March 10 - 16 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday March 10

Attended Music and the Spoken Word.  Saw the Texas Tracers from Victoria, Texas at the tabernacle and took their picture.  I helped several of their members last week and helped several on Tuesday this week before they returned home.

We have been excited to follow the progress of the open house and dedication of the Rome, Italy Temple.  Once I heard that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would all be in Rome for the dedication, I anticipated a picture of them all in the visitor’s center with the statues of the Christus and the 12 apostles.  

First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Church leader's wives with Rome Temple in the background

Attended our branch meeting and were planning on six of the young Elders for dinner but two of them were sick so we only had four.  Sister Tolman prepared a potato bar with enough baked potatoes for two apiece for eight.  The young Elders took some of the extra potatoes home and some of sour cream cake she purchased at Smith’s. 

We talked to Christina and then to Janny and her family and shared some of our experiences at RootsTech.

Monday March 11

Attended the devotional but had to leave before it was finished to attend the Big Picture.  During the devotional the Library Collection Zone gave a presentation about what they do.  The Big Picture which is a day long training by FamilySearch to help us understand how we all fit together in the work.

One of the things emphasized was the importance of providing excellent customer service to those we serve in the library.  Our stated purpose is “We create inspiring experiences that bring joy to all people as they discover, gather and connect their family- past, present, and future”.  We saw a video about the Jess Family, a blended family in Springfield, Illinois, and the positive impact that Family History had on their family.  I remember seeing videos about this family some years ago.  You can see a video about this family at Jess Family Video

We enjoyed hearing about the miracle of procuring the land for the Philadelphia Temple.  Read about this at the end of this blog entry.  

We shared excellent personal customer service experiences and experiences that were not good.

Tuesday March 12

This morning I thought twice about bringing my laptop and carry case to the library but thought I could use it so took it to the library.  We attended the 7:30 am prayer meeting and I conducted the 9:30am prayer meeting as well as Elder Dallin our Zone Leader was not feeling well.  I shared the Philadelphia Temple site story during the meeting.

I talked to Betty and Donna from the Texas Tracers as this is their last day in the library and they return home in the afternoon.  I also helped another Texas Tracer, Martha, print her fan chart and attach some photos.  It was very enjoyable helping this group for the past week. 

Donna and Betty (left to right) Texas Tracers

I helped a man from San Antonio, Texas print out a 7-generation fan chart for his family tree.  He was really excited and we printed out two 11x17 color copies.  Just before lunch I told him about the FamilySearch Research Wiki and got my laptop from the locker to show him.  It was about lunch time so I hurried and put my laptop back in the carry case, locked the locker, put the key in my pocket and off we went back to the apartment for lunch.

Later in the afternoon, I wanted my laptop and reached in my pocket for the key and it was not there.  I went home as I thought I might have left it in the apartment but I hadn’t.  We didn’t’ have much time to worry about it as we needed to pick up mom and dad Senior for a 70th wedding anniversary dinner arranged by Sister Tolman which we held at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Taylorsville.  We enjoyed a good dinner with all of sister Tolman’s siblings and all but one spouse.  The food was good and we managed to split the bill among the four of us and pay for mom and dad’s dinner.  We drove the Senior’s to and from the restaurant and after taking them home, stayed for a visit.  Here are some pictures from our dinner.

Rowland and Lois Senior - 70th Wedding Anniversary Dinner

Elder & Sister Tolman, David Senior, Rowland & Lois Senior, 

Marn & Mike Coles, Jayne & Greg Johnson

When we got home at around 9pm, I thought more about what could have happened to the key to the locker and decided that it must have fallen from my pocket when I reached for the key to get in our apartment building.  Sister Tolman said she would check but it was late and I said we could look for it in the morning and then go in early to the Family History Library to see which lockers were left locked overnight.

Wednesday March 13

I woke up in the middle of the night and it was raining hard but when we awakened in the morning it had snowed a couple of inches and continued snowing off and on most of the day.  We dressed quickly and made it to the library by about 7:15am.  It was a little slow walking as there was snow on the sidewalks.

When we got up to the third floor where we work, I checked the lockers and there were only three lockers still locked and I knew that none of these three were where I had put my laptop.  When I walked toward our office area to hang up my coat, I saw Jim who is our library technical support leader and expert.  He asked if I was Elder Tolman and there was my laptop and carry case. He said Elder Robinson had turned in the key to the locker and he hadn’t had a chance to check until this morning.  During the 9:30am prayer meeting which I conducted as Elder Dallin wasn’t feeling well, I shared the story of losing and finding my laptop.  Sister Dallin said that she had found the locker key Tuesday afternoon and since she wasn’t going back to the library put the key on a bench just inside the doors where Elder Robinson found it and took it back to the library.  I saw Elder Robinson at the end of the 9:30am prayer meeting and thanked him for finding and bringing the key back to the library.

On Thursday afternoon Sister Tolman congratulated me for not going crazy as I normally do when I lose something.  I had managed to stay calm from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning when I found the laptop.

Helped Sister Pinnock with her tree problem where she combined a New York and English family.  Many others have contributed to this combined family.  We made a lot of progress but are still working to straighten the family out as it appears that there are a least three and possibly four families combined into one.  We checked the oldest son and found only once source for him.  When we looked at the detail image for him and say that he was born to a woman who was single so we put him by himself connected only to his mother.

While I was helping Sister Pinnock, the wife of the man I helped from San Antonio, Texas asked me to help her.  I spent some time and we looked at her tree and made some corrections.  We printed fan charts for her and her son.  The county where San Antonio is located is Bexar.  Bexar Is pronounced that same as bear which is sort of a Texas version of the Spanish pronunciation.  Their names are Carolyn and David.  I helped them several more times during the week.  I helped David update his fan chart and print out a new copy.  I encouraged them to stop at the Discovery Floor after lunch on Friday which they did.  Friday was their last day and they are flying back to Texas on Sunday.

David and Carolyn from San Antonio, Bexar County Texas

Had the going away party for Elder Winn and Sister Pearson.  Sister Pearson is from North Carolina and has served for 18 months as a full-time missionary.   

Sister Barbara Pearson at the Greeters Desk on the 3rd Floor in the FHL

We stayed about an hour past our normal end of shift time at 4pm and I was able to help a woman who was there with her husband.  We resolved some duplicates among her ancestors on FamilyTree, installed the mobile FamilySearch apps, showed her where to find training and help resources and where to find a local family history library near her home.

At home I did some reading.  The current book that I am reading is “The Strength of the Hills” which I bought at RootsTech.  The book is a historical fiction novel about early church converts in Italy.  You can learn more at https://www.karenpetersonmosley.com/  Sister Tolman worked on some Family History Indexing.

Later in the evening we played a game of Five Crowns and I did something that I have never accomplished before after playing this game numerous times.  At the end of the eleven rounds I had a total of zero points.

Thursday March 14

We went to the Salt Lake Temple and attended the 8am Endowment session.  It was a small session with 12 women and about 15 men.  Later we went food shopping and had lunch at Wendy’s and both had the four for four (burger, fries, chicken nuggets and drink for $4).

I thought that we might not be busy tonight but we were busy the whole night.  Sister Tolman was the Floor Supervisor from 6 to 7pm and then worked on learning about the new book scanner we have on our floor.  She helped a young woman from the San Francisco area start building her tree.  Her father is from France so that complicates her searching a little.  She needs to talk to her parents to find out more about her grandparents.

Helped man with duplicate account.  He said the system told him he had a duplicate account and when I checked his current account that had his only email address and his cell phone connected, I was skeptical.  Finally I realized that he was probably a church member.  I asked him and he said yes.  The account we were working was not connected to his membership number so the mystery was solved.  He needs to get his membership number and then we can contact the account recovery group and get him set up with his correct account.  A missionary helped him set up another account a couple of days ago which has caused the problems.

Helped Lisa from Dallas.  She had connected to the wrong great-grandparents on the tree and in trying to change this had made a mistake that needed to be fixed.  We corrected that and found the correct family which agreed with what she knew about her ancestors.  We found her grandmother on the 1930 and 1940 census with her father and step mother but couldn’t find her on the 1920 census.  The father had remarried in 1922 and we found the marriage certificate for the second wife.  Family rumor has it that the first wife had some mental problems.  Lisa will need to try to find the birth certificate for her grandmother which will likely have her parent’s names.  I helped her connect to another of her family lines and she was very happy and went to the first floor to reprint her 9-generation fan chart.  Before she left, I showed her how use the help resources and helped her install the mobile apps. 

Four of our girls and their families want to go to the Marriott Newport Coast Villas in Newport Beach for fall break this year.  After returning to our apartment, I decided to check on availability for the week starting Sunday October 6.  I had planned to book four units from Sunday October 6 to Friday October 11.  When I looked at the website, there were no units available for check in on October 6 but there were for check in on Monday October 7.  As it turned out the timing for leaving on Monday and returning on Saturday is better than leaving on Sunday and returning on Friday.  I think that we will plan on that timing for future vacations.  I made the on-line reservations for four units but noticed I had reserved the wrong date for one week which I called and got corrected on Friday morning.

Friday March 15

Today is our cleaning day since we go to work early on Saturday this week.  I continued reading “The Strength of the Hills” before going to the library at 12;30pm.

Both Sister Tolman and I helped the Gwins with Family History during the week. They are from Arizona and have already served several missions together.  They are older (in the early 80's) and don’t have experience with FamilySearch or with technology.  Showed them how to add Memories and find some records for their families on Ancestry.com including a Draft Registration card for her father and helped her upload the image to FamilySearch.  She has lots of photos on her computer at home so she can get started adding some of those to FamilyTree.  Showed them the two training module that I have done which we will be using for training during prayer meetings for the next two weeks.  They wanted to print out the materials which they did.

Helped Raymond from Virginia.  He is here on business.  Started his tree but didn't make much progress except teaching how FamilySearch works. He needs more information from family members and is exciting about continuing to work on his Family Tree.

I worked at the desk after we returned from dinner for three hours from six to nine.  This gave Sister Tolman a chance to help several people.

Saturday March 15

Today is our day to work early on Saturday so our schedule is from 7:30am to 5pm. but we ended up staying until after 5:30pm.  Sister Tolman and I both had lots of opportunities to help guests who visited the library.  We don’t have as many missionaries assigned on Saturdays so all the missionaries serving on Saturdays are always able to help.  Sister Disque brought in Crispy Creme doughnuts.  Notice the color.

I helped Jerry from Dallas who visited the library yesterday and was back to continue his research for a short time  We found some historical records including census records for his great-grandparents with name of family members that he had not heard of before.  He really wanted to understand the people he was seeing on the census records so we worked more slowly than I normally work when helping but when we were finished he understood what we had found.  I showed him how to continue with his efforts when he returns home.  This also taught me that sometimes I need to slow down.

A family of mother, father and son all wanted to work on their family history.  I was the floor supervisor at this time.  After the mother had finished, I asked her if she had added the mobile app as she had an IPAD.  She said no but then indicated that she was surprised the she had not been able to find one part of her tree as her grandmother had done a lot of research.  I had her logon to her FamilySearch account and I looked at ancestry.com.  I asked her the information about this couple and I found them on the 1940 census and noticed that the birth information she had added for them was about 15 years off and that she hadn’t put the correct birth place.  We corrected that she had on FamilySearch and attached the 1940 census to this couple.  We attached this census to them and when she looked at the information on the census image with names, ages, and occupation, it struck her that she was reading a historical document that was actually written about them and tears started flowing as she experienced this connection with ancestors.

One person that I helped today had Holbrook ancestors.  He was at the library with his wife and daughter.  As I looked back I found a common ancestor Moses Holbrook who is Joseph Holbrook’s father.  Joseph Holbrook is my 3rd great-grandfather.  So we were fourth cousins.  One interesting part of his family history was the 1940 census with his grandfather, grandmother and his father and father's sister.  The image was obscured for his father and grandfather but when looking you could make out his father James and grandfather Percy.  Two other names were clear and that was the grandmother Clara and James' sister Mabel.  They indicated that there was no sister named Mabel but the birth information matched his sister.  They indicated that Percy has a sister Mabel.  We thought about this and decided that the mother or father who talked to the census taker said Mabel by mistake instead of their daughter's name.  For example, Sister Tolman's mother Lois often called her by Lois' sister's name Elaine.

A young girl brought me a 5 ¼ floppy disc and wondered if we could read it as it was from her grandmother who was also there along with the girl’s mother.  Believe it or not, we have a technical support area on the first floor that can read almost anything.  I was able to get a copy of what was on the drive and share it with them.  It had some family information but it didn’t seem to be well organized.  In any case, we recovered the contents on the floppy drive.

At about 4:40, I started to help two friends, Kim and Summer, who wanted to find about their families. Both were born in Wyoming but have since moved.  Kim is living in Denver and Summer in Utah.   I was able to get them setup on FamilySearch and began searching for their ancestors.  We connected to ancestors already on the tree and added some more information for both of them.  Summer plans to visit the library some more to continue research.  Kim is from Denver and as we were looking back on her line found out that her grandparents were both born in Lovell, Wyoming about the same time as my father.  These families were likely acquainted.  

Kim, Elder Tolman, and Summer

Sister Tolman’s Saturday Experience

I sat by herself and started doing some indexing.  I got about three batches done and a young girl behind me was there with her grandmother and her aunt and her aunt had an account. I heard the young girl say I want to get an account.  I asked how old she was and she said 17. Then I said come over here and let’s get you set up.  It took us two minutes to get her account and then it took her about another 15 minutes to get the information for her family entered.  After this, we connected into several existing lines.  She followed one family line back to Adam.  She was really excited about being able to do this.  I giggle quietly because honestly we all go back to Adam but this is the thing that excites people.  I think it is more fun to find stories and pictures.

The Philadelphia Temple Story

The church leaders searched for property and found two desirable sites that were close in fact right across the street from each other.  They talked to one of the owners who accepted the first offer that the church made.  The other owner wanted four times the price that the first owner accepted.  The owner who sold the property indicated that he had owned the property for 25 years and had other offers to develop the property but felt the property had a higher and better purpose and now he felt like this was right.  However, during the process of getting approval from the city, the city planners decided the land was better suited for commercial development and denied the church’s request to move forward. 

As a final step, the church scheduled a meeting with the Mayor as he was the only one who could change the situation.  As the meeting started it was apparent that they had made up their mind.  What changed the tone and spirit in the meeting was when Vai Sikehema shared a story.  Vai had played football for BYU and the Philadelphia Eagles.  The mayor agreed to let him speak.  Here is what he shared.

“Mr. Mayor, many years ago when I was a young boy in Tonga, my father and mother and my brothers and sisters sold our home, we sold fruits and vegetables, and we sold everything we could to have enough money to travel to Hamilton, New Zealand, to be sealed as an eternal family in the temple. You need this temple. This temple will bless your city. This temple will bless your community. It will bless the people.”  Then he sat down. All were very quiet.

After a moment the Church architect stood and showed the mayor a few drawings of what a temple might look like. It was clear that in those few minutes something had changed. In reality, everything had changed.  As the architect sat down, the nonmember city councilman asked to speak. He stood and said, “Mr. Mayor, I have spoken with the leaders in the community and neighbors of this property. We want this temple. We need this temple. It will bless our city. It will bless our community. It will bless the people.”  The mayor agreed that the temple should be built on this property and the project moved forward.

Read the full story or watch the address at https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dean-m-davies_god-will-use-you-god-will-bless-you/