Aloha! This was Thanksgiving week and we had lots of fun, maybe too much! Here’s what we learned, Monday was a Mission Devotional where Sister and President Holmes talked about the role of the tribe of Ephraim. Before that we drove over to the library and dropped off the 4 pies Mom made for Pie Day which she instituted. It was for the whole library and a lot of people brought pies. Also, we learned (and were not surprised) that a lot of people like pies. By the end of the day most of the pies were gone. Mom made a couple of cream pies and a couple of chicken pot pies. That’s what I had for lunch, some of just about every pie. Yum!  I had a cool experience in the afternoon helping a guest with a problem on her family tree.  She has an ancestor named Peter Andersson who is married to Anna Beata Svensdotter. Her problem was that there showed up as a possible duplicate a couple named Peter Andreasson and Ann Beata Svensdotter. The second couple only had a marriage record attached ...

So what did we learn this week? Let’s see…. Monday I learned that after 40 years of marriage some of me is rubbing off on Mom. We had a pretty basic day, a Mission Devotional in the morning where they talked about streamlining the work of the mission and what the Alethia   Program  is doing. We have learned that it is pretty amazing. They are using a data program called Alethia  to teach computers how to index records. They can read the old script and extract the names and dates and other helpful information from the records. They are able to index at about a 93% accuracy rate and can do it more than 10 times faster than humans. Then we headed off to work in the library. Things have really slowed down. We were pretty quiet all day. When we got home Mom decided to have cold cereal for dinner! She always teases me when I do that so it was my turn to tease and get a picture for verification and proof, if in the future she tries to deny that she ever did do that. BTW it was R...

Howdy everyone. Here’s what we learned this week. Monday we learned that moving our clocks back on Sunday means we walk home in the dark now. We have lost the sun. Sadness. We had a typical Monday in the library and then came home really quick before heading over to the COB for a Mission Devotional with Elder and Sister Martinez. He is in the Area Presidency  for this area. We learned that he was a family practice doctor (he is retired) and his wife was also a doctor, a pediatrician. But Sister Martinez is also a lawyer. Wow, that’s a lot of schooling and work. They are from Puerto Rico and practiced medicine in Mississippi where they learned about and joined the Church. They spoke about enduring well. Not just making it through something, but learning and serving and becoming someone better as we endure. Afterwards we walked home and learned that they have put out more Christmas decorations around the Conference Center. Mom put her phone in this luminary to see how it would look. ...

Aloha everyone. What did we learn this week? We learned that 6 days isn’t enough when you get to be with your family. We had so much fun being with everyone. Monday at the beach and  In ‘n’ Out  afterwards was relaxing and fun. Tuesday being Jake’s birthday with cinnamon rolls for breakfast and lip sync battles and carving pumpkins, then going  trick or treating  was awesome as well. Dentists everywhere are rejoicing over that haul of candy they got.  Wednesday we had to head back to our mission. We got up and packed and drove the rental car back to the Ontario Airport. Our flight back to Salt Lake was on time and we arrived with no problems. While we were waiting at the  Trax  platform we learned something about Mom. A group of three young girls came up to Mom and said, showing her a picture on their phone, “We think you look like her.” It was a picture of Jennifer Garner. I guess Mom’s new haircut really gives her a new look. She smiled and said, “I’...