Week Eighty-four…A Week Being a Bachelor

Well aloha everyone. Mom was off this week to be with baby Augustine and Leo and Johnathan and Wynne, so I got to see if I could survive on my own. Here is what I learned…

Last Sunday evening after finishing the blog post and attending our apartment building’s break-the-fast I felt like watching a movie. This is the one I decided on. I have learned that I can wait until September before breaking it out and it still is wonderful. Mom agonized that night about not being there for Wynne, but decided it would be ok waiting until Tuesday, but didn’t sit down and watch with me. Instead she worked on packing and making sourdough bread, three loaves…one for the library on Monday and two to take with her to Sacramento. I don’t know if both were for Wynne and Johnathan or if one went somewhere else, but she got them ready to pack.

Monday I got up and installed a new chain on my bike, thus I didn’t have enough time to ride. So we just went into the library at 8:30am. We both did ZL stuff and then I started looking at my Larin Jansdotter puzzlement again. Forrest, one of our Nordic specialists, came walking by and saw I was looking at a Swedish document and asked what I was working on. So I shared my puzzlement story with him and he thinks I have plenty of evidence to declare Karin’s parents as Jan Simonsson and Karin Jansdotter and that her birth record just never was created. So I’ll get that info put in soon with notes of explanation and

move on. Since it was a holiday and the COB cafeteria was closed Mom brought an apple and peanut butter and some cheese sticks and frittata and cake for our lunch. Yum. After lunch I still worked some more on my own family history since it was relatively quiet in the library. Mom had asked the question as we were walking in this morning, “Do you think it will be busy or dead today?” My answer was dead, and she concurred. We were both right. Since it was a holiday the library closed one hour earlier, so I went out of my first ride of the Great Cycle Challenge month. I did 30 miles and since it was super windy I was pretty tired by the time I got back. It is amazing how wind can effect your ride. I have learned that hills are hard, but you can get into a climbing mode and your body just seems to follow along and adjust. But wind just seems to sap your energy and make you feel like you are working way too hard. Weird. There was no FHE so we just relaxed the rest of the night watching American Ninja Warrior.

Tuesday was Pday as well as take Mom to the airport day. I was worried about getting back in time to take Mom, so I waited to do my ride until after that. Mom got away just fine and my ride went fine as well, although I learned that I must have measured wrong when I installed my new chain, because it kept skipping off the gear when I was in lower gears. Ugh. It was also a little windy again  and I didn’t make it back in time to get to the COB for lunch. So I just ate at home. I sat around most of the rest of the day, working on some ZL stuff and watching more ANW as well as getting my chain installed correctly. A pretty quiet day.

Wednesday was an early ride and then into the library to give the orientation for the new missionaries coming to the mission this week. I learned that Sister Celine Rol, from the Netherlands and who is a friend of the Ngs, was in this group. The Ngs had told us about her, how she had previously served in the library and speaks five languages. We want her! After the presentation I worked on the floor for a bit then ran to the COB for lunch. The cafeteria wasn’t as crowded as usual which was nice. After lunch it was a meeting with the library administrators. They all asked where Mom was (we know who the important one is in this companionship). After that meeting I

was on the floor for about an hour and headed to the NOB for our monthly Mission Leadership Council meeting. The first item of business there was discussing what we felt was the optimum number of missionaries for our zone. They put this chart up for us showing the current number of fill time and service missionaries that we have. I learned that both the Discovery Zone and the US/Canada Zone have over 30 full time missionaries and we only have 19 (the chart says 20, but I just counted Monday and know it

is 19). So I asked for 10 more full time missionaries which would greatly help our staffing problems on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturdays, which are times that we have more difficulty getting service missionaries coming in. We also discussed the LOA policy and what would be appropriate events to ask for a LOA. I learned that the official policy states that leave is appropriate for “critical and important family events”. That leaves a lot of interpretation for was is an “important” event. President Craven seemed to

feel that allowing people to be with family for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas may qualify more as vacation rather than an important family event. Hmmm. So we may or may not be in Vegas for Thanksgiving. He also mentioned that the area presidency was concerned about husbands and wives not being together for these LOAs. So it may mean if we get an approved LOA for Zoë and Aaron’s baby (which we have already been assured is considered an important family event) we both may have to go. We shall see though, because that will also be at the time that we have suggested they begin the transition to a new zone leadership and we were planning to take the new zone leaders with us to some of these meetings so they can get a feel for what they will be doing. Who knows?! After the meeting I was invited to dinner at the Ngs. Tim did his favorite Chinese food meal and it was great, but he kept giving me food and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful so I overate. Ugh. I was super full. It was super fun being there with the Tangs from our zone and Evelyn

Lee from the Discovery zone. They told us about their families and some of the things that brought them into the Church and some of the great experiences they have had serving both before and during their missions. I learned that Terry had just recently surprised Kim for her 70th birthday by inviting all of her kids and his kids, and of course grandkids (they are a combined family having both been previously married) to come and celebrate. She said last Saturday night there was a knock on the door at about 10:30 at night. Terry told her to get the door. She said,  no it’s so late. Who would be knocking on my door? But he insisted, so she went tot he door and saw through the window a young girl that looked Asian standing on the porch. She thought it might be heir neighbor’s daughter so she opened the fort to find it was her granddaughter. Surprise! Fun times.

Thursday I got up late so only was able to get in a 25 mile ride and it was cold! I put arm warmers on, but still was pretty cold. Fall is coming. I then went into work. The first order of business was a stewardship interview with President and Sister Brown. They assured me that new babies were considered an important family event and  Mom will be able to go in November, but they weren’t sure about whether or not I will need to go as well. We also talked about our transition with the new zone leaders, but I didn’t think about the problem of making that transition during the time we may be away. Oops. I also discussed with them our release date. We had originally been told it would be December 19th and have been planning on that. But in a recent list that came out our names were on it and our release date was December 30th. So I learned that because we had come from Hawaii and they assumed they would need to fly us back to Hawaii they would need to release us on the 19th because the travel department has a blackout for travel from December 20th through January 2nd. But now that we are not returning to Hawaii we can be released on December 30th. BUUUUT…then I received an email saying that they need to move our

release date to December 27th to accommodate incoming missionaries, so I asked the Browns if they thought it appropriate to just ask to leave early, December 21st, so that we could enjoy Christmas with family? They said they thought that would be just fine. So I called Mom to see if she was ok with that. She was having lunch with Wynne and Gus Gus at Jack’s Urban Eats. She agreed with what I had discussed with the Browns, so I have submitted an early release request and we shall see if it is granted. I worked on ZL stuff most of the rest of the afternoon, planning our upcoming devotional and submitting extension requests, etc. I didn’t even have any time to work on my puzzlement problem. Oh well. At 4pm it was time to go to the temple. I had all three of our single sisters and we went to the Taylorsville Temple for an endowment session. As we were coming to one of the last turns to head to the temple we passed an Artic Circle. They had a signboard out front hat said “Pumpkin Pie Shakes are back!”. I pointed it out to everyone and Sister Pruner said since it was her

week to decide what we do after the temple…Costco, Walmart or restaurant or home…she was choosing Artic Circle. Wahoo. So we got to the temple and Sister Pruner realized she had left her temple bag with her house keys in her locker at the library. Luckily she had her recommend in the sleeve on the back of her phone. So we went ahead and did a session and afterwards just went through the drive thru at Artic Circle and I got my shake. The sisters were also excited because they also had raspberry and huckleberry shakes advertised on the backside of that signboard and I learned that Sister Hirama loves huckleberry shakes and Sister Pruner and Sister Docherty both love raspberry shakes. So they were happy and got small shakes...I got a medium! We were able to make it to the library before it closed so Sister Pruner could get her bag and then I dropped them off at their apartment complex. I was able to catch the last quarter of the Chiefs/Ravens game. Wow, what an ending. Pretty fun.

Friday morning I fiddled with my bike and shortened the chain again and consequently did not get to go on a ride. I was supposed to be in by 8:30am so it would have been a short ride anyway. After prayer meeting Sister Harper came over to me and asked if I would take Elder Carpenter’s spot on his presentation to a Japanese group she was hosting because he was sick. She wanted me to just do an explanation of the FamilySearch  program and how to add memories and look for immigration records. 

So I said sure and started looking to see if there was already a presentation created in our Group Hosting Committee files. There was. Whew! I then received an email saying we were getting Sister Rol in our zone. Wahoooo! I went and did my presentation and there were only 3 people who stayed. Most of the people followed one of the other Japanese presenters to another presentation. Oh well. I did get to know a man who was from San Bruno, but now lives in Danville. He was excited to learn how to attach sources and add memories. After I finished I spoke with the other lady that

stayed (one walked out halfway through) and learned that she was she was trying to find a passenger list of her grandmother. I showed her how to search using Ancestry and we immediately found a record that showed her grandmother coming to he US with her daughter (this lady’s mother) and her husband and it said they were accompanied by a Mr. So and So (I can’t remember his name). She didn’t know who the guy was, but I suggested we open the actual record and we found that it said he was a brother-in-law. She suddenly became excited and explained to me that she remembered the story told to her by her mother that she had had an older brother that was given to his aunt, her mother’s sister in Japan because their child had died. Originally her mother had been given to this sister, but this sister’s mother (grandma) had missed her so much she went to Japan to get her back. This brother-in-law was coming to take the older brother, who had been the surviving fraternal twin of an earlier pregnancy that was actually an unwanted pregnancy, back to Japan. This passenger record verified that story. Wow. By the way, this group was here to visit the

site of Camp Topaz here in Utah where their family members had been interred during WWII. I then ran h9me for lunch and to change into to a suit to go pick up Sister Rol from the Go Forth meeting. She was very excited to be in our zone. I walked with her to the library and introduced her to some of the missionaries and then did an orientation of our zone. She was amazed at how much had changed since she had previously served here. That was back in 2017-2018. She is excited to learn though and will be a great addition to our zone. I then went home and watched the BYU vs SMU game. Wow, BYU has a defense! Still not convinced with Ratzlaff though. He missed way too many passes and his silly interception just about cost them the game. 

Saturday I went for a 28 mile ride and did it in my best time yet. No wind helps a lot. When I got to the library I started working on some ZL stuff and was asked to help a Netherlands family. There were seven of them so they put them in our computer classroom. When I got in there many of them had already started trees or had looked up records and found they were linked to OpenArchives. So I explained to the whole group how to search and how to save record sources and hen just went around from the father and mother to the the boys and I think a sister-in-law and help each with what hey were working on. Hey found tons of records. Then they brought in another man who was from Louisiana but needed help with his grandfather’s records in The Netherlands. So I helped him search  and we found a naturalization record that showed his grandfather was from Helligom, South Holland, Netherlands. But when we went to OpenArchives and WieWasWie we couldn’t find any records with him. He only knew his grandmother’s Americanized first name, no maiden name, so we couldn’t look for her family. She is still alive as well so I told him he needs to contact her

and get some info from her and then used here sites to find records. He was happy to try that. Then one of the sons of the family turned and said, “We are related to kings!” He had connected into an existing tree and it went back to Dutch and English royalty. Fun times. They were very happy and left telling me how fun and addictive this was. Wahoo, maybe more converts to family history. I then was asked to help another guest with Netherlands research. It turned out she had a marriage record from a Dutch Reformed Church of New York and couldn’t read it. I deciphered the names and that the bride was a widow...weduwe. That

was surprising to her, but then she remembered a pedigree chart that she had found in her in-laws stuff and when we looked on there it indicated she was a widow as well. She then just kept asking me questions and helping her look up other records and I spent way too long there. I finally told her I needed to fill my floor lead assignment and was able to nicely move on. I did do the floor lead assignment the rest of the night and then closed our floors and headed home at 6pm. I got a hot dog for dinner and watched some college football and went to bed a bit earlier than usual.

Today was stake conference. Our theme was Becoming One. All of the talks were about becoming one with Christ or with our ward or with our community. Good stuff. I came home and had some cereal and started this post. Now I am finished and ready to take a nap or call Mom. 

Hope you had a great week. Looking forward to Mom coming home on Tuesday. 

Love you all.

BE GOOD!

Dad