Week of June 12, 2016

Sunday we went to the broadcast, our choir sang in church, we did Preach My Gospel with the missionaries, and we went home teaching. It was a good day.

Monday Ted and I spoke in the mission devotional for 3 minutes each. There were two other couples and two single sisters as well. It’s a pretty tight schedule, but it was an uplifting, meeting. We were supposed to tell about ourselves and share a spiritual experience. I shared that while I have been doing Swedish research there have been several times when I have lost track of a person or a family. At those times I have prayed for help finding them. Almost without fail, I have found the trail again within a short time, usually while looking for someone else. It has been a really good experience in having the Lord’s help in my life. We had another staff meeting to finalize plans for our classes this week since we are introducing a new curriculum. I spent time in the afternoon reviewing my notes and making sure I knew how to present the material so I didn’t run across issues that weren’t pertinent.

Tuesday we started our new Capstone curriculum. The lady I sat next to was very disappointed that she did not get the other classes that she had expected. She is going home this month, so she doesn’t have a second chance. I copied the handouts from Capstone 1 to her flash drive for her, so she was grateful for that. We received notice Monday night that the Presiding Bishopric needed the lab at 10:30, so we had to cut our class by half an hour. It went pretty well. There is room for improvement, but it is hard to say whether the shortfalls were due to hurrying or to unnecessary material. We were able to include one of the sections we’d planned for Wednesday so I could have the entire class time.

I spent some time doing some Swedish research and felt like I made some good progress. I need to find a way to show how the families connect to each other because I am finding it a little difficult to keep track of them. Some of them change their names each generation or church book depending on which farm they are living on. They also tend to have repeated names every generation. It is very confusing. I also need to be able to see what still is needed to finish families.

Wednesday I presented the class on Descendancy research. It went well and most people said they understood what was going on. I taught and demonstrated for two hours then they had an hour to do research on their own family tree in preparation for writing a plan on Friday. Most of them caught on and were finding people—or at least they appeared to have done so. I felt very encouraged. I need to shorten the demonstration and give them more time for their research. I felt really drained afterward, physically and spiritually. The students responded favorably and that’s always good.

In the evening I walked with my French friend. She told me she enjoys practicing her English. I taught her “take off your shoes” and “lean against the wall” while we were talking about my class. I told her my feet really hurt so I took off my shoes. She suggested that next time I lean against the wall to support my back. We came home through the Kimball Cemetery where Heber C. Kimball and many of his family are buried. It is a peaceful little place with very aromatic trees. And it is near our apartments.

Thursday I worked on finding birth and death dates for some of the people I’ve found. I made a few updates to my handouts, prepared notes for Friday’s class, and did some more research.

Friday the class didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. We were supposed to take the work we’d done Wednesday to find a person and write a plan to teach someone else to find the person. This is part of the Find, Take, Teach program where the family history consultant does advanced research to help someone have a positive first experience in family history without spending hours of time researching. We wanted them to practice with their own family tree. The ones who had done the worksheet Wednesday and were ready were able to move quickly to the plan. It turned out that many of the students we thought had found an ancestor to use did not understand or they couldn’t find the person again in spite of their notes. It seemed really chaotic. We spent quite a bit of time helping them one on one to find people and to help them get their plans written. We then spent a few minutes with pairs teaching each other from their plans and I think that went well. We finally had one man demonstrate his plan before the class. Most of the students felt the class was of value and I felt good about it overall.

I spent the afternoon updating some handouts and then doing Swedish research. I had one of the staff experts look at the records I had and give me some direction. We looked in some church accounts and found records that helped to prove the marriage timing for a couple. Plus I learned a lot about the way things worked. Apparently, the only recourse after the church books run out is the tax lists, so I need to go back to those and see if I can find a father for some of the ends I have come to.

Saturday we had our first turn at the swap meet sheds accepting donations. We had a couple of people that cleaned out their apartments and brought furniture and lots of stuff to donate. Our neighbor brought several pictures from her apartment—she feels it is totally bare. She brought a deck chair which we kept and took back home. It was sort of fun visiting with the people and seeing what was being donated. There are so many missionaries going home this week that the mission is really going to be hurting soon.