Week ninety-eight is finished and our final week begins. Most of this final week will be packing and cleaning and interviews and doing “stuff”…only two days in the library. Gonna be strange. But enough of that, here’s what we learned this week.
I decided I wanted to ride the indoor bike every day this week, so up I got on Monday morning and did another
Ireland:Coast to Coast ride. I have been doing these for two reasons; 1) because it is an advanced level ride, so it makes me work a bit more, and 2) I have learned so far that these are the only rides on
iFit that last longer than a half hour. After my ride I quickly got changed and off to the library we went. It was a pretty normal (for this time of the year) day, so I had lots of time to work on my own family history. I spent quite a bit of time adding picture images to the links I had already found of the records for Eric Holmberg and Lena Andersdotter, for I have learned that if you don’t have a subscription to
ArkivDigital you won’t be able to view the links that I had previously added. We also had a few people in the library give us some
going away gifts. Charlie
English, who dubbed himself the resident cartoonist, gave us this little cartoon he drew. Then Kim Hong gave us a quilt that she had made for us. I kind of thought that might happen because she had made one for the previous zone leaders, the Deckers. For that quilt she had cut out a whole bunch of plain white squares and had given one to each of us missionaries and asked us to write our favorited scripture reference and our name. I had done 1 Nephi 2:15 for them of course. The final product was very nice and they loved it. Well for us, Kim decided to use Hawaii style fabrics and make a star design. When she finished it she had Nancy Black, who has the quilting machine that did the quilting for the blankets Mom made for Auggie and Mara, quilt our blanket as well. She did a fun floral/coral design. It is a very nice quilt and we were touched. In the evening I was asked to go down to the B2 floor to help Steve. He is a regular here in the library and I have helped him before. Most of his research is in the Nordic
countries. This time he was in Norway. He was trying to sort out the correct father for a Thorkild (can’t remember the surname). So we went looking and I was able to use
DigitalArkivet to figure out who his correct parents were, but then he wanted to know their birthdates and parents. I found their marriage record that said where they were from and hoped to go there to find a birth record, but the place was somewhere I had never heard of nor could find in any Norway Farm reference books. So I called down Tanner, the specialist to help. He too never heard of this place, nor could he find it, but very quickly he suggested we see if there was a census record for that time period that they appeared in that might give us more info. Census record, duh! Why didn’t I think of
that? Of course there was, and we found the parish where it indicated they were born, but then it was close to closing, so Steve said he would come back another day to find the rest of the info. We didn’t have to close the library, they have new assistant zone leaders to do that, so we ran home real quick to change into “missionary attire” for the Brother Lund devotional. He is the
Young Men General President and he, and a little bit his wife but mostly him, spoke to us.
He was fun. Lots of stories and experiences about meeting with saints all over the world. He told one story about a family he met in a Malawi refugee camp. When they met with them the Area Presidency member asked where their oldest son was. They told them that he had a great desire to serve a mission. He had gone to the mission president in Malawi and
asked if he could start mission papers. The mission president indicated he needed to ask some questions of some of his leaders first and would get back to him. When he met with him again he indicated that in order for him to be a missionary he would need a passport from his home country. Since he had fled that country and it was dangerous to go back he was honorably excused from being a missionary. A few days later he had scaled the fence of the refugee encampment and had begun to walk the many many day journey back to his home country. He traveled at night and stayed off the roads to be undetected. He had arrived in his home town and had found where
they issue passports. He stayed in the basement of their abandoned home and then got up early to be first in line and hopefully out before any of the warring soldiers would be on the streets to see if he could obtain a passport. They had indeed allowed him to apply and now he was awaiting his passport arrival and would travel back to the family as soon as he had it. He had sent a letter to his family explaining all of this to them. Wow, now that is desire. We came home after the devotional and watched another Christmas movie…
Destined at Christmas…which stars Casey Elliot who has had a role as Satan in the temple video as well as Joseph in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat production here in the Eccles Theater. Mom got to go that with Sharon Pruner and said she thought he was the best Joseph she has seen yet. Mom had actually already watched this one, so she went to work in the kitchen and I watched on my own. At the end I realized I had seen the last 10 or 15 minutes when Mom had originally watched it, but I watched to the end anyway.
Tuesday was another early ride in the gym then back to get ready quickly before the Carpenters showed up to play mahjong. I won the first game very quickly having received kind of an odd, but coordinating assortment of tiles and only needed a couple more to win and I got them! Wahoo. Rob was the big winner of the day though. We then went to lunch with them at the COB and I got salad. I got enough for dinner as well. We weren’t in the library long before I was asked to go down to B2 to help…that’s right, Steve. He was back. So we went at it and found a ton of
things. We didn’t need any help from Tanner and I spent almost an hour and a half finding documents to help him connect and verify families. I then went to work on my own mysteries, in particular Lena Andersdotter. I decided to try what I had done with Eric Holmberg…using children’s birth records and checking the witnesses’ names and places of residence to see if I could get more clues. In the second record I looked at I found a Maja Andersdotter from this little place called Dumstugan. When I went there I found only Maja and her husband listed as living there AND it gave a birthdate for Maja (Maria). So I went to the birth records and found hers. It told me that her parents were Anders Andersson and Cherstin Ersdotter and they were from Hällby. That was the clue I needed. I had previously found a birth record of an Helena Andersdotter in 1778 in Hällby, but all the
records I had previously found with Lena had stated her birth year to be either 1774 or 1779. But then going to household records I was able to trace her forward to where she ended up in Sörby right before she was married. I showed all of this to Norm Baker, who is a service missionary that has been doing Nordic research for many many moons and he agreed
that I had found the correct individual and parents. Wahoo! We closed the library at 8pm and went home. I got a snack and then decided it was time to watch a classic Christmas movie. I chose
Elf. I like that one. Probably the only Will Ferrell movie that I like. I have learned that I don’t like
over actors as I call them…Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, etc. They’re just too over-the-top for me. But in this movie it seemed to work, since Buddy was already an unreal person and didn’t act like a regular human. Anyway, I had fun watching it one more time.
Wednesday was Pday again. I rode in the morning and then came home to find Mom teaching more bread making skills to Anja. She decided to get a little more fancy with her design on this loaf. I took some time to sort through my clothes and figure out what stuff I wanted to keep and what I wanted to give away. I also disposed of some old garments as I plan to buy some new ones before I leave. Then while Mom was gone getting some things done I deep cleaned our second bathroom and gathered up all the things for D.I., but since Mom had the car I couldn’t take them over there. So I did some reading and watching of
Elementary until about 4pm when Sami and Sharon came to play mahjong. I have learned that statistics are correct, but now and then you get to be part of something that is a super long shot. Sami won one of the games with 6 jokers. There are only 8 jokers in the game. What are the odds? I actually checked the internet to see if anyone had calculated that. No luck. Not even the AI guys could find an answer. After mahjong I took Sharon and Sami home and then
stopped at Costco to get gas, since we were a bit low and we were going to the temple the next day and wouldn’t have time to get any before we went. When I got home I asked Mom if she wanted to watch a movie, maybe a Christmas one? She said she wanted to watch a
classic, but I learned she REALLY meant a
classic. She wanted to watch Rudolph, the old 1964 version. So I checked to see if any of the streaming services had it available. I finally found it on Plex and we sat and watched and felt like little kids again when we got to see it once a year when one of the three major stations, ABC, CBS or NBC would show it during Christmas time. If you didn’t make note of when it was going to be on, or had something else happening at that time, you just missed it that year. Sadness.
Thursday morning about 2am I awoke with heartburn. Too much cookie dough the night before. Ugh. So I laid there for awhile and the song we are going to sing for the zone Christmas social started rambling through my head. I couldn’t get it to stop, so I got up and found the
Tums and my copy of the sheet music for the song and sat in the living room going over and over the song. I think I now have it pretty much mezmorized. I then just grabbed a blanket and slept on the couch so I wouldn’t wake up Mom going back to bed. I woke up just in time to make it down to ride, but got back with not much time to get ready. Mom walked to library before me and I drove in a little bit later. Mom worked on some Christmas social stuff and I was an usher. Then we went to lunch with Debbie Gurtler and Lynn Turner, the Assistant Director and Director respectively, of the
FamilySearch Library. They explained that they liked to take the zone leaders that are finishing their missions to lunch as a way to say thank you and to see if there are any insights we would like to share, kind of like and exit interview.
They took us to
The Cheesecake Factory and gave us this nice photo of the library as a thank you gift. Very nice of them. We’ll have to find a wall in our house where we can display it along with our 9 generation fan chart. When we got back to the library I went to work on that fan chart and discovered that there are two Abraham Phillips in New York Census records…one married to a Lydia and the other to a Catherine. Both lived into their 70’s and were together in the census for that year. Now I have to figure out which is our Abraham Phillips. More investigation to come. We then went to our last temple excursion with our Thursday single sister missionaries. We went to the Bountiful Temple and did a sealing and endowment session. I unfortunately did not get a picture.
Friday we had a full T/R day. When I awoke I noticed an email that said that our Christmas gift for the Burley family had been canceled, so I spent about 45 minutes chatting and speaking with people from Amazon to try to figure out why it had been canceled. It seems they are out of inventory. So I could reorder it and it would be delivered January 3rd or we would have to go elsewhere and find one that could get there by Christmas. I decided to go ahead and order it right away, just to make sure I could get it and then I texted Burley to see what he wanted to do. We decided to find it somewhere else. So he did, and I ordered it, and it was going to be available to pick up that day. Wahoo. I then went and rode for an hour and a half and came back to get ready to go drop off things at DI and see if they might have a suit for me. Mom came with and I did find a suit and Mom found some dishes
for Sami. Then we went to WinCo for some things and finally to Trader Joe’s for a
Kringle and some
Peppermint Joe Joe’s. Yum! Then it was home and since Mom has been doing so much packing and cleaning I decided it was time for me to do some packing. So I actually ended up packing all of my clothes, except for the ones I will be wearing this next week. So all of my dresser drawers are empty and my closet just has a couple of things left hanging in it. I think that qualifies me to be officially classified as
trunky. I then saw there was an update email about the gift for the Burleys. It said that their gift was going to arrive by December 20th now. So I verified that it was actually shipped and texted Burley. He hadn’t picked up the replacement one yet so I canceled it and said I would keep tabs on the Amazon one to make sure it was actually coming. I checked this morning and it has “left the shipper facility” in Indiana and is on its way to Washington, so it looks like it will definitely make it by Christmas. Wahoo! I learned from surfing
streaming channels that
Red One the movie that was just in the theaters last month is now available on
Prime so Mom and I sat down and watched. It was ok. Kind of a typical Dwayne Johnson action movie with a Santa Claus theme. It was kind of fun to see Chris Evans in a different role other than Captain America. We then went back to cleaning and stuff. I know this picture doesn’t look like we are cleaning, but this is the result of Mom going through every cabinet and cupboard in the kitchen and deciding what is the mission’s and stays, and what we are either keeping or giving away. She has cleaned those cabinets and cupboards as she has gone through them. Lots of work! Then she took a break and went to play pickleball and I watched one of the NCAA volleyball tournament games. It was a great match between Texas A&M and Wisconsin and went 5 games (sets). Fun times. I finished the night watching some more
Elementary.
Saturday started with another ride. This time I did two different 34 and 38 minute intermediate “fat burning” rides, which I learned are basically rides with lots of climbing. Needless to say I was sweating profusely at the end. We then went into the library, but Mom went home with a headache. She hadn’t slept well. I spent an hour up in
Memory Lane just sitting there because everyone was doing just fine and the one elder that was there could have handled it all by himself, but I guess they like to have two. I then worked on my own family history a bit more…Andrew Jackson Brooks and Per Persson and Kirsten Nilsdotter. I found some
things for the latter two, but still not much for Andrew. I came home at 4:30 because Mom had asked for LOA then so that we could attend the Utah Phillips Family Christmas party up in North Ogden. Mom made some
Santa Lucia buns and some sourdough bread and we drove on up. It was so fun to see lots of cousins, and some of their kids, that I
haven’t seen for many moons. In chatting with Paul he told me about this song that his friend inspired from a dream he had back in 2002. He told me to look it up when I got home, which I did. I really like it. Here is the link to the YouTube music video someone created for it.
https://youtu.be/8vQkF0-pYN0?si=ueWjw7U4PqUujLn1 We chatted with Vic and Lisa and with Roy and Karen the most. We learned that Roy and Karen have been asked to serve another humanitarian mission. They returned earlier this year from Iraq and have been asked to go to Cairo, Egypt for two years beginning January 20th.
They will not have official recognition as a humanitarian organization there, so they are going to try to develop some contacts and connections to hopefully get that set up for the future. Exciting times. We stopped at Walmart to get a storage tub to bring home our Christmas garland in and then drove on home. When we got here Mom had just finished
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and wanted to watch the movie. So we stayed up until midnight watching that. Mom actually fell asleep (shocker) during the dragon scene so she rewinded it to watch it. I went to bed.
Today I got up and learned that Mom had awakened in the night and went out to read and then sleep on the couch. I read for a while in anticipation that I might be teaching Gospel Doctrine class again. I hadn’t heard anything one way or another so I wasn’t sure, but it is always good to be prepared. We went to church and as we walked in I saw Sister Cox’s daughter (Sister Cox is the other Gospel Doctrine teacher) and I assumed that meant her mom would be there for the class. I learned that my assumption was correct about five minutes later when she and her husband walked in to the chapel. So we attended our last meetings in this ward. Another
last. One highlight of this ward has been the musical talent that so many of its members have. Today was no disappointment. They had 4 young ladies do the following violin quartet number. I only recorded the first verse, but the whole thing was great.
https://1drv.ms/u/c/1746973ad9f587ba/EV5pgw9LUpVMlQ60dBxNoQQBmWh-343g8-Zjn010524RmgI hope that link works. When they finished their song, a little boy behind us said, “Ho, Ho, Ho. Merry Christmas!” pretty loudly. It was cute. But what I thought was cool was that he was connecting a wonderful Christmas carol,
Away in a Manger, with Santa and everything else that goes with Christmas. I can relate! I have always felt like the Santa gift giving and joy that he brings is much like our Heavenly Father and His gift giving that we celebrate at this time of year. He gave the greatest gift of all and I am grateful for the joy That gift brings into my life. We came home and got some more cleaning done (mostly Mom) in between writing this post. Now it is time to ship it off to you. My last post will come next week, maybe Sunday, maybe Friday when we are officially released. We’ll see.
BE GOOD!
Love you all.
Mom and Dad
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