January 13 - 19 - Sunday to Saturday
Picture of the mountains east of the valley with downtown Salt Lake in the foreground
Sunday Jan 13
We enjoyed Music
and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle in the morning. Sister Tolman taught the Relief Society
lesson during the second hour. The
lesson was based on Elder Gong’s message from October Conference titled “Our Campfire
of Faith”. The Sunday lesson time available
is now about 10 minutes longer than in the past. She spent many hours preparing for the
class. I talked to several of the
sisters after the class and they commented on what an excellent lesson they
enjoyed. The content of what she prepared
and shared is in a separate blog entry titled “Jan 13 Relief Society Lesson”.
We went to the
Seniors for dinner. Sister Tolman’s
uncle Mark Ethington and his wife Ilene were there as well. It was good to visit with them as well as see
mom and dad Senior. Mark and Ilene were
classmates of Elder Tolman at East High School.
After dinner we played several games of “Chicken Foot” dominos. Ilene won most of the games but Elder Tolman
managed to win one game. Mark and Ilene
plan to visit us at the library as Ilene especially has some questions and
needs some help with family history and using FamilySearch.org.
Monday Jan 14
We attended
the mission devotional from 7:30 to 8:30am.
The Digital Imaging Processing Zone gave a presentation of what they do
and how the overall family history process works together to acquire more family
history records and make these available on FamilySearch.
While I
attended the branch presidency meeting at 3pm, Sister Tolman visited a refugee
center in Rose Park where her brother David helped to paint a mural at Christmas time with a friend
of his.
We attended
the Book of Mormon class from 6 to 7:30pm.
President Fenn asked the missionaries to share their favorite book and
scripture in the Book of Mormon. If I
would have been called on, two of my favorites are 2 Nephi 31 especially verse
20 and Helaman 5 especially verse 12.
President
Fenn shared the chapters in the Book of Mormon that especially teach doctrine. These scriptures are the following.
I Nephi
11, 15, 19, 22
2 Nephi
2, 3, 4, 9, 25, 28, 29, 31
Mosiah
2-5, 15, 16
Alma 5,
7, 13, 32, 34, 36-38, 39-42
Helaman
5, 12, 15: 7-8
3 Nephi
9, 11, 12-14, 15, 20, 21, 27
Mormon
7, 8, 9
Ether
3, 12
Moroni
7, 8, 10
Tuesday Jan 15
During our
Zone Leadership Meeting, Elder Dahlin shared the Family History Department purpose
and quality standards. The purpose states "We create inspiring experiences that bring joy to all people as they discover, gather and connect their family - past, present, and future. See the document below for more details.
I helped
Margaret from Belleview Washington. She
is a regular visitor at the library and visits each year and has been for over 20 years. She has done research but has not experienced
what FamilyTree now has available. I
found her ancestors on the FamiyTree down to her parents (a cousin had added
this information). I had her logon to
FamilySearch and we connected her to her parents and helped her print out several
fan charts. She is amazed at what is
available now. We found a record hint on
her mother’s person page and it showed the record for a still-born child. The still birth was in the mid 1940’s. Seeing that record was very emotional for
her. I helped Margaret several more
times during the week and enjoyed visiting with her.
Wednesday Jan 16
We attended
the monthly mission conference from 7:30 to 9am. It was an excellent meeting. President McKnight talked about Nellie Layton
who is a missionary on our floor. She
will turn 100 years old in February and has been helping at the library for
over 20 years. She is a greeter and
works two four-hour shifts. She is a
remarkable woman and is very aware and alert for someone her age.
Mark and
Ilene Ethington visited us today at the library. It was fun to see them. I showed Ilene some ways to search record
collections on FamilySearch and the Card Catalog on Ancestry.com. They are acquainted with two of the missionaries
on our floor, Elder Miller who graduated from Bountiful High in 1965 and Ilene used to work with Sister
Howell.
I helped
Cheryl Adams who visits the library several days each week. She was here during the
day instead of at night when she normally. She said she had a meeting at church.
I was asked
to help Jessica who is a church member learn more about FamilySearch. She was at the library with her with husband
and young daughter. I showed her the help
resources on FamilySearch including the Research Wiki, Help Center, and Learning
Center. I showed her how ancestry.com
works well with FamilySearch. I saw that
she had names on her Temple List and she indicated that she has been using the TakeaName
app or the TakeaName website https://kinpoint.com/
to find ancestors ready for temple ordinances (this application is FamilySearch
certified). I explained the “Ordinances
Ready” feature on the Temple function on FamilySearch and how it works
differently. I gave her the half-page
handout that shows all the help resources and then showed her my family history
blog http://gktfamilyhistorylessons.blogspot.com/
I noticed a
family working together around one computer and stopped to see if I could help
them. They were a Jewish family from the
Washington DC area on a skiing vacation and had stopped at the library to learn
a little about their family. I helped
them print a historical document and showed them some of the other things they
could do with FamilySearch. This is
often how I end up helping guests at the library.
Thursday Jan 17
We talked
to Laura this morning. We enjoy a weekly phone visit with her normally on
Thursday morning. We attended Bountiful
Temple 10am Endowment session. This is
our first time attending there since we started our mission. The picture below was taken while we went to Garden
Park luncheon directly from Bountiful.
We arrived at
the restaurant 12:30pm and just talked to friends for a few minutes. RIght after Elder Tolman bought some new sort of dress shoes
at Big Five which is not to far from the restaurant. When we returned home we had a tasty lunch at
Crown Burger (bacon cheese burgers, fries and a large blackberry shake to
share). Thanks to the Griffith family
for a gift certificate.
We went to
see the movie “Green Book” on recommendation from a friend I talked to at the Garden
Park luncheon, Marty Manning. It
reminded us of the challenges our society faced in the 1960’s and still faces. Here is a brief description. “Dr Don Shirley is a world-class
African-American pianist, who is about to embark on a concert tour in the Deep
South in 1962. In need of a driver and protection, Shirley recruits Tony Lip, a
tough-talking bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx.
Despite their differences, the two men soon develop an unexpected bond
while confronting racism and danger in an era of segregation.”
Friday Jan 18
Elder
Tolman worked on 2018 taxes and our car registration which is complicated
because we are out of state and need to have the emissions test this year. There is a way to get this taken care of and
found out what needs to be done and how to make it happen. We cleaned the house. Elder Tolman vacuumed
and swept the floor and Sister Tolman did laundry and cleaned the bathrooms.
Elder
Tolman conducted the prayer meeting as is the case for Wednesday and
Friday. Our prayer meeting format is announcements,
hymn, prayer, brief training, monthly scripture and spiritual thought. For the training we talked about how to
update the ancestry.com tree from FamilySearch / FamilyTree and then load to
other trees such as the ones on myheritage.com and findmypast.com.
Elder
Tolman helped another missionary, Sister Jorgensen, update her ancestry tree
directly from FamilySearch. You can add four generations at a time from an ancestor
at the end of a line on the tree but need to add the children of a family one
at a time by transferring information directly from FamilySearch to ancestry.com.
I saw two
individuals who looked like they needed help.
It was a father and daughter from Georgia. I sat down and asked a few questions about what
the father new about his ancestors. His
parents are still living and he just knew a little about his grandparents and
that ended up being enough to make sure progress. We started with his father parents. I asked him what he knew and he remembered
that his grandfather died when he was in high school and where he died and he knew
his grandmother’s name. With that little bit of information, we found the 1940
census with his grandparents, their children and his grandfather’s parents. We found more and more records and found a copy
of the ship’s manifest when his great grandfather immigrated from Italy. We had a similar experience with his
grandparents on his mother’s side. They
worked some more on their own. I showed them where to get help on-line and at
home. It was amazing what we were able
to find with such a little bit of information.
What helped was the last name was not a common name so it was possible to
find the census records.
I helped
Elder Baker with some suggestions on how to work with guests when they just
want to look at records. What I do is to
show then what ancestors are already on FamilyTree and often this encourages
them to get an account so they can access that information from home.
At about
7:30pm Sister Tolman asked me to help Garrett from San Antonio. A sister missionary helped his wife. He knew detailed information about his
parents and we were able to add them to FamilyTree and find some source records
about them. We found his paternal grandparents
on the tree already. We found his father’s
birth certificate and his grandfather’s yearbook picture that contained information
about his accomplishments. We added that
picture to FamilyTree and made it his portrait.
I helped him for about an hour and he has a good start and wants to
continue on at home working on his tree.
He and his wife were here for a skiing vacation in Park City.
Just before
closing I helped two older women to whom I have saying hello all week. They asked me how they could get the “Snipping
Tool” at home and I showed them how to access it and pin it to the taskbar on
their computers.
Saturday Jan 19
Sister Tolman
fixed us dinner to take with us to the library as we don’t have time to go back
to the apartment as we work from 1 to 9pm and there are only four of us from 6 to 9pm. We were both busy helping guests
at the library as soon as we arrived.
I helped a
young mother Kathryn Swan from Pleasant Grove.
She has six children with the oldest being 12. She said that she had the day off from family
responsibilities. It was nice of her husband
to make that happen. She has been using the
Take A Name app for finding people needing temple work (similar to the woman I
helped earlier in the week on Wednesday).
She had some time to learn more about FamilySearch so I spent between
one and two hours helping her. We
checked out some of the names on her temple list and found some possible duplicates. I shared with her how the Ordinances Ready
feature works. Her oldest son just
turned twelve so this is something that he can do.
We reviewed
how to find photos and stories about her ancestors and we updated a couple of
portraits for great grandparents. She
wanted to learn more so I shared my family history blog with her. We also did some investigation on one of the
women that she had on her temple list. I
showed her how to use ancestry.com to find more about the family. We found the parent’s marriage record which
gave the maiden name. We resolved a duplicate
and found a whole family needing temple work. This was really exciting for her
to be able to complete temple work for a family that she helped
identify. She wants to possibly visit again
for more help. I encouraged her to spend
time each week and also involve her family. She gave me permission to be a
helper for her so I will see if I can find some areas where she can add more
families to the tree.
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