.  They have my phone number and I have theirs so they can contact me when they plan to go to the library.  Brother Johnson served a mission in Japan and told me about a sister that he baptized and he wondered if we could find her on FamilyTree as she had passed away.  I helped him find her and we found that she had entered her parents information and had their temple work done but she had never been sealed to then,  When he found he could get this work done for her, he cried.  It was a very tender moment for him as realized there was one more thing that he could do to help her.