It got windy for us this week, which brought little micro-storms, but they blew in and out very quickly. The best part was that it kept the temperature a bit lower and the air cleaner. That said, here is what we learned this week…
Monday started with a devotional from Sister (mostly her) and President Craven. She spoke about pure testimony. I have learned that if my testimony is just a story or just scripture that I like, it is not expressing what I have learned by the Spirit to be true…which is what testimony is. Between her and President Craven the
Elijah Choir sang “The Lord is My Light”,
arranged by a sister missionary in our mission, Sister Roth. It was great. I am bummed that I didn’t record it, but I learned that they have been asked to sing it again so I will definitely do it then. President Craven spoke about dress and proper titles…Elder and Sister…and some other what I would call “nuts and bolts” of missionary life. He and others referred to it as
meddling, and some of our missionaries expressed that they felt like they were being spoken to as 18 year olds. That is what the Cravens are used to, having been former mission leaders in North Carolina, and they will learn as they go how to make those remarks more applicable to senior missionaries. We got to the library and I had a 10am meeting. Afterwards it was ZL stuff and then off to lunch. I was really hungry, having not eaten anything for breakfast. After lunch it was two meetings in a row and then finally back to our floor, where I learned that we had been mildly busy on our floor. I didn’t get asked to help, so I worked on
finding records for and parents of Anders Larsson and Maja Greta Gustafsdotter. I was successful…wahoo! But I had to leave the computer to go be floor lead and luckily was able to get back to it to save all my records before it shut down at the end of the night and lost all of that info. We closed our floor at 6pm and walked home in the breezy evening between some giant raindrops here and there. We went to FHE at 7pm and it was a
Come Follow Me discussion lead by the Hansens. Mom stopped and got the mail on the way back up and my new
U of U cycling jersey was there. I like! Mahalo. I can’t remember exactly what I watched before heading to bed…American Ninja Warrior, or Alone or ???, but I know I watched something. That kind of shows exactly what I have learned to use the tv for at night. It is my relax and
wind-down activity before I go to bed. I don’t pay a lot of attention to what I am watching. I just need something to occupy my brain a bit and get it to focus on other things than what has happened during the day. It seems to work well.
Tuesday I woke up at 6:30 to my alarm and turned it off in a state of half sleep and slept for another hour. I guess I went to bed too late. What was bad was that Mom also slept in and we had a 9am endowment appointment at the Orem Temple. Oops. We’ll have to try for another day on that because that is the last temple that we need to visit in order to say that we have visited every temple in our mission boundaries. It actually turned out to be a good thing that we didn’t go because my stomach started rebelling and sending me to the bathroom multiple times. So I just sat and watched Little League World Series games on ESPN. Fun times. Mom went to the COB for lunch on her own. She brought back veggies for dinner. At 3:30pm Sam and Sister Pruner came to play mah jongg. We
played four games and I won two. Wahoo. Then John Campbell came for dinner. I took Sam home and Sharon stayed for dinner, which was frittata and sourdough toast. Yum. We then played one more game of mah jongg with John and I won again. I am back on my winning streak. After they left I was back to watching LLWS games. I watched the team from Maui win against a team from Pennsylvania to get them to the semi-final game against Florida, who has come back through the losers bracket. Then it was off to bed a little earlier.
Wednesday morning I was able to get up and get to the gym, which felt good. Then it was into the library to do the orientation for the new group of church service missionaries. We don’t expect anyone his time around, since we got five from the last group. So we went down to our floor and almost immediately I was asked to help a French couple. That went well and I wasn’t back to my seat very long before I was asked to help a lady with Swedish research. When I got to
her desk I learned that she knew more about Swedish research than me, but what she was struggling with was determining who the correct spouse was for one of her ancestors and how to merge another one that was showing up. I have learned how to do that stuff well enough that it doesn’t make me nervous anymore and I was able to walk her through the process. But it made me late for our meeting, which Mom left for to be on time. When I got there I learned that Sister Brown brought some popcorn for treats at the meeting…regular, kettle and caramel…which was fun and helpful since I was a bit hungry. The meeting ended a bit earlier than normal (I think President Craven has instructed his counselors to not have meetings that last longer than one hour) so we went back to the library where I was asked to help a guest before heading home to get ready to go to
The Addams Family:The Musical at the Hale Center Theater. I decided because of President Craven’s remarks about dress to wear a white shirt and tie. The play was great! They had some fun songs and special effects and there were tons of funny lines. We got home after 10pm, but Mom wanted to make bread for tomorrow, so we stayed up…me watching
American Ninja Warrior, and her reading and baking her bread.
Thursday morning, you may have guessed, we slept in. So Mom didn’t go walking and I didn’t go for a ride. We just got ready and went in to the library. Again I was asked almost immediately to help a French Couple. They just wanted to see what we have and how does it work. So I taught him about the different resources and we went into the
archives en ligne for the department where his grandfather was born. It took a bit of searching through the records, but he really wanted to find it and eventually he did. He thought it was amazing that records like that were available and you could find things like that. So I got him a thumb drive to save the image of the record on, along with a summary sheet about how to do research in France and then I asked his wife if she wanted to
search for any of her ancestors. She said that she was from Indonesia and there probably weren’t records there. I just smiled and showed her all of the records the Dutch people kept from the time that they colonized that area. She was shocked. But they didn’t have time to search through them then, so they just made a note of how to find them and off they went. We then decided to attend the
All Hands Meeting for the library which they were holding up on the main floor. It was informative, especially since we learned that they will shortly have an option in
FamilySearch where you can create your own personal, nobody else can access, family tree. A lot of people have been
wanting this for a long time, so that they can keep people from messing up their tree with incorrect information and records. We then were off to the temple with Sharon and Teresa. The new endowment ceremony was interesting, since they have shortened it. I was surprised at a few things that they took out, but not surprised with most of it. Now it lasts only about an hour and 10 minutes. So afterwards Mom decided to go out to dinner. We went to this place called the
Kokonut Grill. It was Hawaiian food and was pretty good. Then as we were leaving Mom saw
Bahama Buck’s Original Shaved Ice (they spell it right, but wrong!) and right next door to that was a
Wendy’s. So Mom got a shave ice and the rest of us got Wendy’s frosties, since we learned that the small size was on sale for just $1. After getting home I suddenly had the memory pop into my mind that we have a $31 payment that we need to make to the IRS due to me amending our return. I couldn’t find the bill anywhere, but was able to navigate their online site and pay it there. I am certainly grateful for those little moments when the Spirit reminds about something and I listen.
Friday was a workout morning for me. We were supposed to be in to the library at 9am, but we learned yesterday that we were getting a new missionary, Sister Laura Mortensen. So we needed to go to the
Go Forth meeting. But we also received an email yesterday telling us that we didn’t need to be to the meeting until the end. So we did some ZL stuff at home and then went to the meeting. We were introduced to Sister Mortensen and learned that she was the sister that the Campbell’s had kind of recruited after meeting her in the Jordan River Temple and discovering that she was doing the veil ceremony in French. French! Yeeeeeesss! We are so excited. We told her that we were praying for French speaking people and she was an answer to our prayers. So we brought her to the library and everyone we introduced her to we told that she speaks French and they all got excited and told her how much we needed her. After about the fourth person she turned to us and said, “You weren’t lying when you said you really need French speakers.” So after giving her a short orientation and tour we got ready to leave, but
they just got a request for Netherlands help and there were no missionaries or specialists available. So I stayed and Mom headed home. I was able to navigate the sites for them and teach them how to do it for themselves, then we found some possible records for his family, because he wasn’t sure about dates, but he said he had information at home from his mom and he would use that to help him narrow down his exact ancestors when he got home. I love to hear that guests plan to do this more when they get home. I wonder how many of them actually do? So then it was off to the apartment where I was able to watch part of a LLWS game before we went to the Barney’s for a farewell dinner for the Engstroms. We have been his assistant ministering helpers for all of the activities at the apartments and Mom taught them how to play mah jongg and got them hooked on that. Sandra made this BBQ chicken that looked like a seven layer dip. She also had some Hawaiian sweet rolls so I made a yummy sandwich. After dinner we played a dice game called
Dirty Thirty. After that we played a card game called
Ripple which I won. Winning streak intact! When we got home Mom wanted to make more bread, so I watched an episode of
Alone and we got to bed late again. Bad habit!
Saturday morning I did not wake up in time to ride. Ugh! Bad habit coming back to bite me. Mom went into the library a bit early to get set up for our
Fun Food Day. Every month she has set it up to work with all of the zones to have a little social up in the 3rd floor break room. This month was ice cream sundaes. She got back in time to load up her bread stuff and off we went. I was on the floor for about 10 minutes when I was asked to help a young French couple. They were so inquisitive and really wanting to learn how to research more than actually seeing what we could find. Then I learned that the wife was originally from Italy and wanted to learn about how to do research there. So I just went and got Mom. She showed her how to do the research and found a record for her grandmother which showed them that they were originally from the region of Italy that is now Croatia. So Mom got someone to help them with research there. While that was going on I was asked by one of our missionaries, Jon Evertsen, if I could sign off his Netherlands training. I learned that he had been
working on it since April, but hadn’t found anyone to sign him off. Bummer, we could have had him in the system to help more these last couple of months. Anyway, I worked on that and noticed that the French couple was still there working on their own. I think they are hooked. I am pretty sure they will definitely continue doing this when they get home. Then one of our missionaries Dedee, needed to go take lunch and was helping a guest with Norway, so she asked me if I could take over. I haven’t done Norway for forever and struggled with remembering how to find certain
sites. So we struggled trying to work through his questions, but then Dedee came back and took over the Norway research and I moved over to help his wife with Swedish research. So I stayed with her for about an hour and found tons of great stuff. Then I turned it over to her to do more on her own. I then headed up for lunch and ice cream and when I got back to the floor I was asked to give a tour to a lady named Christina. But when I got up to the main floor I learned that there was a couple from Kenya that also wanted to do a tour. So I got to take them all around and they asked some great questions and were totally blown away with all of the resources. While I was
gone Mom helped this couple and their son from the Netherlands. They loved all that Mom taught them and gave her a little keychain with Dutch wooden shoes on it. Then it got kind of quiet on our floor and I made the statement to one of the other missionaries that it would probably stay that way until 5:30 when a Spanish speaker would show up. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later this family from Ecuador came to the floor. So I took them to a computer and started to show them how to find records and then a sister missionary from one of the other floors, Sister Boñes,
came and she can speak Spanish. So she started interpreting for us and I learned that they are the family history specialists for their stake in Ecuador. So the sister started telling me some wonderful experiences she has had doing family history work. It was very fun. They then left to do a short tour of the library with Sister Boñes, and they weren’t gone for long when another man who was from Ecuador came in. We only had about 10 minutes before the computers were going to shut down, so I quickly showed him how to search for records and the basics of the
FamilySearch site. Then we cleared the floor
and grabbed our stuff we brought for the sundaes and sourdough bread and headed home. Outside the library Sister Eppich was giving away vegetables from out of the trunk of her car that her neighbor gave her. So we grabbed some of those and then went home. I made some salmon for dinner and Mom had a pear and then she was off to pickleball with the ladies. I ate some cake and watched another LLWS game…Florida vs. Texas. Florida came from behind and won, so they will be in the final verses Chinese Taipei. I always love underdog stories.
Today we got up and walked up to church. Sister Mariah Morris and her parents were the speakers. She just returned from her mission in Washington D.C. ASL speaking. She interpreted for both of her parents, because they were streaming her talk back to Washington D.C. to a deaf branch that she served in, as well as for herself. The musical number was the bishop’s wife and mom and his kids who are hearing impaired (they all have hearing aids except for one kid). They sang and signed
I’m Trying to be Like Jesus. I wanted to take a picture, but that isn’t kosher in the chapel. After church we walked home and had some lunch and I got started here. The rest of the evening will be rest and relax and maybe watch some
Chosen episodes. We were also surprised to learn that the pickleball court they are building here at our apartments is finished! Hopefully it will be open soon.
Hope you had a mahhhhhhhhhhhhhhvelous sabbath day.
BE GOOD!
Love you.
Sister and Elder Phillips
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