Monday, November 29, 2010

Just thought I would load these photos. The one of the temple I took this morning, Monday, November 29, 2010. The other one is of Ed looking at the lights on Temple Square last night.
It has been a beautiful day. Not too cold and clear sky all day. It was a good day for Ed's birthday!

Christmas on Temple Square - part 2

This is the tree inside the lobby of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was so fun to see this tree being decorated. First of all, the tree was assembled. A young man stood on the framework inside the tree to add the "branches" of the tree. Then, on Monday morning we watched as they put out all the boxes of decorations in a large circle around the tree. I watched for several minutes before I realized that there were two young women inside the branches of the tree covering the framework with fabric. Others were sitting with boxes of ornaments around them making clusters of different ornaments to be put onto the tree. You can see from the pictures the progression. One photo is a picture of one of the women inside the tree and then a picture of what the tree looked like when I left to go to work about 8:30AM after our devotional on Monday. There is also a picture of the finished tree when we returned to the building about 3 hours later. The woman on the lift was putting some last minute touches on the tree being directed by the lead decorator from the Mezzanine. She was walking around up there and directing from above. It was very fun to watch.



The real story behind these photos is that I saw this project beginning before our devotional but I didn't have my camera. After the devotional I asked Ed if he would walk back over to our apartment to get the camera for me so I could take some pictures. He did it! And with a smile on his face. What a guy!! It was very cold and it is a 10-15 minute walk each way so it wasn't a little thing. I am so glad that I have the pictures, but I am more glad that I have such a cute husband!

I hope you enjoy the pictures. I will try to take a photo of the full lobby tomorrow so I can have that. It looks so beautiful. There are trees in all the event rooms and decorated trees on each floor in the library. I love seeing the big tree in the window of the Conference Center but I haven't been inside there yet and I haven't been into all the other buildings on the Church campus yet. I will visit them while I am here. It is such a wonderful place to be. I am so happy to be here.

Christmas on Temple Square - part 1

The lights on Temple Square were turned on on Friday night. We didn't go out to brave the cold and the crowds until Saturday, but we went out again tonight because it snowed all night last night and all day today so I wanted to see how beautiful it was. We have our church meetings until 4pm so we walked home and had dinner and then came back out. Wouldn't you know it, first thing out of the front door of the building and Ed throws a snowball at me! Of course I had to throw one back and then he scooped up some snow and just threw it at me and then I got him on the face with my snow filled gloves and then we decided we should stop there because it was entirely possible that someone was going to get hurt and there is a mission rule against falling so we thought we should be obedient. (hahaha)

This picture is of one of the chestnut trees that I have walked by almost daily watching the workers put the lights up since August. It is amazing the number of lights on these trees. They are so beautiful. The snow on the bush in front of the tree in this picture shows how much snow has fallen today. We are getting a lot more snow that normal from what I hear.

Last week it was very cold. We have decided to stay in several times rather than go out because we are whimpy when it comes to the cold. When it feels like minus 4 degrees outside we do not want to be in it! If that's whimpy then I guess we are.

We had a wonderful week with Thanksgiving. I decided to brainstorm about many of the things for which I am grateful. There is no particular order, this is just how they came to my mind and it is not in any way a complete list:

I am grateful for music, travel, postage stamps, books on just about any subject but particularly church history, anthropology and the history of the world, chocolate chip cookies, my husband, my children and my family, babies, sunsets, mountains, rushing streams, hot showers, someone else to cook and clean up, card making, digital scrapbooks, The Discovery Channel, Baskin and Robbins Fudge Brownie Ice Cream, The Learning Channel, classic old movies, chocolate malts, tender steaks, Thai food, the ocean, cruising, fast cars (I once drove a Maserati at 150 miles per hour), the games backgammon, pente and attack Uno, soft blankets and towels, popcorn, Yellowstone National Park and C.S. Lewis. I am grateful for those who pray for me and for good friends who sometimes miss me when I am away. I am grateful to be able to walk and that I had the trial of not being able to walk for awhile so I can truly appreciate my legs and feet. I am grateful for people who knew how to help me walk again.
I am grateful to be able to listen to General Conference, meet new people, to read and write poetry, a soft bed, to play the piano, for beautiful lullabies to sing to children, for Planet Earth, to give service, for animals in the wild, for Christmas, to be able to give compliments, for freedom, for the resurrection, for comfy shoes, the temple, for having a drivers license, for beautiful landscaping, the art of Vincent Van Gogh and Vermeer, to be loved and I am grateful to be able to serve the Lord.

I am grateful to know that God loves me, that Heavenly Father remembers me as His daughter and that He knows that I miss Him and even though there are many things I love about being here, that He knows I am trying hard to get back home to Him. I am grateful that Jesus Christ has made that possible and I love Him for that.

Look for the 2nd post with another couple of photos about holiday preparations on Temple Square.

First View of Winter Wonderland

This morning when I woke up I hurried to the window because I knew it had snowed all night and I wondered if it was still snowing. The snow had stopped but I was greeted with a lovely view of the west toward the great Salt Lake. The sky was clear and the sun was shining on the valley in the distance having just peeked over the mountains behind us and everything was frosty and white. I ran to get a couple of pictures before the moment passed as the sun warmed everything up. It didn't last long, but I am happy I got a couple of pictures for my memories.

We encountered the snow last night. We left our apartment in the rain and drove to Draper to have dinner with friends (the Ellsworth's who used to live in The Woodlands, Texas)at their home up on the mountain. By the time we were ready to leave, there was at least 2 inches of snow on the car. We were more prepared this time with gloves and coats and were ready with the snow scraper that our daughter Ashley loaned us. We drove down the mountain and the snow was steady. All the way back home we had the snow. We were happy to experience slower drivers on the freeway because the roads were dangerous. Although we didn't have any problem with ice, the slushy, heavy, wet snow did present some surprises for us as we drove along. I am grateful we had the all weather tires put on! I am also grateful that we at least have a carport. I took the picture of the cars in the lot next door to remind me to be grateful. We will not have to clean our car off each morning all winter long. I remember what that is like from when I lived and worked in SLC a long time ago as a young single woman. Most of the places I lived did not have covered parking and I had to clean off my car every morning to get to work. I remember I got tired of doing that as we waited for spring to arrive.

This week was another great one. Last Monday Ed and I were in charge of the activity for our "Social Group" of missionaries (those who came in August). I asked my sister, Lois and her husband, Craig to speak about their experiences in Europe with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Craig sang with the choir for 17 years and Lois was able to go with him on many of those trips, particularly this one. They shared with us wonderful, touching, and miraculous stories of how the Choir was received. Lois had a great perspective being in the audience at each performance and interacting with sweet people. Even though she had a brief encounter with those people, many of those lives touched her and I'm sure she touched theirs. Our missionary group loved hearing from them. It was a great way to begin another week.

On Tuesday we had quite a funny experience. I made an appointment with the hairdresser my mom has used for years to get my hair trimmed. (I have used the same hairdresser for 19 years....I was skeptical but it is all good.) My mom said that she would pick me up from work and drive me there because it was a little difficult to find the place. My appointment was at 4:30pm so Ed told me to take my mom to dinner after the haircut and he would go workout and be back at the apartment either before I got finished or at least shortly thereafter. Well, my mom didn't want to go out to dinner so she brought me back to the apartment. We were just about here when I realized that I did not have any keys. She offered to have me return with her to her place but I was so sure that Ed would be home soon that I said no and had her drop me at the front. I wasn't quite sure how I would do standing out in the cold, but someone I knew came and let me into the building. That was half the battle, but I had no way of getting into our apartment. So I sat by the back door (where Ed would have to enter) and waited for him. Little did I know that he was taking his time because he thought I had keys. I waited for almost 2 hours by the back door. Other people came and went and returned and just chuckled as they left me there waiting for my cute husband. We had a good laugh, but I promise I will be better about remembering to take keys with me next time we are going different places.

On Wednesday we had another of the wonderful temple devotionals that are given for the missionaries. About every other month we gather in the chapel of the Salt Lake Temple for a devotional given by a General Authority or a member of the Temple Presidency or some other person of authority connected with the Mission. This week it was Elder Richard J. Maynes of the Seventy. He is the Executive Director of the Family History Department and is very involved in the development of the programs and projects and growth around the world. He reported that as of October 31, 2010 the 23 Mission Zones with 1300 missionaries have provided 1.36 million volunteer work hours to the Family History Department. The estimate is that about 100 Billion people have lived on the earth. About 20 Billion have been documented. For those 20 Billion there are probably 20 quadrillion records to capture.....we have a lot of work to do. The key objective of the Family History Department is to help members have access to genealogical records from home. He told us that our ancestors "hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands." He quoted Joseph Smith: "When properly understood, it is impossible to overestimate the important of family history work." Elder Maynes closed by saying: "What could be more fulfilling than supporting he Lord in His work." We agree.

To add to a great week, the missionaries were invited to attended a special evening with the local 18th Ward of the Salt Lake Stake. Barbara Parker is a member of that ward and is the daughter of President Benson. She and her husband apparently put on a musical and inspirational meeting each year just before Thanksgiving. The music was lovely, but the fact that she had invited Elder Ballard to speak was a big draw for the missionaries who packed the chapel of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. (I went early to save seats ^_^) As the meeting time was approaching, in walked Elder Oaks also. Both are members of this ward. Elder Ballard was with his wife, but Elder Oaks was alone. (His wife was probably at the "Time Out for Women" that also started Friday evening.) Elder Ballard spoke about thankfulness. He quoted from several of the founding fathers who spoke of the gratitude we should be giving to God for our country and the freedoms we enjoy. He referred to the story about Abraham Lincoln who was asked during the Civil War whose side the Lord was on. Lincoln replied that it didn't matter which side the Lord was on. What did matter to him, Lincoln said, was that he was on the Lord's side. At the conclusion of Ballard's comments he spoke about recently attending a meeting in Cache Valley area and listening to the Primary program. He was very touched by the words of the songs the children sang. He talked about how so many people don't know who God is anymore and how we in our country are getting away from religion. He recited the words from several of the songs which were included in the primary program and spoke of the simple truths that our children are taught in the church, to know who they are. He counseled us to remember this week to give thanks to be part of this nation. He said, "we are still safe because God smiles on this great land". We should thank God for what we know. He hoped that the songs of Primary might stir in the hearts of Americans again to tell them what they need to know. There is nothing more beautiful, he said, than beautiful music.

So we have had an uplifting and exciting week.

In the Historical Families Zone we have added two Young Elders who will start working with us for half a day in a few weeks. They will report to other zones, but they will be giving us half of their day so we are hopeful that in the two years they are with us they will be able to complete a project that has been shelved because of lack of people with computer knowledge to do it. This is a good thing.

The other update is that I am going to be going over to the Training Zone for a few weeks to help train new missionaries. I am very nervous about this because I just don't work on the programs like other missionaries do and so I am not sure I will know enough to train, but they seem to feel that I will be fine and they need the help. We are very excited that we are getting so many new full time missionaries in December. (I think we are getting 29 new Full Timers.)

We are looking forward to being with extended family on Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for. Each day of our lives is a blessing. Health is a blessing. Feet and legs that work are a blessing. Friends and family are a blessing. Freedom is a blessing, a gift that has at times had such a high cost. Repentance is a blessing. Christ atoning for our sins is a blessing. I feel such gratitude for the peace I feel each day knowing that I am here on earth for a purpose and that I can be together forever with my family and with our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. May your Thanksgiving holiday be a special one as well.

Hail and Farewell: Starting to say goodbye

We have now been here long enough that we are learning that people do actually leave when their missions are over. It is a strange thing to learn to say goodbye to people with whom we have built a relationship. The problem is that I now have a relationship with some of these people. I like them. We laugh together, sing together, experience little miracles and share them with each other. We see them everyday. We work with them everyday. Will our paths ever cross again? How will I know what is going on in their lives, what is happening to their children or their aging parents? Then I think of what it is like with my friends back home in Texas and I remember what it was like a few weeks ago to reconnect with my Thai friends. It will be like that. What a great feeling to know that friends are never lost. We are here doing this work so that families are never lost either. What a great place to be!

Each month we join with the British Zone (after all it is their floor of the library)to say "Hail" to any new missionaries who have joined the zones and "Farewell" to any who are leaving. We have a little meeting and hear from those missionaries and then we all join together in a wonderful pot luck lunch in the little lunchroom. There is lots of great food that the missionaries bring and it is fun to "oooo" and "ahhhh" about the exotic food that is prepared and shared.

We haven't been here very long really, but already I can feel how fast the time is passing by. Each day there is so much to do and we are kept so busy that it makes the time fly. I am realizing that if we only stay for a one year mission, a quarter of it is already gone! This next week we have another Temple Devotional. Elder Maynes of the Seventy will be speaking to us. Friday we have a special fireside where Elder Ballard will be speaking to us. We have just been getting out our calendars to put in some of the missionary activities during the holidays and we have so many things happening it is thrilling. We did not, however, get tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Special with David Archuleta, but....I'm okay with that. We have many other things going on here that will be great fun.

It has struck me this past week that we are really enjoying the style of living that we have right now. We are so happy living with so much less in the way of stuff. It has made us re-evaluate our personal situation. Reading Pres. Uchtdorf's talk from conference about what matters most has brought some new thoughts into our heads. We can feel ourselves changing as we get more into our mission and our work.

On Tuesday last week we were in our prayer meeting as always and we began singing the opening song, "On This Day of Joy and Gladness". When we came to the chorus, "Alleluia, Alleluia,
Bright and clear our voices ring,
Singing songs of exultation
To our Maker, Lord, and King!"
All of a sudden I couldn't sing. I choked up and tears just streamed down my face.
Here we were in a little basement room with about 20 other missionaries at 7:45am beginning our day with a song of praise. I was so happy to be there at that moment. There is nowhere else I would rather be. It is wonderful to be involved in such a great work with such great people, all of whom are wonderful.

As far as the work goes, we received the African records we have been waiting for and along with them we received a new Church Service Missionary. This Sister has been working on auditing the records from Ghana and South Africa for a year now. She comes in two days a week and now she will spend those days with us and help get those records ready to go up on "Community Trees" along with the other Oral Genealogies that are going up. She was sad to leave her former area but by the end of the day as we showed her what we were doing and what she would be doing she was very excited. We love it when people catch the vision of what we are all about in "Hysterical Families"! hahaha

The weather has been relatively nice. There has been more snow in the mountains and it rained here in the valley today and probably will tomorrow as well, but it has been so mild for us we are very happy. It has been more cloudy each night so I haven't seen the great sunsets that we saw over the last couple of months.

We did go out yesterday and buy a few things for the Christmas holiday. I'm hoping the icicle lights we bought for the balcony will help keep the pigeons away. They still keep trying to settle on the balcony and I keep chasing them away. I am mean, I know, but I really don't like cleaning up after them.

I have had a few successes with my personal family research this past week. I am getting to know how to get problems solved by having the right sources to share with the Help Center. I like this system. There are going to be some changes coming in the next month or so that will help out a lot. I am really liking the new beta family search site. There are a lot of people working very hard to make things better. I appreciate how hard that is now that I am doing things on the internet.

NEWS FLASH FOR MY CHILDREN: I have actually learned how to do some html coding this week. It is very exciting. Who would have thought I would get excited over being able to talk the computer into putting something up on an internet site in bold orange letters and put spaces in the right places! HA!

The Last Leaves

I decided to include the photo I took today of a tree close to our apartment. (That's our building on the right. We are on the 8th floor closer to the middle of the building.)

Today may be the last autumn weather we see. The high today will be about 63 degrees and the high tomorrow will only be 48 degrees so we are at an end for the lovely fall weather we have been having. It has been so beautiful here. I have loved seeing the range of colors which I have missed for many years. Today my favorite thing has been to walk through the leaves on the ground. It is dry and the leaves are crisp and make a wonderful noise as you walk through them. The day is slightly windy so the sound of the wind and leaves falling is delightful. There are still many bright reds mingling with the bright yellows. I also love the green bushes with the bright red-orange berries on them. The contrast of those colors is stunning. Tomorrow the forecast calls for rain,Tuesday partly sunny and Wednesday rain and snow mixed, then a couple more days of sunny and clear weather before Sunday when it will snow again for the beginning of next week.

It has been fun to watch as the preparations for the lights on Temple Square are in full swing. More crews are out now, not just in the morning working on the big trees which are almost done, but they are putting up the wire "trees" and lighting them and wrapping the smaller trees now around the Conference Center. I talked with one of the crew members and asked her if they were on schedule and she said they hoped the weather held so they could finish up. I am very excited to be here when the lights first go on which is the day after Thanksgiving. Then it will only be a month and Ashley and Aubree will be here for the holidays. I am looking forward to it.

We have had a great week. Two experiences have really touched me. The first was in our zone on Wednesday last week. We were working on the Tongan project as usual and when we have questions we go to Sister Kinikini, a wonderful Tongan woman who is a Church Service Missionary and has been responsible for most of the work done with transcribing the recorded genealogies from the audio to written transcripts and loading all the families genealogies into the Legacy program (which is the system we use in Historical Families). She has been working on this project almost every day for 5 years. Tuesday night I showed her how the files look online with the photograph, the transcript and the audio files all connecting to the family members, some of which connect to over 450 other individuals. She was amazed and very touched. The next morning she came to Ed and I and told us, "I want you to know that you are an answer to my prayers. I knew that I had done all that I could do but I don't know enough about the computer to know how to do the last step to make these records available to the Tongans. You are here because I prayed that Heavenly Father would send us someone who could do that." Needless to say, we both were very touched. It is amazing to feel that you are an instrument in the Lord's hands to do something for someone that they cannot do for themselves.

Second was an experience that also reminded me that this work is important to the Lord. One of the Church employees gave the thought for British Zone prayer meeting on Friday and he shared the following account of a Church photographer, Chuck, who was given permission to film the New Orleans parish records. The Church had wanted to film these records for a long time but had never before been successful. These parish records go back 400 years to the founding of the city. They are housed in the 2nd basement of the New Orleans library. Chuck was given a work area in the same room as the records to set up all his equipment in the basement of the library. Then Katrina hit. The following is from an email written by Chuck's dad:

"When Katrina hit, Chuck was at his home in Denham Springs, La. but his equipment, camera, and other things were left in the basement of the library with the records. My wife was able to establish a phone connection with him fairly soon after the hurricane so we knew that Chuck and his family were safe. However, it was about his same time that the flooding of New Orleans came to the attention of the nation. Chuck had no way of knowing about the condition of the library. He studied aerial photos of the building; he talked to the State archivists; he watched the news; every piece of evidence indicated that the records and the Church's equipment were all destroyed. Chuck and I joked about him having to go scuba diving to recover the camera...maybe it would be repairable. A few days ago two of the New Orleans archivists were allowed into the Library to assess the damage. Much to their surprise the basements were totally dry. They emailed Chuck and said, "You won't believe this but the basements are dry and your equipment is okay." They were wanting him back in a hurry. They could have lost everything to Katrina. Chuck then called the State archives to report the news. Their response, "No way, that's impossible, it can't be true." According to Chuck, the only major damage to the library in New Orleans was that some people had broken into the building for a shelter but they hadn't taken anything nor had the been malicious. No one seems to know how the water was held back, but all agree that it was miraculous. I don't believe it was by accident. It seems that the Lord has protected the vital records of New Orleans for centuries - even up to today. The damage to some of the Church's meetinghouses can be replaced. 400 years of records cannot. It is for a very important purpose that those records be made available to the descendants of those who lived there in by-gone years."

I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to be here on this mission at this time and for the testimony I have gained about the importance and sacredness of keeping families together as an eternal plan of our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to be here and thankful for everyone who has felt the pull of the Spirit as they have done this work for over the years. I am in awe of the many people who have done so much for their own families and are helping others. Pres. Eyring said in a recent Genealogy Conference that this work is a work of mentoring. That the passion for this work comes to us as we learn and then we want to help others achieve success in their own family work. I have seen that and have received that mentoring. Perhaps someday I will be able to mentor someone also but right now I am assigned by the Lord to the Tongan project and we don't even see patrons in our room and I am not getting much experience in even my own family work. But, I am confident this is where Ed and I are supposed to be. . . even if it is going to snow on poor Eddie. :)

I also had great fun this week with my Thai friends, Mani and Nadda Seangsawan. They are leaving tomorrow for their 2nd mission in Thailand. We had some great plans for dinner but their lives became a little crazy trying to get everything in before leaving, so we only had a couple of hours on Friday when she wanted to teach me how to make Thai Red Chicken Curry and Pad Thai (noodles). I think I was successful. I made it Friday night and we ate it and then on Saturday I made it again and took it to another Thai friend's house for a dinner and they ate it and liked it even though they told me it wasn't really Thai style. So apparently my taste buds are too American to make the real Thai curry. We had such a good time. It has been so long since I saw these friends, two of whom I taught when I was a missionary and one who actually was my Thai companion while on my mission. It has been so wonderful to reconnect with them after 36 years. I have had more Thai food in the past two weeks than I have had in many months. And now I can cook two of my favorite dishes whenever I want to. Thanks, Nadda!

Have a happy week everyone!