Week of January 10, 2016

This week was unusual in a couple of ways. We were teaching our Capstone classes for missionaries that are going home shortly. We had seven students and they all worked in areas where they did not interact directly with guests to the Library. They were very receptive to our teaching. Ted taught his first class on the Research Process. His was the last of three units and discussed evaluating evidence found in our research to determine if it is of value. He did a good job. I taught Researching Historical Records which is very involved and covers indexed and non-indexed records and various ways to search. The teacher before me had left me with about 10 minutes more than planned, but I still had to stretch to get through it all. I think it went OK, but I need to tighten it up because I won’t have that extra time with the new missionaries next week.

When we were not teaching we sat in on discussions with the other half of the Training Zone. They are in the process of redesigning their modules and trimming them down. It’s all part of an overall re-do of the teaching modules to get rid of duplication and simplify what is taught so the new missionaries can absorb more of what is taught. Pres. Larson of our mission presidency spoke to us the first of the week and gave us a brief summary of where they are headed with training. Much of it will eventually be online and available to the missionaries before they arrive in the mission so the trainers can be of more help to them in areas they need to be stronger in. I really enjoyed some of the discussion and it was interesting to listen to the various trainers and learn from them. They did some major realigning of class content, but it now needs to be submitted to the Training Council for approval and refinement.

The other thing that happened was that our supervisor’s wife became ill in the middle of the week and will be out for a couple of weeks. As we looked at the makeup of our group and their respective release dates, it became obvious that there will be some big changes in our group in the next couple of months. Of the nine of us in our group, all but 4 are due to be released in the next few months. That means the remaining missionaries need to be ready to teach all the classes after the others are gone. Ted and I have been here two months and the other full-time has been here only a month longer. We are enjoying the work and learning so much, but we need to get better at teaching very quickly.

As I was working on my family history this week I found a family that lists 7 children. The census records indicate they had 12 children with 5 living so I spent much of the week looking for the lost children. I have checked everything I know how to find and there is nothing there. I’m really not sure where else to look for these children, but they are in my thoughts much of the day and I keep trying new angles. While I was looking for them I found some really interesting things in the early Church records, like a card giving the date my dad was blessed as a baby and the record of my grandpa, my dad’s father, showing his blessing date and the date he was baptized. I am really enjoying this journey.

We had our monthly Mission Conference this week as well. They give us a new reading challenge every quarter. Starting in February we are challenged to read the Doctrine & Covenants three times in three months. Each month has its own direction. That will be a big challenge. I really like our mission presidency. They have some great insights and give good direction to us as missionaries.

We attended the Jordan River Temple and the Oquirrh Mountain Temple this week. They are both really beautiful buildings and it was a good experience. We are hoping to visit all the temples in our mission while we’re here. Jordan River is closing in two weeks for major renovation so we wanted to get there before it closed. We found out quite by accident that Oquirrh Mountain is closing for maintenance after this week so we were happy to get there as well.