April 28 - May 4 - Sunday to Saturday

The flowers are so beautiful around Temple Square. Here is a picture taken before church on Sunday taken just east of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building .

Update from Sister Tolman for this week (see more on Saturday)
This week has been interesting as far as our schedules go.  On Tuesday I was not at the desk at all as far as an assignment goes.  I did help out a couple of times but nothing more than showing how to find books or helping to print.  It was kind of the same way on Wednesday and on Thursday evening I was actually able to help someone with an account.

A couple came in from San Francisco and I was able to help the husband.  He was African American and so we knew from the beginning that it may be challenging.  We were able to find a couple of census records that added his father’s siblings and he remembered most of them.  When we found the second census we found a different wife.  He had kind of forgotten about her but when he saw her name and the kids he remembered that his grandfather had been married before so we were able to add the first wife as well.  It was exciting for him to see his family start to take shape.  They were not able to stay very long so we were not able to look for anymore but I showed him how to search and he was excited to find more.  Before they left I showed he and his wife the memories part of family tree and they were super excited about that.  He said after looking at the memories on my account, “Now I’m hooked”.  That was cool.

That same evening I found out something that I was not aware of.  A man had added himself twice and of course he had two different numbers.  Here is what I found out.  If a person has added himself more than once you can merge living people, but only if they are the one that has added the two on the same account.  So we merged the two and he again was one individual on the tree.

I also helped a woman that someone else had being working with.  She was mentally disabled and could not see well.  I helped her to see what was on her tree and she kept saying “Cool” to everything I showed her.  She was excited to find that many of her lines on her father’s side went back to the 1600’s.  She didn’t grasp even a portion of what I was trying to show her but she was very excited about the things she did understand.  She had nothing on her mother’s side so I gave her the assignment to find out her grandparents names on her mother’s side and bring them with her next time so we could find more information.  Then she was happy and ready to leave so she left with her friend to catch the bus.  She may not have as many mental capacities as we do but she knew what was important and was excited about the things she found.  Oh that we could all be more like little children.

Sunday April 28

We attended Music and the Spoken Word and were surprised that the Tabernacle was nearly full.  We found out why when it was announced that for 31 choir members this was their last broadcast so many friends and family were there.  The wife and family members of one choir member was sitting in the two rows in front of us.

We attended our Sunday meetings as we normally do from 1 to 3pm.  The subject of our Priesthood and Relief Society lesson as Sister Craig’s October conference address titled “Divine Discontent”.

We had our monthly fifth floor pot luck dinner.  We were able to use the social room on the first floor this month instead of putting tables in the hall.  It made it much easier to talk and interact with everyone.  We had Hawaiian haystacks which consists of rice with chicken and gravy on top with lots of veggies, nuts and grated coconut on top.  We shared information about our favorite school teachers.  Sister Tolman’s favorite teacher was Mr. Mayer who was the choir director at West. My favorite teacher was Miss Bell who was my math teacher when I was a junior in high school.  After dinner we visited with Elder and Sister Silvers in their apartment and talked a lot about all the changes that we will be seeing in our mission between now and when we return home in January.  The Silver’s will return home in February.

Monday April 29

We attended the Monday morning devotional at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

The family that I helped on last Saturday with updating FamilySearch from their ancestry.com tree is the Steven and Cydne Granat family.  Steven gave me access so I could view his tree on ancestry.com and we created what is called a GEDCOM file which is a file that I could use to update FamilyTree.  He also gave me permission to be a helper on his FamilySearch account which helped a lot.  During this week I completed updating FamilySearch using the RootMagic 7 software program.  The net result is that 142 of his and his wife’s family are now on FamilyTree.  About 100 of the 142 people were additions to the tree.  This was a very rewarding project and I also learned a great deal about how to use Roots Magic 7 when completing this type of project.  I sent Steven an email on Thursday letting him know that I had completed the project.

We went to the Church History Museum and to see the 11th annual International Art Competition “Mediations on Belief”    We enjoyed the exhibit which was mostly painting.  Below are some pictures.

Sarah, Abraham's wife, staying hopeful in the promises of a child in her old age

San Diego Temple

 

Picture created with computer keyboard keys.  Closer image shown below

Nephi replacing his broken bow

Tuesday April 30

Sister Tolman went to Dr Spence Mortensen to get her eyes checked.  She needs an update to her reading glasses.  His brother Glenn and I were best friends growing up in the Garden Park Ward.

I helped Don Attridge as I normally do on Tuesdays.  He showed me some of his paintings.  He is really an excellent artist.  I helped him find some of his ancestors needing temple work and we reserved some baptisms, confirmations and Initiatory for him to complete at the Salt Lake Temple today,

I had thought of a better way to handle prayer meetings so we don’t need to have Elder Dahlin cover so many meetings. Elder Dahlin liked the idea.  We have a prayer meeting to start 14 of our 15 shifts each week (one shift on Monday, three on Tuesday through Friday and two on Saturday).  We will expand the list of those who can lead prayer meetings so Zone Leaders or Assistant Zone leaders will only lead at most two meetings per week.  We will involve others in the Zone especially Church Service missionaries.

We went to the grand opening of the updated Deseret Book Store in downtown Salt Lake City just south of Temple Square.  Sister Tolman entered the drawing and she won the grand prize.  She won an original water color painting by Kate Lee.  See her below holding that water color with other pictures by Kate Lee in the background.

I helped Sister Chabries find information about an ancestor and showed her and Sister Godfrey how to use Ancestry.com to find more information about individuals.  They were excited to use this method when helping library guests.

Sunset picture taken from our apartment

Wednesday May 1

I completed updates to our Help Services website and showed several missionaries how to access the site.  The feedback from them was positive.  We will be communicating how to access the website next week.

I helped Tilden and Barbara Lester.  He is a new convert and she is a 40-year church member.  They have been married 40 years and recently moved to this area from the Northwest. An older couple from their ward visited them and helped Tilden accept the gospel.  I had both logon to their FamilySearch accounts and connect so they could see each other’s ancestors.  I helped Tilden straighten out the living people on his tree.  He was there three times and others were also duplicated.  We printed out temple cards and reserved ordinances for his parents and grandparents.  We found his grandfather’s family using ancestry.com and then added them to FamilyTree.  I helped him get his free ancestry account.  They were very excited with what they learned.  I helped him add his great grandparents to the tree and find the needed sources.  He was baptized in November 2018 and is looking forward to receiving his Endowments in November of this year.  

Tilden and Barbara Lester with Elder Tolman

Thursday May 2

We went to Highland in Utah Valley for Lee Hansen’s funeral.  We lived in their downstairs apartment on Douglas Street in 1972-73.  We were just up the street from my parent’s home on Princeton Ave.

This is how I remember Lee Hansen

We stopped at Pei Wei in Sandy for lunch on the way home and used a gift card that we had previously received.  In the afternoon we visited mom and dad Senior and had a good visit with them.

We started our shift at the Library at 6pm as normal.  

I helped Charles and Gayle Adams who are older than I am and live on the east coast. They stopped by the library before going to the Tabernacle Choir practice which starts at 7:30 pm on Thursday nights.  Once we were able to set up an account for them, we found that relatives had already added both of their parents and many ancestors.  We focused on looking at the historical documents such as birth and marriage records and the census records showing their parents and other ancestors.  They were amazed and excited to learn more about their families. 

I helped them learn the capabilities of the Memories function on FamilySearch and they understood the potential.  I helped Charles download the mobiles apps.  I wanted to help his use the mobile app and have them take a picture of the two of them and then upload it to FamilySearch.  Unfortunately, he kept entering his sign in password wrong and locked his account so we temporarily could not use the app.  I figured out how I could help them.  I took their picture with my phone and uploaded their picture to my google photos, signed in as a helper for them and then added the picture to their account.  He was still signed into their account on the library computer so I had them view the picture in their Memories section and then tag them both individually.  This helped them understand how to use the Memories option.  I then figured out how to verify that they had the correct password by starting the process to change their password which includes entering and verifying the current password.

 

Gayle and Charles Adams

I helped my long time friend Ira Gentry with his great-grandmother on his father’s side, Vergie Davis.  We found her parents and two sisters.  We verified their parents based on the death certificates for Vergie and her sister Nannie.  The two certificates listed their parents with the same names.  We connected the other sister based on a picture that showed two sisters together and Ira remembers that picture.

Friday May 3

This is the day for our regular weekly cleaning followed by food shopping at Smiths and Lucky. 

I helped two best friends who stopped by the library for a short visit, Judith from El Paso and Kathy from Seattle.  I helped Kathy find her great-grandfather on FamilyTree to see there was more information about his parents.   FamilyTree had a little more detail than she had on her ancestry.com account but no information about his parents.

I started a FamilySearch account for Judith after we found her mother’s birth certificate from a record hint on her grandmother’s record on FamilyTree.  This was incentive enough for her to get an account and attach the birth certificate to her mother’s record.  Her mother is still living so we needed to add her to the tree.  We looked at the 1940 census which showed her mother and grandparents.  They lived in El Paso.  She was excited and plans to do more when she gets home.

I helped Nika Saunders from Anchorage, Alaska.  She has native American ancestors.  Her grandmother was born on a reservation near Casa Grande, Arizona. She had been receiving help for several hours and she wanted to find more about her grandmother.  We found her grandmother on the 1940 census with a lot of family members including parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandfather.  This was a real find.  I printed this census record plus a close-up picture of the family details.  Part of this family was already on Family Tree so we connected her grandmother (who is still living) to her family.  She is ready to keep exploring and learning more about her family when she returns home.

Saturday May 4

We were able to sleep until about 6:30 am.  I completed reading the Church News and read a chapter in the Book of Mormon which I do every morning.  After breakfast we went to the monthly swap meet for all missionaries in our mission.  Sister Tolman got a few things.  I washed the car which I do occasionally when the rain hasn’t done that for me.  I fill a small bucket with warm water and use a cleaning rag, squeegee, and paper towels and get the job done.

I helped Bob Hughes from Long Island.  He is visiting the area with his wife.  They are just a couple of years younger than me.  We were able to extend several of his ancestor lines and find a lot of records for his family,  I helped him install the FamilySearch apps and helped him upload a picture of him and his wife that was already on his phone.  I showed him how to use the Research Wiki and how to find help resources either on-line or by phone.  They are in the area for the week and are staying in Park City at the Marriott Mountainside Resort.  

Sister Tolman’s Saturday May 4 Experience

Today was interesting.  A couple came in and she was a church member and had done quite a bit of work on FamilySearch.  He was not a member and was from Italy.  His parents were in town and they decided to try to experience the Family History Library.  We were able to add quite a bit of information and his father was very excited about all of it.  They only live a block from here and said that they will be visiting more often.

Later I was asked to help a mother and daughter try and unravel some of their family history.  They had a person George Washington ------ who lived in Idaho and was married to a Lizzie.  This was their ancestor.  Someone had taken the information for their person and added it to a person of their own who is listed as George W-------.  The temple work had been done which sealed the wrong people together.

What I had to do was create the person George W that did not exist on Family search and add the correct family to him.  Then I had to disconnect the George Washington -------- from that family.  It took a little bit of doing but we finally were able to set both of those families straight and now they can all be sealed to the correct people.  We made sure that there were sources to validate everything that we had done.  Sometimes things just get messed up in a great big way and it takes some time to unravel the problems.