Week of January 22, 2017

Our mission presidency developed a reading program for the next 13 weeks that is intended to focus our lives on Christ. Sunday we had our first lesson in Relief Society based on our reading program. It was really great. The teacher asked six sisters to share life experiences that had brought them closer to the Savior. It was amazing and I was very touched by the strength of the women.

Monday at inservice we had a man from the Granite Mountain Vaults come to talk with us about what they do. The young elders pull and re-file about 3000-4000 microfilms every day. One young elder alone had done about 36,000 while he worked there. Apparently, they have to climb very tall ladders to access some of the films. The man spoke very highly of the young elders and the opportunity to work with them.

In the evening we had our Hail and Farewell dinner. It was the first time for the new branch so there were many who had not been there before. At the end the young elders sang to us and it was touching, as usual. I am not sure what it is about these young men, but they have a great spirit about them that touches my heart.

Tuesday at inservice Pres. Larson spoke about the history of the change to the training zone and his testimony of the work. The training zone will be using computer-based learning from now on, starting with the new group of missionaries that come next week. They piloted the program with 7 seniors in the last group and it worked well for all ranges of experience and ability. Some of the trainers will be reassigned to other zones, some will be lab helpers, some will be checking the learning of the trainees. There will be no one-on-one training as it has been in the past. There was a good feeling during the discussion, so I’m assuming there will be a fairly cooperative spirit when it rolls out.

In the afternoon I taught “Searching Historical Records” which I really enjoy teaching and haven’t done for several months. As I reviewed the material in preparation it occurred to me that sometimes names are difficult to find because the handwriting is hard to read so they have been indexed incorrectly. I suggested the students write some names, very quickly and very sloppily, and see how they could be misinterpreted.

Wednesday afternoon we had a class on writing stories. This was Elder Stokes last class. I spent the time trying to write and edit a story about my Grandma Farnsworth and when we used to play Rook at her home. It was a fun exercise and I think it turned out pretty well. I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on some of my personal memories and try to get them expressed. I really need to get my personal history written or when I am gone there will be nothing of me left.

On the way home today I stopped at the swap meet sheds to put a few things away and spent some time reorganizing a few things so it wasn’t so cluttered. I was supposed to walk with my friend from France, but when she got there it was too late to walk. Instead she asked for help repacking her suitcase because she was leaving in the morning and she’d had a suitcase that was over the limits. Ted and I helped he reweigh her suitcases and rearrange a few things in them. By the time we rearranged everything, we were able to pack her picture of Christ she didn’t think she’d have room for. I will miss her and the opportunity to learn from her.

When we finished and got home it was later than hoped. I still had to finish reading my readings for the day and I still had to review my lesson for the morning. I was glad I did because I had some inspiration about what I needed to add to the teaching to make it better. I suggested that if there is a difficult name to find to think of how it may have been pronounced by the ancestor if he had a strong foreign accent and how an unfamiliar ear might have heard and written that name. Compound that with an unfamiliar eye reading the word. How might it have been said, then heard, then read.

Thursday after I ate part of my breakfast I hurried over to get the rest of my friend’s stuff before she left. I gave her one last hug, took one last walk through the apartment after she left, and turned out the lights. I went home, finished getting ready, and went to work. It was a good start to the day to be of service to someone.

At inservice we had several of the engineers from the mobile apps area come to help us learn to use the family tree app. I had trouble getting wifi on my phone so I was a little limited in what I did, but the app was great. I went to the mezzanine to pick up a different network and got connected. I sat in one of the nice chairs and looked at the app for a few minutes. I had been there about 5 minutes when a lady next to me suddenly asked, “How long have you been sitting there?” She was the hostess at the desk and hadn’t noticed me. I hadn’t noticed her either. We had a good visit but it was weird we had neither one seen the other since we were only about 3 feet apart. It was interesting and I shared with her some of what we had learned. One of the startling things the engineers had told us was that internet access from mobile devices exceeded that from desktop computers for the first time in November 2016. Incredible.

After that I worked on an assignment two of us had been given. I had received an email saying I needed to meet with the lady in charge of library training to discuss our request for access to the training material, so I tried to find her. I was able to meet with her and an assistant. They didn’t want us to take the approach we had planned on but we could have access to the training material and the certification questions. And the scope of what we are doing is much more limited than we had thought.

My class started with about 5 students, but the classroom filled almost completely before we were very much into it. I think it went well and I enjoyed teaching the class. A couple of people came up afterward and told me they had really learned a lot and appreciated the class. That is always nice.

Friday we had a late class. It allowed me to take a little more time doing things so I wasn’t so rushed. In class I was assisting an elder. The biggest problem we had was finding a source for one of his ancestors. We practiced the process being taught 4-5 times, then tried to straighten out his Ancestry.com account for which he didn’t know the password, using the email account he couldn’t remember the password for. We also signed him up for another account. He was pleased. He was a quick learner so it was fun.

I spent about 45 minutes with another trainer writing a rough draft for our assignment. I continued to work on it while she taught her class. I got it all the way to the end, very rough, but at least a basis of what we need to do. I came up with some activities that were unique for the assessment part of the assignment and I sent it to her for review.

Saturday it was our turn at the swap meet sheds. We spent a couple of hours organizing and receiving things from several people for the swap meet next weekend. I spent most of my time hanging clothes, sorting them as I went so we didn’t have to spend time doing that. I did all the clothes I found so we should be a bit ahead. Ted reorganized the second shed. People had put furniture right at the front so nothing more could get in. We were able to move quite a bit over from the first shed. He then sorted bags of stuff and was able to clear up several things off the floor. Ted went out later and shoveled the snow in front of the sheds—there is still a lot of ice left there.