Single sisters serving as missionaries in the Family and Church History Mission are not assigned "Companions", nor are they given roommates. Single sisters missionaries live alone but if, after they have been in the mission for awhile, they connect well with another sister missionary they are welcome to move in together and the mission helps them move to a two bedroom apartment, etc. Many of the sisters enjoy having their own space so they stay in the apartments by themselves but get together with their friends for meals, shopping, going to the temple, concerts on The Square, movies, etc.
Among the many papers that missionaries have to complete is emergency contact information with a person and phone number. The mission is very good about taking care of the missionaries and making sure we are all safe, healthy and where we are supposed to be at any given time.
One sister had been out with the flu for two days and her zone leader had checked on her as is his responsibility. She was fine and told him on a Thursday that she would be back at work the following morning. However, that evening her son, who lives in the area, called her to ask for her help. His pregnant wife was not doing so well. They had two other little boys and grandma (our single sister) decided that she was needed there to help so she went to spend the night. During the night her daughter-in-law had a miscarriage and went to the hospital so it was a good thing grandma was there to help.
At 7:00AM she phoned the zone leader at the office and left a message because she didn't get a live person. She explained her situation in a phone message and went back to caring for her grandsons. About 1:00PM the phone rang at her son's house and she answered it. A voice said, "This is (zone leader's name which will remain anonymous) and we are looking for Sister......" She said, "Elder.....this is Sister....!!!" "He was very happy to find her and explained that they had been looking for her all morning. In fact, this is what had happened on the mission end.
They had rallied a number of her friends, had gone to her apartment with a key and one of the sisters offered to go in first in case they would find this sister had died during the night. Finding that she was not there they looked for her car, which was not in its parking place so they wondered if she had been in an accident. They spent hours calling police, and local hospitals, etc. until finally they decided to call the emergency contact. After hearing all of this the cute sister asked, "Didn't you get my message?!" At that the Zone Leader admitted that he had not listened to his messages, that he never listens to his messages and in fact his children had been telling him for a long time that he should listen to his messages but he just hadn't done it!! ha!
Sometimes it takes a big event to teach old dogs new tricks! Some of us have gotten along just fine without some of the technology of today, but we really need to figure out when it is important for us to bite the bullet and learn something new.
So often we hear senior missionaries coming into the mission exclaiming that they don't like computers and will never figure this out!! But never have I heard someone ready to leave the mission saying, "I never did get it." Instead, we hear over and over, "The Lord blessed me and I was able to do everything that was assigned to me." I suspect this cute Elder will make checking his messages a regular part of his day from now on! ^_^ What a funny experience! The single sister delighted in telling us this story....I imagine she has enjoyed telling it many times.
The week was fulfilling, making further strides toward organizing and uploading, converting wav files to mp3 format getting ready to put them up online. We feel like we are staying on course to have all the clean up work done before we leave so that the orals will be a well-oiled process for our replacements. We want to feel good about leaving this project in new hands when our time is up.
We enjoyed spending Memorial Day visiting the graves of my ancestors who I am just now getting to know. Some are in the Salt Lake Cemetery with many of the pioneer general authorities and famous people. Titus Mousley is my great, great grandfather and came across the plains because his wife and children all joined the "Mormons". He was quite well off and outfitted his wife and family well. He was one of the leaders of a wagon train in 1857 and established himself in the Salt Lake Valley. Two of his daughters, Sarah Louise and Ann Amanda married Angus M. Cannon, brother of George Q. Cannon and the families were closely tied together in the community. George Q. and Titus are buried not far from each other in Salt Lake.
We also visited some graves in the Provo City Cemetery. My great grandmother, Mary Jane Baum Wright is buried there. I have come to really appreciate her. She was a feisty little thing. William Wright hired her to help his ailing wife with their 8 children. After his first wife died he married Mary Jane and they had 15 children together including my grandmother, Leora Wright. I have enjoyed reading stories about her life.
We also got to spend some time with Autumn, Derrick and Edison. Ed was much more at ease and ready to hold his grandson. He actually wanted to hold him and was happy to feed him a little too! It was our first hours babysitting alone with him and we had a great time. Actuallyk, I held him most of the time but when the kids returned I did some sewing while Ed held little Edison. It was a fun afternoon.
Last Friday night the Concerts in the Park began. The Pioneer Memorial Park is just a block up the hill from us so we joined some friends and went to hear the Wasatch and District Bagpipers. It was very fun. With summer here the sun sets very late so an 8pm start time is perfect. Concerts are scheduled for Tuesday and Friday through August so we are very excited.
Yesterday we went to see the new movie out called "17 Miracles". It won't get a wide audience, but I was interested to see it because it was about the struggles of the handcart pioneer companies of 1856 and the miracles that happened to help them. It was very well done and I recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to see it.
I am very excited to be here in the middle of Salt Lake to experience the Pioneer celebrations in July. Already there are preparations set up in the lobby of the JSMB to celebrate the 100th birthday of the building. I think there will be some celebrations this week so I can share that next Sunday.
Today I didn't walk to Church so I didn't get any photos but I will share some of the final tulips photos I took. They are all gone now so we are waiting for the new plants to fill in. I met a couple from Florida last week on The Square and he was disappointed because he had been here a month ago and brought his wife back to see the tulips. There were only a few places left. Of course the last place was between the temple gate and the reflection pond because that is the most photographed place for brides.
Goodnight my friends!
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