Week of January 8, 2017

This week was a challenge as Ted and I were both somewhat sick. I was just recovering from a cold that began last week and Ted was just catching one. I taught classes three days so I wasn’t able to take the time off, but I did sleep in most days and that felt good. 

We were able to tour the nearly completed Discovery Center in the library. It is an interactive experience where guests can learn about famous people they’re related to and some of the general information about names and world events at time of birth. They have studio rooms for recording audio stories and a photo setting to get pictures taken in front of famous locations. It was a fun experience. They had opened it to missionaries and staff to test run some of the things, so some of it wasn’t working, but it was fun.

My classes went well. I taught Basic IrfanView which is one of my favorites. I had prepared ahead a document that incorporated all the things we’d talked about in the lesson and asked the students to open the file and do what was needed to get the results I put on the screen. The document is a draft card with two pieces—front and back. It was interesting working with the students to help them get to the desired result. They all did well in the end and that is the real test of learning.

Several of our classes have been bumped from the reserved classrooms because we have low priority. Since the Discovery Center is moving to the library there will be more guest classes there which will mean even more difficulty in finding a classroom. We are trying to move our classes to the Joseph Smith Building because that lab will not have as much demand once the Discovery Center is open.

I taught Descendancy Research later in the week. I enjoy this class. I teach it from a different angle than most people and I think it works much better than the norm. After the teaching we helped the students get started doing the research and most were able to get into it and find some good records to clean up, add sources, and even temple work. The general reaction was very positive.

On Saturday I spent almost all day trying to get some of our personal things up to date. I have let things slide for too long so it was a tangle to clean up. At noon we met with members of our social group for lunch and visiting. We haven’t been getting together much, but now we will be split between the two different church branches so it becomes more important to get together to keep our friendships strong. We had 13 people come so that was good. It was fun visiting and just getting out.