Musings in Mongolia: June 2012

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Tourists and workers in Salt Lake City

June 24, 2012

Leahi's dream

We saw a small replica of an ancient stella that records the dream of Lehi found in the Book of Mormon, The Tree of Life.
Val and I visited this when we were on our honeymoon in 1966.

We have a picture at home of us standing next to this stella. It stands over 5 feet tall.

Another interesting and touching item we saw at the museum was a Sampler of the Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Mary Ann Broomhead created this sampler when she was 13 yrs old as a tribute to the fallen prophet. She embroidered the verse with her own hair.

Father’s Day – June 17. We attended the Tabernacle Choir Broadcast and visited with a couple of Russian speaking Temple Square missionaries afterwards. We like our new Sunday routine. Last week we found out that the Church History Museum was open on Sundays so we took a tour of the bottom floor showing the artifacts from early church history. It was engrossing. We made our Sacrament meeting at 2:00 pm. I had planned a nice roast beef meal for Val. Unfortunately, will all our activities it was a little over cooked. We ate it anyway.

This week was a combination of more computer and family history training in the mornings and auditing records in the afternoon followed by Skyping lessons in Mongolian everyday but Wednesday. We loved the additional boost of family history training we are getting on the computer before we go to Mongolia. It is invaluable to both of us. We each had our own individual tutor this week. I has been my dream to have this kind of training. A dream come true.

On the other hand, I find the auditing of records very tedious and after a couple of hours I am ready for a change of activity. Doing Russian language helps break up the monotony. I like to look up the cause of death to see if I can decipher the records on my own. Cause of death is not included in the extracted data. A desk job would be hard for me. I admire the missionaries who spend their whole mission auditing and extracting records. It is hard work

It is official! We are going. We received an email from Sarah McBride detailing the plan for getting our visas and traveling to Mongolia with 7 to 10 days from June 22. We are short timers here and we are relieved.

We can only do so much Mongolian language here in the States. It is easy to forget what we learn if we don’t keep using it. It will be much better when we are in-country and having abundant challenges and opportunities to use the language. And we get there for Nadaam – July 11. It is the Mongolian’s big summer celebration (like our 4^th of July) complete with parades, horse racing, archery and wrestling events.

The Temple Square Mission. On Tuesday, we arranged to meet Sister Ulzicka Suhkbaatar at the Temple Square Mission office headquartered in the basement of the South Visitor’s Center. There are 180 sisters from around the world that serve in this mission. They rotate 40 sisters at a time to other missions for 4 months to give them a taste of regular proselyting work.

We didn’t learn all their duties but we found out they teach lessons to visitors, follow up with phone visits and teaching appointments with contacts they made on Temple Square. It is in the follow up visits they keep track of how many of their contacts are baptized into the church.

They also “man” a Call Center in the basement where they teach the gospel over the phone to people all over the world. 44 different languages are spoken by the Sisters. We see them paired up all around temple square leading tours, visiting with tourists and finding opportunities to visit and teach.

Our meeting with Sis. Suhkbaatar was incredibly touching and spiritual. When she first was introduced to us, she seemed struck and emotionless. She couldn’t or didn’t say anything. Then tears started streaming down her face. The person she associated most with her own conversion was Sister Farmer, our daughter. She wasn’t expecting us. The meeting was a surprise. Before long everyone was in tears. It must have taken her five minutes to gain her composure. She has a great deal of love for Tawny and good memories of “her” missionary.

Sis. Suhkbaatar’s brother is currently serving a mission in Mongolia and her older sister, Pujee, is planning on a mission once she finishes her degree at BYU this December. It was a sweet visit with Ulzicka and her companion, Sister Zorn, from Austria. We made arrangements to come back on Thursday to meet all three of the Mongolian Sisters and their companions, take pictures, gather contact information in Mongolia and to share family pictures of our own.

We met two young sisters from India and Switzerland who explained their work in the call center and how rewarding it is to teach over the telephone. I asked them what was the favorite part of their mission. They said that their favorite part was teaching the gospel to investigators over the phone. They work with the people along with the onsite missionaries. They can feel the spirit as they teach and they become very close to the people.

More socializing. We had a great evening with Jim Buck, a friend from Rapid City who now lives in Boise. He had driven down from Boise to see us (and another friend). His son David served in Mongolia at the same time as did Tawny. I fixed a Mexican meal in my much limited kitchen with limited ingredients but Val and Jim liked it. We shared memories. Jim went to Mongolia to pick up David after his mission was completed.

Farmers with Jim Buck

On Wednesday, our “T and R” half day off (temple and research), we met with Ron, Kathie and Trista. I went with Kathie to help her do some shoe and clothes shopping while Val met Trista at the Family History Library. She has a lot of work on her adoptive children’s genealogy. When we arrived at the library Kathie and Trista teamed and found a lot of information. Kathie is a very skilled genealogist and has been researching her lines for over 40 years. We ended the evening with a trip to an iconic Salt Lake City old fashioned hamburger restaurant – Hires – for root beer floats and hamburgers.

Ron and Kathie will enter the MTC next Wednesday prior to their leaving for their mission to Hungary. This will probably be the last time we’ll see them until our missions are completed.

We are planning to go to Logan next Thursday for the adoption of Alex, Lauren and Ryan into Darin and Trista’s family. It worked out that we will be here for that event (unless the Church travel department has other plans). Also there is a Pelfrey wedding and reception scheduled for next Saturday June 30^th if we don’t leave for Mongolia before that. It would be remarkable and special to be able to be a part of these two events – entirely unanticipated a month ago.

Other events of note. We ran into a computer problem and had to cancel our Friday Skyping lesson. We went to Best Buy to be rescued by their Geek Squad. It didn’t take them long to diagnose the problem – Windows Explorer had a big hiccup and wouldn’t let any other programs operate. We learned how to fix the problem in the future if it should happen again.

Saturday we went to the Salt Lake Temple for a session. It was a great experience to attend a temple session particularly in the Salt Lake temple while we are here and probably the last one before we head out for Mongolia.

The rest of the day was spent at the Family History Library. I am learning how to record images of census records, birth and death records, histories and pictures along with all their sources in my PAF files. All I take to the library with me is my flash drive….no pieces of paper to carry, store or organize. When I go to each person I have researched I know exactly what I’ve done and what information I have. Family history is so much easier that it was years ago.

Tyler called Saturday night and we had a nice visit about his work in Afghanistan and how he is faring there. He wanted to touch base with us before we leave for Mongolia. He has some contact with the Mongolia soldiers who are guarding the flight line at the airbase. He works 13 hours a day, seven days a week (no weekends off in war) and is involved in some highly interesting and highly classified work coordinating with other NATO and allied soldiers. Important stuff!

Next week should be our last full week before we fly out – if we make it that far! We are excited!

7th Week

June 24, 2012

Today is our 46^th Anniversary. We are going to celebrate by going to the Spoken Word broadcast, a Garden tour on top of the Conference Center, finish visiting the second floor of the Church History Museum and attend our afternoon church meetings. We also have a special meal planned.

Father’s Day – June 17. We attended the Tabernacle Choir Broadcast and visited with a couple of Russian speaking Temple Square missionaries afterwards. We like our new Sunday routine. Last week we found out that the Church History Museum was open on Sundays so we took a tour of the bottom floor showing the artifacts from early church history. It was engrossing. We made our Sacrament meeting at 2:00 pm. We had a special meal, burnt roast beef. We evidently were too ambitious of tourists.
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A Sister from Lativa and a Sister from Russia

This week was a combination of more computer and family history training in the mornings and auditing records in the afternoon followed by Skyping lessons in Mongolian everyday but Wednesday. We loved he additional boost of Family History Training we are getting before we go to Mongolia.

It is official! We are going. We received an email from Sarah McBride detailing the plan for getting our visas and traveling to Mongolia with 7 to 10 days from June 22. We are short timers here and we are relieved.

We can only do so much Mongolian language training with each other. It will be much better when we are in-country and finding out how much we don’t know and having abundant challenges with the language. And we get there for Nadaam – July 11. It is the Mongolian’s big summer celebration (like our 4^th of July) complete with parades, horse racing, archery and wrestling events.

We also heard that 4 of the 5 missionaries received their visas also while the 5^th, Elder Omori, is being transferred to an Arizona mission while waiting for his visa to come through. We feel for him as it will be tough to see his companions go while he endures a waiting game.

The Temple Square Mission. On Tuesday, we had arranged to meet Sister Ulzicka Suhkbaatar at the Temple Square Mission office headquartered in the basement of the South Visitor’s Center. There are 180 sisters from around the world that serve in this mission. They rotate 40 sisters at a time to other missions for 4 months to give them a taste of regular proselyting work.

We didn’t learn all their duties but we found out they teach lessons to visitors, follow up with phone visits and teaching appointments with contacts they made on Temple Square. It is in the follow up visits they keep track of how many of their contacts are baptized into the church.

They also “man” a call in Center in the basement where they teach the gospel over the phone to people all over the world. 44 different languages are spoken by the Sisters. We see them paired up all around temple square leading tours, visiting with tourists and finding opportunities to visit and teach.
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The Farmers with 3 Mongolian Sisters serving on Temple Square - Sis. Bat-Ulizie, Sis. Suhkbaatar and Sis. Enkbaatar

Our meeting with Sis. Suhkbaatar was incredibly special and spiritual. When she first was introduced to us, she seemed struck and emotionless. She couldn’t or didn’t say anything. Then tears started streaming down her face. The person she associated most with her own conversion was Sister Farmer, our daughter. She wasn’t expecting us. The meeting was a surprise. Before long everyone was in tears. It must of taken her five minutes to gain her composure. She has a great deal of love for Tawny and good memories of “her” missionary.

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Sisters Bat-Ulizie, Suhkbaatar and Enkbaatar

Sis. Suhkbaatar’s brother is currently serving a mission in Mongolia and her older sister, Pujee, is planning on a mission once she finishes her degree at BYU this December. It was an incredibly sweet visit with Ulzicka and her companion, Sister Zorn, from Austria. We made arrangements to come back on Thursday to meet all three of the Mongolian Sisters and their companions, take pictures, gather contact information in Mongolia and to share family pictures of our own.
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Mongolian sisters and their companions

Thursday came and we had another wonderful visit – less emotional – but special. We took some photos, exchanged family information etc. Sister Suhkbaatar has two months to go on her mission and we will see her soon in Mongolia. We also took a tour of the mission headquarters and found out about all the other things the Sister missionaries do besides teach and visit with tourists. We met two young sisters from India and Switzerland who explained their work in the call center and how rewarding it is to teach over the telephone.

More socializing. We had a great evening with Jim Buck, a friend from Rapid City who now lives in Boise. He had driven down from Boise to see us (and another friend). His son David served in Mongolia at the save time as did Tawny. Darlene fixed a special Mexican meal that would make the owners of the Red Iguana blush with envy. Jim Buck provided the Horchata (a rice, cimmamon drink), ice cream bars, limes and other key ingredients. We shared memories. Jim went to Mongolia to pick up David after his mission was completed.
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Jim Buck and friends

On Wednesday, our “T and R” half day off (temple and research), we met with Ron, Kathie and Trista. Darlene went with Kathie to do some shoe and clothes shopping to get ready for her Hungarian mission. I met Trista at the Family History Library to work on her adoptive children’s genealogy. Later Kathie and Trista teamed up to do even more. We ended the evening with a trip to an iconic Salt Lake City old fashioned hamburger restaurant – Hires – for root beer floats and hamburgers.

Ron and Kathie will enter the MTC next Wednesday prior to their leaving for their mission to Hungary. It looks like the last time we’ll see them until our missions are completed.
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Darlene with her brother Ron and Sister-in-Law Kathie

The Andersens

Tyler's call. Tyler called Saturday night and we had a nice visit about his work in Afgahnistan and how he is faring there. He wanted to touch base with us before we leave for Mongolia. Tyler works 7 days a week, 13 hour days providing intelligence to US and NATO troops in the field. The war doesn't take the weekends off.

He is involved in some highly interesting and highly classified work coordinating with other NATO and allied soldiers. Important stuff! He has some contact with the Mongolian soldiers who are guarding the flight line at the airbase.

Next week should be our last full week before we fly out – if we make it that far! We are excited!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

6th Week of Mission

Midweek update!

"Elder and Sister Farmer,

I received word from Mongolian that your invitation letters were issued. I can apply for the actual visa on Friday, June 22^nd and this process will take about 7-10 days. I will keep you updated but we should have you traveling to Mongolia within the next 2 weeks.

Thank you,
Sara McBride
LDS Missionary Travel"

We also understand that 4 out of the 5 missionaries received their visas as well and will be leaving on June 25th. The 5th, Elder Omori applied a little later than the others so he may be traveling with us.
6^th week of mission. We spent Sunday morning at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio broadcast from the LDS Church Conference Center in Salt Lake City. The music was exquisite, the audience appreciative and the message was “get acquainted with the marvels of where you live instead of traveling the globe in search of wonders.”
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Statue of the Christus at the North Visitor's Center

We lived up to this dictum by hiking up to the Utah State Capital and looking at all the monuments and memorials on the grounds, then watching a film on Joseph Smith, "The Prophet of the Restoration" at the North Visitor's Center, by taking pictures from the tenth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and finally attending the annual Chalk Art Fair at the Gateway Mall.

Utah State Capital

Still on our agenda is the Church History Museum and more visits to the Family History Library.
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Stunning Chalk Art entry

Father's Day Art

After the Tabernacle Choir broadcast, we watched the Temple Square missionaries speak their own languages to the group of tourists leaving the conference center. We were delighted to see Sister Enkhbaatar Uranchimeg from Mongolia addressing the crowd in Mongolian. We were the only ones who remotely understood what she was talking about. We visited with her afterward and she admitted that there aren’t many Mongolian tourists who make it to Temple Square.
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Sister Enkhbaatar Uranchimeg

The exercise is useful however in connecting foreign language visitors with the fact tours can be conducted in their own languages (quite useful for Spanish, German, Japanese and French speaking visitors) and highlights the world-wide nature of the church. The young sisters come from all over the world, learn English and tell the story of the church in English (mostly) to Temple Square visitors. We spoke to a member of the Temple Square Mission Presidency and he said that the missionaries were responsible for over a 100 converts this past month. We didn’t ask how they gather their statistics.

Temple Square missionaries speaking their language

Family History Mission. The week starts off with a mission-wide (400 missionaries) hour long testimony meeting with 12 -14 missionaries (senior couples, senior sisters or young elders) assigned to give brief accounts (3 minutes each) of their life histories and testimonies. It is at the same time both fascinating and inspiring. We really liked this meeting.

There was also a mission sponsored devotional on Wednesday at noon with Stewart Grow, an author and historian who has written a book on Parley P. Pratt – comparing him to a Latter-Day Apostle Paul. Grow told several stories from Pratt’s life and showed how a blessing given to him came true as his life unfolded. Parts of his blessing were absolutely prophetic (his mission to Canada) and other parts were fulfilled in ways Pratt would never had expected. He was promised prosperity but the blessing of prosperity came with riches of his posterity instead of worldly wealth.

Our work week settled into a routine with Darlene auditing Russian birth, death and marriage records while I did the same with Spanish language records. Later in the week I was asked to audit parts of the 1940 census which the Church is rolling out at a record pace. People (members or nonmembers) from all around the United States can participate in online indexing of these records. The census is about 1/3rd finished.

There is a sense of urgency about getting the work done though we auditors don’t understand the big picture deadlines with getting the census records online as quickly as possible. The people familiar with this breakneck speed of this work describe it as a “modern day miracle”. After work Monday, Tuesday and Friday we "Skyped" our Mongolian lessons from our teacher Bolormaa Jenkins at the MTC in Provo.

On Tuesday night I tried my hand at Norwegian farm record research and found out quickly that reading Norwegian is a big asset. I will make another attempt this week with a recommended expert. Darlene can audit Russian records and I can audit Spanish records but neither of us can do Norwegian or Danish records.

A chance (?) meeting with Munkhtseteg Stewart. On Monday after our Skyping lesson, we went to the tenth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to look at the sights of the city and to take a few pictures. We were joined by a couple – one of whom caught a glimpse of my Mongolian missionary name tag (while we are waiting for our visas, I am wearing my name written in Mongolian). She paused and later came up to us and asked where we were going to serve. I asked her if she could read the language on the name tag. She said she could.

It turns out that she was from Mongolia and was one of the main translators of the Book of Mormon from English into the Mongolian language. No doubt she could read my name tag.

Munkhtseteg is definitely famous and legendary in Mongolian church circles and it turns out well connected politically. Her cousin is in charge of church-governmental relations for the Church in Mongolia. Munkhtseteg said that all was being done that could be done on the visa issue and, in addition, members in Mongolia were fasting and praying for the visas to be given. Wow! We had no idea.

Monkhtseteg, translator of Book Of Mormon into Mongolian

We hope to see her again before we leave Salt Lake City. I want to ask her about spiritual impressions she felt during the translating work.

“T and R” Day. Each fulltime missionary (senior missionaries) get a half day off a week to either attend the Temple or to do Personal Research (T and R). We spent our half day on Wednesday with Ron and Kathie Felsted, Darlene’s brother and sister-in-law from Cove, Utah. They have been called to serve the Young Adult Center in the Hungarian Mission. We spent some time comparing very difficult languages. They will enter the Missionary Training Center on August 11.

We had sandwiches and then attended the Salt Lake temple in the afternoon to do some temple work Kathie had brought. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Family History Library where Kathie (an expert genealogist) was showing Darlene the ropes on North Carolina history. We went to the City Creek Mall and had Chinese meal at the food court.

Meeting Elder Hegland's parents. We met the Lloyd and Barbara Hegland after our work on Thursday afternoon. We went up to the 10th floor of the JSMB for more good vibes. We had a lot of fun comparing notes on Mongolia, families, Norwegian genealogy, and trying to talk them into coming to Mongolia to pick Elder Hegland up after his mission. They won't need much persuading.

Tales of an amateur rope jumper. Trista, Darin and the family came down from Providence to see Luke perform with a Logan, Utah based championship rope jumping team at the Chalk Art Fair. The Chalk Art Fair is sponsored by the Utah Foster Parent Association and KSL radio and TV.

We joined them at the Fair and watched a dazzling performance. Luke is somewhat a beginner but very accomplished already. The stunts, dances and jumps were athletic, choreographed masterpieces.

Luke is 6th from the left

After their show, they solicited volunteers from the audience to come and jump while they twirled the ropes. Guess who they singled out for a volunteer – me. There I was with my Mongolian name tag and all - in the center of the show. After a failed miserable first attempt, I was counseled to jump at an even pace and they would do the rest. Believe it or not, it worked – for a while any way. It could have been worse.

Guest rope jumper

Afterward the team went to water spouting area and did some of their routines in the middle of randomly shooting water bursts.

Luke dodging water bursts

We ended our week with a trip to a Mexican Super Market to stock up on another week of groceries. We love you and wish you the best as we work and wait (Xyleex – wholehk) for our visas to come through.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

5th week - Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Temple

Moving to Salt Lake City. We started off the week by making arrangements to move into some missionary apartments located a block away from temple square. We moved in Tuesday morning by loading up all our worldly possession (at least in Utah) in Rick and Cathy Jones’ Ford Expedition. We’ll have this vehicle to use in Salt Lake City while we are here. Most of the time it will be parked with the exception of times when we need to run a few errands.

Everything is quite comfortable with one exception – no Internet connection. This is one heck of an adjustment as we have grown used to instant checking on emails, news and being connected with the world. Talk about “cold turkey” – we felt like teenagers with our IPods and cell phones taken away from us. Or like real missionaries with nothing to do except our real business – learning Mongolian and learning the research and computer skills we need to contribute to Family History work here and eventually in Mongolia.

We described our dilemma to someone with clout and some made arrangements to Skype for our Mongolian lessons next week after hours at Mission Headquarters. (We had our last face-to-face lesson with Bolormaa on Monday evening.) We can use our computer once a day after work for about an hour. We then found out we can get computer access at the Family History Library in the evenings and on Saturdays. Whew!!!!

Our new assignment.

We began our week in the Historical Reconstitution and Data Analysis Zone of the mission, located on 6^th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We were introduced to the missionaries and staff in the department by the Zone leaders, Elder and Sister Koch. They are affable, gracious and supportive of the “visa waiters” and all the world make us feel like we will be an asset to them instead of a bother.

The Zone is engaged with auditing and rolling out the 1940 US Census and they are doing it with remarkable speed. There are a number of special projects going on, including one tracing Norwegian genealogy by examining farm histories. I will be bringing in our family history on farm ownership and occupancy my brother Larry gathered during a trip to Norway in 2006 to see how it might be extended through farm records.

Elder and Sister Koch with their new "visa waiter"

Darlene was given the assignment of auditing Russian genealogical records a century or two old. It was challenging for her to read old Cyrillic handwriting a century or two old. She is learning a lot. This skill could come in handy in looking at Mongolian records written in Cyrillic. As the week progressed she became better and better at it. She is actually fulfilling a need as some of the Russian work has been stalled because of resources in the Zone with her skills.

My work, on the other hand, is in Spanish. I enjoy the challenge – I am doing meaningful work and alleviating someone else’s eventual workload but the direct correlation with our Mongolian assignment is less direct. I feel like a “visa waiter.” Our work consists of examining birth, death, and marriage records from original sources and comparing it to the extracted data indexed by others. We actually catch a few mistakes and it feels rewarding when we do.

Our new environment. We walk through Temple Square every day to and from work. What a beautiful setting at a gorgeous time of the year. On Fridays and Saturdays we see a number of festive bridal parties gathered outside after their temple marriages. The landscaping and flowers are exquisite.

We enjoyed listening and watching a Tabernacle rehearsal on Thursday night. The public and tourists are invited free of charge. It was interesting and relaxing to watch the conductor work with choir to perfect a couple of pieces they will be performing on their Sunday Morning broadcast.

The Mormon Taberacle Choir in concert

Family History Library. We went to the Family History Library on Friday evening. We spent most of our time finding out what resources the Church and Library have on Mongolian genealogical records. We ordered a microfilm that we will be reading next week. One blessing of our being in Salt Lake is our being able to learn what is available or not available about Mongolia online or within Church resources.

We can also do our own personal research with the assistance of staff at the Library. Everyone in our zone is given one afternoon off a week to either attend the temple and to do their own personal research. We will take Wednesday afternoons off while we are in Salt Lake. We were challenged by Elder Speidel to try our fledgling computer skills and come back to him with questions when we train with him again.

The library is open to visitors from all over the world. They come in and missionaries and staff assist them trace their own personal genealogy free of charge. They also have access to the immense collections the church has gathered and has made available online. Patrons are taught basic skills to access these records. What a service!

Right next door is the Church History Museum. I hope we can take a tour there before we leave.

The last Hurrah at the Missionary Training Center. This Wednesday we used our afternoon off to make one last trip to the MTC. Darlene accompanied the Elders going to Mongolia as they sang “I Need Thee Every Hour” to 408 new missionaries entering the MTC. Our group of five Elders had auditioned and was selected to perform at this meeting. It was an exciting moment for them and for us to be there.

Elders Hegland, Parish, Parrish, Omori and Morley singing in Mongolian to the new missionaries

Each week a new group of 300 - 500 young missionaries enter the MTC in Provo. There are 17 MTC’s around the world. Can you imagine the power of this work? A visiting journalist from the leading newspaper in Sweden was present write about the MTC and the Church’s missionary effort. It was thrilling and inspiring to behold as the Missionaries sang “We are Called to Serve” and “We Are As the Army of Helaman” and to take in their orientation meeting as new missionaries.

Another reason to be at the MTC was to make contact with the Grosbecks, a senior couple from Mapleton, Utah who will be going to Mongolia next week. Darlene compared notes with them on luggage, packing and items to take or not to take to Mongolia. We will correspond with them once they arrive so we will be further prepared for two year sojourn in the country.

Sis. Yedigaryan - Armenia, Sis. Marchetti - Italy, Sis. Arias - Guatemala, Sis. Toches - Honduras

We also saw four of the six missionaries we trained in English during our first week at the MTC. We grown quite attached to them. They will be serving in the Temple Square mission.

Sunday with the Mitchells. Last Sunday, June 3, we attended church with Bob and Susan Mitchell. We had dinner afterward with them and spent most of the afternoon with them in their home in Springville, Utah. Bob and I served together in the Stake Presidency (church leadership over several congregations) in Rapid City SD. We shared memories and family news.

Our good friends, Bob and Susan Mitchell

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Memorial Day. We spent Memorial Day at Eastlawn Cemetery in Provo and went up the Canyon for a picnic lunch with my brother, Larry, his extended family and grandchildren, and with Rick and Cathy Jones and their daughter. Trista, Darin and three of their children came the afternoon before and spent the night with us. They were also a part of Monday’s events.

We enjoyed a rip-roaring “Ticket to Ride” game that Luke won. We had a pleasant Sunday and a holiday Monday with them. Good food too!

Decorated graves at Eastlawn Cemetery

It is quite the Memorial Day tradition for families to gather and decorate graves at the cemetery. It is beautiful and special to watch. In our case, we were at the graves of my parents, Larry’s son Scott, my older brother Doyle, and a memorial bench dedicated to the memory of my brother Scott who was lost as sea in the Hawaiian Islands. We haven’t lived that close to celebrate on Memorial Day before.

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Memorial Day picnic celebrated with "root" beer

A visit to the dentist. We have been assigned to the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission while we are waiting on our visas to come through. Tuesday we traveled to Salt Lake City to have our first day in our new assignment. I went to the dentist and found out I needed a root canal procedure. And the dentist was leaving in a few short days for a two week vacation.

I developed acute pain in the region of my wallet as we had terminated our dental insurance a month before. Besides contributing to the dentist’s cruise fund, I am trying to absorb what passes for good news, “Aren’t you glad it happened now instead of in Mongolia?”

“Glad” isn’t the word I would have used. The Lord has blessed us so much that in the larger perspective of things, this was just a bump in the road. We heard of other missionary accounts of dental problems on their missions - they survived.

I was in the dental chair for well over two hours. I went back again on Thursday for another extended stay in the dental chair. The final appointment for the permanent bridge to be installed will be on June 25 so even if the visa comes through before then, I can’t leave until the work is done.

Other challenges.The car we were driving heated up and leaked engine coolant. By Friday we were driving the Jones’ Expedition instead of the beater that liked Provo and vicinity much better than the trip to Salt Lake City. We will probably be moving up to Salt Lake City for the remainder of June. More about this next week.

Someone hacked into my email and and sent spam to my contact list. My ATT account was suspended. We struggled to get our emails reconstituted complete with new passwords. It took serious and tedious conversations with ATT and Yahoo IT experts who spoke native English (think India) that was a test of our newly acquired foreign language abilities. It was trying experience but we were successful in getting our emails up and running again.

Family and Church History Mission. When I finally made my way back to the mission office from my dental appointment, I found my wife being trained by one of the training missionaries, Elder Speidel. We were assigned to be trained in Family Search, New Family Search and all aspects of computer generated research. Darlene was having a thrill a minute in this mission, learning the ins and outs of computer based research. I was brought up to speed that afternoon.

Our trainer, Elder Speidel, reconfigured our computer and downloaded the right programs to have so we will be equipped to do our work in Mongolia. The diversion to Salt Lake and visa wait has been well worth it. We needed this training just like the other training we’ve received.

In our training, we are receiving some long needed basic computer skills. We were able to use our computers in the past but now we have more understanding of how things are stored and how to find things easily. We also picked up two 8 gig flash drives. All our genealogy and family history images are stored and used on these flash drives, along with training films and documents. The PAF backups go onto the computers.

We are using PAF again. The church cannot choose one family history software over another, i.e., Legacy, Family Roots, without getting into a lot of trouble. They want the Family History Support people to use PAF. Contrary to what we've heard, PAF is not outdated. What you do need to do is buy Family Insight ($25) to supplement the free PAF program. Family Insight keeps up with changes in technology and interfaces with temple records.

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Elder Speidel training rookies to be computer geeks

This mission has more than 400 missionaries assigned to a broad and sophisticated range of duties – Collections, Library Services, Special Projects, Data Quality, Access Services, British Services, Digital and Preservation, Deaf Services, Family Search Center, Historical Reconstitution and Data Analysis, Hosting Services, International Services, US/Canada Services, Headquarters Zones A, B and C, Digital Images Processing, and World Wide Patron Services. Everything the Church does is first class.

In this case it is an IT mission being run by senior couples and young disabled Elders (more on that later). Old geeks and young geeks running state-of- the-art information age technology for the church…who knew?

When new missionaries come to this mission, they are first trained for two weeks in the “training zone” like the training we were receiving. At the end of their two weeks, they are assigned to one of ten different zones in the mission. We already know our next assignment, indexing Russian and Spanish records in the “Historical Reconstitution and Data Analysis” zone. They were delighted to get someone with Darlene’s Russian language abilities if only for two weeks.

Our morning training zone meetings start off with 15 minutes of video humor and slapstick (U-Tube clips) before getting into the serious side of things. What an usuaual sight! Seeing senior couples having belly laughs to start the day. We also received training and inspiration from two of the mission presidency and watched a compelling film on the importance of family histories to accompany genealogical research.

One aspect of this mission is especially heart rending. The church has screened about 70 young missionaries with disabilities including Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism to work in this mission. They work on computers and have other duties. They live in apartments like other missionaries and serve for two years. They are lovable and dedicated. I had no idea the church was doing this. They work side by side with Senior couples and fit right in.

The Tuesday Night Devotional at the Missionary Training Center. We commuted back to Provo for our Mongolian training in the evenings and also for the Tuesday night devotional. This week it was Elder Zwick from the 70s who gave a ringing message on the central focus of using the Book of Mormon in the conversion process.

In 1968 Elder Zwick was serving in Topica (?), Southern Bolivia. They were serving in remote villages and sometimes rode horses to get from place to place. He needed some surgery and he and his companion rode to the hospital (unbeknownst to his Mission President.) They carried with them 20 Book of Mormons. While in the hospital he wrote his testimony and attached it in each book with a picture of his family. When they left the hospital they noticed that all the books were gone. They had no idea who picked them up.

After 18 years Elder Zwick returned with a general authority, Elder Ballard. They entered a filled coliseum. After the meeting a man came up to him and showed him one of the books he had left at the hospital years ago. The man had carried the book around for several years and just about threw it way.

Then one day he picked up the book and read the testimony of Elder Zwick had written. He read the book and knew it was true immediately. His wife was also convinced of it’s truth. They contacted the missionaries and after 2 weeks they were baptized.

He told of how the Book of Mormon was instrumental in the conversion of his father. When his father was a young 17 year old, he lived with his family lived in Idaho. He had many LDS friends. He was interested in learning more about their religion but he father would not allow the missionaries in their home.

It was 1940 and there weren’t many presents under the tree. The missionaries wrapped up the Book of Mormon and gave it to the young man as a gift. On Christmas morning he opened the gift, took the book to his room and read all day. He read the book in 6 days and decided that he would take the missionary discussions in the LDS church building down the street from his house. The Book of Mormon was an important part of his father’s conversion and it has remained precious in Elder Zwick's own life.