April 21 - 27 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday April 21

We attended the Easter Broadcast this morning for Music and the Spoken Word and it was inspiring.  The choir was joined by the orchestra, bells at temple square and the Gabriel Trumpet ensemble.  All are shown in the picture below. 

There was also an Easter program on Friday and Saturday nights which can be watched at this link.  We were able to watch part of this last night at the library.

The forecast showed just a chance for rain so Sister Tolman took her umbrella and I left mine as the apartment.  During Sacrament meeting we had a hailstorm with a lot of wind.  Our Sacrament meeting was excellent as was our Sunday School.  Both focused on Easter themes. 

We talked to our daughter Janny before leaving to pick up the Seniors.  We so much enjoy talking to our daughters while we serve here.

We picked up mom and dad Senior to go out to Sister Tolman sister Jayne’s for Easter dinner.  Sister Tolman baked rolls.  It was really raining when we left at about 4:30pm to pick up them up.  Fortunately, the rain slowed down a little when we picked them up.  There was a pile of hail below the downspout in front of their house. 

On the way to Jayne’s, a vehicle next to me on the freeway hit a puddle of water and totally covered the windshield.  I immediately turned the wipers to high and kept the steering wheel straight. It was a scary moment until I was able to see the road again.  Below are several pictures taken at Jayne's home.

Sister Tolman with her parents Rowland and Lois Senior

A view the mountains from Jayne's home

Monday April 22

We attended the Monday devotional as is normal for Monday morning. Many missionaries are going home this month with just a few replacements.  President Fenn talked to us and made the announcement that the current way young Elders will be assigned to the mission is being phased out by July 2020.  At that time there will be no more young elders in our mission unless they are church service missionaries called through the normal channels.  About 30 of the 105 young Elders will be affected as they will not have completed their two-year missions by then.

I updated the instructions for floor supervisors and attended the Branch Leadership meeting.  We went to Walmart to buy extra umbrellas so we could leave two at the Family History Library in case we get rained on at the end of the day.  We then went to COSTCO to buy some supplements, cocoa mix, granola and cold cereal and ate their hot dog combo for dinner.

To complete our P-day we watched episode 7 of Relative Race and a Hallmark movie.

Tuesday April 23

I helped Don Attridge.  We added his aunt who died when she was under 5 years old.  I found her on the 1915 New York Census and she was not on the 1920 US Census so we assume she died before 1920.  We also looked at his grandfather on 1900 Census living in the same household with a person that appears to be his great-grandfather.  All the evidence on the census points to that.  I needed to help Elder Don Clarke so I had another missionary keep helping Don while I helped Elder Clarke.

We went over his temple list to understand which ordinances could be completed.  We shared some names with the temple and determined other actions that were needed.  We looked at one family that is a combined family with children born in Philadelphia and England.  I will work to get that family straightened out.  In the evening I separated the two families.  The one from England is the family that is related to him.  I found one additional child from the 1911 census.

We both attended the Zone Leadership meeting.  The Family History Discovery Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building is now closed and will be used to house the construction offices for the Salt Lake Temple renovation. We also reviewed a letter sent to 20 stakes near the Family History Library.  The Family History Library will now be open on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 5 pm but only the main floor.  The purpose is to serve local members from these stakes as the FHL serves as their Family History Library.  The Family History Library will also be open on Monday nights from 5 to 9 pm but will not be staffed by missionaries from our mission as Monday night is our missionary night for many mission functions.

Julianna called around 6pm and we enjoyed talking to her while she was on her way home from work.

Wednesday April 24

I led the 7:30 am prayer meeting and we held the evacuation drill which we need to do twice a year.

I texted Elder Clarke about the updates that I made for him and he thanked me for that.  I finally completed updates to our Zone website providing access to the training modules. I finally figured out an easy and straightforward way to get this done as I have had this action to complete for about a month now.  I showed this update to Elder Dahlin and he liked the additions.

I helped several people with printing needs.  I worked with a research expert as we helped a woman research a family member from Connecticut in the early 1800’s.  

I worked with Elder Barber to update the spreadsheet for the May Sunday meetings as his zone is assigned the talks and prayers for Sacrament meetings for each week in May.  This is one of my branch assignments to coordinate with the Zone Leaders to make sure that Sacrament meeting assignments and Priesthood assignments are made.

Dudley and Linda Sharp came to the library at about 3pm per prior arrangements with them. They printed fan charts on the first floor.  I helped them with some ancestry.com questions and I printed a country fan chart for Dudley.  We enjoyed dinner with them at JB’s restaurant right next to the FHL.  We both had a fish plate.

Thursday April 25

We have now completed half of our mission.  We have less than nine months to go before we return home.  Time continues to pass quickly.

We talked to Laura and enjoyed visiting with her which we normally do on Thursday mornings. We attended the 8am endowment session and stopped at the Family History Library on the way back to the apartment as today Is DNA day at the library and we wanted to see if there was any classes or activities we wanted to participate in.  We decided to attend a class at 11am which we enjoyed.  The instructor explained methods to determine an unknown parent and ways to identify a possible ancestor back several generations.

We went food shopping at Lucky and Smith’s. The Stott’s who just finished their mission left us a cart that we can use to bring up groceries from our car when we go shopping and we used it for the first time today and it worked fine.  We will give the cart away to other missionaries when we leave.

We worked at the Family History Library from 6 to 9pm per normal.  Ira Gentry had indicated earlier that he wouldn’t be at the library tonight but surprised me when he came anyway.  We worked together on his great-great grandparents and thought we found some good information as we had no birth and death information.  We thought we found some information on findagrave.com but determined later that this was inaccurate.  We did find a picture of his great grandmother with her sister and Ira remembers seeing that picture.  We will continue working on this family next Thursday.

One interesting note is the Janice a local church member whom I have helped several times was in the library and I visited with her briefly.  It turns out that she is in the same ward as Ira and she recognized him.  She said that I must know everyone.

We were busy in the library tonight and all the missionaries were able to provide help during the three hours that we were there.

Friday April 26

I read an interesting article from the Meridian magazine this morning titled “When the Veil Becomes Thin:  Experiences with Those Not Yet Born”.  Here is the final quote in the article “Without a doubt, there is a divine plan for each of us.  Our children are often allowed to inform or to guide us before they are born.  At times the veil is thin and we are blessed to see, hear or feel these divine beings before they come to earth.  They come to witness, bless and help us, and to let their desires be known.  Yes, the veil can be very thin.”  The article which you can read at this link contains several experiences shared by parents.

I have been reading the recently published book “Insights from a Prophet’s Life – Russell M Nelson”.  An experience that occurred to President Nelson’s first wife Dantzel Nelson is consistent with what is shared in the above article. In 1957 she woke her husband in the middle of the night and told him that they were going to have a baby boy.  “During the night, I had a vision.  It was more than just a dream. I saw a baby boy. He had a round face and lots of hair and he looked just like you. I had a wonderful visit with him.”   The Nelson’s had four more daughters totaling 9 until this vision was realized.  About ten years later after a difficult pregnancy, labor and birth she saw the baby boy for the first time and exclaimed “He’s the one!  He’s the one I’ve seen and known for all these years.”  

photograph taken from the book mentioned above

In our own life we have a similar experience.  After our 7th daughter Julianna was born in 1985 Sister Tolman had two miscarriages.  She did not want to try again for another child but I felt like there was one more child waiting to join our family.  In August
1989 four and a half years after Julianna was born our youngest daughter Christina joined our family.  We can’t imagine not having any one of our eight daughters with us.  We are blessed by each one.

We so much enjoy helping others connect with their ancestors as we work in the Family History Library on our mission.

Just after arriving in the library at 1pm, Elder Benton and I were assigned a couple to help, Aaron and Bernadette Landau from the San Diego area.  They are about my age.  I ended up helping Bernadette.  We set up only one account which they shared.

Bernadette has an interesting family with adoptions on both her mother’s and father’s sides.  I was amazed that we were able to find, connect, and document her family.  Her father was born in 1918 and his birth parents are with him on the 1920 census.  He is with his adopted parents on later records which we found after finding her father on a WWII draft registration card which showed his adopted father’s name including middle initial.  This helped us find and connect to his adopted parents.

The story for her mother was also interesting as she indicated that her grandmother died soon after her mother was born and her mother was then adopted by her grandmother’s sister and her husband.  She was with her adopted parents in the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census records.  Just before we finished, we looked back one generation and found the sister who died in 1918 and were able to connect her mother to both her birth parents and adopted parents.

We also downloaded the FamilyTree mobile apps and were able to add some pictures.  I took a picture of Aaron and Bernadette and I helped her upload the picture using the mobile app and then helped her tag them both and add this picture to their profile.   This was a good start for them and they will be able to continue their efforts when they get home and get help at a local Family History Center in the San Diego area.  I encouraged her to write the story about her mother's adoption which we confirmed with what we found on Family Tree.

After dinner, I spent about and hour resolving some duplicates on Bernadette’s tree.  I am glad I didn’t try to do this with her as we would have been bogged down and would have missed the really exciting information that we found,

Saturday April 27

We started at 7:45 am.  Sister Pennock and I helped a couple from Traverse City, Michigan.  It was very enjoyable to help them.   I helped the husband whose name is Robert.  His father’s name changed several times as his mother was unmarried when he was born and his mother married and her husband adopted him and his last name became Bauman.  Later he changed his name back to Campbell.  We documented his family back several generations and found many new relatives.  We found the WWII draft registration card for his father and uploaded that to Family Tree.  We downloaded the mobile apps and showed them how these apps worked.  They were very excited with what they found and plan to spend a lot of time adding photos, stories, and documents to Family Tree.

I am working with another couple from Los Angeles whose ancestors are from eastern Europe to transfer their ancestry.tree to FamilyTree.  Most of their ancestors (about 100) are not in FamilyTree so I have access to their information so I can update FamilyTree with their information.

We bought a Little Caesar’s Pizza hot and ready pizza plus crazy bread and took dinner to mom and dad Senior.  Mom fell a couple of days ago and is having a hard time getting around so told them we would bring dinner since she can’t cook right now.  We finished off the pizza and crazy bread and then David and Shelly showed up as they are staying with mom and dad for the weekend.  We enjoyed visiting with them.  After visiting for a while, Marn and Mike showed up as they had lent their truck to David and Shelly to help their son Scott move.  So we had a mini impromptu family get together to end our week.