Week of November 9, 2015

Monday we started early with a mission devotional at the Joseph Smith Building. We are the largest mission in the Church number-wise with about 1200 missionaries. Area-wise, we are the smallest with just the Church buildings around Temple Square included. We had a brief meeting with the mission presidency then got individual pictures taken. We will be training for two weeks and then get our mission assignments. We also had couple pictures taken with the mission president and his wife. There was an orientation meeting then a luncheon with the mission presidency. We sat next to Pres. and Sister Tate. It turned out they had graduated from the same high school as I did, the same year as my sister Cathy. It also turned out we are distant cousins with common 3^rd great grandparents. One of the other missionaries is descended from the same grandparents. Small world!

Elder and Sister Roeth - Pres. and Sister Tate

Tuesday we left early for morning devotional. It appears we will begin each day at 7:30 am with a devotional. I guess there is no more sleeping in for us. The weather looks like it could snow, but it has been fairly warm the last three days. We watched a video clip about Joseph Smith’s life. It was a very moving experience—he really suffered incredibly for his teachings.

We had a group picture taken with the mission presidency. They wanted the tallest men to be on the back row of risers with their wives. Ted was the tallest so he was put right in the middle with everyone else moving out from him. After pictures we were assigned to our trainers. We will spend one on one time with them for the next two weeks to teach us how to use Family Tree to do family history. Only half can be with trainers at one time so our group stayed in the lab the rest of the morning in classroom instruction.

After lunch we spent about 1 ½ hours with our trainers. My trainer is Sister Pilz who happens to have a son in Las Vegas. She is amazing. She is on her 5^th mission here and is really sharp. She had looked at my family lines and was prepared to make me work. She had me correct some dates and places on my family lines to be in standardized formats. She also showed me what to look for to find potential research hints for individuals. She gave me a list of names and I proceeded to search and add information, thinking I was working on some of her family. There was one name that looked like it might be mine that I was to work on at home, but I asked her who the other people were. She said it was someone from my family. I looked for him again at home in the evening, but I could not find any way for that man to connect with our family. As it turned out, he was related to the other person she is training and somehow he got on the wrong list.

My cousin Jane Hales Ricks is a volunteer doctor for senior missionaries. When I went by the clinic today she was in and we were able to connect and have a very brief visit on my way to training. When we finished the day and were on our way home it was cold and raining lightly. I was glad to get home to our warm apartment. Our apartment is nice. It has a living room, kitchen, bedroom, walk-in closet, bathroom, and a good-sized closet/cupboard for storage. We have a balcony and out onto the common area where there is a small gazebo. There are 9 buildings with three stories each. We have no dishwasher, but we do have a brand new hot water heater that was replaced today because we had to call twice already to have it reset.

Wednesday we had two classes and two one-on-one training sessions. Sister Pilz is really great to answer questions. I feel like I must not have known very much because there is so much I am learning. After our training we attended the temple. It was a great experience. It is fairly chilly out in the mornings and evenings so I was glad to be home after the short walk. It is really nice to have everything so close.

Thursday we had a great devotional. We had a video presentation by a former member of the mission presidency about the difference between genealogy and family history. He talked about family history giving life to ancestors and there is much we can learn even when there is limited documentation about them. After we returned home we did the wash. We have a laundry room in our apartment complex, so it’s fairly convenient. After dinner Ted and I went over some of the things we had learned to make sure we understood. It will take practice. Things didn’t always work the way I had thought they would, but that just gives me more questions for Sister Pilz.

Friday we trained on correcting relationships. It was very interesting. Every day I am more aware of how little I really understood and used the capabilities of the system. It is so flexible and can do so much that we don’t even take advantage of. At my one-on-one with Sister Pilz she showed me some things in her sources and we made some corrections and fixes in the system. It seems like the time always goes so quickly.

Near the end of our session we were called for our interviews with the president and his wife. It turned out we were also interviewed by the two counselors and their wives and by the zone leader of the training zone. It was not at all what I expected. We had just a few minutes with each while they asked a brief question or two. The zone leader asked us to tell them about our experience with family history. The second counselor asked us about ourselves and our families. The first counselor asked us what spiritual impressions we’d received about what we would like to do. I’m sure the president asked us what we would like to do, but when we got to his office, he told us the other couple we are related to had made him a CD of family pictures. He also showed us a biography of his ancestor Mary Isabella Hales. He told us he was glad he’d had the opportunity to visit with us at the luncheon since our time was so short.

We enjoyed visiting with several missionaries at lunch. We all discussed the interviews and it was very interesting to me to hear what each of them hoped to be assigned to. None of them were the same and most were very strongly inclined to one area or another.

Saturday was a great day! I was able to get so much done. I was able to get things more organized so I can function better. I spent time visiting with my sister Cathy about a family line that is really messed up. She gave me some information and we will reconvene in a week to try to sort it out. Someone incorrectly merged at least two people and they need to be separated. We did some real grocery shopping then attended a Utah Symphony concert that Sister Pilz gave us tickets for. Fantastic!