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!