March 24 - 30 - Sunday to Saturday

Our week of weather has been contrasts with rain, sun and snow.  These two pictures were taken less than 24 hours apart.  Thursday afternoon for the first and Friday morning for the second.

Flowers in front of the Family History Library - Thurs pm

Those same flowers with some protected from the snow and others snow covered - Fri am

Sunday March 24

It rained off and on most of the day today.  It sprinkled on the way to Music and the Spoken Word but was raining much harder after the broadcast on the way back to our apartment.  We attended church and enjoyed the sacrament meeting talks on the Doctrine of Christ.  We talked with Elder and Sister Dahlin on the way back to our apartments.  This gave us a chance to discuss some of the issues that we have as a zone leadership.  The main one is the imbalance of missionaries serving on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday versus Thursday, Friday and especially Saturday.

We had our 4th Sunday dinner potluck with our Fifth Floor missionary group.  We also had eight young Elders with us.  We ate in the hallway on our floor as we have done recently.  The meal was a potato bar and salad.  Sister Tolman fixed the salad.  Eight of the senior missionaries got together in our room after the dinner to play games.  Those who joined us were the Silvers, the Shaws, and the Parks. We played three games, “Right, Left, Center”, “Wits and Wagers” and “Salad”.  Right, Left, Center is a real easy game that doesn’t take a lot of thinking.  For Salad we split into two groups of four.  Since we and the Silvers had played before, Sister Tolman and Sister Slivers were in one group and Elder Slivers and Tolman were in the other group.  Elder Tolman managed to win the Wits and Wagers Game (this is not a game of skill).  Sister Tolman sat out the game and read the questions or she likely would have won.  This was a very enjoyable evening.

I was reading my missionary journal about what happened to me 50 years ago this month.  I was the district president for the Isles Sous Le Vent District and stationed on the island of Raiatea in French Polynesia and we were sending a lot of youth from our group of islands to the main island of Tahiti for a youth conference and at the last minute the local policeman (gendarme in French) told us that our 70 youth couldn't go because the ship (named the Temehani) that they were to sail on was over capacity and didn't have enough life boat capacity.  We worked out a way to make it happen by letting the ship borrow our 18 foot Boston Whaler to go to Tahiti. When we went to get the boat the battery was dead so we had to use our car battery.  Fortunately were able to get our boat to the ship and we got our boat back when the Temehani returned to Raiatea.. 

Elder Tolman and Elder McCulloch taking our Boston Whaler to the Temehani

Monday March 25

The Monday morning mission devotional was very good.  It was led by the mission office zone where Elder Silvers is the Zone Leader.  Elder and Sister Silvers gave the first part of the presentation.

The Book of Mormon class led by President Fenn was excellent.  He went over 3 Nephi Chapter 11 when the Savior appeared to the Nephites.  He listed all the declarations that the Savior made of his ministry.  He also reviewed how there was a period of time between the crucifixion and when Jesus appeared in person to the Nephites.  This was surprising to many but Sister Tolman and I had learned this before.  The people needed time to get their lives in order so they could concentrate on His visit and teachings.  See 3 Nephi 8:5 which gives the timing for when the 3 days of destruction happened,  3 Nephi 10:18 which gives the timing for when the Savior appeared to the Nephites, 3 Nephi 11:12 which again states that the appearance came after his ascension to heaven which was 40 days after his crucifixion.

Tuesday March 26

I taught the training during the first part of the prayer meeting on how to set up an account on FamilySearch.org.  I helped get things started on the floor with the guest allocation and helped get the Floor Supervisor started with our allocation system.

Met with Elder Dahlin and the zone leaders / technology specialists to get our Zone website operational.  I will be the webmaster for our website.  I normally lead the prayer meeting at 9:30am but due to the meeting Elder Stott substituted for me.  Sister Tolman helped Don Attridge while I met with Elder Dahlin.  Sister Tolman helped him print some names for baptism and initiatory using Ordinances Ready. 

Brother and Sister Clarke came into the library about 10:30am while I was the floor supervisor.  I helped him and assigned Sister Tolman to help Sister Clark. Sister Tolman helped Sister Clark learn more about FamilySearch Memories.  I helped Brother Clark with his temple list figuring out which temple ordinances to complete.  I shared with him how we keep track using our envelope system.  He leads the temple and family history work in his ward.  We reviewed what he is doing and he is organizing the efforts effectively.  I showed him the Ordinances Ready function and he plans to review this with his family history consultants in their meeting tonight.  He texted me later and told me that his meeting was successful and his ward consultants were excited to learn about Ordinances Ready.  We ended up missing our 11am lunch so we postponed lunch until 1pm.

Helped a Sister Porter import her Family Tree to ancestry.com. This was a challenge since she had three sets of parents (biological, step, and adoptive). By trial and error, we figured out we would have to temporarily disconnect her from two sets of parents so she could upload the family she wanted to her ancestry.com tree.  Once we did that we connected her back to her other sets of parents.  She was very happy we were able to accomplish this.

Branch leadership meeting from 2 to 3:30pm.  Talked about modifications to our process for allocating guests to our missionaries and how to reduce from 3 to 2 people at the desk managing this.  We are going to use a tablet computer to help us rather than our card system.  We are also going to have some flash drives and print cards to give away to guests who had a bad experience that was not their fault.

When it was just about time to leave, I helped a woman download a file to her flash drive.  Then Sister Badger needed help trying to recover an account for a man.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on as he was able to logon to FamilySearch on his phone but not on the desktop computer.  Finally I noticed that the Username that he had on the phone was not the same as what the thought was his username.  Once I figured that out we were able get him logged in and ready to continue.

We left the library at 4:30, walked back to our apartment, picked up our temple clothes and walked to the temple for our branch sealing session.  We made it by 5pm and were able to participate.  We were able to complete 3 couple sealings and 15 sealing children to parents.  This was kind of a last minute decision to go to the temple but we were glad that we did.

Ate dinner at California hamburger place on 3rd West and 3rd North.  It was really good. We took the document that I put together for mom and dad Senior’s wedding announcement in the Church News to them.  We framed one copy and gave them another copy to duplicate and share with friends.  

Wednesday March 27

Led the prayer meeting at 7:30am and taught the training on how to setup an account on FamilySearch.  Shared the following video by Elder Bradley Foster just before the meeting started.  Watch Video

Worked with Elder Dahlin and Elder Stott about using the Tablet computer for floor allocation.

While I was the floor supervisor, Sister Miles from Colorado Springs brought several family members with her.  She indicated that she is a family history consultant so I assigned myself to help her and Sister Galloway took over as floor supervisor.  She is working on a degree in Family History so she didn’t need much help with research.  We reviewed the general church training for consultants.  We talked about those she should be focusing on helping first which are new converts, 11 year-old youth and newly reactivated members.  I showed her the Ordinances Ready feature and shared my family history blog and discussed descendancy research for church members with full trees.

I visited with Noe Mateaki whom I helped last week.  I showed her the picture that I thought was her and it wasn’t.  She told me who was in the picture and that she was in some other pictures in the book. We need to visit her to find out more.  I now have her contact information and she has mine.

Earlier in the day, I had assigned one of our missionaries to help a sister who needed some help with her family tree and problems she was having reserving temple ordinances.  Around 2pm, she was leaving the library and I asked her if she got the help she needed and she said that she had not.  I asked her if she would like me to help her and she said yes.  She told me her name was Janice and now lived in Salt Lake City.   I ended helping her for about two hours and we worked on several different parts of FamilySearch.  We fixed some complex problems in her tree that she was having trouble with. Some new missionaries were watching what we did but I am not sure how much they were able to learn except that parents married in Kentucky probably didn’t have children born in England and to be careful when merging records.  We figured out how to separate the children and put them with the right families of which one family was her ancestor. 

Janice felt strongly about completing the temple work for a relative’s step father and had been given incorrect information about how to get that done.  I told her that the relative who was visiting this week could take care of reserving the temple work herself and then she could arrange to complete the work. 

We next worked on her FamilySearch Memories.  She had a lot of documents and photos in her Memories Gallery and was having a hard time keeping track of what was going on.  I helped her learn about the “Archive” feature and how to create albums.  She thanked me for helping her learn so much.  In my mind I thanked Sister Tolman for all the help she has given me to understand this feature of FamilySearch.

She had previously worked in the Salt Lake Family History Library about 7 years ago.  She said that when she was ready to leave several hours ago she was going to go home and cry.  Now she is going home crying but they are happy tears.  This was a wonderful experience for me to be able to turn around her experience for the day.

Thursday March 28

Went to the 9am Endowment session in the Salt Lake Temple.  I took a name for Don Attridge.  An old acquaintance from the Garden Park Ward was in our session.  His name is Ralph Robbins and he was my sister Geraldine’s age.  We talked for a while after the session.  He currently lives just down the street on Princeton Ave where I lived growing up.  His address is 1199 and ours was 1211.  His house is four houses west of our old house and just west of where the Case family lived.  It was good to get a chance to talk to him.

We went food shopping to Rancho Market, Lucky and Smith food stores. 

Before leaving for the library, we checked the weather forecast and based on that we took umbrellas to the library as rain was forecast for later in the evening.

I helped a missionary, Sister Park, learn how to find descendants of her ancestors to add to Family Tree.  We tried out the method on her tree and in a few minutes she found a family to add.  I shared several training documents from my blog.  Later she told Sister Tolman that she had learned a lot from what I shared. 

At around 7pm Ira Gentry arrived to meet with me.  We had about 90 minutes before he needed to return home.  I haven’t seen him for about a month.  He plans to come to the library more often now and is planning to visit next Thursday night.  We found information about aunts and uncles on his mother’s side and found them on the 1930 and 1940 census.  We added and updated birth and death dates.  We found his aunt’s obituary with a lot of information about family members including her husband who we added to the tree.  His aunt was born in 1925 and died in 2008 and her husband was born in 1920 and we couldn’t find any record of his death so we indicated that he is still living.  Next week we will do some research on his family. 

Elder Tolman and his long time friend Ira Gentry

On the way home it was raining hard.  Our umbrellas kept the top of us dry but we got wet from the waist down.  By the time we went to bed the rain had turned to snow.

Friday March 29

We woke up to about three or four inches of very wet snow.  After my morning scripture study, personal prayer, exercise and breakfast I went outside to enjoy the snow and take a few pictures.  I did manage to throw a few snowballs at light poles and not people.

We finished our weekly cleaning and laundry. 

At the Family History Library, I talked to Sister Pennock and her friend Sister Walker who was visiting her and it turns out that Sister Walker recognized me from my sister JoAnne’s homecoming address in Santaquin.  She and Sister Pennock were in Nauvoo at the same time as my Sister JoAnne and her husband Craig.  It is a small world.  

I helped Sister Pennock solve another problem family.  This family had 8 children all born in Yorkshire, England between 1805 and 1825.  The mother attached to them was born in Kentucky in 1843.  I don’t believe that she was the mother.  It took a little while but we got the children attached to the correct parents.

I got a phone call from my sister Glenna and her son Jeff and his family were downstairs on the Discovery Floor in the library. They are visiting from Plano, Texas.  I haven’t seen Jeff since he and Amy were married in 2007 so this was the first time that I met their four children. 

Jeff and Amy and children on the Discovery Floor in the Family History Library

Saturday March 30

The weather continued to be warmer today.  This is our early day at the Family History Library.  I worked on some personal family history work. I found some very interesting information about William James Boston 9J1L-KQL.  I have had trouble finding him on census records.  I found that his father was a mariner which may explain why I can’t find him.  His marriage record indicates that his father was deceased when William married in 1914.  Maybe I can find more about him.

I also talked to several individuals visiting the library who have been here all week and showed them how to use the “Snipping Tool” when they get home.  I also shared some Microsoft options such as CNTL-H which brings up the browsing history so you can go back to a previously used page.

I was assigned to help with two couples in the morning before we went to the Tolman cousin luncheon.  I helped with Margaret from Ohio while another missionary helped her husband.  We had about 45 minutes as they had a lunch appointment at 11am.  We got started and since her father was born before 1940, we immediately found him with his parents and siblings on the 1940 US Census which was an amazing experience for her to see information about them on a historic document.  We found more of her family and found some already on FamilyTree.  We installed the mobile FamilySearch apps on her phone and I showed her where to get help when she returns home.  She indicated that this experience was addicting and she will be returning to the library after lunch.  I told her I wouldn’t be there but there would be someone who could continue to help them.

Just after they left, I helped a young man Matt from Florida while another missionary helped his wife.  They have been married for just seven months and are in their 20's.  It took a while to get his account activated since he had trouble getting texts on his phone.  Once we finally got started, he indicated that he knew the most about his father’s side of the family.  We added his paternal grandfather who was born before 1940.  We found him with his family on the 1940 US Census and it was a large family of at least ten children.  The youngest was five years old and she is the only one still living.  We added another generation and then we installed the FamilySearch apps on his phone.  I showed him how to add photos and he added two wedding pictures.  He caught on quickly so I didn’t worry about leaving him when we needed to go at around noon.  He really enjoyed seeing his ancestors on the census records and other documents such as the WWII draft registration card.

We enjoyed lunch with all four of my siblings and two of our Tolman cousins.  We met at Marie Callender’s for lunch.  We had an enjoyable time together. We sat across from my brother Byron and his wife Peggy.  It was good to visit with them.  They recently completed the temple work for two families that I shared with them.  These families totaled 16 individuals.  They had a wonderful experience as they completed the temple sealings yesterday in the Vernal Temple.  

I found out my cousin Jeff Tolman serves at the Salt Lake Temple on Wednesday mornings so I am sure we saw him as until recently Wednesday morning was our day to attend the temple.  Another cousin was Diane Hoggan who is my sister Glenna’s age.  The last time that I saw her was at my dad’s funeral in 2001.  In talking with Diane, she remembered the name of the apartment where my Grandpa and Grandma Tolman lived.  It was the White Fawn Apartments and they were located right where we live now. Diane shared some contact information for some more Tolman cousins.  I showed her what is on FamilySearch about her parents.  She plans to check out FamilySearch to see these.  Another cousin Brent Tolman who is my age was planning to attend but couldn’t at the last minute.    During our lunch, we shared a little about our families and plan to get together again and will get more cousins to join us.  

Lori Neilson, Diane Hoggan, Jeff Tolman and his wife