September 1 - 7 - Sunday to Saturday
An interesting jeweled elephant we saw at the Natural History Museum on Thursday
Sunday September 1
We
attended Music and the Spoken Word as normal and I ended up being able to stay
awake during the entire performance.
Normally I am fine for the run through from 8:35 to 9:05 but have
trouble staying awake for program from 9:30 to 10:00 am.
During
our Fast and Testimony meeting, the branch presidency for the City Creek Branch was changed. The change is announced as a change in
assignments. The congregation was asked
to join the Mission Presidency to thank the current Branch presidency (President Sherrill, Elder Tolman, and Elder Challis) for their
service. President McKnight then
announced the new Branch Presidency with Elder Glen Tolman as President, Elder James
Challis as First Counselor and Elder Donald Olsen as Second Counselor and then asked them
to welcome us to this assignment. If
this were a regular church unit, we would have been sustained to the Branch
Presidency and then set apart. As
missionaries, we were set apart as missionaries by our Stake Presidents and do
not need to be set apart for any responsibilities we are give during our service.
Our
main responsibility as the Branch Presidency is to make sure that our Sunday
meetings are well organized and uplifting including our Sacrament Meeting,
Sunday School classes and Priesthood / Relief Society meetings. We also have a greeting / going away social
(Hail and Farewell) that happens once every two months where we greet new
missionaries and say goodbye to those missionaries who are leaving. We have several other assignments that we
oversee including making sure the Young Elders are fed on Sundays other than
Fast Sunday and monitoring the first floor to make sure that
only those wanting to attend Sacrament meetings enter the building as the JSMB
is closed on Sundays other than for church meetings.
Today
is our 48th wedding anniversary and our daughter Michelle’s birthday. We heard from most of our family and talked
to Michelle for a few minutes. We had a
good dinner with meatloaf and fixings. We
invited our zone leaders Elder Terry and Sister Kathy Dahlin for ice cream at
around 6pm. We enjoyed visiting with them
and we shared some ice cream. We also
played a game of Five Crowns which they enjoy playing with their family.
Monday September 2
It
is the Labor Day Holiday and we have no assignment at the library. I also did not schedule a branch leadership
meeting as we went to mom and dad Seniors for dinner. We had steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes,
salad and watermelon. After dinner we
played a game of Five Crowns. Sister Tolman
pulled out a win on the last hand. This
is good since the previous two games we played she lost on the last hand after
leading up to then. See picture below
which shows she had the best score by one point.
We
then played a game of Salad. It has been
a while since we played Salad and it was fun.
During
the afternoon, I completed Section 2 of the Tier 2 training since I scheduled a
review on Wednesday to go over the results.
The training wasn’t hard but it took over two hours to complete as there
was a lot of data to correct and many merges to analyze and complete. It felt good to get that completed. Sister Tolman also completed Section 2 as
well. She also has competed several
other sections as well. I put together
an agenda for our first branch leadership meeting for next Monday and I will
send it out on Tuesday as there are some items that we need to consider for our
meeting on Monday September 9. So even
though we didn’t have a leadership meeting, I did some branch work.
Tuesday September 3
It was quiet for the first several hours but overall it was fairly
busy in the library. Our release as Assistant
Zone Leaders was announced in the 7:30am and other prayer meetings during the
day and will be announced at the other prayer meetings during the week. Elder and Sister Abernathy are the new Assistant
Zone Leaders. The change in the Branch Presidency was also
announced and this provided a chance to explain how our City Creek Branch
operates with our full-time missionaries.
My
first assignment was to help a woman with scanning some pictures from a
scrapbook that her grandmother had put together. She had scanned part of it previously. We needed to use the larger scanner due to
the page size but couldn’t get it to work.
After several others from Library Services tried to help, one of them
noticed that the connection from the scanner to the computer had been
disconnected. Once we got that connected,
she was able to get started. Sometimes it
is the easy things that cause a problem.
I
helped Jackie from Florida. She wanted
to learn about her family and I found some information on FamilySearch based on
what she knew. Once I showed her family
members already documented on FamilySearch she decided she wanted to register
and start building her tree. We found
and added several generations and made some connections to family members already
on FamilySearch. I made sure she knew
how to continue once she returned home.
She only had about 45 minutes to spend in the Library but we managed to
get her an excellent start with her Family Tree.
Just
after returning from lunch, I noticed a man completing a merge and he seemed
like he needed help. I sat down and
helped him complete the merge and then do some more work. It turns out he is a church employee in the
Church Office Building and was in the library on his lunch. He wanted to complete
some research for a friend who will be visiting soon. His name is David Young. I helped him and then did some more research
after he left and reviewed what I found with him on Wednesday.
A
young woman, Victoria, was here visiting with a friend who just moved to Salt
Lake City starting a new job. She is
probably in her mid to late 20’s. She built
a tree on ancestry.com. It turns out she had previously set up an
account on FamilySearch but hadn’t done much.
We accessed her account and got started.
We connected to a lot of family members.
She was particularly interested in some German ancestors. I took her to the international floor and we
were able to find some possible areas to search when she returns home as she
didn’t have too much time to spend at the library.
We
were invited to dinner by two East High School classmates with whom we
connected at my 50-year high school reunion in 2015. They are Dave and Karen Fuhrman (Erickson). I
worked a lot with Dave on the reunion preparations. He had the finance coordination and I
maintained the website. We went to the
Ruby River Steakhouse. It was really
nice of them to invite us and pay for the dinner. Here is a picture of them.
We
talked to Julianna for a while and she shared what has been going on at work dealing with a difficult employee.
Wednesday September 4
We both passed off the first two sections of the Tier 2 training. We received our Tier 1 pins this week and
hope to receive our Tier 2 pins within a week or two.
We both led the training in prayer meetings this week with Sister
Tolman on Tuesday mid-morning and Elder Tolman today at 7:30am. The training was on submitting cases to
FamilySearch to take care of various types of problems.
I helped David Young whom I helped on Tuesday. We had about an hour starting at about 12
noon or so. I showed him what I had
found and I helped him find the records with the information about his friend's
family so he could make some additions to the tree. We resolved some duplicates and added some more
ancestors to the tree. We found some
really good death records for two of the ancestors which contained a lot of information
and found a naturalization record for another ancestors. David was very happy with what we were able
to find. We printed a pedigree chart and
some census and death records. I believe
that he now had enough information to impress and excite his friend with what he found
about the family.
I helped several others with various activities including
connecting a laptop to the library Wi-Fi, printing some documents, showing one of our
missionaries Sister Godfrey how to use the Descendancy view on her tree, helping
others get started on their training for the Learning Pyramid.
We talked to Christina and helped her understand how to
explain to her boss how to find possible records from Columbia for her grandmother on
FamilySearch.
Thursday September 5
We talked to Laura at about 7:30am and learned about her business
trip to Sweden. She is also having challenges with her yard with as hot as it has been in Austin
and the lack of rain recently.
We went to the Natural History Museum on the University of
Utah Campus. It was interesting and
enjoyable. There are four floors of
exhibits. The special exhibit is about
the Yellowstone Park area and the elk migrations and other animal migrations including
the pronghorn. We spent about three
hours there. Here are some pictures. The first three pictures are from the Yellowstone Park exhibit.
Petroglyphs on a rock donated by a farmer in Tooele so they wouldn't be defaced
It is one of the few petroglyphs located in a museum
We attended the 2pm Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple. While seated in the waiting room, I noticed
the Elder Don R Clarke was there with his wife. I have helped him a lot with family history and I went fishing with him in June to Island Park, Idaho. They were on the front row so it was easy to say hello. We visited for a
few minutes and he indicated that he will be visiting the library in a couple
of weeks. We also saw them in the Celestial
Room and were able to visit quietly for a few minutes. My counselor in the Branch Presidency Elder
Challis and his wife were also in the session.
Sister Tolman sat by Sister Bonnie H. Cordon who is the Young Women
General President.
President Fenn had premade the dough so for us, Sister
Tolman rolled out the pizza dough and then we added the toppings and then
President Fenn helped put the pizza in the oven and it cooked in just a few
minutes. It was really good pizza. We also had a dessert pizza and homemade ice
cream. It was good to visit with so many
of the other missionary leaders. At the
end of the evening it started raining and by the time we were leaving it
started to pour. We managed to avoid
getting too wet. One good thing is that
our car got washed.
Friday September 6
We cleaned the house and went food shopping. We needed to be at the library by 12:15pm as I
led the prayer meeting starting at 12:30pm.
I worked some more on the Tier 2 training for missionaries
in the library and completed several more sections. I spent some time with my new counselor in
the branch presidency, Elder Olsen. One
of his assignments is to put together the Sunday bulletin that contains the
Sacrament meeting program, announcements and the list of leaders in our branch. I sent him the spreadsheet with the information
for the meetings for the rest of September and the bulletin for this
Sunday. He will get the bulletin ready
for us to review at our meeting on Monday.
I helped Sister Christensen with several questions she
had. She visits the library almost every
weekday and I end up helping her several times a week. A woman and her husband stopped at the desk
and she said that I looked familiar. She
is from Mesa and used to live in the Tempe Stake. I recognized her. Her first husband David Galloway had passed
away. He was my secretary in the Tempe Stake 70’s Quorum back in the 80’s. I remember that they were both active in researching
their families back then.
Two friends came into the library when I was the floor
supervisor from 4 to 6pm and sat down at the computers. After my turn at the desk was finished, I
noticed that one heard about a fan chart and wanted to print one for herself. I sat down to show her what a fan chart was by
looking at the fan chart in my account. The woman’s name
is Jinny and she is from El Cajon (San Diego area) and has been actively researching her family and has documented her tree on Ancestry.com. She had
an account on FamilySearch but had used it only for research. I helped her find that both her parents were
already on FamilyTree but were not connected.
I connected them and she now had a fan chart. I downloaded the fan chart with country information to her flash drive. She had a lot of research she had done from
part of her family from Croatia and this part of the family is not on FamilySearch
(about 500 people). I explained what she
needs to do to add them to FamilyTree without re-entering the names separately. She will work on that when she gets home. I also spent some time helping her add a picture
of an ancestor so she could learn how the Memories function works.
Starting at 8pm, I set up my laptop in the conference room
and connected it to the projection equipment so we could watch the birthday
celebration. We told the young Elders that
they could watch the celebration after they finished the cleaning which they
did. The birthday celebration was
amazing. Those providing the entertainment
were the Tabernacle and Orchestra at Temple Square, Jenny Oaks Baker and Family
Four, Donny Osmond, Nathan Pacheco, Gentri (the Gentleman Trio), and the Bonner Family. Read an article from the Salt Lake Tribune at this link. The celebration can be viewed at this link or on YouTube. Here are a few pictures.
Hosts Ruth Todd and Gifford Nielson
Nathan Pacheco and Donny Osmond
President Nelson sharing remarks at the end of the celebration
Saturday September 7
I played golf in the morning at the Eaglewood Golf Course in
North Salt Lake Utah. I managed to get home
in time to get to the library by 1pm. The
setting is very scenic and is up in the foothills just northeast of Salt Lake
City and just south of Bountiful. Here
are a few pictures.
I helped several people including the daughter of a
missionary couple who works on our floor.
I helped her get started on scanning a lot of pictures. I helped a couple recover a FamilySearch
account. The wife had forgotten her password
and it took several different attempts before we finally got her
connected. I helped the husband print
out some temple names and I helped the wife add the FamilyTree app to her phone
and also showed her how she can make her church donations from churchofjesuschrist.org.
I talked to Leanne Wiltse who is the daughter of a Senior Sister
missionary who used to work in the library.
She visits the library fairly often as she does a lot of family history
research. She had some questions about
what Canadian resources were available on FamilySearch. I thought most were except for the 1921
Canada Census. We checked on FamilySearch
and found that all but the 1921 Canada Census were available on FamilySearch. Both Sister Tolman and I helped Jim Gee with finding about his aunt and also learning how to add photos and stories to his family. We added his wedding photo and tagged both him and his wife and made the photos their portraits on FamilySearch.
I was the floor supervisor for the last two hours and ending up helping several people with quick requests for help. I also was able to talk to our daughter Julianna during this time.
Saturday Update from Sister Tolman
Today
I started going through a few things to decided what we would be leaving at the
swap meet, giving away and taking home. We have not collected a lot of
stuff but we have bought a few books and movies so we will make it work with
those. It is so easy to add and sometimes it is hard to get rid of.
One of the things that this mission has taught us is that we don't need as
much. It is hard though when you return and start using some of the stuff
you left behind and are grateful that you have it.
It
was fun today to help a couple of people that were really excited about the
tree and both of those that I helped were men. Each was a little slow in
their own way but both were excited about adding photos and stories and working
in memories. I think I helped two people and one couple. For all of them the information was
amazing but they got really excited about the memories. It is fun to see
people that want to add and share.
The
library was open tonight until 11:00 for a special group of genealogical researchers.
I am glad it wasn't us that had to be there for them. It was the head of
the library that stayed. He himself is a researcher so this is
also a special treat for him.
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