Mom got back on Tuesday and things got back to a more normal pace. Here’s what we learned this week.
Monday I decided not to try to squeeze in a short morning ride, it just got ready and went into the library. ZL stuff kept me busy in the morning, but the whole library was busy. I learned that we had a large group called
Ancestor Seekers in the library this week and they were filling all of the computer spots as well as asking for help, though the first guests that I was asked to help were not from that group. It was a couple from the Netherlands. They at first could not remember anyone beyond their grandparents, which I have learned is common for most of us, so I couldn’t find any records because their information is still private. But then I went to
Geneanet, where people
can add more recent as well as living people’s names, and voila! there it was, a tree with ouma and oupa as well as her. We downloaded the tree and put it on a thumb drive for them and then looked for his side. He knew his ancestors better and we were able to find them in
OpenArchives and look at some actual records. Those went on the thumb drive as well. Success. Then I was asked to help three young French gentlemen. Just one was really interested and so we went searching for his relatives. It took a bit of searching, but we found who he was looking for in a Department archive. Wahoo. We had our zone council meeting and afterwards it seemed we got even busier.
We were training a missionary to be a steward and she got slammed with about 6 guests asking for help within about 3 minutes. At the end of the day we learned that between us and the US/Canada floor we helped over 150 guests. That’s pretty busy for us, since we usually help about half of that number. I was also asked to help a guest try to decipher some notes she had been shown by one of our staff members. They were notes that a lady had made when she was planning to write a bygedbok (farm book) for a farm in Norway. My Norwegian isn’t great, but I was able to help her decipher quite a bit of it and then grabbed a staff member to help us with the rest. Who knew
there was something like this out there, an unfinished farm book. Always learning. At 4pm we turned the President Nelson Birthday celebration on in our computer lab and most of our missionaries went in to view it. I stayed out on the floor to help the specialists
man the floor, but it turned out that we didn’t have
very many requests during that time. So I closed down the floor at 6pm and went home to watch the 49ers game. They were without CMC, but did well and look like they may make it back to the playoffs again this year. After the game I watched the 100th birthday celebration for President Nelson as it had been recorded. I really liked the song that his family sang for him, starting with his great grandkids. Very well done! He had a prerecorded message that was very nice as well and he ended that with leaving his blessing on everyone.
Tuesday morning I woke up and felt “off”. My body felt kind of weak and my mind was disoriented, not sure what that was all about, but I decided to not go for a ride. I figured I could do one later in the afternoon instead. I did a quick run to Costco and then got ready to go into the library. This week was the first of our
lasts…we began the last week of zone quarterly luncheons. I decided even though it was Pday that I ought to go in, so I just went in dressed in my Pday clothes. I even wore my hat. It was funny how many people did not recognize me at first. I guess a hat is a good way to disguise yourself. We had soups and salads and rolls and lots of fun desserts.
Chihiro made a very yummy trifle. I stayed and helped Anja Stelter, who Mom had placed in charge, clean up and put stuff away, then came home to get the car and get ready to go pick up Mom at the airport. She had had a great week with the Santanas and was heading home. Her plane got in a bit early, but I got there right on time and didn’t have to do any laps. It was great having Mom home. On the way home Mom reminded me that we were having the Carpenters over to play mahjong. Oops, I forgot that. No afternoon ride. We had fun playing with them and Kay won twice, Mom once and me once. I am learning to enjoy this game more and more as I play it. Then it was time for me to go give platelets and the Carpenters were going to the Ng’s for dinner. The Ngs love to entertain and have people over for dinner, especially Tim who loves to cook his Chinese food. I was a little late leaving and forgot that the car was parked over by the old Travelodge Motel, so I was worried that I was going to be late, but traffic cooperated nicely and I got there on time. I was able to give both
platelets and plasma, so they took less platelets and that lessened my overall time in the chair. I think I was there about and hour and ten minutes. I watched another
based-on-real-life movie on Netflix called
First Man. It was about Neil Armstrong and him becoming the first man to walk on the moon. It was cool. I learned that he had been a navy pilot during the Korean War, but left the military and was a civilian test pilot before he became an astronaut. He and his wife had a little girl that died of cancer at age two. It showed in the movie how he made notes about her cancer treatment and what her condition was like. She died of pneumonia due to her weakened condition at the age of two. Sadness. I didn’t get to watch the whole movie so when I got home I looked it up and watched the rest. I didn’t know that he had been part of a previous space flight, Gemini 8, that almost ended in disaster. Brave guy. Once upon a time I wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force and thought about, briefly, the idea of becoming an astronaut like most boys my age.
Wednesday I got up and rode 30 miles. Tailwind going out, headwind coming home, but made it in plenty of time to get into the library on time. I worked on some ZL stuff at first and then was asked to help a man with Netherlands research. We were looking for an ancestor with the first name of Johannes. That is a very common name in the Netherlands and it took us quite a bit of searching to finally find a record that gave us the info he was looking for. The zone luncheon only lasted until 1pm so I ran up quickly and got a bit of soup, and some more trifle, and then came back down to fill an assignment. But I wasn’t in that assignment long before I was asked to help a couple with research in the Azores. I had done that once before many moons ago and tried to remember where I had gone for research help. I just opened the Wiki and clicked on the
online documents link and
found records for the time period they wanted. But when we went to open the documents we learned that they were locked. No permission for us to view them. Ugh. I was sure there must be another site to explore like
Atenati for Italy or
ArkivDigital for Sweden so I went to the specialists and asked. Hailey said there was a site called
Tombo.pt and she would come show us how to use it. That worked! We were able to find the birth record of both grandparents, even though one was previously listed as a different birth year, and they showed parents and grandparents in the record. Ka-chow! I then left them to search for more on their own. I got to work more on my Swedish line and was able to find three more generations back on one line. Ka-chow again! I love
ArkivDigital and how wonderful all of the records are that they have
preserved on that site. We ended out night by watching the new
Twisters movie. It was fun. I think I like the original better, but was intrigued in this new one with the fact that she was not trying to understand tornadoes, but trying to figure out how to destroy tornadoes. The part I couldn’t figure out, because they didn’t seem to make any connections for us, was that she had
Dorothy from the original movie and it never said where she got that from. I kept waiting for them to reveal that she was the daughter of Bill from the original movie. Oh well.
Thursday I got in another ride, but it was a short one. I woke up tired and not motivated, but Sherry convinced me that even a short ride was better than no ride. So out I went. It was cold, which woke me up and made me feel more like riding. Unfortunately I had waited too long to get in a decent distance so I only went 16 miles. Lesson learned. Get out there and the motivation will come. We got to the library early for a 9am meeting and another that followed right after that. Then it was time to do the luncheon. We stayed for both hours to visit with missionaries and staff and then got back down to the floor to help. I was assigned a couple from Texas. She was looking for information on her dad from the Netherlands. We searched and searched, but it was just too recent. The husband, who really wasn’t into it, jumped up and said, “Well, we tried.” and started to leave. I could tell the wife wasn’t ready to give up so I quickly showed her a couple of places to go searching on her own as well as how to call in for an online consultation and then sent her off to her waiting husband. I then got to work more on my Swedish line. My goal is to get it back 9 generations on ever line before I go home. I was able to find one more generation when I
learned who Anna Persdotter’s parents were. Wahoo. I saved the information and closed up my computer just in time to head off to the Taylorsville Temple to do initiatories. It was only Mom and me because Sharon and Teresa were sick and Yoriko was meeting us at the temple. I learned that the Taylorsville Temple is a little less busy than some of the other temples we have been to. I was able to get in early and do 5 initiatory ordinances almost before my initial appointment time, and when I came out there were no patrons waiting. So I asked if I could go back
in. They said sure. I planned to do 5 more ordinances, but I only had 3 more name cards. Sadness. But in the bright side I was able to get all three of them done. Wahoo. Yoriko wanted to do an endowment session as well, but we told her that we had a birthday party we needed to get home for, which we did. Anja Stelter had invited us to a little gathering at her apartment to celebrate her birthday. It was a very casual little gathering and she had three different cakes and cinnamon rolls and some chips and humus for treats. We learned there that they have discovered a bakery here in Salt Lake City, Vosen’s, that makes bread very similar to what they are used to in Germany. They miss their bread. Mom also learned about a type of cinnamon bread that they love and she is going to look up a recipe and see if she can make it. I have no doubts that she will succeed. It’s Mom. We left the party and came home and I turned on Thursday night football. It was the Bills vs the Dolphins and was pretty much a blowout, especially after Tua left the game with a concussion.
Friday was our T/R day and we had a full one this week, not just a half day. But because it was the last luncheon day (more lasts) we decided we should go in for that. I did get in a 40 mile ride before that. We had a great time visiting and chatting and helping and then cleaned up everything and brought a bunch of stuff home in our wagon. We got it all put away in time to turn around and head back to the library to meet Keith and Tammy there. They had been in Rexburg for a wedding and wanted to stop to work on some of Tammy’s family line. While Tammy worked with Mom and a missionary from the US/Canada floor, I showed Keith what I had been working on on our Swedish side and where I was stuck a bit on our US side. It was fun to show him what I have learned in searching and reading Swedish documents and also how much information is in them. Tammy was able to get some good tips on where to go next and things she can do to research her line more as well. We left the library when it closed at 6pm and decided to walk over to City Creek Mall for dinner. Keith got to choose and
he chose
Cafe Rio because he said you could eat either light or heavy there and both choices were good. He was right. Mom and I shared a very good burrito. Sammy (I am not sure how she spells her abbreviated name. Some Samanthas do Sami) also came with us to dinner, so Keith and I drove her home and Mom walked home with Tammy. When we got back to the apartment we found Mom playing
Skyjo with Tammy. We played a few games with all of four of us and then we taught them how to play
Dead Man’s Draw. We ended the night just chatting about life in general and plans to go to Alaska on a cruise as a siblings trip maybe in late August next year. If we do that we will definitely have to do some saving because we have a lot of trips planned for next year…Disney World with grandkids in January, ride across America late April to late June, Redwoods in July, Machu Picchu in September…and we are building a house. Yikes. But we would love to do another Alaskan cruise. Those were fun, right?
Saturday we got up a little later and saw Keith and Tammy off as they were heading home to Vegas. We got into the library and I was asked almost immediately to help a couple from Curaçao with research. We found some great records and after a bit of searching found his grandmother. I learned that she had actually been born on another island, Bonaire, and was the result of an affair that a landowner there had with one of his servant girls. Apparently lots of that went on because I learned that the last name of
his father was Christiaan, named after the first name of his father who was not married to his mother. Wow. Anyway, they were very happy to find records and learn that they can search these same records from home in Curaçao. I was then getting ready to go to Costco, which is what Mom and I had decided to do for our lunch break because Mom had some things she needed to buy there, when I learned that Mom had been asked to help a Netherlands couple. She was successful in helping them, but we missed our lunch hour. But the library was not quite as busy then, so we decided to take a late lunch and drove to Costco around 2:15. It was very busy there, but we were able to get everything, including a piece of pizza for Mom
and a chicken bake for me and get to the apartment to put everything away and back to the library by 3:30. Just a little late. I wasn’t there maybe 15 minutes and I was asked to help another couple from the Netherlands. They were a fun couple and I was able to teach them how to use our records,
OpenArchives, WieWasWie, Geneanet and
My Heritage to did research. She kept great notes. She was super excited when we found a
befolkingsregistre (population register…like a census) that showed her mother’s family. She didn’t know they had 9 children and she was most excited to see that her uncle Hugo was shown to have emigrated to Chicago. She had heard the story of an uncle that came to America but didn’t know where or when. She said that she was going to go home and go to the Utrecht Archives in the twin they were from and get a copy of that document and
frame it and put it on her wall. Fun times! I then ended the evening finding the family of Maja Greta Gustafsdotter as well as both of her grandparents. It was a hard one because it said her father had come from Kvarsebo and there was no such place in the Lunda Parish where I was looking. So I got Geoff, one of our Nordic specialists and he showed me how to look for the place a little differently than I had before and I found it as a parish in the neighboring
province. Once I was there I was able to find records. Wahoo, more generations back. We closed the floor and Mom went to play pickleball. I watched the BYU vs Wyoming game. For my dinner and while I was watching I had some chips and salsa. My dad would be so proud. I think that was his favorite snack while watching football. Still not convinced with Retzlaff. He just doesn’t seem to make the most accurate passes and sometimes gets very flustered in the pocket and makes poor decisions. But they are 3-0 so that is good, but from here on out they have to play opponents from the Big 12 and they will almost all be tougher opponents. I skipped around a bit and watched a few other games like Kentucky and Georgia. Kentucky almost beat them, which would have been a pretty huge upset. I and ended the night doing research on how to get a larger cassette on my bike to make climbing easier for my trip across the US. I think the only way to do it is to install a mountain bike rear derailleur which I might do.
Today I slept in a bit and got up and read scriptures and conference talks and a bit in the Liahona magazine. I like reading everyday in different places. I think it helps my focus to be more broad and to put concepts and principles together. We went to church at 10am and one of the talks was about the Constitution which will turn 237 years old next week. It was a great talk about how inspired our constitution is and he quoted J. Reuben Clark, a former member of the First Presidency of the Church as well as a former member of our ward. It was fun to learn that he used to attend in this ward. I didn’t have to teach this week, Sister Cox, the Governor’s wife, taught. She does a good job. We walked home and I have been working on this post to get most of it done before we go over to the Stapp’s for dinner and games. I’ll get a picture or two there and finish this off when I get back. Well we’re back and I totally forgot to take any pictures. Fail! I did get a picture of the sign on the little park that is directly behind the Brigham Apartments where the
Stapps are staying. This little park is actually a graveyard where Brigham Young is buried along with Eliza R. Snow and two other wives, Lucy Ann Decker and Emmiline Free. Also two of his children, Joseph A. Young and Alice Young Clawson are buried there and there is a cool statue of Brother Brigham sitting on a bench reading to two little children. We didn’t take time to go in and look at the headstones or anything, I just took this picture of the name of the park on the outside fence and then did a little research on the internet to find out the information I just told you above. We got home and put everything away and Mom cut some sourdough bread to give to one of the
couples that is leaving this week. I messed with the whipped cream that we brought home from the Stapp’s. It did one squirt for Mom at their place and then stopped working. So I pulled the top off and messes with the little plunger thingy and it just started to spew. I couldn’t stop it and ate a bunch of it until I found a cup and let the rest of it squirt in there. Mom took this pic of my face since it was a bit splattered. Fun times.
Well another week is gone. We will be saying goodbye to one of our missionaries this week, Doris Beesley, and will be sad to see her go.
We have a bunch of meetings tomorrow and a short morning to ride.
I hope you all have a fantabulous week and learn much.
Love you all. BE GOOD!
Sister and Elder Phillips
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