What a great week! We have had some great visits and ended it with a wonderful General Conference. Here’s what we learned this week.
Monday morning we went into the library at our normal time, 8:30. We had decided to do a DNA class for our zone coming up this Wednesday and I hadn’t sent out an announcement yet. So I got that announcement emailed out and then headed off to a Group Hosting Committee meeting where I learned that I needed to ask one of our staff people about whether we were going to get an iPad for making the library tours more efficient. So I filed that away in my memory and after that meeting ended waited to start our next meeting…our Zone Council. When that meeting ended I actually remembered what I needed to do from the first meeting and went to find the staff member. From him I learned that he had mentioned our request to the director of the library and was awaiting a reply. Well, I happened to be going to a meeting Wednesday afternoon with the director and filed away in my brain to ask about the iPad then. I then took some time to verify that our
Teams Meeting link for our DNA class on Wednesday was going to work. I learned something was wrong with the computer we were going to use in the computer lab and so I went to Guest Services to see if they knew anything about it. Alan came down with me to the lab and I opened up the computer to show him the problem and any guesses what happened? Yup, it all worked perfectly. Funny how that always seems to happen. Well at least I was more confident about Wednesday. I then found Mom and she told me about Matt and Cindy came into the library while I was in the first meeting. They are here to help get Sami situated in an apartment because she got an internship with Guests Services in our library. Wahoo!
We finished our the day and closed down our floor, then headed to the Social Hall building for a fireside with Brother Karl Andersen, affectionately referred to as “Mr. Kirtland”. He was a CES employee that spent most of his career in Kirtland and read hundreds of journals and histories about what happened there. He has written two books about the things that he has learned. He told us a bit more about all of the years of working with the Community of Christ Church and how that has paid off finally with the purchase of the Kirtland Temple and other properties and artifacts. He asked how many people in the room had a relative that lived in Kirtland. I of course raised my hand, knowing that Zera Pulsipher lived there, but then I started wondering if I had others? I’ll have to check one of these days. It was a great fireside. On the way home we walked past the reflection pool and I got this picture of the temple. There was a slight breeze so it wasn’t a pure reflection, but still not too bad.
Tuesday was Pday. I went into the gym to workout and decided I needed to take a picture of the middle spire of the temple where the angel Moroni is going to be. It actually is all ready for him to be installed. I thought it was interesting that there was a guy standing up on the top of the scaffolding. I finished my workout, went home and showered and got dressed and we headed into the library to do our Dutch Paleography class.
As we were walking in we noticed a lot of people standing outside of the museum and the library looking towards the temple. We then saw that they had just put the Angel Moroni up on the spire. Wow, that was a surprise. I had just seen the spire without him and I thought that putting him up would be the last thing that they would do, but I guess they decided they wanted it up there for conference. Pretty cool. We got into the library just in time to do our class. After class I wanted to make sure that the DNA class was going to work, so I went down to the computer lab and set up practice meeting and had Mom get on it up on her computer in the zone leader cubicle. Everything worked. Wahoo.
We then went to lunch in the COB and went up to the gym afterwards to see Angel Moroni from their windows. He is very shiny! Someone said that they know the guy that did the new gold plating and apparently he used 24k gold. I guess that why he seems to glimmer a bit more than he used to.
The rest of the day we just relaxed. I actually looked on my
ESPN app and noticed that the Giants/Dodgers game was being televised on a channel that I can watch so I turned that on and enjoyed watching them, but they lost 5-4. Bummer. But they didn’t look too bad. They have the makings of having a decent team, but who knows how long it will take before they gel and really get good. I have learned that with baseball it is much more difficult to figure out if a team is going to be good or not right away.
Wednesday we had to go in early so that I could be there right after the prayer meeting to get our DNA training ready to go. It went well and everyone liked it so much we decided to continue it next week. We then had our new missionary orientation meeting for a new group of only 11 missionaries. That went well and we headed back down to our floor. We actually were scheduled to be there from 12-8, because we needed to cover the schedule for a couple that were visiting family, and we learned in looking at our schedule that we didn’t get a lunch or dinner break. So I ran to the COB to grab some lunch while Mom was floor lead. It was a very nice day and I didn’t even wear my jacket. I got back just in time to make it to our meeting with Lynn Turner, the Director of the FamilySearch library and actually remembered to ask about the iPad. He said he would look into it for us. I also had a couple other questions for him and one in particular turned into a pretty good discussion about how to make our library website more
user friendly and better to navigate. So you might see some new things on that page in the near future. The rest of the day was pretty normal.
Thursday I went into the gym again and got a shot at the beginning of them taking the scaffolding down around Moroni. Then as I was leaving I got the second shot of it all taken down around him. Last of all I noticed that they put the
flags up out on the courtyard behind the COB, so I had to get a couple of shots of that. And it looks like Spring has definitely sprung! We went into the library at 10am and got to work on some different things. I answered email and worked on missionary extensions and then right before we needed to leave for the temple I was the only person available to help with Norway. So I went to help our guest, James, sort out a problem with a great grandparent. I have learned to first listen to what the guest would like to do and then try to teach them how to do it. He wanted to find the father of his great grandfather. Well we went in and looked at what information we already knew about his great grandfather and learned that there were some sources attached that could lead us to a birth record. We found that record and when we added the name of the father we learned that he was already in FamilySearch, but attached to a son with a different name. So we were able to do a bunch of merging and added three more generations to his tree that was already there. We were able to leave in time to get to the Jordan River Temple in time for our endowment session. I took the name of another ancestor for Sister Rochon. At the end of the session I ran into Jershon Cocker. I learned that he is living here in the Rose Park area, not far from us. It was great seeing him in the temple.
Friday is our short day, and it actually was! Mom gave one of our missionaries a ride to a doctor appointment and I headed in at 10am and got to help a Samoan brother learn about resources for him to do some research on his family. Mostly to help him get permission to do the temple work for one of his aunties. We then ran off for lunch with Matt and Cindy and Sam. Of course I failed to get a picture to prove it, but it was a very nice time to catch up with them and find out what has been going on in their lives. Afterwards we planned to either workout or go shopping, but instead I decided to go get a haircut. I learned the last time that I went that inflation has caught up to them and they raised their price from $10 to &12, but that is still pretty stinking cheap for a haircut and they do a pretty good job. I have learned to wait for one of the two ladies at the first two stations as they seem to have been there the longest and do the best job. We never did go shopping or working out, we just ended up working around the apartment and watching some episodes of
Last Man Standing.
Saturday was the first day of General Conference and we woke up to find it looking like this outside.
Ugh, what happened to Spring? We had a shift in the library and Mom couldn’t make cinnamon rolls for them because we didn’t get any powdered sugar, so we decided to go buy donuts. We looked online for some reviews and learned that
Fresh Donuts & Deli had some great reviews. So we first went to Costco and got gas and some groceries, and then on to WinCo for more stuff. Finally we got to the donut shop and found out we must have chosen wisely, because there was a line outside the door. We got our
donuts and then headed into the library. Everyone there appreciated the donuts and it was super quiet. We were actually able to watch the whole first session of conference. Between sessions we got some people that came in, but as the next session started at 2pm it got quiet again. We were only open until 5pm, but we had some folks try to squeeze in some research after the session ended at 4pm. One of them was Edgar from Arizona. I was at the steward assignment and his request for help in Norway came in a little after 4:30. I had Mom take the steward desk and I headed down to help him. I learned when looking at his family tree that he had a bunch of mixed up people, but lots of sources and if we had time we could sort them out and add some other sources. I showed him how I would do it and he was so happy to learn. He told me that his wife is a family history consultant for their ward in Arizona and he thinks he is going to plan a vacation to bring her up to the library so that we can teach her all the research methods we have. I told him that I thought his wife would love a vacation like that and I looked forward to meeting her. We were on the computer until they shut them all down at 5pm. We ended up helping less than 35 people all day, but if they were all like Ed then it was a great day!
Today we got to attend the morning session of
General Conference. We got there and found some seats by the Kopps from Switzerland who serve in our zone. It was cool because we also got to attend the broadcast of
Music and the Spoken Word with the Tabernacle Choir. Ever since we started attending 20th Ward Church we haven’t been able to go to those performances. Just before they started their broadcast Lloyd Newell, who has done the “spoken word” part of their broadcasts for the last 34 years, announced that he had written a
hymn and Mack Wilberg, the director of the choir, wrote the music for it and they were going to sing it after his “spoken word”. My video was too big to add to this post, but here is a link to a previous performance of it…
https://fb.watch/riZIpeyg3Q/? . Then the session started and Elder Vai Sikahema gave the opening prayer. In his prayer he prayed for the missionaries of the Church and especially for the senior missionaries. As he said that the Spirit let me know that the Lord was pleased that I was on this mission
serving Him and that I was in the right place. What a wonderful, merciful thing for Him to do. We have often wondered if this was really where we are supposed be and now I know for sure that it is. Now we just need to learn whatever it is that we are supposed to learn so that we can serve wherever and however we are needed in the future. I’m assuming you were able to enjoy conference like we did, so I won’t talk anymore about the talks we heard, but they were great. The
Conference Center was completely full this time because we learned they gave out standby tickets for the first time since 2019. After the session we came home to our apartment where Linda
and her friend Gina and Gina’s daughter Tori were waiting for us. They came Friday from Modesto and were staying in a VRBO rental. So they had lunch with us. Mom made zuppa toascana soup with sourdough bread for lunch and we ate and chatted until they needed to head over for the afternoon session of conference. Did I get a picture with them to add to my post? No! Fail. We stayed home and watched the session on tv. I loved Elder Stevenson’s talk about suspension bridges and also President Nelson’s talk about temples. Then of course it was great to hear about 15 new temples. Another temple on Oahu in Honolulu. Wow!
Well that has been our week. I hope you had as good a week as we did.
Love you all he nui!
BE GOOD!
Dad and Mom
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