Success in Africa

I thought I would share a picture of our work stations. You can get an idea of where we sit all day working on our computers in the basement of the Family History Library.

When the article about genealogy in Africa came out last Tuesday we had just under 900 oral genealogies from Ghana linked online. We ended the week just under 1,000 loaded. We are so excited about the success of this two week project and we know that members and non-members in Africa are very excited too. We have heard from a woman in South Africa who will be sending us some of the orals that she has been collecting. We also are preparing some from Nigeria. We are excited about these because they all have picture. There is a lot of work to be done and we are still so excited to be here and participating in this great work.

Our Missionary Branch Choir sang today in Sacrament meeting again. We had 32 people singing in the choir. It was so wonderful. Our little choir has grown these last few weeks. When I began in late December we had about 21 people singing regularly. I am so grateful that there are many who want to sing and share their love for beautiful music.

I am also excited because next week is our Stake Conference and it will be held in the Tabernacle. Tonight we had a rehearsal for the Stake Choir and it was amazing. We rehearsed in the chapel of the Stake Center because there are so many people. Lots of us want the opportunity to sing from the choir seats in the Tabernacle. It will be very fun and it sounds wonderful. There are so many talented people in the church, but more have come out of the woodwork to have the chance to sing in those seats!! ^_^

I heard a little story in prayer meeting last week that I would like to share and I hope that I remember in my life. Elder Conlin, the British Zone Leader told about years ago when he had a young family to support with nine children on a barley farm in Soda Springs, Idaho. This particular year there was an early snow which was devastating to his crop. The big machines can't cut the barley when the snow is heavy enough to pull the heads down to the ground and much of the grain is lost. On the morning of the snow he was walking down the road grumbling to himself and his neighbor and Stake President (who was also a barley farmer) drove by and stopped to talk. Elder Conlin said he was going on and on grumbling about the weather and the situation and how it would impact his large family, etc. Then the Stake President said something to him that has remained with him his entire life. He said, "Bart, if the only reason you came to the earth was to grow barley then you would have something to complain about."

I love this short, gentle reminder to look at life and all that we encounter from the perspective of eternity. I am so grateful to know that I am a daughter of heavenly parents who love me and want me to be successful in all that I strive to do in righteousness. I am so grateful to know that Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins so that I won't have to if I repent and come to Him. He did that for me, for all of us, because He loves me. I am grateful that I can meet each challenge of my life with confidence that I do not have to meet them alone. No one does. What a great life we have. I am very grateful to be here so that every morning when we leave our door we can see a physical reminder of eternity.

See What I See 2

Also last week we had some great sunsets. I thought I would share what I see from our apartment. These two pictures were taken within about 5 minutes of each other. (Actually the top picture is the second shot taken. Do you like our slinky across the balcony? It is supposed to discourage the pigeons but it doesn't work.)

I never get tired of seeing these beautiful sunsets. The days are getting longer and spring is not far off so I am looking forward to seeing longer sunsets with the clearer skies.

See What I See

I haven't shared pictures for a while so I thought I would share some today.
We have enjoyed a variety of weather this past week. Yesterday morning we had another light snow overnight so I shot a couple of pictures.

Blessings from Africa

We woke up this morning to another beautiful white snow. The snow continued until about 11AM and then it warmed up and it began to melt. Everything is washed clean again. I loved it this morning when it was snowing and I went to choir practice. It was so quiet!

We walked across the street last evening to see the BYU International Fold Dance Ensemble. They are very good. We have enjoyed the convenience and low cost of such good entertainment here. I will miss that. Even the Hale Center Theatre which we have enjoyed is close and convenient. I have decided that I really do enjoy living in a city, although I have to remember that maybe it is just this city. ^_^

This week has been another week of intense work to post online the lineages of as many families from Ghana as we can before Tuesday when there will be some kind of public announcement from Church Headquarters. We are very excited. We began the week concerned that some changes would side track us too much, but dear Ed once again applied his wizard skills with Excel and made it happen so we are again very grateful. It has been a week where we feel confident that the Lord is aware of us and aware of our skills and has placed us in this place at this time to accomplish His work. It is amazing.

Each time I load a family pedigree into our software program I am able to see the number of names listed in that pedigree. The paperwork from the field gives a close estimate, but I don't see those estimates so I am excited to look at the numbers during my loading process. So far, the largest family pedigree that I have seen is 1357 names. This is so impressive given the fact that these are oral pedigrees. There is nothing written down and this is one person's family. Can you name that many people in your family and give their connection to you from memory? I love this work!

We began communicating with the man who is the Project Manager in Ghana this week. He is so excited to see these genealogies online. His first email said, "I can not belief this!" A day later he sent an email to share the following story as he sent it to us:

"I just came form a field inspection, and there was a story I think I need to share.
The field officer visited a 95 year old man who was so receptive. He was able to remember up to 7 generations so if you add he great grandchild, his pedigree was 10 generations. There were 780 names on the pedigree with 310 dead. The field officers visited him 4 times before completing his work. The filed officers decided to visit the man the following day to say thank you for being cooperative. When they went, they were told the man died peacefully the evening they completed the work.
When I visited, the family were full of praise for the wonderful work we are doing and told me that if the field officers had delayed even one week all the information would have gone because none of the relatives knew what the man gave us. They have asked for a copy of the information when we finished processing.

We are doing something great, it is only time that will tell how great this job is.

Osei"

We are doing something great.

The Elijah Missionary Choir is preparing a song called, "How Can I Keep From Singing". I love this piece because it is very much how I feel. There is so much joy and beauty and good in the world and it is given to us from a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to enjoy our experience here, learn what we can and come back home using the route provided by His Son. How can I keep from singing about that kind of unconditional love from a heavenly parent?

I can't.

Africa is Wild!

Our lives have been consumed this week with the Africa Genealogies. They are different from the Tongan Orals that we have put up because there is no recording but I have to say that I am so impressed with these people. We have about 130 records up to date because we have been developing the system this past week. In one of those records the person being interviewed named over 1100 in their 8 generation family. I could not remember that many people. I know that there are many people who have more people than that in their generation charts, but this isn't written down anywhere, it is kept in their heads. I am so impressed. And now we are taking those names and putting them up online for all the world to be able to see their lineages. We can connect to the internet, click on a button and see the permission slips that they were given to sign but there isn't a signature. They used a little thumb print as their signature. Hi-tech and no-tech meet.

While working for the past 10-15 years, my husband developed (totally self taught I must add)an expertise on Excel. I believe that we were placed here so that he could use those skills to do this work. We had that made clear to us as he used his skills to develop a system that cuts about 70% of the work out of the process for the African Genealogies. It will go so much faster as we are able to train other people to work his system. I am so proud of him.

It has been a good week for the weather, almost Spring like. In some of the flower beds the crocus are beginning to peak up through the soil and the next 3-4 days are going to be sunny and 50's so we may see more of them. I just want to bend down and say, "Go back!! It isn't time yet! You will get too cold again next week!" I wonder what my Mission Presidency would think if they saw me doing that?

Because the sky has been clear it has been a pleasure to watch the sun rise. I love to watch the sun on the mountains across the valley to the west early in the morning. They are covered with snow and as the light peaks over the mountains to the east it hits the snow on the mountains to the west and with the dark blue sky of the morning around them they are breathtakingly beautiful. I get to see the opposite effect when the sun is going down in the west. The sun hits on the higher peaks in the east longer than the lower, closer mountains. I just love seeing the reds on the snowy peaks. I will miss this natural beauty here just like I miss the trees that surround me at home. I have often wondered what if there is some kind of natural beauty that surrounded me in the pre-existent world that I will be so happy to be able to see again, something I have missed seeing but just don't realize it. Is there something so grand in that world that I am reminded of when I see sunsets and sunrises? Is that why I love mountains so much, or oceans? Well, just thinking...

This week for some reason I have been reminded how much I love America. It is a grand land. It is not perfect here, but it is the place that was prepared for the Gospel to be restored and to come forth. I love to see the flags flying everywhere here. I am so grateful for all those who have lived and died that we may enjoy what we do in this blessed land.

I saw the following quote this past week and I like it a lot:
Life is too short for drama & petty things, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

Expanding our Work

Our work on Tonga has been put on hold and our focus for the next couple of weeks will be on the 2500 African Oral Genealogies. These come from both Ghana and Nigeria and are a little different than the Tongan Orals and will hopefully go a little faster. We are very excited to get these online now. There is a great interest in Africa to record these histories before the "storytellers" die. The "storytellers" are those designated to keep in their minds the lineage of the tribe. We heard a statement recently that "when a storyteller dies, a library is burned". In some places the young men are moving into the large cities to find work. The life of a "storyteller" is one of daily working to memorize the history and lineage of the tribe members, some which go back as far as 60 generations. It is amazing. We are so excited to be involved in a small way to make these records available online.

The Church organization is very careful to make sure that the records are accurate. They are written down as they are told and then typed up and read back to the "storyteller" who then verifies the accuracy of the record and gives permission for it to be published, usually with a thumbprint as the signature on the permissions page. All of this is done after going through the tribal chief who has to give permission to the "storyteller" to share the lineage. It is a marvelous work.

Like most of the country we have been very cold here although unlike most of the country, we have not had snow in the valley, just the terrible air pollution. Monday afternoon Ed was quite tired so he left about 3:00pm to take a nap before going out to dinner with several missionary couples. When I left to go home about 4:45pm I was very surprised at how cold it was. It was much colder than it had been at 6:15am when we left the apartment and the wind had picked up. We went to dinner at the Bohemian Brewery (yes, that was funny for 8 missionaries...)for some good German food and by the time we returned home it was 14 degrees! I wondered what it would be like the rest of the week. I was not disappointed with the change. On Wednesday morning we left the apartment and it was 1 degree with a wind chill that made it feel like -12 degrees. It was soooo cold! What was funny to us was the next morning. It was 7 degrees and felt like -5 (all of this is according to weather.com at 6:00am each day)but it was so much warmer than the day before we didn't really feel it! It's amazing what we can get used to, isn't it?

We called our home and found out that school was canceled for Friday in advance of the day because of predicted snow. How funny. But, we did have a pipe burst at our house. Fortunately it was an outside pipe and we have an alert neighbor who turned off the "geyser" we had going in our front yard. Our girls will get it fixed and all will be well. We are very blessed. One of our other missionaries had a pipe burst in her home before Christmas and the water did a lot of damage because no one lives in her house. We are grateful we have family living in ours and friends who are willing to help them too.

We don't watch much news, but we have been concerned about Egypt. We met so many wonderful people there and we worry about their safety now and their lives in the future. The world is in an interesting time. With so much sadness and uncertainty in the world, I am grateful for the peace and joy I feel from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We had the following story shared by Pres. and Sister Boye of the Mission Presidency. I hope you have the time to read it even if you have read it before. It is one of the good ones.

After one of his lectures in London Dr. Louis Agassiz, a distinguished naturalist, encountered an obscure spinster woman who insisted that she was uneducated. In response to her complaint, he replied:
“What do you do?”
“I am single and help my sister run a boardinghouse.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“I skin potatoes and chop onions.”
He said, “Madam, where do you sit during these homely duties?”
“On the bottom step of the kitchen stairs.”
“Where do your feet rest?”
“On the glazed brick.”
“What is glazed brick?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
He said, “How long have you been sitting there?”
She said, “Fifteen years.”
“Madam, here is my personal card,” said Dr. Agassiz. “Would you kindly write me a letter concerning the nature of a glazed brick?”
She took him seriously. She went home and explored the dictionary and discovered that a brick was a piece of baked clay. That definition seemed too simple to send to Dr. Agassiz, so she went to the library and discovered that a glazed brick is
vitrified kaolin and hydrous aluminum silicate. She didn’t know what that meant, but she was curious and found out. She took the word vitrified and read all she could find about it. She moved out of the basement of her life and into a new world
on the wings of “vitrified.” And having started, she took the word hydrous, studied geology, and learned about clay beds formed at the start of the world. One afternoon she went to a brickyard, where she studied about the more than 120 kinds of
bricks and tiles. Then she sat down and wrote 36 pages on the subject of glazed brick and tile, which she mailed to Dr. Agassiz. Back came the letter from Dr. Agassiz: “Dear Madam, this is the best article I have ever seen on the subject. If you will kindly change the three words marked with asterisks, I will have it published and pay you for it.”
A short time later there came a letter with $250; and penciled on the bottom of this letter was this query: “What was under those bricks?”
She had learned the value of time and answered with a single word: “Ants.”
He wrote back and said, “Tell me about the ants.”
She began to study ants. She found there were between 1800 and 2500 different kinds. There are ants so tiny you could put three head-to-head on a pin ; ants an inch long that march in solid armies half a mile wide; ants that are blind; and ants that get wings just prior to their death. After deep study, the spinster sat down and wrote Dr. Agassiz 360 pages on the subject. He published it as a book and sent her the money. The spinster used the money to travel the world, visiting all the lands of her dreams.
The lesson for us -
As you read the scriptures, search the scriptures, study the scriptures, delve deeper, and ponder longer. “….seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith… (DC 109:7.)

I am so happy for the freedom to learn.