October 20 - 26 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday Oct 20

Here is a picture taken a couple of weeks ago with the leaves changing right by the entrance to the Salt Lake City Temple.

We attended Music and the Spoken Word as we always do on Sunday morning.

We spent the morning reviewing our talks for Sacrament meeting.   Our subject was President Oaks talk from April 2019 General Conference titled “Where Will This Lead”.  He talked about the importance of considering the consequences of our decisions.  The Sacrament Meeting went well and we received lots of compliments about our messages.  Before the meeting started Elder Randy Funk of the Seventy came to our meeting.  He requested the we give him a few minutes to speak at the end of the meeting.  Sister Tolman and I and the other speaker reduced the length of our talks to give him time at the end.  It was and excellent meeting.  You can read our talks on a separate blog entry right after this one titled “October 20 – Sacrament Meeting Talks”.  Access it directly at this link

After our meeting we enjoyed some reading and then Sister Tolman fixed Tacos for dinner.  We went to one of the missionary’s apartments (the Porters) for a going away social for the Robinsons who were Zone Leaders for the US and Canada Zone where we currently serve.  See the picture below.

Sister and Elder Robinson, Sister McKnight, Elder Porter, Pres McKnight, 

Elder and Sister Abernathy, Elder and Sister Tolman

Monday Oct 21

We attended the mission devotional at 7:30am and said goodbye to number of missionaries who will be leaving this week.  This is one of our favorite mission pictures and reminds us that we are serving in a special place often called the spiritual bubble that includes Temple Square and the surrounding area consisting of the Family History Library, Church History Museum, Church History Library, Conference Center, Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Church Administration Building and the Church Office Building.

We had thought about going to Antelope Island today but changed our minds and visited the copper mine in Bingham Canyon. I had not visited the mine since living with my parents at home long ago and Sister Tolman does not remember ever visiting the mine.  It took about 40 minutes to travel from our apartment to the Visitor’s Center just below the mine.  We took a shuttle bus from there up to the top of the mine where there are two overlook areas from which to view the open pit mine and surrounding area.  It was colder than we expected but we enjoyed the excursion.  Here is a copy of information from the website 

“Learn about the history of this amazing mine and see first-hand the gigantic scale of its operation, vehicles and artifacts. Discover how ore gets refined to become copper – an essential element in today’s technology. The Visitor Experience is dedicated to educating the public about the importance mining plays in modern life, safe mining practices and responsible environmental stewardship.  Founded in 1903, Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest man-made open-pit excavations in the world. The operation is so immense, it can be seen from space. The mine operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. With over 20 million tons of refined copper ore produced in the past 116 years, it’s one of the top performing mines in the world and has provided more wealth for the state of Utah than any other company.”

Here are some pictures.

This shows from the top down to the bottom of the open pit mine

The tire in the background is used on the large trucks that haul ore bearing rock out of the mine

The wind started blowing and it got real cold

Interesting information about the mine.  

Notice how much gold and silver are produced in addition to copper

Sister Tolman fixed pizza which we took for dinner at the Senior’s.  We enjoyed dinner and a game of Five Crowns with them.  We also talked to both Julianna and Becky while we were there.

Tuesday Oct 22

We attended a special mission conference with Elder LeGrande R. Curtis.  His wife Sister Jane Curtis talked about service.  Elder Curtis talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon.  He read Joseph Smith Matthew 24:37 which gives us a wonderful promise “And whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived”.  He shared with us how daily study and pondering of the Book of Mormon and the truths taught within this book can keep us strong in the gospel.  I can personally testify to this truth.  Here is a picture from the conference.

Sister & Pres McKnight, Pres & Sister Fenn, Sister & Elder Curtis, Sister & Pres Unger

Mike and Debbie Ostler from Arizona stopped by the library for some help with questions  about their upcoming mission in Tempe, Arizona where they will be stay at home full-time missionaries.  They want to use Family History to help them in their missionary work.  They both have a lot of Family History experience but wanted our input with what they plan to do.

We went to the first session of our three-day Capstone training which is from 12:30pm to 4:00pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.  It is held on the second floor of the Church Office Building. We will attend another three day session the second week of November.

We ate dinner at the Sizzler in Bountiful using a gift card that I received from the Senior’s for my recent birthday.  We ate ribs and unlimited salad, soup and dessert bar.  We saw Sister Cathy Phillips and her husband.  She is part of our MTC group and lives in Bountiful and works two days at the FHL. 

Wednesday Oct 23

I helped an 80-year-old woman with printing an 1870 census from ancestry.com.  The direct print from ancestry.com was too small to read so I had her download the image and then print it and it was large enough so she could read it.

This morning, I was trying to find immigration information for James Kerr (George Mercer Kerr’s father).  James is my great-great grandfather on my mother’s line.  He was born in Scotland and died in Ogden in 1894 which is why I was interested in his immigration information.  His wife Isabella Mercer died in England in 1882.  I haven’t found anything yet but I found James’s sister Helen on the 1871 census and added her to FamilyTree.  I looked at descendants from James Kerr’s sister Jane Kerr and found new family members to add to the tree.  I found two new members of the Duncan family (Mary and Clementina) and birth information for one son (George) making him eligible for temple work.  See the chart below showing this family. 

I helped a man whose parents were from the Philippines.  He was born in Staten Island, New York and that is where his parents settled when they moved from Manila.  I helped him get a FamilySearch account and then he started adding his parents.  When he added his father, we found a Social Security death index which gave his father’s birth date.  Record hints then showed up with his father’s birth in Manila and also showing the grandparents.  Other birth records showed as record hints for his father’s siblings.  He was amazed with what we found (I was too).  His mother is still living so he needs to talk to her and learn as much as he can.  He is leaving for home later today and went back to the hotel to check out.  I suggested he go to the International Floor this afternoon.  We added the mobile apps and he added a photo of his mother and his sister and tagged them.  This experience turned out way better than I thought. 

Ira Gentry stopped by for a visit and we worked on some of his family history for a short time before we needed to leave for lunch.  He walked back part way with us and then went to have lunch with his wife at the Church Office Building.  He will be back next week probably on Wednesday.  

Elder Tolman and longtime friend Ira Gentry

We enjoyed the Capstone Training.  We both wrote stories that we added to FamilySearch.  Sister Tolman wrote a story about our trip to the copper mine on Monday and I wrote a story about our apartment.    Here is a link to the apartment story

Part of the training was on Descendancy research.  While looking at the Tolman descendants from Judson Tolman, I noticed my relationship to Jaren Lambert Tolman who lived in Mesa and was a schoolteacher and passed away several years ago at the age of 95.  I receive a lot of questions from people in Arizona about my relationship to him.  I knew he was a descendant of Judson, my great-great grandfather but did not know that he is also a descendant of Jaren Tolman, my great grandfather.  This means that we are second cousins and not third cousins as I had previously thought.  Jaren Lambert Tolman moved to Arizona in 1949 and many of the Tolman’s in Mesa are his descendants.

We talked to Julianna in the evening as she was on the way home from her work.

Thursday Oct 24

We talked to Laura on the way to the temple.  We completed Endowments and Sealings.  We completed two Endowments and one couple sealing and had four sons and five daughters sealed to their parents.

We ate lunch at the Church Office Building (COB) as Thursday is prime rib day so we decided to have lunch there before our Capstone class. We shared lunch consisting of prime rib, green beans and a salad. It was plenty to eat and was really good. 

We saw Lynn Gentry as we were going from lunch to our class on the second floor.  She works for the temple department in the COB.

Our Capstone Class was interesting and informative. We are glad that we took the class.  We knew most of the material but we learned some new things.  Sister Tolman showed the class some tricks to make FamilySearch Indexing easier and more efficient.  We played Geneopardy.  Elder Tolman got the best score and won a bag of M&M’s.  The game is found at the website- Geneopardy.fhtl.byu.edu.

We talked to Michelle and caught up with what is going on with the family.  It was good to visit with her.  We look forward to being able to see our family again in January.

We worked at the library from 6 to 9pm and ended up helping several individuals.  I helped Ryan from Chicago who is here all week on a business trip.  He needed to learn some more about how FamilySearch works and I helped him with that.  He is probably in his early 30’s so was able to pick things up quickly.  We connected him to more of his family.  There was one connection that didn’t look correct.  Someone had added a person in 2014 who was similar to his grandfather but the middle name and birth and death dates were different.  I decided that we needed to keep that person on the tree but replace him in the family with a record of his actual grandfather.  I helped him learn how to look at various types of records on both FamilySearch and Ancestry.com.  

While I was helping him, an older woman needed some help with a printing problem.  I helped her with that and then helped her find some wills and probate information for an ancestor.  A few minutes late she came over in a panic and had lost what we had found.  I helped her and was able to recover the web page where she was looking.  It is always fun to be able to help people in many different ways.

I found a fifth cousin from the Kerr line who needs temple work completed.  I found a WWII draft registration card for him and attached it as a source.  His name is Charles Lewis Wright and his ID on FamilySearch.org is LJ58-588.

Friday Oct 25

Laura called this morning and they finally had rain in Austin.  They had several inches.  They have been in a drought situation for several months.  We were so happy for her.  We also talked to Julianna and got an update on her challenging job as a manager.

On the way home from Discount Tire Sister Tolman texted me and asked me to call her.  I did and she said that she planned to fix Eggs Benedict and wanted to know when I was on my way home so she could get started.  Breakfast was really good.

We went food shopping at Lucky’s.  I did some minor car work with going to Discount Tire to get the torque tested on our new tires and wheels and then topping off the fluids in the car (oil, windshield fluid and antifreeze).

When I first got to the FHL I helped Jeffery Candelaria.  I have helped him several times before but haven’t seen him for at least several months.  He couldn’t remember his username and I ended up calling the account help line and was able to him logged on to his account.  We looked at an obituary for his grandfather.  This obituary lists several family members. We added his uncle to the tree and then were able to find historical records for him.  This should lead to being able to find more records for his family.  I set myself up as a helper for Jeffery so I can do some more research for him.

Elder Tolman and Jeffery Candeleria

I worked as floor supervisor from 4 to 6pm and we didn’t have a lot of missionaries so it was a challenge to make sure all our guests received help.  We were able to help most of them.  I helped a member couple from Spokane, Washington.  I was able to help the man recover his account so he was able to go work on this own.  I helped the wife and we found out that she has two accounts and needs to figure out what her church member account is.  I helped them at the desk using my laptop as I couldn’t leave due to being Floor Supervisor.

I helped Teresa from Kansas City. She was her with her friend Bill who lives in Salt Lake City. She had used computers in her work so she was very computer literate which is often not the case for individuals in their late 60’s.  We searched some historical records before we set up an account for her and found family members on both sides (father and mother) and some birth records and census records.   Unlike most people we help, we did not find too much already on the tree for her.  We found a few records already on the tree but it looks like she will need to continue to research to be able to go back more than three generations.   I showed her how the Memories function works.  We tried to load the mobile apps but she didn’t have her AppleID with her so she couldn’t.  I showed her how the apps work.  I took their picture shown below and downloaded the picture to the computer she was working on so she could upload it to her Gallery on FamilySearch. 

Saturday Oct 26

Today is our early day when we serve from 7:45am to 5pm.  I led the prayer meeting from 7:45 until 8am. 

The first person that I helped was Kay Hudson from Florida. She has done a lot of genealogy research for at least 40 years and needed some help uploading her tree to FamilySearch.  She had already uploaded some ancestors yesterday using the GEDCOM interface which is not recommended.  This part of her tree was from Croatia and was mostly unique research so she hadn’t added too many duplicates.  I helped her find the problem areas and helped her learn how to merge duplicate records.  She had the second part of the tree that she hadn’t yet uploaded so I helped her find out that most of that part of her tree was already on FamilyTree.  We did find some duplicates so I helped her combine more of these.  She thanked me for all the help and continued working on making corrections.

Just before I finished helping her someone from first floor recommended that a family talk to me about the service opportunities available at the mission.  They had wanted to visit the mission office but it is closed on Saturday so I received the assignment.  I sat down with them and explained the type of service that we perform in our mission in the different areas. Fortunately I had my laptop which has a description of all the zones in the mission.  It turns out a young man from Arizona will be serving a Young Church Service mission up here and will be living with his aunt and uncle.  I explained what happens in the 12 different zones in our mission and they were happy to learn more and thanked me for my help.

Just before lunch I visited with Janice Pouliot for about 30 minutes or so.  I have helped her previously.  I encouraged her to add to FamilySearch some stories of her life experiences and service experiences that she has had as a temple ordinance worker. 

While I was helping at the desk a couple had a few questions and I was able to help them using my laptop.  I had him logon to his account and I explained how the system works when in his case he was previously married and how to show the previous marriage plus his current wife who was here with him. I showed him how to do that and how he decides which wife to show on his fan chart or pedigree chart.  He indicated that he and his wife had been treated so kindly during their trip at the library and on Temple Square and wanted to make a donation.  I told them where they could on the main floor.

A group of four women who are here attending a work conference came to the library.  When three of them had finished, I was talking to them near the front desk and one of them indicated that her father was on the tree and someone had indicated that he was deceased.  The missionary who was working with her told her what she needed to do to fix this. This involves contacting FamilySearch in most cases.  I indicated that I would try to help her.  I looked at the record on the tree for her father and then looked at the history of changes for him and noticed that she had added him to the tree and by mistake she had checked to box for deceased and not living.  She didn't have the options to change his profile from deceased to living but did have the option to delete his profile and then add it back again which I had her do.  Problem solved.  She was really grateful to get that change made.

The last person that I helped needed some help using RootsMagic and I showed her what I knew and how to use the RootMagic interface to FamilySearch.  I also helped her with her tree on FamilySearch and showed her how to use the Descendancy view on FamilySearch.   She had reserved some baptisms to do at the temple today while her husband completes his shift.  I also showed her that her brother needed his work done also which surprised her so I helped her print the card for him and hopefully she will be able to have someone there at the temple do that baptism for her.

Earlier I helped another man print out 10 sealings to parents using Ordinances Ready.  I helped his cousin before I helped him and all I will say is that he was hard to work with and tried my patience.  He was someone who knew everything and wanted to complain about FamilySearch.

I had an experience today that has never happened to me before in helping someone at the library.  I was asked to help a women and her son who was in his 20's.  She was the only one who decided to get help and the son watched.  She indicated that she wanted to find more about her family as she wanted to learn more about her ancestors and have the "Discovery Experience" on the main floor.  We started and were able to get her account set up.  We started to work on adding her family to the tree and the son didn't want me to help his mother anymore.  She wanted me to help her get started and he said he didn't want me to help her.  He appeared to be very controlling and I had a bad feeling about this situation so I backed away and stopped trying to help and stood up to leave.  He said to me that he never wanted me to come between him and his mother again.  Sister Tolman noticed this interaction and had a "dark" feeling about what happened and was concerned for my safety,  We think that there might be some sort of abusive and controlling relationship there.  After a couple of minutes they both got up and left the floor. We pray that this women would be safe.

All in all it was a very busy day today at the library and the good experiences outweighed the challenging ones 10 to 1.  Just as we were leaving a Young Elder wanted to take our picture with him.  He is Elder Buckley and his last day is on Tuesday. 

Elder Tolman, Elder Buckley and Sister Tolman