Week Sixty-nine…Five Time Winner. You Know da Kine!

This week was filled with more activity in the library. We were steadily busy every day…not overwhelmed, just busy. 

Monday started with a devotional where this wonderful young service missionary was one of the Discovery Zone members that shared their experiences working in the FamilySearch Library on the Discovery floor.  She was pretty nervous, but did a great job! You probably know that there are many young people who for one reason or another are unable to serve a full time proselyting mission and have been given the opportunity to serve as service missionaries near their homes. This sister serves a few days a week in the library and does a wonderful job and has had some great experiences. After the devotional we went to the library. The morning was

slow as usual, but then it picked up. We weren’t “slammed” with guests, but we were using quite a few of our missionaries to help all the people that came in, including Mom and me. She helped someone doing research in Italy and I helped some French guests. We have learned, especially for Mom, that if they do not know a place where their ancestor lived or a name we can’t help them much. Such was the case with Mom. For me, I got lucky. I have recently learned that they have added France Social Security Death records to the FamilySearch catalog, so most people that have died up until 2022 show up there. That usually gives us a birthdate and place of

birth, which was the case for my guests. They were excited to get that information and decided to begin a family tree to record that info and work towards future research. Because we were busy we filled in for people and juggled assignments all day long. In the afternoon I had my first meeting with the Geographic Training Committee. This is a group of staff and missionaries that has been formed to revamp all of the geographic, or what used to be known as Tier 3, training. Most of the meeting was identifying what we thought was working and not working with the current training and what we felt our objective should be. I think it is going to be great and has been needed for quite awhile. We ended the night with our apartment Family Night which was a game that Mom didn’t like much. You had to put events in their correct chronological order. I did learn from that game that  the key was invented before the iron. I thought it was the other way around. Apparently the key was invented in the 6th century BC and the iron in the 4th century BC. Who knew?

Tuesday was Pday and Mom went off to shop and wash the car and I worked on some e-mail stuff. When she got home she told me that she had set up lunch with John, but I wasn’t super hungry because I had eaten some cereal shortly before she arrived home. I went anyway, to see John, and ended up eating some burnt ends and brisket over rice from the BBQ buffet. Yum! We then came home and I decided to let my meal digest a bit before going on a bike ride and Mom was going to go for a walk, but then we both started to feel a bit queasy in our stomachs, so we just spent the rest of the day in the apartment. Sadness. I even canceled my platelets appointment which I was already for. I had done my RapidPass earlier in the day and was looking forward to finding another based-on-a-true-story movie on Netflix to watch while I lay in the chair bleeding. Oh well, I have another appointment in two weeks. 

Well we woke up the next morning feeling just fine, Maybe it was something we ate? We went off to the library as usual just before 10am and found it much like it had been on Monday. Maybe summer vacation time has hit already?! So we jumped in and helped where needed. Mom spent quite a bit of the day as a steward, which she loves to do. I didn’t write down anything in my notes for this day and I can’t remember anything else of any import that happened. It was just a typical day.

Thursday was much like Wednesday. I didn’t learn much of anything new and nothing really memorable happened in the library. I did have a chat with one of our missionaries about having a meeting with the staff to determine if he could be put into our Get Help system as someone qualified to help with advanced Ireland and Scotland research. He has been a missionary for quite a few years and knows a ton about British Isles research, but after COVID a lot of the training and requirements changed in the library and especially with the British team. They had some difficulties with feeling integrated and appreciated as they were brought up from being just by themselves down on the B2 level of the library and asked to join all of the international missionaries up on the B1 level. He has felt that the staff thinks he knows nothing and don’t want to use him to help guests. We set up a meeting

with the head of the British Isles team to have him do a little CLEP test of sorts and hopefully be certified to help at an advanced level. After we were finished with our day we took Sister Pruner with us to the temple where we met Sister Hirama, who had gone earlier with another sister missionary since it was their Pday. We were able to do an endowment session and then just headed home afterwards since we all seemed to be a bit weary from our busy week. One thing I did learn was that the celestial room in the Bountiful Temple has some pretty unique furniture pieces. I hadn’t really paid too much attention to them before, but this week I noticed that they have some tables that only have two legs and lean against the wall. I of course couldn’t take pictures and couldn’t find anything like them on the internet. They are a bit like the picture I have here, but with wooden legs and much larger and fancier. We got home and then stayed up to welcome Johnathan to our apartment. He had flown out to get he and Wynne’s new van that he had purchased from a dealership in New York, and was driving the van home. He stayed at Tori’s place Wednesday night and stayed with us tonight. Unfortunately I did not take a picture with him. Ugh. 

Friday morning Johnathan left early and we also had to go in early to the library because we had an interview first thing in the morning with the Faerbers and the new couple that will be in the mission presidency, the Browns. We then ran off to fill our assignments and work on our training. I was asked to help a couple from France who was there visiting a friend’s daughter from France who had been living in Utah and had just graduated from high school down in Leni. She spoke good English as they did not, which is usually the case with many visitors from France, but that helped me be able to communicate

with them through her, since our other French speaking missionaries were busy with other guests. We were able to find some documents for them, hurray for France Social Security Death records, and get them started on a tree. The girl was taking notes and told me that she really wanted to do this for her family when she got home. She also mentioned that she would probably come back to the library another day to get more help and learn to do better research. Wahoo, a convert! I then was the usher when a French-speaking group from Tahiti came to our floor. I got them situated at a computer and learned that they were trying to find the birthplace of one of their ancestors that emigrated from England to Tahiti. So I went up to the desk to let the steward know what the situation was and by coincidence the staff member sitting at the desk was Senia, who does British Isles research. But what was even more miraculous she says, “Oh yea, this must be the group my brother-in-law knows who he told to come

into the library. He told me they were coming.” So she went to help them. Hmmm, coincidence. I remember on Sister Tholander’s wall (she was a sister that taught seminary with me at Taylorsville Seminary) she used to have a quote that I remember.  It said, “Coincidence is when God does a miracle and decides to remain anonymous.” I can’t remember who they attributed that quote to, but since then I have learned that Einstein said something very similar. 

We were so stinking busy that we didn’t get to go to lunch until about 1:15pm and barely made it to the COB cafeteria before they closed. I learned that it was custom pizza day. You could choose your toppings and have it on a traditional or cauliflower crust. I decided to try the cauliflower one and really liked it. Yum! We had to eat quickly and get back to the library because my cousin Roy and his wife Karen were coming in with some humanitarian VIPs from Kurdistan that I told you about last

week. They were late, so we waited around and they finally came. It was so good to see Roy and Karen again. We went in with the group to the VIP council room and Jason Harrison, our VIP coordinator did a great presentation for them about the library and what they could experience there. Unfortunately they did not have time for a tour or anything else, but we were able to explain just a little more to Eva (she is the one on the left in this picture below and is a midwife, trying to teach good obstetrics practices to women and men in

Kurdistan) out on the Discovery floor a little more about the actually workings and layout of the library. We also talked a little about some guests that I had helped a few months ago that came form Iraq, and how they were telling me that they had no idea when their actual birthdate was. They don’t keep records over there very well. Roy said the joke is that if your mom remembers that it was cold when you were born then you were born on 

January 1st. If she remembers that it was warm, then you were born on July 1st. Almost everyone’s birthday is either January 1st or July 1st. Funny. She also had her assistant with her, who is from Kurdistan (Eva is actually from Slovakia) and she was explaining to us a little bit about the book that Jason had brought out and how she was sure her ancestors were mentioned in there. Very cool. When we were finished with their visit we were able to head home. It was supposed to be our T/R day and we were supposed to be off at 2pm, but sometimes things don’t work out that way. It really doesn’t matter that much as we are called to be full time

missionaries and don’t have anything else we need to do instead,  but rest is nice for these older bodies now and then. When we got back to the apartment Sami-mantha texted to see if she could borrow a muffin tin. So she came by after work and Mom made her some dinner and then asked if she wanted to play a game. She said sure, let’s play Mah Jongg. So I was recruited and we played the first game with the just the three of us, until Sister Engstrom, who Mom texted, was able to come and be the fourth member of our crew. We played four more games and as you may be able to guess from my blog post title, who won all five games? That is correct…moi! It was wild. I couldn’t believe each time that I won. Only my third game started with a great line up of tiles to begin with, all of the other games I just got super lucky to pick up tiles I needed. So now I guess I really need to say I like this game, since I won 4 times in a row last week and 5 times in a row this week. That picture is my final winning hand using winds, and only having one joker. That’s usually pretty hard to do. So then I took

Sam home and when I got back Mom and I watched The Beach Boys documentary on Disney+. It was pretty good. I learned that that Beach Boys were more of a rival to the Beatles than I had thought. For some reason I thought the Beatles had become popular first and then The Beach Boys had come along with their California-inspired music and kind of made a little niche for themselves in the music world. Wrong. The Beach Boys were first and they and the Beatles kind of played off of each other, trying to out-do each other whenever they came up with a new little twist or style to their music. It was kind of fascinating. We finished the night by tuning into one of our YSAs from Hilo who was opening his mission call live online. He is going to the Arizona Tempe Mission. Cheeeee Hooooo for Chaz!

Saturday we slept in a bit then went into the library for our 10-6 shift. I was asked to help a guest with some Swedish documents. She knew what she was doing when it came to Swedish research and had discovered five different records that she wanted help to read and get information from. As I was trying to help her I saw Mom leaving and motioning that she didn’t feel well and was going home. Bummer. So I tried helping this lady with her documents, but my Swedish isn’t that good, so I went and asked our Nordic specialist, Tanner, who was there if he could come help out. He was able to decipher many more of the words and I was able to look at it logistically and we were able to determine, along with Tanner’s suggestion to look for a marriage record, which of the first two birth records actually belonged to her ancestor. The other records were fairly easy to sort out. We again were pretty busy in the library so I took a quick early lunch so that I could take over for the Kopps, who had missed their lunch

because they were helping guests and being floor leaders. Then I came back and was steward for awhile and then helped like 6 or 7 people with random little things like merging and Family Tree fixes and connecting to the internet and setting up a scan pro projector to look at a microfilm. I finished off the day as steward again until Elder Felsted came back from helping a guest up on the Discovery floor then closed down the place as floor lead at 6pm. When I got home I learned that Mom was feeling better. She had texted me earlier that she made some toast and drank some ginger ale and that it seemed to help. Wahoo. We were supposed to go to the symphony, using some free tickets that Sister Eppich gave us, but Mom wasn’t up for that and for some reason I didn’t think that I could find someone else that might want to use them until it was too late. Ugh. So I just got some food and watched The Edge of the World, a movie inspired by the true story of a British explorer by the name of James Brooke who became the Rajah of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. I liked it. I like movies based on real life.

Today we went to church and had as our speakers in sacrament meeting Brother (Governor) Spencer Cox, his wife Abby Cox and their daughter Emma Kate. They all spoke about the temple and gave wonderful talks. I must say that it is a little weird sitting there listening to a good, spiritual, Holy Ghost inspired talk from a guy who is also a politician. It just doesn’t seem to fit in my thought process. It is pretty cool though. Brother Cox told us about a book coming out from one of his friends who is a Jewish atheist scholar, Jonathan Rouch, that is going to talk about how the Church and its teachings, and subsequently the way most of the people in Utah live and treat each other, is the answer for the modern-day problems of the world. Intriguing. I look forward to reading it when it comes out. Here’s a link to an article about some recent talks he gave… https://www.deseret.com/2023/10/8/23906311/jonathan-rauch-christianity-religion-democracy/  Brother Cox also quoted from a book called The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Heidt where he explained the importance of religion and religious worship to help heal our minds and hearts. I might need to read that book too.

Well the rest of this day was filled with writing this blog post and eating some great shrimp tacos that Mom made. I am looking forward to some chocolate chip and walnut cookies as well. Yum!

I hope you all had a mahhhhhhhvelous week and made some great choices and are happy. We are!

BE GOOD!

Love you all,

Sister and Elder Phillips