December 16-22 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday Dec 16

We attended Music and the Spoken Word.  The conference center was about half full which is way more in attendance than on other Sundays in December.  I am sure it is because the choir sang songs from the Christmas concert and also that Kristin Chenoweth would be there and sing.  The program was inspiring.  The conference center was decorated beautifully.  Here are a few pictures.

Kristin Chenoweth accepting a gift after the broadcast

Sister Tolman had planned to prepare home-made lasagna for our monthly dinner for our floor but since the dinner was cancelled we took dinner over to mom and dad Senior.  We enjoyed dinner together and then watched one of the new Hallmark Christmas movies.

Monday Dec 17

The weekly mission devotional was really good and was a Christmas theme with music and narration and lasted about an hour.  We also said goodbye to a number of full-time missionaries who are returning home this month.

We met Sister Tolman’s family at Macy’s around 11am.  Her parents wanted to do some shopping and see the decorations in the windows.  After we had lunch them over to our apartment- Marn, Jayne and mom and dad Senior.  Sister Tolman fixed an excellent lunch with French Onion Soup as the main course.  

Lynne's Sisters Jayne and Marn and her mother in front of Macy's

Lunch in our apartment

We enjoyed a night at the temple lights with our MTC and training group.  We enjoyed goodies afterwards at our apartment.  See picture below with the temple in the background.

Sister Seve,,Sister Dirkes and Sister Stratford

Sister Tolman and Brother and Sister Phillips

Tuesday Dec 18

I helped Don Attridge.  I have helped him before and he specifically asked for me to help him.  He gave me a new Christmas card shown below.  I helped him print some temple ordinance cards using Ordinances Ready.  I also showed him some features on his smart phone.

I helped an older sister who lives in our building with figuring out which temple names she had tried to print and then cancelled.  We were able to get these temple cards printed out for her.

I updated the Sunday program with input from President McKnight.  Our mission president and his wife will be speaking this Sunday for our Sacrament Meeting and Sister Fenn wanted to change the order of the program.  One of my jobs in the branch presidency is to organize the weekly bulletin that is distributed each Sunday before Sacrament meeting.

We volunteered today during our Zone Leadership meeting to help at RootsTech 2019.  We will be there on Wednesday through Saturday Feb 27-Mar 2 and work in the CyberCafe hosted by FamilySearch. This will be enjoyable for the two of us and we will get to see a little bit at RootTech 2019 as well.

Wednesday Dec 19

We attended the Mission Conference this morning at 7:30am to 8:30am. It was excellent.  President and Sister Fenn talked about the birth of the Savior and the doctrine associated with his birth and life and that He was the only begotten Son of Heavenly Father. 

I directed the 12:30pm prayer meeting.  There were only five of us including me.  I helped two of our missionaries, Sister Bennett and Sister Cluff with some questions that they had.  I also helped the Young Elders help a young man get started with his account on familysearch.org and start to build his tree.  He also installed the mobile app.  He is local and will be back for more help.

I helped a woman and showed her the 1911 Census and what it tells about the family.  I shared with her my blog and how to do English Research.

Thursday Dec 20

This morning we got the good news that we are great grandparents for the first time.  Sister Tolman’s parents now have their first great-great child.  Our new great granddaughter is Jaylin Marie St Onge. She was born around 7:30am and the mother and daughter are doing find. Our grandson Mikey is adjusting to being a father and our daughter Janny is loving being a grandmother.  

Elder Tolman went to lunch with the Garden Park group and Sister Tolman went shopping at Deseret Industries.

We went to the Savior of the World musical presentation at the Conference Center theater,  It was wonderful and added to our experience of the mission conference yesterday. The music was inspiring and the stage production very professional.   Below is description and the picture that I took and the program.

Picture of the cast after the peformance

Friday Dec 21

Sister Tolman went food shopping and I went to the credit union to deposit a check that we received for renting our October week at the Carlsbad Inn.  On the way back I took some pictures of the windows at Macy’s.  Since it was overcast, the pictures are better that the ones that I have taken before.  

For the past several days I have been working on straightening out a family.  I did a little work on this on Thursday and was going to postpone working on this until next month.  Brother Rowley from Mesa had entered the family into the tree over a year ago.  I worked for several hours today and ending up connecting this family to several other families and the end result was that the family members first entered by him were all already on FamilyTree.  Fortunately I was able to prevent further unneeded duplication of temple work.  After completing all the combining and correcting, I know why I was prompted to not delay working on this family.

Saturday Dec 22

We did our normal cleaning and laundry today instead of Friday.  I also cleaned the outside of the car as much as possible with a bucket, paper towels and a squeegee.

We had a busier day than most Saturdays at the Family History Library today.  We kept busy before lunch.  I helped a young man connect with his grandfather by finding more historical records about him.  We found records that other family members had not found including him living by himself on the 1940 census, his WWII draft registration, WWII service record, his 1936 high school yearbook picture and some other things.  His mother told him that he had created drawings in his last job in California.   We were not able to find any of those but the records we did find helped him feel like he accomplished something at the library.

We left at 4:15pm to go back to the apartment for dinner.  Sister Tolman fixed a quick dinner of baked potatoes covered with chili.  We were back before 5pm.  From 5 to 6pm we had three helpers and from 7pm to 9pm it was just the two of us.

I helped a young woman from Brazil who was here with a friend.  I helped her recover her LDS and FamilySearch account which was a challenge since she had set up her account in Brazil.  With the help of the account activation team, we were finally able to get her connected.  We got her connected to the LDS Tools app and showed her how to see her membership information which was exciting for her to remember when she was baptized.

From about 6:45 to 7:30pm Sister Tolman and I helped the Pickering family (mother, two daughters and a son) who wanted to get accounts on FamilySearch so they could print out their 9 generation fan charts on the Discover floor.  I helped the mother recover her account and get connected to both sides of the family (we ended up recovering her husband's account). Sister Tolman helped the 13 year-old daughter.  I also helped the 10 year-old son get his account.  Sister Tolman showed them a lot about Memories and how to get the mobile apps.  All three except the 5 year old daughter were able to connect to FamilySearch and see their ancestors.  This was very enjoyable for both of us and kept us occupied for about 45 minutes.  Sister Tolman showed them about the Memories function and also how to get the mobile apps. This was our highlight of the day.

Sister Tolman helped a man who wanted to discover more stories about his ancestors in addition to those already found on FamilyTree. She was able to help him with some ideas of where to start.