December 15 - 21 - Sunday to Saturday

Here is the scene that greeted us a we walked to the Family History Library at 7:30 am on Saturday morning.

Sunday Dec 15

We really enjoyed Music and the Spoken Word as the songs were taken from the Christmas Concert held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this past week.  The Spoken Word was Richard Thomas reading Luke 2 as he did in the Christmas Concert.  We went earlier than normal and couldn’t get inside until 8:30 am so we ended up standing outside in the cold for about 15 minutes.  Here is a picture and a copy of the program. 

Our Sacrament meeting topic was the prophet Joseph Smith.  The three speakers were excellent and I really enjoyed and felt inspired by their messages.  We ended with the closing hymn #27 “Praise to the Man”. Whenever I sing the last verse, the spirit testifies to me of the prophet Joseph and the great work that he accomplished during his short life. We chose this subject as Joseph Smith’s birthday is on December 23. 

Two Young Elders joined us for dinner, Elder Wintersteen and Elder Royal.  Both currently serve on our floor.  Sister Tolman fixed rib tips, fried potatoes, mixed vegetables, and cornbread.  We had quite a feast.  This is our last time feeding the Young Elders as we don’t want to tie up any Sundays in January as we finish our mission.

We talked to our grandson Matthew. It was wonderful to be able to visit with him after returning from his mission.  We called Aspen but we were not able to get in touch with her.

Monday Dec 16

We attended the mission devotional.  We said goodbye to many missionaries.  The program was a music performed by the Elijah Choir.  Here is the program. 

Sister Tolman went to get her haircut and while she was gone, I fixed her reading glasses as one of the screws holding the lens had fallen out.  She can now use her prescription reading glasses which she needs in order to lead the music in Sacrament Meeting which she will do for the next two Sundays,

We held our weekly branch leadership meeting.  Below is a picture of our leadership team taken last Monday.  I have really enjoyed serving with this group of missionaries.

Sister Mayumi Porter, Elder James Challis, Elder Glen Tolman, Elder Don Olsen, 

Sister Corinne Jensen (Relief Society Leader), Sister Mary Lee Klingler

We went to Macy’s and looked at the Christmas decorations in the widows.  We then stopped at Deseret Book on the way home to do some Christmas shopping.  We both needed part of our temple clothing replaced and we each bought a book.  The books are under the tree and the new temple clothing is in our temple bags. Our last stop was the North Visitor’s Center where we walked around a little and warmed up.  It has been cold today.  Here is a picture of the Christus statue.

Sister Tolman fixed a great dinner of Beef Stroganoff, salad, and frozen peas.

Tuesday Dec 17

I helped Don Attridge from about 9 am to 10 am.  This is the last time that I will be able to help him as he won’t be able to travel from Tooele to the library after this week. The person who drives him will not be traveling here with the temple closing.  We went over his temple list and made sure all the names were organized in order to complete the work.  It has been a blessing for me to be able to help him over the past year or so.  I emailed him a copy of our Christmas Card that Sister Tolman put together and sent out recently.

This is a picture of Elder Tolman and Don Attridge taken at his home

Don came in early today which allowed me to attend the 11 am graveside service for my cousin John Kerr’s daughter Lily. Gerri and Glenna were not able to attend so I was the representative for our family.  John and his wife Claudia live in Atlanta.  Cousins there were Margaret, Kathryn, Carolyn and Robert who are John’s siblings.  My cousin Chris Smith was also there.  Lily was only 34 years old so I am able to relate to John and Claudia’s situation losing a daughter as we lost our daughter Kim.  When I greeted John, he really thanked me for being there.  I am so glad that the schedule worked out so I could be there.

This is Lily's casket with her favorite flower (a lily) painted on top 

Looking West from the grave site

I helped a man who has been at the library last week and this week be able to attach external sources including "Memory" sources.  I have enjoyed helping him learn some of the more subtle features on FamilySearch.

I helped Dean Young.  He and his wife Irene were in the library today and Sister Tolman helped Irene (her first cousin) scan some photos.  I helped Dean learn about Ordinances Ready and learn how to research and connect and research the people whom he finds.  Dean and Irene were at the library for about 2 hours and we continued helping them past our normal quitting time of 4 pm.

Irene and Dean wanted to take us to dinner so we stopped at Crown Burger which is close by but it was way too busy so we went to Chubby’s Mexican Restaurant in Rose Park where Sister Tolman’s parents like to eat.  We had an excellent dinner and a good chance to visit.  

Dean and Irene Young, Sister and Elder Tolman

Chubby's Restaurant in Rose Park

I needed to make changes to our Sunday School teachers as one of our teachers, Sister Allan, left to work in the Church History Library which is in the other branch.  I called two sisters to teach.  Sister Penny Sessions will teach starting in February and Sister Linda Butler will teach in January as a substitute.  As a branch leadership team, we were already looking ahead to whom we would ask to serve in February which was when we had planned to replace Sister Allan so we were prepared for this needed change.

Wednesday Dec 18

I worked the first two hours at the desk and during that time helped a women with scanning some of her family photos.  She was there with two young children.  

I completed the “Guest Interaction” section of the Tier 2 Family History Library Training.  I am working on completing what is needed to finish all the Tier 2 training that the library staff has asked that all the missionaries complete.

Sister Tolman’s sister Jayne stopped by for a few minutes to visit.  She was on her way to their parent’s home.  Some regular library guests needed some help putting together some picture collages so Sister Tolman helped them.  I looked down the aisle and saw about four women standing behind her getting help.  Sister Tolman is our floor expert on FamilySearch Memories.

In the afternoon, I helped Derek Aukeman from Ohio.  He owns and operates a farm near Columbus, Ohio.  He is in Salt Lake with his wife Belinda.  They are visiting friends to attend a wedding.  Their friend is a relative of Sister Howell, a church service missionary in the library.  Sister Howell helped Belinda.  Derek said that he doesn’t like to use computers so he asked me to do that.  I wasn’t optimistic about what we could find as he only knew the names of his parents and his paternal grandfather.  His parents were born before 1940 and his mother is still living.  These clues enabled us to find the 1940 census records with both of his parents as children on the census.  I found several other records which gave the names of more ancestors.  With this start, I found his father’s parents on FamilyTree.  So with what we found, Derek was ready to register on FamilySearch and connect to these ancestors.  We made a lot of progress after over an hour of searching.   We found his paternal grandfather’s World War I and World War II draft registration cards and I printed them for him.  I also printed a seven fan chart showing where his ancestors were born.

We ran into a roadblock on his mother’s side of the family so we stopped and he planned to see what he could find out from his mother.  When we looked back at this tree after 10 minutes or so, there was a record hint that identified the next generation and beyond for his mother’s side of the family.  With that we all went downstairs to print out the 9 generation colored fan charts.  Derek is excited to share what he has found with his mother. 

Sister Howell, Belinda and Derek Aukeman with their fan charts, Elder Tolman 

 

Elder Tolman and Derek Aukeman

We talked to our daughter Julianna as she had called Tuesday night when we were out with Sister Tolman’s cousin.  We enjoyed talking with her.  After we watched a Hallmark movie, completed our nightly reading together, and then retired for the night.

Thursday Dec 19

Today is our full Temple and Research Day (third Thursday of the month) where we don’t work at the library.  I saw a Facebook message today that about the passing of Gabe Martinez  from our old Shalimar Ward.  I have visited him and his wife Eva in their home many times.  I will miss him.  I left Eva a note offering our condolences. 

We talked to Laura in the morning and Becky in the afternoon.  Laura called on her way to work and Becky called on her way home from work.  We always enjoy talking to our daughters and catching up on what is going on with them.

We attended the 9 am Endowment session at the Bountiful Temple.  It is currently very busy at the Salt Lake Temple.  We may want to attend there one last time before the temple closes the end of December.  

The Bountiful Temple

Elder and Sister Tolman as we  were leaving the Bountiful Temple

I completed the Endowment ordinance for Glen Clarence Wiley a cousin who descends from Vinson Knight's grandfather.  Vinson was a Bishop in Missouri and Nauvoo and died in 1842.  In the afternoon, I did some more research on his family.  About a year ago, I added two children to his family.  Today, I did some more research on his son John Wiley who was born in 1910 and found his wife Ella Doty and was able to connect her to her parents and siblings. It was good to complete more research for this family.

We went to Century 16 Theater at 3300 South and State Street to see the movie “Midway”.  The battle scenes of US dive bombers attacking the Japanese aircraft carriers at the battle of Midway were amazing.  It was interesting to learn more about this important and decisive naval conflict.  Here is the link to a Wiki Article.

We enjoyed a quiet evening together with homemade pizza for dinner, putting together a puzzle and watching a Hallmark movie.

Friday Dec 20

Sister Tolman fixed a tasty breakfast of biscuits and gravy, eggs and hash browns with juice.  We only needed a snack for lunch and then ate the other half of the homemade pizza from Thursday dinner.  We did our weekly cleaning and went food shopping.  We stopped at Chubby’s to buy gift certificates for the Seniors and for Elder Benton a good friend and church service missionary who likes to dine at Chubby’s 

My good friend Ira Gentry stopped by just before we left for the library to bring a Christmas gift.  He and his wife Lynn are traveling to Arizona next week to visit family.  He asked if there was anything we wanted him to take for us and I sent my golf clubs with him and he will drop them off at the Goldthorpe’s who live next door.  I was planning on shipping them via UPS

We went food shopping and cleaned the house before going to the library at 12:15pm as I conduct the 12:30 prayer meeting on Fridays.  Our Friday shift starts at 1pm and finishes at 9pm.

I was able to help several people at the library today.  The first person I helped was a woman from Chicago who is African-American and about my age.  She has a PHD in education and goes by Dr Addie and was here with her husband and some of her adult daughters.  I helped her correct a few problems on her tree on FamilySearch.  Someone had added a duplicate record for her grandfather.  This record showed his first wife but the other record with his second wife was connected to the first as father to son.  I fixed that problem and we made sure that the record looked accurate.  I enjoyed visiting with them.  They needed to leave so I asked if she was ok if I did some searching to see what happened to her grandfather’s first wife and their two children and she said she would like that.  I found a tree on ancestry.com with the needed sources so I was able to add the two children and document what had happened to them.  I sent Dr Addie a message letting her know what I had found.

Several missionaries were helping a young woman who brought her two daughters to find some names to take to the temple for baptisms.  They stopped by the library before going to dinner and then to the Savior of the World presentation at the Conference Center Little Theater.  I showed her how to print some different types of charts using treeseek.com and how to print a “Portrait Pedigree” chart on FamilySearch.  She is going to add pictures of her living family members so the charts will have pictures for all the individuals.

I was asked to help an individual who wanted to transfer information from ancestry.com to FamilySearch.  I took me a few minutes to figure out what she wanted to get done.  She is from Mesa and just started serving in our mission about a month ago. Her name is Sister Kleiner and she is assigned to the DIP Zone (Digital Imaging Processing). I helped her learn more about FamilySearch including adding Memory sources, the patterns to look for to add relatives to the tree using Descendancy research, using FamilySearch interface on the RootsMagic genealogy software program, etc.  I showed her how to use the Snipping Tool and where to find it on her laptop back at her apartment.  She has done a lot of work already on FamilySearch so she was able to pick up on what I was teaching her.

Saturday Dec 21

Today is our early day at the library.  After a late night on Friday it is sometimes hard to get up early on Saturday morning.  We were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise as we walked to the library.  The window for the beautiful color was very short but we managed to both get some good pictures.

For the first two hours Sister Tolman and I were both assigned to the desk.  During this time and soon after we managed to answer a few questions that our guests needed help with.  I saw a new missionary Sister Van Quill who works in Library Services.  I helped her make a few corrections on her tree and showed her the signs indicating possible problems.  As we looked at her tree, I noticed an ancestor born about 1800 in England and only one child was listed for this couple.  I did some searching an possibly found 1841 and 1851 Census records listing more children for the family.  When we get a chance, we can see if this family is hers.

I was assigned to help the Kapitz family.  The parents are from Los Angeles and come to Salt Lake every winter to spend a week in Snowbird and stay at the family time share condo.  There was the father, mother and two sons and one more son will be joining them.  Both families from the mother and father come from Eastern Europe.  I first did some searching on ancestry.com to find both sides of the family on the 1940 census and was able to do so.  They all decided that one of their sons would set up and account and then share it with the family members.  One we got the tree started on FamilySearch, a lot of record hints started appearing and we were able to add family members on both sides back to the late 1800’s.  We did not find any family members on the tree but found many historical records enabling us to document the family.  They were very excited to continue learning more.  I encouraged the parents to visit the FamilySearch library near the Los Angeles Temple when they get home as they will be able to get some expert help.  I took their picture with the mom’s camera so they could remember the event.

I helped Hayley Rains from the Los Angeles area.  She is here with her boyfriend/fiancé Tim.  They started on the Discovery Floor.  Tim did a little more work on his tree but the main focus was to help Hayley.  We started on her father’s side.  Her grandfather was deceased and we were able to find information about him.  Finding a marriage document gave us his mother’s name which confirmed that we found the 1940 census with his family.  It turns out his parents were already on the tree so we connected him to his parents.  We continued working on finding other family members on census records and got her grandmother’s maiden name from her mother.  We then found her on the 1940 census with her parents.  We made a lot of progress and ran out of time.  She will work on another part of her tree later.  She is excited to show her mother what she has found.  I told her about the Los Angeles Family History Center near the LA Temple and she plans to visit the library there and possibly another closer to her home.  Their plans are to visit the lights on Temple Square this evening.

We received an email from Bishop Goldthorpe and also Sherm Tingey that Kathy Tingey passed away on December 19th.  Sister Tolman served with her as a counselor in the Relief Society Presidency in the Shalimar Ward.  The obituary can be read at this link.

We missed being at our great granddaughter Jaylin's first birthday party today.  Here is a picture taken there and shared by our daughter Becky on Facebook.

Sister Tolman’s Saturday Dec 21 Update

This has been an interesting few days.  It is getting close to Christmas and you can tell.  We have had fewer people come into the library.  Some of the missionaries are lucky if they have been able to help one guest each day.  This is hard on the missionaries because they have things that they could be doing but they have hung in there to the end of their shift.  The Zone Leaders gave them a Christmas present.  Glen and I are among only 11 people that will work on Christmas Eve day.  The Christmas gift is that only those 11 will be working everyone else can stay home.  They were excited about this.

I have helped several people at the scanners this past few days and they have all been working on Christmas presents for family.  There is nothing like waiting until the last minute.  One lady had completed everything a while ago and then lost the flash drive that she had it all saved on so she brought her son with her to help her rescan everything.  While she was in the library she scanned everything onto six flash drives so she would be sure she had what she needed for Christmas.  I felt so sorry for her and I was happy to see that this had not dampened her Christmas spirit.

Today I helped a young man.  He was from the St Louis area but is now living in Salt Lake.  He said he just wanted to maybe search a little and maybe open an account.  He wasn’t interested in doing a lot more than the maybe’s.  We got started.  His mom was African American and his dad was Korean.  He knew their names and birthdates but no places.  He knew the name of one grandparent and she was from Missouri or Arkansas, maybe Oklahoma or Texas but it could be Mississippi.  He thought he was sure of her name but not positive.  Needless to say this was a challenge.  We did get an account set up and we did a little research.  Then I showed him what was available on FamilySearch and left him to search.  He had come in around 10:30 this morning.  I checked back with him several times and he was still excited about the whole thing he was doing.  He was still there but had finally taken a short break when we left for home at 5pm.  His name was Jason Chunn.  It was a fun experience to see him get so excited.  He had even managed to get back a couple more generations.

It is the Christmas season and people seem to be happier and more patient, which is a necessity in the library.  Family History takes time.  They have had activities for the kids and cookies on the main floor as well as school groups that have come to sing carols.  So it has been busy.

We will miss spending the holidays with our family but look forward to seeing all of you in a little over a month.  Love to all.