November 17 - 23 - Sunday to Saturday
Here is a picture of a sunset taken from our apartment on Sunday night.
Sunday Nov 17
We attended Music and the Spoken Word. It was held in the Conference Center this
week and will be until the first week of January. We like the sound better in the Tabernacle but with the increased crowds that come along with the various concert events in December, the broadcast moves to the larger venue.
Our Sacrament meeting speakers shared uplifting messages with
the theme based on Elder Ulisses Soares Oct 2019 conference talk titled
"Take Up Our Cross". Our Sacrament meetings have been very good and
I look forward to our meetings each Sunday.
We invited four Young Elders for dinner and Sister Tolman prepared a potato bar and pistachio salad. We all ate our fill as normal. We signed up for six but enough other Senior missionaries signed up to feed them that only four came to dinner,
Left to Right- Elder Moss, Elder
Arndt, Sister Tolman, Elder Waetchler, Elder Van Dam.
After dinner we visited the Seniors and we enjoyed watching a
Hallmark Movie. It was one that we had not seen before.
Monday Nov 18
We attended the Monday morning devotional. We learned about the Headquarters Support
Services Zone which has about 100 senior missionaries with about half full-time
and half church service. The functions
they perform are managing natural resources, prison ministries, language and
interpretation services, military relations, assisting missionaries and leaders navigate through the missionary application process, self-reliance, mental and medical
evaluations to offer recommendations for service, providing support for
building temples, welfare services, and security.
We stayed in the apartment and did some family history research
and went through some papers and reviewed our calendars.
Sister Tolman fixed her wonton salad for the Hail and
Farewell. The dinner and program went
well. Elder Tolman was the emcee and Sister
Tolman led the music. We sat at a table
with President and Sister Fenn and President and Sister Unger. The McKnight’s were not able to be
there. We enjoyed the conversation which
included West High and East High. President Fenn, Sister Fenn and Sister Tolman attended West High and Elder Tolman went to East High. The two schools are long time rivals. I told
President Fenn that Knight B Kerr was my uncle.
President Fenn had many fond memories of his time at West and his relationship
with my Uncle Knight who was the school principal. He indicated that Dr Kerr gave him a booklet of passes to get him out of class. He used these to skip a psychology class that he didn't like. The teacher was going to fail him since he missed too many classed but he worked out an agreement with the teacher and Dr Kerr that if he passed the final he wouldn't fail but get the grade from the final. He received an A- in the class.
Missionaries leaving in November and December
The performers all together at the end of the performance of "Savior of the World"
Missionaries who arrived in October and November
Young Elders singing Called to Serve as the concluding number
Tuesday Nov 19
We attended the Mission Conference. Elder Kevin S Hamilton spoke to us. He gave us an excellent overview of where we
have been and where we are going. It is amazing how far we have come with technology and how family history work and genealogy have been advanced and benefited because of these changes.
Sister McKnight, Sister and Elder Unger, Sister and President McKnight, Elder Hamilton
I helped Don Attridge. He is back to visiting the library on Tuesdays. We printed 5 Initiatory ordinances and I arranged for us to visit him on
Monday November 25 to see his Christmas room in his apartment. He
lives in Tooele. He gave me another
Christmas card with one of his paintings (see below).
I went with four missionary sisters from our floor to tour each floor of the Family History Library to see where various items are located to. This is part of what is needed to pass off part of our blue pin requirements. Here is a picture taken on the Discovery Floor.
Sister Godfrey, Elder Tolman, Sister Chabries, Sister Montgomery, Sister Howell
When we got to the second floor, I ended up helping a woman scan some documents using the copy machine and the book
scanner on the third floor.
Wednesday Nov 20
The weather is a little rainy and overcast today so I wore
my coat with a hood and Sister Tolman took her umbrella. We didn’t get a lot of rain but it has sprinkled
off and on.
The computers in the library were not working from about 7am
until after 10am. I took my laptop so I
was able to connect to the network and do work.
I spent some time looking for people to add to the tree for a couple of
missionaries (Elder Olsen and Sister Godfrey). I showed Sister Godfrey what I found and she added a family to the tree and reserved the temple ordinances. I
helped Sister Chabries with uploading and tagging Memories in FamilySearch
including an audio about her father and identifying individuals in a story that
she wrote.
I helped a sister who visits the library every Wednesday
learn to use her android smartphone. I
helped her download the Member Tools app and the FamilySearch Memories
app. I showed her what she could do with
the Memories app by uploading pictures directly from her phone to FamilySearch and she
was excited about that.
I visited with Sister Janice Pouliot for a while. She doesn’t need a heart stint put in which
was good news. I encouraged her to do
some indexing to supplement what else she does on FamilySearch. I showed her some about doing English research.
Will Heider (a missionary from the same time that I served
in Tahiti) came to the library. He was
at the recent reunion in October. He
brought some slides from Tahiti to share and I gave him some of mine. Here is one slide shown below. Elder Tolman looks a little younger in this picture.
Elder Stoker and Elder Tolman in Uturoa, Raiatea in 1969
As we visited, I found out that he was the
last two and a half year missionary in Tahiti and not me. I thought that he had gone to language
training, but he had the week at the Mission Home in Salt Lake just like I did
and then flew straight to Tahiti. After
the two of us, missionaries attended two months of language training before arriving
to start their missions. He sings with a
choral group that will be performing at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square on Sunday
evening December 22 and we plan to attend.
Elder Tolman and Will Heider
Thursday Nov 21
We talked to Laura first thing in the morning and compared
her 70-degree temperature in Austin with our 40 degrees and windy. We were a little jealous. We have arranged to visit her and Eric the
end of March.
We attended the 8am endowment session at the Salt Lake
Temple and them completed a sealing session with 2 couples and 2 sons and 4 daughters
sealings to parents. Sister Tolman
completed nine Initiatory ordinances as it was not busy in the temple at that time. Normally she can only complete three without a long wait.
I attended the monthly luncheon with my friends from my growing up
years in the Garden Park Ward. One thing that kept us together was our participation
on our ward softball and basketball teams. My good friend Ken Jarvis was there. He hasn't been for a while. We plan to have a dinner in December with our wives.
We attended the Savior of the World performance at the Conference
Center Little Theater. The performance was
very moving and we felt the truth of the events surrounding the Savior’s birth
and resurrection as these events were depicted. These are performed five nights a week from
mid-November through the end of December.
We attended last year and were really glad we attended again this
year. One of our favorite young missionaries
(Elder Bartholomew), stopped by to greet us as he is now working on the stage
crew for the event after his full-time mission.
Elder and Sister Tolman at the Conference Center Little Theater
Friday Nov 22
We completed the Friday cleaning and laundry. We went food shopping at both Lucky’s and
Smith’s. Ice cream was on sale at Smith’s and that is the only thing we purchased there.
We attended the All Hands Meeting (a communication meeting
for missionaries) directed by David Rencher who is the director of the Family
History Library. The library is adding
40 computers overall but reducing the number on the 3rd floor by 16. Some of the computers will be connected to multiple
monitors and configured so that missionaries helping guests won’t prevent some
computers from being used. The number of
standalone older technology microfilm and microfiche readers is being reduced
since the library experience is changing as fewer people are using these
readers. The library is not eliminating
microfilm or microfiche just the number of readers for use by our guests. The plan it to complete these computer configuration
changes by the middle of December. It is
good to hear from the library management and understand the direction so we can
answer any questions that our guests have for us.
A lot of questions came up about the temple policy
changes as some temples are not giving ordinance cards back. Also the request for requesting exceptions to
the 110 year rule has changed and more specific documentation is required. Once completed accurately and completely, the
ordinances are available immediately.
We were at the library for only a short time after the
communication meeting which ended at 2:15pm and lunch/dinner was at 3pm. I ended up helping a man who lives
locally. His name is Sam and he had a
few questions which I answered. I helped
him print out a fan chart and a pedigree chart and helped him recover his
MyHeritage account as an ancestor who was recently added to the tree listed a source from a MyHeritage Tree. We needed to leave for dinner so Sister
Isaacson continued to help him after I left.
A couple from Idaho stopped by on the third floor. They were
in Salt Lake City to attend the Salt Lake Temple before it closes. The husband was looking for a book so I
helped him find the right aisle. His
wife was just waiting for him, so I asked her a few questions. I was at the desk as the floor supervisor and
showed her a few things about FamilySearch on my laptop. She didn’t remember her username but she had the
FamilyTree app on her phone, so with her username and helper number, I was able
to login on my account as a helper for her.
I showed her the Fan Chart for her ancestors with the country option and
both she and her husband hadn’t seen that before. I looked back on her chart and did a
descendancy view on one ancestor. I lot
of green temple icons showed and also opportunities to add family to the
tree. The husband wrote down the PID for
this ancestor so their children can work on reserving temple ordinances in this
area.
Saturday Nov 23
Today is our early shift at the library. I led the prayer meeting. We enjoyed hearing from one of our library
staff people Mike Hall who shared an interesting experience he had sharing family
history with some flight attendants and others on an airline flight.
We talked to the Conlin’s yesterday and they went on the
same trip to England last year that we are going on this year. Elder Conlin
showed me some pictures of their trip particularly around Benbow Farm in
Herefordshire, England. We both have
ancestors who joined the church then. My
ancestor is John Perry who is my third great- grandfather on my father’s line.
He was one of the first six baptized in the group of United Brethren who joined
the church after Wilford Woodruff was inspired to go south and find this group
who had been praying for more truth.
I decided to do some research on John Parry’s line and found
some family members who descended from his second cousin Caroline Perry who
married Harry White. I found several
family members to add to the tree and
reserve temple work. See the chart below
and the marriage record that I found for Caroline and Harry.
Marriage certificate for Caroline Perry and William While (see red underlined names)
I was asked to help Edgar from Nigeria. He is a church member and moved to Salt Lake area
within the last six months. We looked at his tree and he has many ancestors and cousins who need temple work done but
all these need to start with baptisms and confirmations. He will come back to the library for more
help. For now we printed an Endowment
card from the Temple list and he left to go to the 2pm Endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple.
A man stopped at the main desk while I was the Floor Supervisor. I have seen him in the library before and he looked familiar. He noticed my name tag and we figured out the connection. He is Bruce McOmber who grew up in the Garden Park Ward and is my same age. His twin brother Brent attends the Garden Park luncheons most of time but didn't on Thursday. Here is a picture.
We left a few minutes early so we would have time to get
home and have some dinner before traveling to Thanksgiving Point to see the
Luminaria display at the Ashton Gardens.
My sister Gerri and her family and Glenna and Lori are going as well. We arrived at the gardens at about 6:20pm and left at about 7:30pm. We dressed in layers and ended up being warm enough.
The Luminaria displays were really beautiful. Here are a few pictures.
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