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.