My title is a bit weak this week, but it is inspired by the old “land ho!” cry of the sailor who spotted land and signaled the end of the journey was in sight. We feel this way about our house this week, as you will discover in a couple of the posts.
Monday began just about like every other Monday. I wasn’t into the library long before I was asked to go up to the main floor to do a tour. When I got up here I learned that my tour was for one guy…Bob. Bob has been doing genealogy for 30 years as a hobby and finally made it to Salt Lake City to check out the library. He uses the resources all the time online and was fascinated with all the films and books and maps and other items that we have in the library. At the end of the tour he told me thanks, and then said, “Now I guess I need to get to work and use this place.” That’s what it is here for, so way to go Bob. I wasn’t back down to our floor long before I was asked to help a guest with Swedish research. The lady had one line where she was not able to find the parents for the wife. I asked if she had used
ArkivDigital before, and she said no. I smiled and told her that she was going to love this. We had the name and the birthdate of the person she wanted to find the parents of so we just put them in the search field and voila, about 12 or 13 different people with that name and birth year popped up, but there was one who had that exact birthdate. So we opened up the document
and it was a household record that showed her in the household of her parents. She was amazed! It took us maybe one minute and we found her parents’ names. We also were able to discover that this lady had another sibling that did not show up on the tree that she was working with. I then showed her how to also find the birth record for the lady and attach all of these documents to her profile. She was a bit of a slow learner so I went through it a couple of times and then finally had her find one more household record for the family and attach it as a source. When I was confident she could do it I went and signed off, but was too late to go to lunch. Mom went without me to the COB and got some for both of us. After lunch was our zone council meeting and almost
immediately after that I was asked to go up to the main floor to help a couple of girls from the Netherlands. They were just curious about what they could find, so I showed them how to search and they both found grandparents documents. They were amazed that there were records like that out there for people to see. So I helped them set up an account and left them to adding people to their trees. Right before closing I was asked to help a family of three from the Netherlands. We didn’t have much time, but I showed them how to search and the boy, who was “driving” the computer was pretty quick with figuring out how to search and filter the site. They were very impressed and said they were going to get more information from family members and come back tomorrow. Sometimes it amazes me that people who
are here on vacation would want to spend that much time in a family history library, but then as I think about it it doesn’t amaze me. They are feeling the spirit of family and connection and that ultimately brings them closer to God, so why wouldn’t they want to spend time doing that? We finished the night by going to an evening devotional featuring Sister Amy Wright of the General Primary Presidency. She talked about President Nelson’s statement about how many times we are too myopic. One thing she said
made me think and actually go to the scriptures to find the verse. She mentioned how it says that Lucifer has power in the air. I found the verse in Ephesians 2:2, “ Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air…” Her comment was that she can see how Satan is using many of the things that we access
through the air…internet, tv, movies, social media…to pull us away from the things of God. True that. I ended the night watching Olympics.
Tuesday was our anniversary…41 years! It was also Pday so I used it to do my 64 mile ride for my birthday. I was very pleased with my ride. I didn’t even feel tired at the halfway point, so I didn’t stop to eat or rest, I just turned around and headed back. But that came back to bite me a bit. At the 55 mile mark a head wind started up and I started feeling tired. So I ate my fig bars that I brought as well as my mixed nuts packet and that kind of kicked in after about 10 to 15 minutes. The headwind did slow me down, so my average mph was slower than 15mph, which is what I was shooting for, but that’s ok. Another year done! After resting a bit and eating my peanut butter and honey sandwich and getting some chocolate milk, it was time to do our anniversary activity. We got tickets to the
Salt Lake Parade of Homes again this year. It was especially apropo as we also got word from our builder in Washington that he wanted to chat with us about getting started with the permits on our house. House ho! So off we went. We saw some pretty nice homes right away. One was a remodel of an older home in Sugarhouse that was pretty cool. As we were heading towards one of the homes Mom spotted
Sweetaly Gelato. Someone had just told us
about this place, so we turned around to check it out. We would definitely recommend this gelato. Very creamy and lots of fun flavor creations. We got guava, coconut, peach and salted caramel. Yum! I won’t add all of the pictures we took at all of the Parade of Homes sites, but the highlights were the white oak flooring in one of them, the bookcases on the sides of the living room fireplace, the glass wall shower, the pebble tech flooring on the balcony, the cool tile design in the laundry room, the built-in bunk beds in the basement fun room, the pass-through window from kitchen to back patio, and the barnwood timber, outside patio dining table. The last group of homes were all together in a new homes subdivision. I think there were maybe 7 or 8 homes there. They were all very similar…kind of “move up” homes, but not very fancy or having any fun ideas that you wouldn’t put in a basic house. So after the second one we decided to skip the rest. There was one more home quite a ways further north, but we were ready for dinner. So we headed towards the freeway looking for a good place to eat. As we were passing the little complex where
JCW’s is I saw a sign that said
Market Street Grill. Somebody previously had mentioned this place (actually the one near downtown) as a good restaurant to eat at. So we decided to try it out. We learned that we made a good decision. Here are pics of our dinner.
We had blackened ahi as an appetizer and I got the fish and shrimp and chips and Mom got filet minion. Both meals came with a soup or salad so I got salad and Mom got their clam chowder, for which she gave her approval. It was a great dinner and we were able to bring home enough for a few more meals the next couple of days heated up in our air fryer. On the way home we stopped and got gas at Costco as well as ice cream and chocolate milk. The rest of the evening was spent watching Olympics and eating ice cream. That’s just about the perfect date! Not April 25th.
Wednesday started with a workout for me. Mom went walking. I forgot to mention that she got in over 7.5 miles of walking the day before due to her morning walk and all of the Parade of Homes walking. We weren’t in the library long when I was asked to help a couple with Belgium research. But when I got to them I learned that they were looking for the brother of his grandfather who got on a ship when he was 18 and left for America and was never heard from again. They wanted to find him in America. So I called down some US/Canada researchers to see if they could find his immigration records. They mentioned that he had used the
Red Star Line shipping company, so even though I wasn’t helping anymore I looked it up and found passenger manifests for them. So I went back
over to the couple and told them they may want to search those records. I was then asked to help a lady from Miami, but originally from Romania. She didn’t have much time, so I just showed her how to search records and what information our Wiki page had and she was very happy. I told her that she could create and account and do this from home and she was even more excited. We then ran off to lunch at the COB and there were huge lines. One of the checkouts was down. We had to eat fast in order to get back to our 1pm FSL leadership meeting. That went well and then it was off to our mission leadership council at the NOB. That was an interesting meeting. With a new presidency now finally together they were asking “what things should we stop or start doing, and why?” There was lots of discussion. One thing they asked about was whether we felt it was ok for us to refer to fellow missionaries, or even our spouse, by their first names or should we be calling everyone Elder and Sister? Pres. Craven
specifically asked me, so I told him that I felt that in public we ought to use Elder and Sister, but in our apartments we could use first names. I mentioned that I had heard many stories of the Brethren calling each other by their first names in private meetings or other private settings and felt that could be a good model for us. We shall see what they decide. Of course we will continue to use first names in the library because that is the protocol there. After dinner I started watching the Olympics and ended up falling asleep on the couch. I think the ride from the day before may have caught up to me. I woke up about 11:30 and noticed a text from the new couple, the Stelters, who wanted to borrow our car in the morning to go to the temple, but it was too late to answer them then, so I just went to bed.
Thursday morning I slept in and missed my ride. But then suddenly I remembered about the Stelters so I texted them that they could definitely use our car. They wanted to leave around 9:30, but were at a workshop for Slavic Research and would need to meet me sometime after 9am. Then I remembered that we had a 9am meeting with the International Zone staff. So I called Mom who was out walking and she literally ran home and we made it there just in time. I left the keys for the Stelters with the floor leaders and we joined the meeting. It was a good one. They talked about how we can improve our service on the floor and what we can do to help our missionaries be more confident and productive and effective. We left that meeting to go to another meeting, our
Just Us meeting, which is for the zone leaders in the
FamilySearch Library. That went well as well, and we learned that the little things we had suggested to our missionaries was already making a difference. We got back to our floor just in time for a large French group that came in. We helped them set up accounts and learn how
to search and then off they went. Then Hans and Hansje from the Netherlands came in. We have had quite a few visitors from there recently. This couple was very friendly and we chatted about tons of different things as well as me showing them how to search Dutch records and set up an account for them. They were extremely grateful and kept shaking my hand and saying thanks. Then it was lunchtime and we walked to the COB. On the way we learned that they are starting to put up Christmas lights in the trees around the Conference Center. It seems like it is earlier than last year, but it probably isn’t. Wow time flies! When we got back from lunch there was a request for Swedish research before 1800. My name didn’t pop up as a helper, but Sister Nielson’s did, but she was doing film removal. So I went and took her spot and she went to help the guest. The rest of the day was zone leader stuff and then away we went to the Bountiful Temple with Sister Pruner. Sister Hirama was planning to meet us there, but while we were driving Mom got a text from her and we learned she was in
Logan and probably wouldn’t make it in time. So after the sealing session, which was great, lots of people were sealed as spouses and families, Sister Pruner suggested a BBQ place called
Smokin Bones BBQ. They were out of brisket, but we were able to get a double brisket burger with turkey on it as well, and it was VERY tasty. Mom and I shared it and it came with two sides. We got baked beans and potato salad. I am a bit picky about my potato salad, but this one passed the test. Only thing that would have made it better is if they added a bit of Miracle Whip to it. We were full by the time we finished and will definitely plan to go there again before we leave. We got home and of course I watched more Olympics before heading to bed. I haven’t kept track of what I watch which night, but usually every night there was at least one event in the highlights that had caused me to go watch the special little video just of that event. Fun times.
Friday was our full T/R day, so we didn’t have any duties in the library. Since we had the whole day free and I didn’t need to be finished with a ride early enough to get into the library by 10am I decided to take my mountain bike and go exploring. I usually just take this one trail up to a spot where it joins a downhill only trail and ride that back down and that’s
my run. But this time I went past that spot and kept riding. I got to an intersection where a couple of trails meet, so I pulled out my phone to check where I was. Just then a guy came riding up and he stopped to take a drink and then asked if I needed any help. So I just asked him where these trails all went. He explained that if I kept going up the one to the right it comes to an intersection of about 5 trails and the one that you u-turn to get on is another downhill only trail that links up with that lower one that I always take. So I followed him up the trail and found the one he told me about and headed back down. It was a very fun downhill, not any jumps or big banked turns, but plenty of speed and rough terrain and I had a great ride down…except for that one turn that had very loose dirt on it and my back tire slid out and I went down. But it was just a small bang and roll and I hopped right back on. There was a little blood from the elbow and the knee, but it reminded me of a t-shirt Keith used to have…Ride. Bleed. Ride. Mountain Biking…I think that sums it up well. I got cleaned up and then
walked down to the FedEx store to send a check off to Brother Meaker who is building our house. I forgot to mention that we had talked to him on the phone Thursday morning and finalized the beginnings for our house. We signed the agreement and sent him the check and he is going to go to work right away getting our permits. House Ho! I then stopped at the
Deseret First Credit Union on the way home to deposit the money I got from the sale of my old mountain bike. They gave me this little card about me getting $50 if I refer a new member account, so if you’re looking for a new bank, let me know. ;) When I got home Mom was back from her walk and we decided to eat leftovers for lunch. Most of the rest of the day was watching Olympics.
Saturday I did a road bike ride. Had lots of headwind coming home, but cut it a little short…28 miles…to make it back on time. We weren’t in the library long when I was asked to help Inge from the Netherlands. I learned that she was a KLM flight attendant and I mentioned that we get a lot of them in the library. She said, “I know. They tell everyone to come to library, they will love it.” How cool is that!? So at first she
just wanted to see what we could find, but when I found her grandfather’s marriage record, the actual one, she said, “This gives me goosebumps!” and she was hooked. We spent about 35 minutes and I showed her how to set up an account and put this information in what we found. Then I was off to work on something else. About 20 minutes later I was asked to help a lady with Middle East research. It turned out to be Palestine. I showed her what we have and she was amazed we had that much, which really was very little. She thanked me and as she was sitting next to Inge, Inge asked if I could help her again. She was stuck on her mom’s side and so I showed her a few tricks for searching and we were able to find the next record she needed to extend her tree. I spent another 25 minutes or so with her and then told her about going upstairs and printing a fan chart. She was excited to do that. I then went upstairs and found Mom at a table with about 8 other missionaries eating lunch. They were all from our floor. We had a nice lunch and
then I worked on zone leader stuff until the end of the night. After we got home mom went to play pickleball, which turned out to be a lot of fun for her since there were only four ladies who showed up. She is getting better at it, especially since she had a lot more time on the court this time. I watched the latest episode of
Alone and then of course more Olympics. I watched the highlights from the men’s basketball game between USA and Serbia from a couple of nights ago. Wow, Steph Curry had a night! He was hitting 3 pointers from everywhere and got them back into the game when they were 17 points down. Fun game to watch.
Today was church. We had a hot walk up the hill and were sweating a bit after we got there. In elders quorum we discussed Elder Rasband’s talk from last conference entitled
Words Matter. I like the story he tells about the dedicatory prayer for the Thailand Temple and how the Spirit wouldn’t leave him alone in the middle of the night until he got up and added some important words to the prayer. They were words from President Nelson’s recent teachings, “May we think celestial, letting Thy Spirit prevail in our lives, and strive to be peacemakers always.” Good words to live by. After church it was working on this post and then going to the
One Heart Gathering. They emphasized to all of the participants that they had to
keep their comments short and stick to testimonies and not “thankamonies” or stories about all the things they experienced in their mission. I think it worked because the whole thing only lasted a little over an hour instead of an hour and a half or longer as it has in times past. The Engstroms were part of the “going home” group to speak. We will miss them. We have worked as their assistants here in the apartments, organizing the
Break-the-Fasts and FHEs and helping people move in and out. They also have become good mah jongg buddies.
We are now home and I am finishing this post. No Olympics to watch, we’ll probably watch the one of the Chosen episodes that we haven’t seen yet.
Hope you all had a great week. Love you all.
BE GOOD!
Mom and Dad
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