September 29 - October 5 - Sunday to Saturday

Here is a picture of Elder Tolman with Teave Temahuki, a missionary companion while serving on Huahine, French Polynesia.  Teave is visiting from Tahiti with his wife and staying with their daughter who lives in Saratoga Springs.  Teave is also 72 and they have eight children.  We visited his family during our vacation to Tahiti in 1998.  I saw him on Thursday night.

Sunday Sep 29

We attended Music and the Spoken Word.  It was Fast Sunday.  During our Fast and Testimony meeting Elder Olsen who conducted the meeting and Sister Robinson our Zone Leader were the only senior missionaries who bore testimonies.  The rest were Young Elders.  I needed to identify a person to be a Sunday School Teacher and prayed to be able to identify someone during the meeting who could serve. I had previously come up with a list of five Senior Sisters and during Sunday School felt impressed that one Sister should be given the opportunity to serve.

I shook hands with a new Samoan couple who just started serving in the mission.  I told them I served my mission in Tahiti and they indicated that a group of members from Tahiti were on the main floor.  I went down and talked to them for a few minutes before the meeting started.

During Sunday School, I sat by our new neighbor who lives next door on our floor.  We had a chance to visit with both him and his wife after the meeting.  They are Elder and Sister Tippetts and they serve on the British Floor. He likes to play golf so I sent his name to be added to our golf group that plays on Saturdays.

We had dinner and then went to visit with Mom and Dad Senior around 6pm.

Monday Sep 30

I contacted Robert Heninger and he and his wife will be at the missionary reunion on Friday night.  It will be good to see him.  Robert was my last missionary companion when I served in Tahiti. 

We attended the Mission Devotional and learned a lot about the Special Projects Zone in the Church History Library.  Sister Coates described her project which is putting together histories for missionaries who served before 1940 and are not longer living.  The history for my grandfather Jaren Thomas Tolman is on this database and is found at this link  

I had noticed that one missionary had not been identified in the photos with all the missionaries and found out who this person might be.  I talked to Sister Coates after the meeting and got her contact information as she was interested in what I had found out.    

I talked to our Relief Society leader Sister Jensen before the devotional and received her input on the sister whom I want to ask to be a teacher.  Her input was that she would be a good teacher.  I talked to this sister  before the meeting and she agreed to serve until she will be released in about six months.  I also found out that she had been a seminary teacher before her mission.

We went to the movie “Out of Liberty” which started at 9:40am.  It was different than we expected but we enjoyed the movie.   It focused on the events that happened during Joseph Smith's incarceration in the Liberty Jail and their interactions with the man responsible for the jail and how events possibly led him to let the prisoners escape and go to Illinois on the way to a jail in another county.

We stopped at Costco on the way home.  We bought a supplement for Sister Tolman that she needed and was also on sale.  We also bought two books with one being for my birthday.  The book for my birthday is “Deborah” by HB Moore.  Here is a link with more information and a picture.

My sister Gerri arranged for all of my siblings and spouses to get together for dinner at Applebee’s.  We had a very enjoyable visit with all of us.  See the photo below.

We arranged for JoAnne and Craig to come stay with us overnight and go to the Salt Lake City Temple in the morning on October 31.  They want to go to the Salt Lake Temple one more time before it closes the end of December. 

Wednesday Oct 2

Sister Tolman led the music for our 7:30 am prayer meeting which means that she needed to pick the song as well.  She also gave the spiritual thought.  She shared the experience of our daughter Angie and her family after sending Matthew on his mission and having her husband Robert lose his job setting off a series of events which led to many blessings for their family as they moved from Seattle to Arizona.

During the day I finalized the Sacrament meeting programs for the month of October working with Elder and Sister Stenberg.  Our zone has the assignment for prayers and speakers and the Stenbergs made the assignments.  Sister Tolman and I were given speaking assignments for Sunday October 20.  I sent the information to Elder Olsen my Second Counselor as he now prepares the Sunday bulletins that are handed out out at Sacrament meetings.

I was asked to help Sister Strange with some scanning.  She used to serve as a missionary in the library.  She lives in a small apartment and doesn’t have room to keep all her pictures.  I helped her scan a whole lot of pictures.  We could scan most of her pictures with what is called the batch scanner which feeds pictures automatically 25 at a time.  She had a lot of small and odd shaped pictures for which we needed to use the flatbed scanner.  Once I figured out how best to use the flatbed scanner, the process went quicker.  We were able to finish just when it was time to go to lunch.  Sister Strange said I had done more than my good deed for the day helping her.

I was asked to help David who is a church member and had brought a friend to the library.  I helped David recover his username and password.  I helped him learn some about navigating around FamilySearch.  He had some actions on his account which including reserving some names for temple work.  I showed him how to do that.  I also showed him how Ordinances Ready worked.  We found a name and from that did some checking and found another family member needing ordinances completed plus a stepbrother to add to the tree.  He has a lot of family information at home including some old photos and stories.  I encouraged him to add the photos and stories to FamilySearch.  He has a daughter who has done a lot of family history work and now he can tell her what he was able to accomplish.

Noelani Mateaki was at the library when I came back from lunch and we had a chance to visit for a while.  It is always enjoyable to hear from her about the experiences she has had with deceased family members helping her with family history work. 

I spent some time helping two new missionaries, Sister Balls and Sister Quinn.  They have been serving for about a month and needed some help with some of the training.  I showed Sister Quinn how to add external sources from sites such as ancestry.com and findagrave.com.  I helped her resolve some duplicates for her parents and make some other corrections.  Sister Quinn is waiting for a visa to serve her mission in Australia and is getting a chance to learn a lot about family history before leaving. 

Sister Tolman told me about the change in church policy that will now allow female church members as witnesses for baptisms and for temple proxy.  I had a chance to talk to Janice Pouliot who is a temple worker.  I have helped her many times over the past months.  She is excited about the changes.  Sister Pouliot shared with me her experience of interacting with Sister Wendy Nelson and Sister Kristen Oaks while working in the temple and what good women they are.  Here is a picture of the two of us.

Thursday Oct 3

Today was a milestone day as we went to the Salt Lake City Temple.  We attended the 8am Endowment session followed by a sealing session.  With the change in policy allowing women to serve as witnesses, Sister Tolman and the other three sisters in our sealing session all were able to be witnesses.  For our session we had two couples and two sisters plus the sealer and were able to complete the needed ordinances.    With this change more sealings will be able to be done as previously four men in addition to the sealer were needed and often this required temple workers to help.  This morning as I was choosing a male name to take for the Endowment session, I first took one of my names but then decided to take one that Sister Tolman had given me to do  I am glad that I picked Sister Tolman’s as we ended up doing the couple sealing for this man.  See the picture below showing the endowment and sealing cards both completed today.  We also sealed six sons to their parents and all are brothers. 

We were invited to go to lunch with mom and dad Senior to celebrate my birthday.  We went to Zupas in Bountiful.  Sister Tolman had a salad and I had soup and salad. 

We both worked on some personal family history work in the afternoon.

I attended a special 55th reunion for missionaries who served in Tahiti under President Thomas Stone who was 28 years old when he was called as mission president.  He finished his time as mission president in 1966 but I know many of the missionaries who served during that time so I was invited to attend.  I began my mission in June 1967 finishing in December 1969.  I ended up seeing missionaries that I have not seen since I was on my mission and others since leaving Salt Lake in 1973.  Some of those I met were Dean Harmer, Al Stumphy, Stewart Shaver, and Teave Temahuki.  It was wonderful to reconnect with them.  Some others that I talked to were Robert Farmer, Rodney Morse and Marlow and Mary Anne Ashton.  I also talked to Cathy Larsen who lived next door to my Sister JoAnne in Alpine.  Her husband Michael served his mission in Tahiti with President Stone but passed away several years ago.  We had met them when we visited JoAnne and Craig.  The reunion was in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Here are some pictures.

Teave Temahuki and his wife Marie-France

 

Elder Tolman and Al Stumphy

Friday Oct 4

Here I am now 73 years old today.  I heard from all my daughters with phone calls from Laura, Julianna, Michelle, Angie, Becky, and Janny (Saturday morning) plus a text message from Christina.  My sister JoAnne called and I received text messages from my brother Byron, son-in-law Brooks Green and friend Glenn Mortensen.  I also received lots of Facebook messages and birthday cards from family and friends.

We worked at the library from 12:30pm to 6pm.  It was interesting during the prayer meeting at 12:30pm.  I conducted and it was my responsibility to hand out a birthday card and muffin to the person whose birthday it is.  So I gave myself a birthday card and the muffin.  Then without any prompting those attending sang happy birthday.

I helped Christine from San Diego.  She has done a lot of research on her African American ancestors and documented this on a tree on ancestry.com.  She wanted to add what she had found on FamilySearch as well and see what she could learn there as well.  She had already started when I asked her if she would like some help.  I found part of her ancestors on FamilySearch already and she connected to them.  Most of what she has accomplished in researching her family was not on FamilySearch so her information is a welcome addition.  I helped her a little with knowing about the help resources available in The Family History Guide (thefhguide.com ).

Debbie from Texas came up to the desk while I was there and asked for some help with printing so I volunteered.  She had found a marriage record on FamilySearch and wanted to print it.  I helped her get that done and then showed her how to attach this document as a source.  I continued to answer questions and helped her with a lot more than just how to print.

Two former missionaries stopped by the library to say hello.  It was Brother and Sister Hendricks from Washington State.  I helped both of them during their missions here to learn how to find family members to add to the tree and complete temple work for them.  I really enjoyed helping them both.  They served in the TROC (Temple and Records Operation Center) Zone  Here is a picture.

Elder Tolman, Sister Conna Beth Hendricks, Brother Cleo Hendricks

We enjoyed seeing President Marcus Johnson, Alex and their four boys just before we left the library.  This delayed our planned departure for a few minutes but were so happy to visit with them and still made it to the Tahitian reunion in plenty of time to participate there.   Here is a cherished picture with them.

We attended the Tahitian missionary reunion which is always at the same time and place (7 to 9pm at the Park Stake Center 732 S 800 East in Salt Lake City).  I brought one Polynesian shirt with me so I could wear it at the reunions.  When we first arrived we saw our good friends from Hawaii, Robin and Rorii McCulloch.  Robin was my companion on Huahine.   Soon after that my last missionary companion Robert Heninger and his wife Ginny arrived and we six sat at the same table to enjoy our Tahitian dinner and be able to visit.  I also visited with my first companion Rodney Morse, Bob Farmer and Michael Meservy.  We also visited with Marlow and Mary Anne Ashton.  We became acquainted with them at the Mesa FamilySearch Library before our mission.  Marlow was a missionary in Tahiti as well and his first assignment was in Maupiti the same as mine.   Will Heider and I were never companions but served in the same areas including Raiatea.

Ginny Heninger, Robert Heninger, Rorii McCulloch, Elder and Sister Tolman, Robin McCulloch

Will Heider, Sister and Elder Tolman

Michael Meservy and wife, Rodney Morse

Bob Farmer

One blessing for us during our mission herein Salt Lake City has been to attend three missionary reunions and connect with friends from Tahiti.  The food was excellent especially the Poisson Cru (marinated fish salad) and Tahitian Poe.

Saturday Oct 5

This is a message that I posted on Saturday morning on Facebook.  “Thank you for all the birthday messages yesterday. It was good to hear from so many people. The day started with a tasty breakfast cooked by my wife, then phone calls from family, helping at the Salt Lake Family History Library from 12:30pm until 6pm, a surprise visit from our stake president Marcus F Johnson and his family just before leaving the library and topped off with attending the Tahitian Missionary reunion from 6:30 to 9pm. It was good to see so many friends and to enjoy a Tahitian dinner (rice, Tahitian Poe, Taro, Poisson Cru (marinated fish salad), etc). I had a wonderful birthday.”

We enjoyed the morning session of General Conference which we watched in our apartment streaming in the laptop.  We started at the library at 12:30 pm.  I helped several people during our time here.  I was able to watch the first half of the afternoon session but missed the announcement about changes to the Young Men program as I helped guests during this time.  I helped a man who lives in Montana who had done a lot of research and documented this on ancestry.com several years ago.  We found most of what he knew already on FamilySearch after we set up his account.  I showed him information about how to use the Research Wiki and The Family History Guide and navigate FamilySearch.

I helped a woman add some of her tree to FamilySearch from her ancestry.com tree as she wanted to print a fan chart on the first floor.  We were able to get some of her ancestors and that was enough for her to have the discovery experience on the first floor.

Four colleagues who are in Salt Lake City for a work conference came to the library to find out about their families.  I helped two of them.   They didn’t know much detailed information and called family members for help.  For one who has searched for family members several times, we were able to find a death record about her grandmother for which she was very grateful. We were able to connect some for her friend and found a possible census record with her grandmother listed with her parents and many siblings.  She will verify this with her great aunt when she gets home.  All four were happy with the results and downloaded the FamilyTree app to help them with continued efforts to find their family.

Sister Tolman watched the Women’s Conference session and was excited to share the information about the new temples.