"God is having a family reunion and I'm helping." This is one of the several signs that are up around where the missionaries congregate. I like the idea that we are here doing work to help with what will be a great reunion.
We had another great week working on the Tongan project. One thing that we have learned is to take things as they come. We spent a day working on the format that we had decided on just to come in the next day and find that our supervisor had felt that some changes needed to be made. We had to agree that the changes made the postings much better for people who will be using them so we spent another day changing and fixing the 90 records we had done the day before. Under other circumstances we might have been frustrated, but it feels so different when you are doing work for the Lord. We want to be sure that what we do, the offering we make, is the best it can be. It actually felt good to go back and improve what we had done the day before.
The weather has been so glorious! We have only had two rainy days since we have been here. People keep commenting to us about how warm it is, but we are loving this wonderful weather, cooling off at night and beautiful sunny skies during the day. We have seen the wind pick up on a couple of days and it has been interesting to watching the clouds move quickly across the valley. It has also made for some spectacular sunsets. We love walking around Temple Square and seeing and smelling the flowers. Early in the morning we have been watching the crews put the Christmas lights up. It takes a long time to put that many tiny lights on these big trees. The crews we see in the big trees are at least 4 people on lifts. It takes a couple of weeks to complete one tree because I think they only work early in the morning and not when the Square gets busy. I am sad that we will lose the wonderful foliage and flowers, but I am looking forward to the lights for the holiday.
Last night the crowds of women were here to attend the Relief Society General Meeting. I went to watch the meeting with my mother at her condo and as I was driving out of our parking lot I had a slight taste of what it will be like next weekend for General Conference. What traffic! Both before and after! I had no idea that there are buses of people coming. Who rents the buses? One of our missionaries told us of walking down Main Street toward the conference center in the same direction as the crowd of women and hearing two men who were obviously not LDS comment about all the women here in SLC. His friend said, "Yeah and they're all good looking too!" That was in contrast to another missionary's experience at the exit desk last year during the Priesthood session. After watching all the men in suits walking toward the Conference Center a woman came up to her and asked, "Do you let women into your church?" But, the meeting was wonderful as always and there was much to think about.
There is so much to be grateful for these days. I watch the sun set and I am so grateful that we are lucky enough to be here in this place and have this view and have plenty of room. I feel blessed to have a washer and dryer in our apartment. I feel so blessed that we have such a short walk to work. I am grateful I can walk!
Today in our Sacrament Meeting a Sister missionary spoke about her first mission which was to Mississippi. She arrived just before Katrina hit. She described the devastation of the people but recalls the many people who came to help from many parts of the country. Church members were called the chain saw gangs. They went wherever there was a need. People lived in the church buildings as long as they needed to. One woman who had 12 feet of water in her house was telling Sister MacDonald about how blessed she felt because hers was the only house on her street that still had a roof. Perspective is everything, isn't it?
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Week of September 13 - 18, 2010
I want to share a fun little experience I had while working on the Visitations of London project a little bit this past week. I was working on a page with the name of Skinner. Daniel Skinner was born about 1651, he went to Cambridge and graduated when he was about 19 years old in 1670. He traveled to Barbados in 1681 and was in France in 1682. He was living in 1684-5. Then I came to this interesting entry....."amannensis to John Milton". Now, I recognized the name of John Milton, probably most of you do too, but I had no idea what the word "amannensis" meant so i looked it up and then it made sense. It is a word for "scribe". Can you imagine how interesting it would have been to be a scribe to John Milton? He may have been the one who wrote down Paradise Lost as Milton was dictating it to him???? There is also a mention that Daniel Skinner's relative, Mary, is a friend of Samuel Pepys. If you have not heard of Samuel Pepys Diary, you should look it up on the internet. He kept a daily diary for some period of months that has become quite famous over the years. So that gives you a little glimpse into the interesting folks we "meet" on paper as we do the London project. Most of our time now is on the Tongan project which I mentioned last week. We are very excited about that one too but I have no stories to tell because it is all in Tongan!
Last Monday the Elijah Choir performed for a Devotional on Tuesday. Marlin K.Jensen was the keynote speaker. He is a member of the Seventy and the Church Historian. We sang "Come Unto Christ" a wonderful Sally DeFord piece. The words are very tender to me and about half way through the performance I started thinking more about the words than the music and I lost it. I couldn't finish and just stood and held the music while I mouthed the words with tears rolling down my face. wouldn't you know I didn't have any tissues with me and the song was the first thing on the program!! Oh well. I do love her music. She seems to put music to words that express my feelings in many ways.
Elder Jensen's talk was wonderful. He spoke about staying close to the Holy Ghost so we can know "things as they really are" taking the title of the Neal Maxwell book as his theme. He cautioned us to live in such a way as to never run the risk of offending the Spirit. He cautioned us to prepare ourselves to go to the other side. He semi-jokingly made the comment that the reason so many of the people who are involved in genealogy are older is because we realize we are getting close to leaving this life and we don't want family members we meet on the other side to be disappointed with our lack of interest in them. It was a sobering thought for me. I am grateful I am here and working on my family work now.
I had my last day of physical therapy on Thursday. I appreciate all that Oryslava has done for me. I do feel much, much better and I am improving each day. Now comes the tough part.....being responsible for my own health!
The sun is beginning to set today so the blinding light is coming through the window to the west in our living room. I love this time of day.
Before I leave this blog, and just so you won't think that everything as a missionary is rosy, I thought I would record the one thing that is the most difficult for me as a missionary. I never thought about it much before, but I am having a hard time with one mission rule. I have not followed this rule for years and I must confess that I am struggling with it each day. I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I have tried to comply. I sit every morning and ponder about it. I have talked with my husband about it. I hesitate to talk to anyone else because I don't want to appear to be weak. I have never struggled over anything so much in my life. But I am obedient and will continue to comply with the direction from the my leaders. But I have to say...I just don't like having to wear pantyhose!
Last Monday the Elijah Choir performed for a Devotional on Tuesday. Marlin K.Jensen was the keynote speaker. He is a member of the Seventy and the Church Historian. We sang "Come Unto Christ" a wonderful Sally DeFord piece. The words are very tender to me and about half way through the performance I started thinking more about the words than the music and I lost it. I couldn't finish and just stood and held the music while I mouthed the words with tears rolling down my face. wouldn't you know I didn't have any tissues with me and the song was the first thing on the program!! Oh well. I do love her music. She seems to put music to words that express my feelings in many ways.
Elder Jensen's talk was wonderful. He spoke about staying close to the Holy Ghost so we can know "things as they really are" taking the title of the Neal Maxwell book as his theme. He cautioned us to live in such a way as to never run the risk of offending the Spirit. He cautioned us to prepare ourselves to go to the other side. He semi-jokingly made the comment that the reason so many of the people who are involved in genealogy are older is because we realize we are getting close to leaving this life and we don't want family members we meet on the other side to be disappointed with our lack of interest in them. It was a sobering thought for me. I am grateful I am here and working on my family work now.
I had my last day of physical therapy on Thursday. I appreciate all that Oryslava has done for me. I do feel much, much better and I am improving each day. Now comes the tough part.....being responsible for my own health!
The sun is beginning to set today so the blinding light is coming through the window to the west in our living room. I love this time of day.
Before I leave this blog, and just so you won't think that everything as a missionary is rosy, I thought I would record the one thing that is the most difficult for me as a missionary. I never thought about it much before, but I am having a hard time with one mission rule. I have not followed this rule for years and I must confess that I am struggling with it each day. I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I have tried to comply. I sit every morning and ponder about it. I have talked with my husband about it. I hesitate to talk to anyone else because I don't want to appear to be weak. I have never struggled over anything so much in my life. But I am obedient and will continue to comply with the direction from the my leaders. But I have to say...I just don't like having to wear pantyhose!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A New Project
An exciting new project came to us this week, the Tongan Oral Genealogies Project. We have now been given the assignment to prepare theses oral genealogies for publication on the Community Trees on Family Search. There are 487 transcripts so far that have been digitized. We clean them up and then change them into pdf files so they can be matched with the MP3 file of the actual oral recording, given a proper description and then get them up online It is tedious, but thrilling. We are trying to get the first 80 done within a month. Because the work is tedious we are breaking it up with a continuation of the Visitations of London project we began working on. There is still much to be done with that, so when we need a break from the Tongan cropping and filing we will continue with that.
We have had a fun week together. Well, fun may not be the way to describe our Monday night. Ed cut his finger slicing a piece off a summer sausage he had bought. It was 9:30pm at night and it was deep. He could still move his finger joint so we didn't think it was bad enough to go to the emergency room, but it did bleed a lot. He even got blood on some of the old family group sheets my mom had given me to research! I made a late night run to Walgreens for some Neosporin and proper band aids. One of the things that was fun about the week happened the next day as a result of going to the nurse for her to look at it.
The nurse is right by the training area on the 3rd floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg. After seeing the nurse we stood in the hallway and spoke with Elder Kucher who is the Training Zone Leader and a fascinating man. During the course of our conversation he mentioned that there was a Thai couple in training that day who were going back to Thailand for a mission. Now, I knew that there was a missionary and his wife, both whom I had known in Thailand who were heading out in Nov. but we hadn't seen each other yet so I asked if it would be alright if we interrupted their training to say hello. He said sure and led us right to them. I had not seen them for 34 years. He was a missionary at the same time I was there on a mission. I taught her the gospel while I was there and she joined the Church. I didn't know until a few weeks ago that they had married each other. So when I came around the corner and told her who I was (obviously she didn't recognize me since I have put on so much weight no one from my past would recognize me)she just lost it. We both hugged and hugged and held hands and distrupted the entire training area. When people learned that I had been one of the missionaries who helped her join the church they all thought that was pretty cool. Well, actually it was....!
Her husband, Mani, was in the next row and he was wondering what was happening. He was also surprised when he learned it was me. It was just a great moment. I had forgotten, but she told me that before I left Thailand I had told Mani that he should marry her and take her to the temple. He has never forgotten that. I'm so glad for them both. They are a great couple and will be great missionaries in Thailand. Their family and friends their will be so happy to have them return.
That was Tuesday. We returned to our zone and worked for a little while and Kathy Black came from Ogden to do some genealogy so we got to go to lunch together. Then I had physical therapy and felt great afterward. We met my mom and niece for dinner at Paradise Cafe that evening.
What a great day!!!
Wednesday we were shown what we needed to do for the Tongan project and so we got started on that. Thursday I went to dinner with a friend to have Thai food and then went shopping for a black blazer.
Saturday was also a great day. We both exercised and then had a list of errands to run. We started at 11:00am by meeting my friend who manages the mens department at the Nordstrom Rack in Sandy. She had told me she had some great suits on sale so we ended up getting Ed 3 suits. He was hesitant at first, but he seemed to get into it. Each time he came out of the dressing room with another suit on he would say, "So you really want me to get this one too, huh?" This statement would always be said with a little smile on his face that meant, "I've really decided I like these suits, but I want you to coax me a little." It was great fun and we did get some good quality suits that look great on him. He came here with only 3 suits which he has to wear every day. Two of them are 10-12 years old and are in need of some repair so he really needed some more.
Our other errands including dropping things off at family members homes. It was good to see them. I have been here for a month and haven't even seen them yet, so even though it was brief, it was good say hello. We also stopped at my mom's house and delivered my dad's wheelchair back to her. I had thought about it for a couple of days because it was nice to know we still had the chair in case I needed it, but it was time to not have it around. I need to be on my own now. I am so blessed.
Ashley and Aubree took care of a somewhat major problem at our house this week too. We are so happy they are there and very proud of them. Our neighbor had emailed us that we had a dead tree in our backyard. Ashley made calls to many of our friends and was given the name of someone who could come and look at them and give a price. He told them that there were two trees in the back that were dead and another large pine that had pine beetles in it but wasn't dead yet. There was also a sickly tree in the front that should come down. So they came down on Saturday. I am so sad to lose my beloved trees. I'm afraid I left a Woodlands and I'm going to come back to some more like the Panhandle. I am very grateful that our girls were there to handle the problem. Thanks to all of you who may have helped them out.
A scripture was used in prayer meeting this week that I have always loved and I thought about it as I was evaluating my recovery this week and whether or not to return the chair to my mom:
Alma 26: 11-12
But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and i will rejoice in my God.
Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
I feel so blessed. My health is returning quickly and I will be able to do the work I have been called to do because of His tender mercies toward me. I love my Savior and I love this work.
We have had a fun week together. Well, fun may not be the way to describe our Monday night. Ed cut his finger slicing a piece off a summer sausage he had bought. It was 9:30pm at night and it was deep. He could still move his finger joint so we didn't think it was bad enough to go to the emergency room, but it did bleed a lot. He even got blood on some of the old family group sheets my mom had given me to research! I made a late night run to Walgreens for some Neosporin and proper band aids. One of the things that was fun about the week happened the next day as a result of going to the nurse for her to look at it.
The nurse is right by the training area on the 3rd floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg. After seeing the nurse we stood in the hallway and spoke with Elder Kucher who is the Training Zone Leader and a fascinating man. During the course of our conversation he mentioned that there was a Thai couple in training that day who were going back to Thailand for a mission. Now, I knew that there was a missionary and his wife, both whom I had known in Thailand who were heading out in Nov. but we hadn't seen each other yet so I asked if it would be alright if we interrupted their training to say hello. He said sure and led us right to them. I had not seen them for 34 years. He was a missionary at the same time I was there on a mission. I taught her the gospel while I was there and she joined the Church. I didn't know until a few weeks ago that they had married each other. So when I came around the corner and told her who I was (obviously she didn't recognize me since I have put on so much weight no one from my past would recognize me)she just lost it. We both hugged and hugged and held hands and distrupted the entire training area. When people learned that I had been one of the missionaries who helped her join the church they all thought that was pretty cool. Well, actually it was....!
Her husband, Mani, was in the next row and he was wondering what was happening. He was also surprised when he learned it was me. It was just a great moment. I had forgotten, but she told me that before I left Thailand I had told Mani that he should marry her and take her to the temple. He has never forgotten that. I'm so glad for them both. They are a great couple and will be great missionaries in Thailand. Their family and friends their will be so happy to have them return.
That was Tuesday. We returned to our zone and worked for a little while and Kathy Black came from Ogden to do some genealogy so we got to go to lunch together. Then I had physical therapy and felt great afterward. We met my mom and niece for dinner at Paradise Cafe that evening.
What a great day!!!
Wednesday we were shown what we needed to do for the Tongan project and so we got started on that. Thursday I went to dinner with a friend to have Thai food and then went shopping for a black blazer.
Saturday was also a great day. We both exercised and then had a list of errands to run. We started at 11:00am by meeting my friend who manages the mens department at the Nordstrom Rack in Sandy. She had told me she had some great suits on sale so we ended up getting Ed 3 suits. He was hesitant at first, but he seemed to get into it. Each time he came out of the dressing room with another suit on he would say, "So you really want me to get this one too, huh?" This statement would always be said with a little smile on his face that meant, "I've really decided I like these suits, but I want you to coax me a little." It was great fun and we did get some good quality suits that look great on him. He came here with only 3 suits which he has to wear every day. Two of them are 10-12 years old and are in need of some repair so he really needed some more.
Our other errands including dropping things off at family members homes. It was good to see them. I have been here for a month and haven't even seen them yet, so even though it was brief, it was good say hello. We also stopped at my mom's house and delivered my dad's wheelchair back to her. I had thought about it for a couple of days because it was nice to know we still had the chair in case I needed it, but it was time to not have it around. I need to be on my own now. I am so blessed.
Ashley and Aubree took care of a somewhat major problem at our house this week too. We are so happy they are there and very proud of them. Our neighbor had emailed us that we had a dead tree in our backyard. Ashley made calls to many of our friends and was given the name of someone who could come and look at them and give a price. He told them that there were two trees in the back that were dead and another large pine that had pine beetles in it but wasn't dead yet. There was also a sickly tree in the front that should come down. So they came down on Saturday. I am so sad to lose my beloved trees. I'm afraid I left a Woodlands and I'm going to come back to some more like the Panhandle. I am very grateful that our girls were there to handle the problem. Thanks to all of you who may have helped them out.
A scripture was used in prayer meeting this week that I have always loved and I thought about it as I was evaluating my recovery this week and whether or not to return the chair to my mom:
Alma 26: 11-12
But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and i will rejoice in my God.
Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
I feel so blessed. My health is returning quickly and I will be able to do the work I have been called to do because of His tender mercies toward me. I love my Savior and I love this work.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
One month gone already
We are no longer the "new" missionaries. Another group arrived and had their orientation last Friday. Ed met a couple from Australia who were moving into our building yesterday. It is funny to be the one answering some questions now.
The big news this week is to report that Ed has been called to be the Assistant Zone Leader for our Zone. He was actually asked the first day we were in our Zone but it wasn't announced until last Tuesday. What that really means is this.....our current Zone Leaders are leaving the end of October and they want to be sure Ed knows all he needs to know before they leave. They have been here 3 years and were Zone Leaders from their 2nd week. I have a lot of faith in my cute husband, but there is a lot of information to know. I also realize, although no one has said anything to me directly, that I am his companion and whenever they refer to the Zone Leader it is in the plural. Sister Cook does a lot of things for the Zone. I think that they are very much aware of my physical condition and are waiting to talk to me until they know that I am recovered. President and Sister Boye have been very interested on my progression.
To that end, I have been wheelchair free for a week now. It feels very good to walk, even though I can't walk very far yet without finding a place to stop and sit for a moment. I am very grateful that I live close to everything. I can make it from our apartment to the Library. I can make it to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building by going through Temple Square where I can sit on a planter box one time and make it the rest of the way. I am so grateful to have legs and that I have been blessed to have this problem heal as quickly as it has. The funny thing is that I am working so hard to heal myself and be able to walk so I can do my job better, which consists of sitting at a computer all day long! Regardless, I am very grateful and pleased.
We had a visit from Clyde and Kathy Black his weekend. We love seeing our friends and catching up on the news from home, although most of their news was hearing about the fire in their home which we were very sad to hear about. but we appreciated their visit.
Today in Relief Society the new sister missionaries were asked to give a 2 min. introduction about themselves and bear a brief testimony. There were some very specific things that we were asked to share: Name; were we were from; info about our family; something unique about ourself; our testimony. What would you have said was unique about you? (You can respond in the comment section at the bottom of the blog.) I asked Ed to help me and he came up with a good one. So hear is what I said:
The big news this week is to report that Ed has been called to be the Assistant Zone Leader for our Zone. He was actually asked the first day we were in our Zone but it wasn't announced until last Tuesday. What that really means is this.....our current Zone Leaders are leaving the end of October and they want to be sure Ed knows all he needs to know before they leave. They have been here 3 years and were Zone Leaders from their 2nd week. I have a lot of faith in my cute husband, but there is a lot of information to know. I also realize, although no one has said anything to me directly, that I am his companion and whenever they refer to the Zone Leader it is in the plural. Sister Cook does a lot of things for the Zone. I think that they are very much aware of my physical condition and are waiting to talk to me until they know that I am recovered. President and Sister Boye have been very interested on my progression.
To that end, I have been wheelchair free for a week now. It feels very good to walk, even though I can't walk very far yet without finding a place to stop and sit for a moment. I am very grateful that I live close to everything. I can make it from our apartment to the Library. I can make it to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building by going through Temple Square where I can sit on a planter box one time and make it the rest of the way. I am so grateful to have legs and that I have been blessed to have this problem heal as quickly as it has. The funny thing is that I am working so hard to heal myself and be able to walk so I can do my job better, which consists of sitting at a computer all day long! Regardless, I am very grateful and pleased.
We had a visit from Clyde and Kathy Black his weekend. We love seeing our friends and catching up on the news from home, although most of their news was hearing about the fire in their home which we were very sad to hear about. but we appreciated their visit.
Today in Relief Society the new sister missionaries were asked to give a 2 min. introduction about themselves and bear a brief testimony. There were some very specific things that we were asked to share: Name; were we were from; info about our family; something unique about ourself; our testimony. What would you have said was unique about you? (You can respond in the comment section at the bottom of the blog.) I asked Ed to help me and he came up with a good one. So hear is what I said:
I grew up in Portland, Oregon and loved going to the coast. I decided during my lifetime I would like to at least put my feet in every ocean in the world. Pacific and Atlantic were easy. I served a mission in Thailand in 1974 and I did put just my feet in the Indian Ocean. A few years ago my mother took all of her children on a trip to Alaska, a favorite spot of our recently deceased father and we went to “The Top of the World” in Barrow and put our feet in the Arctic Ocean….actually it was more like wading in puddles on the arctic ice, but it was in fact the ocean.
In 2000 another designated ocean was added, the Southern Ocean. I was happy that a business trip to South Africa allowed me to tag along for a month and I was able to put my feet in the southern ocean in Durban and Capetown...
Did you know that about me? One of the things I have loved about the many meetings in our mission is the focus on learning about each other and coming to love our fellow missionaries. There is a real camaraderie here but for me it is so interesting to learn about the lives of these wonderful people. One may who we heard in the 3 min personal history we are all supposed to be prepared to give in the Monday morning devotionals, told us that he was an architect and that one of the projects he had designed was the underground parking for the JSMB which included what is now the beautiful garden area between the old Church Administration Building on South Temple and the JSMB, formerly the Hotel Utah. He planned those gardens! There are people here who are authors, musicians, professors, world renowned chemists, teachers, school board members, career military, accountants, stay at home moms, secretaries, nurses, lots and lots of a wide variety of skills and experience. Some of our sweet single sisters are recently widows. One told us that since her husband was called on his mission she decided she would fill one too.
We had an interesting discussion with one of the other couples in our zone who are from Britan, Elder and Sister Brewis. He is a Medeival scholar and we often depend on him to clear up some of the questions we have in our work. Names of places have changed so much over the years. ( For instance, I learned this week that Yorkshire was called Ebor, short for Eboracum which was the Roman name for the place when they occupied it.) Anyway, the discussion was about Labor Day which brought up the question...would you celebrate July 4th? (Yes......it was Ed who asked the question....what a silly question to ask Brits!) We had been talking with Sister Brewis but upon hearing this Elder Brewis swung around in his chair and quite emphatically, but with his ever present smile, told us they did not celebrate the 4th! We then found out a bit about the British view of those who came over to American to begin with. The conversation drew to a close, however, when we all agreed that in a historical gospel perspective it was pretty clear that the Lord was in charge of all of that anyway, not the Kings of England.
Being here is a special blessing for me. I miss our home, our girls, our comforts, but we really have everything we need here and we are seeing blessings each day. I love going to church meetings in the gorgeous chapel in the JSMB. I love going to the Family History Library each day. I love seeing the sun set out our window each evening. I love smelling the flowers when we go by them on Temple Square. It is a great place for us and we are being blessed each day. I hope that you feel His Love in your life too.
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