Week Forty-two…Bidding Nordic Training Adieu (for now)

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 Raisin Bran if you were wondering. Yum!

After dinner we went down to FHE. Mom and I had the lesson. I decided to show one of my favorite seminary videos, A Search for Truth. (You can watch it with this link if you’d like) https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/video/doctrine-and-covenants-visual-resources/2010-07-02-a-search-for-truth?lang=eng. Since it was a video I decided we ought to have “movie night” and Mom made caramel, white chocolate and regular popcorn for everyone to eat while watching. Afterwards I asked everyone what their favorite element of the Church is; i.e. having a living prophet, or temples or ?? Sister Ganschow responded that this was “her video!” 

We learned that when she was a young woman she was struggling a bit with knowing for sure whether this was indeed God’s Church on the earth. When she watched this video the Spirit bore an unmistakable witness to her that this was indeed His Church. I told her that I had a similar experience, but that when I watched this video and saw the feet of those two missionaries walking through the snow I had an instant connection to it because one of those men was my great great great grandfather, Zerah Pulsipher. You can read his conversion story here. https://chadlawrencenielsen.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/zera-pulsipher-the-man-who-baptized-wilford-woodruff/ It turned out to be a great FHE!

Tuesday morning I went to workout at the COB and learned that they are getting more things ready for

Christmas over by the Conference Center. I know you can’t tell, but they had the lights on in the luminaries and on the small teepee trees. It was cool to see them lit up. I learned that the white luminaries say Joy in a bunch of different languages. Maybe I should learn how to pronounce each of them.

After getting into the library I learned that Savanah, one of the research specialists for the Nordic language countries and the one who wanted me to be her guinea pig for a new Advanced Norway case study, was in. So we sat down and she passed me off on Norway Intermediate and Advanced training. Wahoo! So now on to Denmark? Nope, I decided to do France first. I learned that we have a great need for that country and not as many people trained as we need, so adieu to Nordic countries for now. 

We also learned today how to evacuate an individual who can’t climb stairs if we had an emergency in the library. They have this nifty device that you can position in front of a flight of stairs, then someone can sit in the seat (you can even strap them in if necessary) and it has a motor and grooved wheels and can climb the stairs. We’re hoping we never have to use it, it moves pretty slow. I think I would be tempted to just pick the person up on my shoulders and climb them out. It would be faster. 

I also learned that I really did learn how to do Swedish research. One of the other missionaries was working on her Swedish line and couldn’t figure out one of the records. In about 5 minutes I figured out what it said, found the parish it was referencing, and then found a record for the family in that parish. I was pleasantly surprised at how natural it seemed. Hurrah for Swedish training!

After our shift we came home and we decided to get out our other Christmas decorations (they are actually my Christmas presents from Mom, but don’t tell anyone we opened them early…shhhhhhh). So we have a few decorations up earlier than we have ever done before. I guess it’s ok because it’s just the two of us and we really don’t plan to entertain or anything, it’s just for our enjoyment and we are enjoying Christmas early. We have continued to watch Hallmark Christmas Movies as well. We saw a fun one the other night…A World Record Christmas. It didn’t have the typical Hallmark plot…they hate each other at first, then start to fall in love, and then one of them keeps a secret from the other and the relationship almost falls apart, but someone tells them not to give up so they ask for forgiveness, get it and it ends happily ever after. Whew! If you have access to the Hallmark Channel we recommend this one and A Heidelberg Holiday, just because it is about Christmas in Germany at a real event.

Wednesday I learned that there are really only two people at the barbershop that I go to that I will trust with my hair. There is a Vietnamese lady that is very good, and tons of guys wait for her, but there is also a Hispanic lady that I had cut my hair and she did great. I wish I would have gotten her name, she really wasn’t very talkative, but I know what chair she works at. After my haircut I went out for a bike ride since it was sunny and about 60° outside. It was the first time in a long time that I have been outside on a ride, since it has been colder here and I really don’t like freezing while I’m riding. I got home and showered and got ready to go out to dinner. 

We went to PF Chang’s for dinner. I mentioned it one night when the Henkels were over talking that I had passed it in the car on the way home and that I had never been to one of those. When they learned that, they said that we needed to go there together one night before they left. So we figured out a day and time right then and put it on our calendar. During the next couple of weeks they invited a few more people to join us and it turned into an awesome going away dinner for the Henkels. This is a picture of the whole crew that came. Fun times! I have learned over the years that I like lots of different Chinese food if it is done right, and they did it very well, although I actually had sushi which I thought was a Japanese dish but I learned originated in China before it made its way to Japan and they made it popular. My sushi was good and I liked the wasabi as well…nose clearing, but good! After dinner we came home and watched an episode of Alone which I have recently gotten into. Those people are nuts. They do prove that “it is not good for man to be alone.”

Thursday I learned that Max wasn’t going to be able to come to the emergency lesson for the afternoon prayer meeting, so I got to demonstrate the chair stair climber thingy. That was fun. Our shift as floor leaders went pretty smooth and we took off at 4pm to go to the Jordan River Temple. We were able to get into the 5pm endowment session and afterwards went out to Indian food for dinner with Sharon Pruner. I have learned that I don’t want to order Tandori Chicken again. I’ve had it twice now. It took over 20 minutes to cook it and it really wasn’t that exciting. Mom’s chicken tikka masala was much better and is easier to cook. Their garlic naan was very good though.

After dropping off Sister Pruner we went by the Church History Library and learned that they were testing out their Christmas lights. Wahoo! More Christmas! I really do love decorating for Christmas. It makes me happy just thinking about the spirit of Christmas and how much happier and kinder most people seem to be. I know that there are many that have sad memories associated with Christmas, but for me all of mine are happy and adding the additional reason for the season…to celebrate the birth of our Savior…it makes it even happier. I’m so glad that I accepted Scott Pearce’s invitation many years ago to join him in his side business of putting up Christmas lights for people. I learned how to add lights to all kinds of trees and bushes and do it in a way that looks great. Light is such a wonderful addition to the Christmas season.

Friday morning we went and worked out in the COB gym and then hurried home to shower and change so that we could attend the funeral of President M. Russell Ballard. We learned Monday morning that he had passed away on Sunday night and they planned the funeral for Friday. When we got to Temple Square we learned that we needed to go to the south entrance to get a ticket to attend the funeral in the tabernacle. We were worried that their wouldn’t be enough room for us, but when we got into the Tabernacle we learned that there was still quite a bit of empty seats. We decided to go upstairs in the balcony area and ended up on the front row a little more than halfway up towards the pulpit area. The Tabernacle Choir was there practicing and we could see where they had reserved benches for the family and family of General Authorities of the Church as well as for public officials and others who had special status. At about 10:30am Elder Uchtdorf came in with his wife and Sister Oaks. He left them on

the front row and then went to join the other members of the Twelve Apostles as they went outside to welcome the casket of President Ballard as well as all of his family members. It was a nice tribute to him. The funeral program actually started early with President Oaks conducting. There was a talk by President Ballard’s son and daughter, then Elder Cook spoke. He was followed by Elder Holland, who needed help walking to the pulpit and sat on a tall stool as he spoke, but his talk was fun, telling stories about President Ballard and sharing some intimate memories. Then President Oaks shared a message to the family from the First Presidency and it was over.

Oh, there were choir numbers between most of the speakers. We waited while the family left and the cortège left the Tabernacle grounds then walked home. One of my favorite memories of President Ballard was when he agreed to come speak at a fireside at the San Jose Institute. I was invited to attend as the Area Director and was asked to sit on the stand with the Stake President and Mission President and his wife, as well as the Area Seventy. After speaking to the Young Single Adults for about 20 minutes he opened it up to a Q&A session. The first person stood and asked her question and President Ballard turned to the Area Seventy and said, “I think this question is right up your alley. Come up here and take a crack at answering it.” Everyone laughed a bit and that poor Area Seventy went to the pulpit and did his best, then President Ballard added a couple of comments and asked for the next question. Any guesses what happened next? Yup, he turned and asked the Mission President’s wife to come up and give her best answer. I started squirming, hoping he wouldn’t do that to me, but knowing it was a possibility. Luckily he never called on me, but almost everyone else had to.

We then went into the library for a short shift, but I did get to meet a young lady from South Africa. She grew up speaking Tswana and Afrikaans and it was fun showing her what was available for her family history research, which isn’t much, but gave her a place to start. She kept telling me I need to visit South Africa. After our shift we were planning to attend the Bells on Temple Square concert, but we learned that it had been cancelled due to the funeral. Sadness. So we came home and watched a Christmas movie.

Saturday we we went into the library at 10am and learned that it was not very busy. In the afternoon I got to help a lady find a microfilm that was missing. I don’t know if you remember my earlier experience with a similar situation, but this time it didn’t quite work our as well. I looked everywhere for the film and finally had to tell her it was most likely misfiled and would take a long time to find. So she left the library and I went back to what I was working on…French Beginner Training. But then I had the thought that I ought to look again in the drawer it should be in. So I went there and looked and found the film misfiled in the correct drawer, just in the wrong place. So I grabbed it and went to find her, but unfortunately she had left the library. 

After we closed our floor we went home and took our mattress from our extra bedroom down to the Ng’s apartment. Mom had learned that they were having family coming to stay with them next week and were going to buy an air mattress for them to sleep on because they didn’t get a bed in their second bedroom like we did. They offered us dinner, so we stayed and ate and chatted. We learned they had been given tickets to the symphony concert that night, like we had, but they had given them away to friends. So we finished dinner and headed to the symphony. When we got there we learned that the people we were sitting next to were the friends of the Ng’s that they had given their tickets to. They were very nice and I had a good time getting to know them a bit. I learned that they had served a mission in the Netherlands as well as in Palmyra, and before both of those they had been in the Family History Library. The symphony was Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 and was much better than the last one we attended there.

Today we had Church and our last Leadership Pattern Journey class. It went well. Everyone shared some great things that they had learned including Elder Graff who shared a YouTube video called The Deathcrawl which is a scene from the movie Facing the Giants. I had seen it before, but many in our group had not. They liked it. It shows how much you can do if you don’t give up and focus on not quitting. 

We then came home and Mom cooked the turkey she got for free for taking Sister Pruner to do shopping. The store they were at gave her the turkey because Sister Pruner spent over $100 and since she didn’t have room in her freezer she gave the turkey to Mom.  Mom also made cranberry nut bread along with some pies, because Mom created Pie Day for tomorrow at the library. Anyone who wants to can bring a pie tomorrow and we will all share during the day up in the 3rd floor break room. Yum!

So now I am doing this blog post while Mom is finishing her pies. I hope you all had a great week. 

Love you beaucoup!

BE GOOD.

Sister Phillips and Elder Phillips