November 4-10 - Sunday to Saturday

Weekly Update from Sister Tolman

This week was one of a little sadness but overall happiness.  It was my last week to answer telephones at the Church Office Building in the Missionary Department but I didn’t know it.  I walked in and they told me my new schedule through the end of this year and into next year.  I knew that wouldn’t work with the new position of assistant zone leaders and our Tuesday afternoon meetings.  Jamie, the person in charge came in and I told her what was going on.  She looked at the schedule and said “This is your last day.”  Kind of hard but I could see the hand of the Lord preparing the way for this to happen.  A new person is starting this coming week.

On Friday two women came in they were mother and daughter.  I helped the daughter and her name was Kyra Johnson and her mother’s name was Mrs. Johnson.  They were both African American and they knew a lot about their family.  I was very impressed with how many names and dates they knew.  We started searching and we found more information.  We ran into a road block and we knew we were going to run into it.  That roadblock is slavery.  We could find birthdates of some of the ancestors but they were born in the 1840’s in Missouri and that was a big slavery area.  That was one thing I didn’t know.  They had over 1000 slaves in that state at that time.  They kept coming back for two days and they were able to find more information.  They said they would continue to search records to see if they could fill in some of the holes. 

I helped one other family today, the Slade's.  There were six of them: a young boy, two sisters –one of who enters the MTC next week in London as the beginning of her mission, the mother of these children and the mother’s biological father and his fiancé.  They were looking to find information of the father’s side so they would know more about that.  We got them started and they had some lines that went back to at least the 1500’s.  We also printed out the pedigree chart for the daughter to take on her mission.  They were so excited.  They were going downstairs to print out their 9 generation, 24 by 36 fan chart.  We kind of refer to the Discovery floor as the Disneyland of Family History.  At least that is what Sister Zollinger one or our missionaries says.  

The one in the blue jacket on the end is leaving for London next week.  

It has been a good week and I have loved being a part of it.  Now on to new adventures next week.

Sunday Nov 4

We enjoyed Music and the Spoken Word in the morning.  It is so great to be able to take a five-minute walk and be at the Tabernacle to listen to the choir.  We visited with a couple from North Carolina and Sister Tolman answered some questions that they had about the church’s family history resources.

We attended our church meetings starting at 1pm.  Elder Tolman conducted Sacrament meeting and Priesthood Meeting and will do so for the month of November.  After Sacrament meeting President Buffington asked to meet with us sometime during Sunday School.  We met with him and he asked us to serve as Assistant Zone Leaders in our Help Services Zone.  This assignment will be announced in our prayer meeting on Tuesday morning.  We will learn more about our specific assignments soon.

We talked to three of our daughters today; Janny, Becky and Michelle. It was good to visit with each one.  In the evening we took some temple names to the Seniors as they will be going to the Star Valley Temple with Marn on Tuesday and returning on Wednesday.  

Star Valley Temple - Wyoming

While we were at their home we watched a Hallmark Christmas movie which was the third in a series- the Father Christmas trilogy.  The movie we watched was “Marrying Father Christmas” with Elder Tolman’s favorite Hallmark actress, Erin Krakow.  

Erin Krakow and Niall Matter

Monday Nov 5

We attended the 7:30 am Monday morning devotional as usual and enjoyed the messages.  One of the Sisters who spoke has been with us since the Provo MTC.  Her name is Sister Shirley Dircks.  Here is some of what she shared with us.

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I was born into a wonderful Methodist family in Illinois. So, I’m sure you are wondering how a Methodist girl from Illinois found the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. As my husband Stephen and I were starting our married life, a couple of Elders knocked on our door and they were doing a religious survey. They asked if we believed in Christ and other questions, then asked if we thought that there could be a prophet on earth today. I said NO and my husband said, “We certainly could use one!” He invited them back and we took the discussions and were baptized after about a month. He was ready from the first discussion. He had been looking for the church established by Christ in the New Testament. I decided that since they only wanted us to read the underlined parts of the Book of Mormon, there must be something they didn’t want me to read so I decided to read it all. I got to 2 Nephi 29: 6-8 The spirit spoke to me in those words. I realized I was reading with the “We need no more of the word of God attitude” and that I was murmuring because I was receiving more of his word. I realized that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and because the Book of Mormon was true, Joseph Smith had to be a prophet and the Gospel had been restored.   We were baptized on August 12, 1972 and a year later Aug. 23, we were sealed in the Oakland Temple and our first daughter Stephanie was sealed to us.

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Sister Tolman prepared a good breakfast with muffins, potatoes and eggs and juice. Our normal breakfast is juice with cereal for Elder Tolman and mashed potatoes for Sister Tolman. We went shopping after lunch at Walmart and Costco.   We found some winter accessories for Sister Tolman to keep her warm including leggings, tights and boots and a winter coat for Elder Tolman.   

We walked to the Credit Union to deposit the monthly rent check.  The walk was over a mile round trip.  We have had our walking exercise today.

While Elder Tolman attended the Branch Leadership meeting, Sister Tolman went shopping at Dollar Tree to pick up some more dinnerware as we will be have four Young Elders for dinner in two weeks and we only have four large plates.

Went to dinner at a local BBQ – R&R BBQ.   Sister Tolman has a pulled pork sandwich with fries and Elder Tolman had BBQ plate with slices brisket, roll and baked beans.  Not as good as Texas BBQ but tasty none the less.

Tuesday Nov 6

Our assignment as Assistant Zone Leaders was announced in the 7:30am prayer meeting.  

Elder Tolman worked with Bill Marsh from Grand Island Nebraska.  He is a couple of years younger than him.  He will be here all week with a group sponsored by the American Ancestors.  See the tour information below.

He had a question about how to download an ancestor’s pedigree chart to his flash drive.  I then noticed that he was not connected to his family on FamilyTree.  We started at that ancestor’s pedigree chart and looked at descendants until we found his father.  His mother wasn’t showing so we added her and then we connected him to them so he now had his tree set.  We looked at his tree using the 7-generation fan-chart and saw some blank spaces where he knew the information.   We added that ancestor by resolving a duplicate.  I showed him the Memories feature and looked at the “People” option on family tree which shows all his ancestors with pictures.  He said he had some pictures on his laptop and would bring it after lunch.  After lunch we picked out a picture of his great-grandparents with four of their children.  We added this picture and tagged all of those in the picture.  This was a good start and he plans to do more. 

We had a 90 minutes Zone leadership meeting which we will have every Tuesday afternoon at 2pm.  About 15 minutes before the meeting started, I helped a woman connect to her step father and reserve his temple ordinances.  She was so happy to make this happen and I was glad to be able to help.

Today was Sister Tolman’s last day answering the phones at the missionary department as the Sister in charge indicated that with her assignment as assistant zone leader, she needs to be at the library.

Wednesday Nov 7

Today is our temple day.  We attended the 8am Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple.  We leave our apartment at about 7:30 am.

We talked to two of our daughters this morning;  Angie and Julianna.

On Tuesday when I was helping Bill Walsh, we found a man named Frank who was not part of his family so we needed to disconnect him.  I recorded this man’s information and his possible parents.  Today I was able to attach him to his parents and also found his spouse.  I verified these relationships with a census record and a marriage record.  I then sent a message to the person who had connected this man to the wrong parents letting him know what had happened and that he now had another person to complete temple work for.  I was excited to make sure that he ended up in the correct family.  I also let Bill know that I had found a home for Frank.  

Elder Tolman and Bill Walsh

I also helped Terri King from Virginia.  She is here this week for her 40-year high school reunion.  She graduated from Hillcrest High School and lived in Salt Lake City for about 4 years.  I helped her with some research on one of her lines and we found a record on findagrave.com that had a wealth of information about part of her family.  I helped her get started evaluating and adding family members and then was able to continue without my help.  I also showed her some more about the Memories function on FamilySearch and helped her install the FamilySearch mobile apps.  It was very enjoyable to help her and to see her so excited about what she had found.  She looked at what time it was and couldn’t believe how much time had gone by. 

I spent time helping a new church service couple as they were going through their training.  As I was helping them, a guest raised her hand next to us asking for help.   I ended up helping Donna Swank who is visiting with a group from San Diego.  I helped her print out some Texas death certificates for some ancestors.  She uses FamilyTreeMaker to keep her tree but has an account on FamilySearch.  We looked at her tree on FamilySearch and found all of the death records already attached to her ancestors.  We also found information on one of her lines that she had not yet known.  These ancestors had lots of sources attached so I left her to check out these ancestors she didn’t know about.

After dinner, I was the Greeter from 6 to 7:45 pm.  We only had three guests arrive but a lot of the week long visitors who were coming and going.  For the last 30 minutes, I helped some of our regular Wednesday night visitors who are church members in the area.  The two who are always here are Stella and John.  I helped John resolve four duplicate records for one of his ancestors.  One duplicate took some detective work but we both agreed on the result.

Thursday Nov 8

On Thursdays we don’t start at the library until 6 pm.  Sister Tolman has a spot on her face that has increased in size lately.   We contacted our PCP (Primary Care Physician) and went to Urgent Care to get it checked out.  She has an appointment to meet with a Dermatologist later this month.  The doctor said the spot was a pre-cancerous lesion which was what I thought it was because of the treatment that I had several years ago.  We also got our flu shots.  We went food shopping and picked up pizza on the way home which we ate for lunch and dinner.  Between lunch and dinner we went to DI as Sister Tolman was looking for some more clothes which she found.

Sister Tolman was Floor Manager from 6pm to 7:45pm and then I took over as Floor Manager at 7:45pm and continued to close.

Sister Tolman assigned me to work with a young woman, Emily Miranda.  A co-worker who is a member brought her to the library and they planned to attend the Tabernacle Choir practice.  Emily lives in California but was born in Mexico.  Her father was also born in Mexico and her mother was born in the United States.  Emily didn’t know too much about her grandparents, so she called her mother.  While we were writing down the information that her mother shared, I started looking for her ancestors on Ancestry.com.  I found several census records with her grandparents and great-grandparents so I knew we could get her tree started.  We concentrated on her mother’s side of the family.  We found that her great-grandfather’s family was already partially on the tree and resolved four duplicate records for him as we worked on her tree.  She was so excited to see her family on historical records (census, draft registration, birth, etc) and kept taking pictures of what we were finding.  This ended up being a wonderful experience for her and she will be able to continue working on her family tree at home.

Just before close time, I helped a young woman who had already been helped by another missionary learn about Memories and how the FamilySearch mobile apps work.  She and her friend were really excited about what they found.

This week I read an article in the on-line Church News about Harry Bailey Jr who lived in the Gila Valley.  He was African-American and was baptized in 1953.  His story was inspiring to me  – Church News article 

Friday Nov 9

This morning in my person study I read about Maurine Proctor from Meridian “Tender Mercy:  The Story of a Very Personal Rescue”.  I shared this with Sister Tolman and she like it as well.  Marine Proctor was in a difficult place in her life and after Sunday School, a member of her ward shared a personal story with her that changed her life.  " To read about it select the link

Maurine Proctor and Priscilla Sampson-Davis in Ghana  

Quoting Maurice Proctor "Priscilla Sampson-Davis was probably surprised to have me, an unknown woman from America, throw my arms around her and say, “You don’t know me, but you rescued me one day when I really needed it.""

There is a communication convention in town for university communication professors and other communication professionals.  I helped a university professor for between one and two hours.  Her name is Allison Abeltramini and she is from Illinois.  We found several generations of her family with census and other historical records.  We didn’t connect to anyone who was already on the FamilyTree which is unusual.  Her family stayed in one area of Illinois so we were able to find out a lot about her parents and grandparents.  She has become the go to person for her family for gathering family information including pictures and stories. I helped her install the FamilySearch mobile apps.  We then added her parents wedding picture using her phone.. She was really excited and anxious to show her family what she has found.  She asked if she could take a picture to document that she was working on communication activities at the library. 

Elder Tolman and Allison Abeltramini

I helped one other person who was part of the convention.  She was looking a little lost so I sat down and asked her if she needed help.  I was able to help her for a few minutes just before going for our dinner break and then helped her after the break.

I helped a young Sister Missionary from Temple Square.  She wanted to put together a collage of pictures for her companion.  I showed her how to do this using Powerpoint. She finished and then needed help with the printing.

I helped a man who was just in town for a short time and was leaving today.  His name is Jonathan Pope. He had a lot of information on his ancestry tree.  I compared his tree to what was already on FamilyTree and most of the people on his tree were already there plus a lot more so he decided he wanted to get a FamilySearch account and we connected him to these ancestors.  He really liked the Fan Chart view of his tree.  He wanted to try to find more about an ancestor who immigrated from Ireland so I took him to another floor to see if they could help him.

Sister Tolman asked me to help a couple who are Ward Temple and Family History Consultants and wanted to know what they could do for a family history workshop they were having in their ward.  I shared some ideas with them and emailed him a couple of slides from one of my training documents.

Saturday Nov 10

Elder Tolman visited with Ira Gentry for just over an hour.  He couldn’t stay too long. He will able to stay at home starting the beginning of December and will have a lot more freedom.  It was good to visit with him.  We did a little more work on his tree and found the he could add to his end Gentry line with some previous research that he had done.

I helped Rex Fowles with his family tree.  He had a few questions that I helped him with, Then we talked about a good place to visit for a day as he is renting a car and likes to hike.  He decided to take a ride up Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We never know what type of help we are able to provide.

I talked to a woman with whom I have visited several times this week.  Her name is Patricia.  Her direct ancestor traveled from Halifax Nova Scotia to Salt Lake City in the early 1850’s.  She married and then she and her husband joined the RLDS church and went to Nebraska.  She was interested in learning how she traveled to Utah alone as a teenager.  I suggested that she go to the Church History Library to see if they had any information about which pioneer group she traveled with.

Helped Julie Benson from Chicago. She is her in town for the Communications Convention.  She had lots of ancestors on her ancestry tree but her tree on FamilySearch had gaps.  We were able to connect on FamilySearch to all her ancestors by adding a few people to bridge the gaps and merge some duplicates.  She was so excited to see her full fan chart and be able to print the large fan chart in color on the main floor in the library.   I showed her what was possible with the Memories function and helped her install the FamilySearch mobile apps. 

I helped church member with a case to complete in order to do the temple work for a cousin who died in WWII.  He had been forgotten as his parents and two sisters had all passed away.  This was something that she wanted to do for Veterans Day,

After dinner, we attended a Veterans Day concert at the Tabernacle commemorating the 100 years anniversary of the end of WWI.  The music was incredible and the best of the Saturday night concerts that we have been to.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic was same version that our girls sang at their high school graduation.  As an encore, the band played "Stars and Stripes Forever" and the governor of Utah was the guest conductor for this number.