October 27- November 2 - Sunday to Saturday

Sunday Oct 27

We attended Music and the Spoken Word in the morning and our Sunday meetings in the afternoon.  Sister Tolman led the music as the regular chorister was ill.  Our opening and closing songs were long ones so she had us sing an intermediate hymn that was only one verse "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God".  This song went very well with our lessons for Priesthood and Relief Society which was based on the April 2019 General Confernenc address by Elder Rasband titled "Build a Fortress of Spirituality and Protection". 

It snowed this morning and off and on until after church.  Here are two pictures taken by Sister Tolman.  It stayed cold all week and wherever the sun didn't hit, there was snow.  When we visited the Seniors on Thursday night there were still patches of snow in the front yard where the sun didn't reach.

We attended our Fifth floor social from 5 to 6pm. We only have one more social and that will be in November.  When we got out of the elevator Sister Silvers said “Welcome home” to us.  We wondered why she said that.  Then Sister Park asked us where we had been for the last week.  We figured out that they thought we were gone because we changed parking places from space 84 to space 86.

Over a week ago we received our official notice of our leaving and what we need to prepare.  See the letter below that was also included inviting us to give the prayers at the October 28 missionary devotional. 

We went to Seniors and watched “Letters from Juliet” which is one of Sister Tolman’s favorite movies.

My sister Gerri invited us to go to the Luminarias at Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point on Saturday November 23 and we plan to go with them.  Some of Gerri's family and my sister Glenna and her daughter Lori will be there as well.

Monday Oct 28 

We attended our Monday morning devotional.  Sister Tolman gave the invocation and Elder Tolman gave the benediction.  See the program below.  Missionaries getting close to the end of their missions are normally asked to give the prayers in the devotionals.

 

The weather was a little cold so we just stayed around the apartment and did some reading and FamilySearch Indexing.  When I attended the Branch Leadership meeting at 3pm, Sister Tolman did some food shopping.  I finished reading "Deborah - Prophetess of God" by HB Moore.

We watched episode 6 of Relative Race.  We are really enjoying this season of Relative Race.

Tuesday Oct 29

We attended the zone devotional at 7:30am.  It was really cold walking back and forth from our apartment.  It is supposed to be even colder tomorrow (in the teens) so we will likely take our lunch.

We had a training class at 10am but before I left, one of the missionaries from Library Services had some questions and I showed him how to attach records from images of records found in FamilySearch.  I also showed him how to do the same for images from outside FamilySearch.

Just before lunch I helped Robert from Oregon.  He was in the library yesterday and shares a FamilySearch account with his wife.  He wanted to continue what he started yesterday.  He had the username and password so he was able to access the tree.  I saw a couple of holes in his tree and we were able to add ancestors and also resolve a few duplicates.  We made some progress before I left him with another missionary so we could go lunch.

I worked on some research in the morning and then in the afternoon.  I found some names to add to the tree who are third cousins to my grandfather Jaren Thomas Tolman.  See the relationship tree below.  In addition to finding a spouse (Walter Gilbert) for Ethel May Fincham, I also found spouses for her two sisters, Doris and Winifred.

While I was finishing up the research, Nathan from Georgia asked me a question.  I have talked to him several times this week.  He is a professional researcher and visits the library at least once a year.  He wanted to know about what else FamilySearch has besides searching historical records.  He had not used the tree option on FamilySearch.  I explained that it is a collaborative tree and that people work together to create the tree.  I asked him what he uses to document his tree and he uses RootsMagic.  I showed him that his grandparents were already on the tree so all he needed to do was add his parents and we connected to what was already there.  I also explained that RootsMagic has an interface to FamilySearch so he can share information back and forth.  I also explained how the Memories function works.  He has a lot of pictures and no children to share them with so he will start adding some of his pictures to the tree when he gets home.  This is an example of how I end up helping the experienced researchers when I get to know them and say hello when I see them.  They often ask me for help or to answer a question.

Sister Tolman finished her work to get her US and Canada pin which qualifies her to be able to help on the second floor.  Congratulations !!  This took a lot of work and effort on her part.  See the Friday entry for more information on this accomplishment.

Wednesday Oct 30

We attended prayer meeting and Sister Tolman led the music.  She always does a great job leading the music.  She substituted and led the music for last Sunday’s Sacrament meeting. 

I answered a couple of questions from Nathan, the professional genealogist.  I showed him how to make changes and corrections to information on the tree.  He thanked me again for helping him.  He wrote down my full name to remember that I helped him.

A man needed help cropping and saving an image from a historical record and I was able to help him with that. A full-time missionary Sister Malie who is here with her husband needed some help with merging a duplicate record for her sister.  They work in the JSMB in a support role.  Someone had printed out an image of the duplicate record so I was able to merge the two records. She was happy to get that done.    

We stayed in the library for lunch as it is very cold today.  This morning the low was 14 degrees and the high went all the way up to freezing.  Here is a quote from the Salt Lake Tribune for today.  “Salt Lake City’s official temperature of 14 degrees at 3:37 a.m. Wednesday set a record low for Oct 30 and for the month of October.  The National Weather Service’s office in Utah’s most populous city says the previous record was 16 degrees on Oct. 30, 1971. The office says its records date back to 1874.”

I helped a couple from the San Francisco Bay area, David and Susan.  I helped them for over an hour before lunch and then for over an hour after lunch.  David’s family is Jewish and emigrated in the early 1900’s from the area near the Russia and Poland border.  We were able to add three to four generations from historical records that we found.  A relative also sent some additional information which verified the ancestors that we had found.  This relative also sent a GEDCOM which I imported into RootsMagic which enabled use to look at what this relative had researched.  This was a very enjoyable several hours as we were able to find a lot of family members to add to FamilyTree. David and Susan appreciated what we were able to find.  One good thing about the Bay area is that there is a full-service FamilySearch library at the Oakland Temple.  They plan to go there to get additional help when they return home.

My sister JoAnne and her husband Craig Barlow arrived just after 5:00pm and we enjoyed dinner and visiting with them.  They will be staying overnight with us and returning home on Thursday afternoon.  They wanted to attend the Salt Lake Temple one more time before it closes the end of December.

Thursday Oct 31

We attended the 8am Endowment session with JoAnne and Craig followed by a sealing session where we were able to complete four couple sealings and twelve children to parents sealings. Below are two pictures taken at the temple.

Sister and Elder Tolman, JoAnne and Craig Barlow with the reflection pool and 

Salt Lake Temple and Angel Moroni in the background

A closeup just in front of the east side of the Salt Lake Temple

We went to lunch at Kneader’s and on the way went through the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Sister Tolman and I both had a bowl of Broccoli and Cheese soup along with a baguette.

Decoration on the main floor in the center of the room which changes regularly

We went through the City Creek Mall on the way back to our apartment and stopped to see the fish including rainbow trout in the branch of City Creek that flows through the City Creek Mall.   We stopped at the Family History Library to show them where we work.  We introduced them to several people on the main floor and on the third floor.  I showed them around the third floor with what we have with books, scanners and all the computers.  I made sure that they saw Sister Pennock who serves on our floor.  She was a missionary with them in Nauvoo.  I have extra tickets for the First Presidency Christmas broadcast on December 8 and they plan to go with us on that Sunday.

We sent to Seagull Book and bought two DVD's - The Fighting Preacher and last year's Christmas Concert with the Tabernacle Choir.  Last time we were there, we talked to one of the sales clerks who is a Ward Temple and Family History Consultant.  We told her then we would help and she remembered us.  I wrote down where she could learn about her calling on FamilySearch.org in the "Helper Resources" section on the website and gave her our contact information if she wants to visit the Family History Library.

Since today is Halloween, the library closed at 5pm so we didn’t need to work.  We went to the Senior’s for dinner and visiting.  We ate chili with the fixings along with mom Senior's pistachio salad for dinner.  We brought some extra candy for the trick or treaters and we ended us giving away most of it.  We watched a Hallmark movie which we had not seen before.

Friday Nov 1

We talked to Laura in the morning and had a good visit with her.  We did a little cleaning around the apartment.

At our 12:30pm prayer meeting Sister Tolman received two pins, her US / Canada pin and her blue pin.  The US / Canada pin is required to be completed to help guests who visit the second floor of the library.  She is the first missionary from the third floor to get this pin.  She is also one of the first on the third floor to get the blue pin.  Congratulations to Sister Tolman!!!  Here are some pictures. 

This week the library has exhibits on all the floors celebrating the Mexican celebration “Dia de Muertos” (Day of the Dead) that involves friends and family gathering together to pray for and remember their departed loved ones.  It is considered not a day of sadness but a day of celebration because their loved one awakes to be with them.  One of the ways to celebrate is to create altars in homes containing pictures, mementos and favorite foods of those who have departed.  The Disney movie “Coco” was about this celebration. Below is the exhibit on the third floor. 

We did not get very many guests today on the third floor.  I saw my friend Janice Pouliot in the library today and stopped to see if she needed some help.  She did and I helped her attach some sources and upload some documents including a WWII draft registration card for an ancestor.  I also helped her with some questions on her temple list.  She has had a challenging life and is the one who has broken the cycle of abuse in her family.

I helped Richard Foster from Bountiful with scanning a journal written by his mother.  It was over 150 pages handwritten and her writing was very clear so there was no need to make a transcription.  He wanted to have the document scanned for him and also to upload to FamilySearch. We worked for more that an hour and I learned a lot about how to keep the size down below 15 megabytes as that is the size limit for a document or photo to be added to FamilySearch.  I will be able to use what I learned to help others with scanning documents using the copier.  The next step was to upload the journal to FamilySearch only Richard couldn’t remember his password.  He knew enough so that I could sign into his account as a helper and then he uploaded the journal.

He shared a story about how he was adopted as a baby in Ogden and that a Doctor Jensen had cared for him in the hospital and took him in his own home for about a week when he was an infant.  It turns out that this doctor was my great uncle Conrad Jensen who married my Grandmother’s sister Olive on my mother’s side.  Also my grandmother’s brother Hyrum A Belnap was involved as a judge in the adoption.  Richard thanked me for my help and was very happy he came to the library today.  Here is a picture. 

Elder Tolman and Richard Foster

One of the young Elders stopped by and indicated that he needed help uploading files to FamilySearch that a guest had scanned on our scanners.  There were three missionaries trying to help the man and couldn’t find any trace of the files.  It turned out that he had never copied the files to his computer.  I went to the computer where he had scanned the documents and found them.  This man is here staying in Salt Lake with his wife and their home is in Springville.  I was able to help him get the files uploaded to FamilySearch and also copied them to his flash drive.  We looked at this FamilySearch account and saw that he had a lot of photos and documents added besides what I helped him with.  A lot of photos needed to be updated and tagged so I showed him what to do.  I had a good visit with him and his wife and they were grateful for the help.

Saturday Nov 2

It is still below freezing this morning.  Tomorrow will finally be a day when the low temperature will be above freezing.

We talked to Julianna while we sent food shopping and finished our phone visit with her when we returned home.

We went to the funeral for Sister Tolman sister Marn’s father-in-law.  It started at 11am and we went early to be able to visit with the family.  The funeral was at the top of the avenues at 18 Avenue.  The service was a wonderful tribute to him.  We were able to be at the visitation and visit with Marn and Mike and Mike’s mother and siblings.  Mike’s dad has not been well for over a year and a half so his passing was not unexpected.  I now know where Mike Coles got all of his knowledge to be able to fix everything.  He learned it from his father.

It wasn’t very busy at the library but I had two very enjoyable experiences helping guests.  Another missionary and I were assigned to help Ronnie and Corinne McCray from North Carolina.  I helped Ronnie and later helped them both.  Ronnie wanted to find more about his great grandfather.  We started with his family and were able to find ancestors going back four and five generations.  We also found information about his biological father who was not the father who raised him.  What helped was that his family stayed in Horry County, South Carolina.  We traced back and found his great grandfather and found his WWI Draft Registration card which gave his birth date.  With that we were able to find him on the 1900 census along with his mother and six siblings.  We were successful in finding ancestors on all his lines.  We found a picture he had not seen of his grandmother on ancestry.com and uploaded it to FamilySearch.  I helped both learn about the Memories function and the mobile apps.    Both uploaded and tagged photos.

Veronica Lario from Florida was here with a friend whose husband works for FamilySearch in the JSMB.  Veronica was tired and didn’t have much expectation that we would find anything as all she knew were the names of her parents who were both living and were born after 1940.  I found two yearbook pictures of her father which we uploaded to FamilySearch.  She remembered that her grandfather died in 1944 and indicated that his name was the same as her father's name.  This opened the door as we found a death certificate for her grandfather that listed his wife’s maiden name and both of his parents.  This was the break that we needed and we were able to find more of her ancestors.  Veronica was excited to be able to show this information to her father.  I helped her download the FamilyTree app so she could have the information on her phone. We printed out the death certificate and a picture of his tombstone.  When Veronica’s friend talked to her husband he wanted my name since I had been able to help her find so much about her family.

This was a good end to our week at the Family History Library.