We completed our first week at the Family History Library. We moved around from one area to another, greeted people at the front door, ran the 4-minute video in the Orientation room, answered questions at the front desk (that can be crazy--they ask where to park, where to eat, what's open where--mostly stuff I don't have a clue about!), and my favorite--helped guests. If they're interested, we help them signup for a FamilySearch account and put about three generations on it. Then we start looking for information on each one--birth records, census records, marriage and death records. Usually they just light up when they find the first record and they really like how easy it is to attach that record to their ancestor. We explain that they can do this from home and show them the "Help" area and how they can find a Family History Library close to them. They really like that. I had one guy who quickly got back to Austria and said his wife is going to take him there--he'd always heard his family is from there. I wanted to burst out in "The hills are alive with the sound of music." I contained myself, but was as excited as he was. When they left he said, "Can I give you a hug?" I told him, "Of course, that's our pay day!"
We were the only ones open on Friday, the 3rd, so we had a lot of visitors. In one hour in the morning while I was on the front desk, we had about 28-30+ people from China! We showed them the video in Mandarin and then took them to the international floor. They could most of them speak a little English, but think they would get more out of it in their own language. There are people on that floor who speak several languages and if we get in a bind, we can go across the street to where the sister missionaries from all over the world are and they'll come and help us.
Saturday the 4th we decided to ride up to Park City. My mother was born up there. My grandfather worked in the mines above Park City. It's very different now, I'm sure. They did so much building up there for the Olympics in 2002. It's a beautiful area. The area with the cabins going up the mountain reminded me of Mt. Charleston and the area in Rainbow Canyon where the Stivers lived. We went over to the ski area and saw the lifts going up the mountain. Matthew and Meghan are hoping to ski there in December.
That evening we went to a free concert in the Tabernacle put on by the Utah National Guard Band. It was wonderful. I had tears in my eyes (it doesn't take much!) as we stood to sing the National Anthem. They did a wonderful medley from "The Sound of Music" and one of the musicians and his wife sang. They had beautiful voices. Then they did the Armed Forced medley and asked us to stand if we had served or had a family member who had. I stood in honor of my dad, who was in the Army during WWII. Of course I got teary again! They came back for an encore and did "Stars and Stripes Forever." Wow, we just loved it all.
Sunday we went to church at 11:00 at the JSMB and surprised Sister Patterson. Robert has been wanting to see her. She was so pleased to see us. Her husband was Robert's mission president 40 years ago! She lives in that ward and they have two apostles, seven members of the 70 and that day the Presiding Bishop was there! Elder Ballard and Elder Stevenson both bore their testimonies. President had just passed away on Friday and Elder Ballard told how he will miss him and President Perry both, but they "wore out their lives in the service of the Lord" and men whom the Lord will choose will take their place and will do the same thing. It was very comforting to hear.
That evening my brother, Richard, and his wife, Carolyn, came for dinner. They brought Chicken Alfredo and we fixed salad, veg and dessert to go with it. We had such a good visit. They have recently completed their second mission, so we had lots to talk about. They are talking about moving to a condo in Bountiful. They're going to be really busy for awhile if all of that goes through.
We went to the devotional yesterday in the JSMB and got to meet our new mission president and counselor and their wives. Then we went back to the library. Each of us trained on the phone for the first time and we had safety training on what to do if an Active Shooter comes in. That actually happened about 15 years ago, so we have to be ready. Hopefully we'll never need to know what to do. When we got ready to leave at 5:00 it was raining! It's only the second rain we've had since we've been here and I was willing to wait it out, but Robert said, "It's hardly coming down," so off we went. Our clothes were just damp when we got home, so he was pretty right. We walk under a lot of trees on the way home, so we didn't get very wet.
Today is our P day. We're going to take Robert's laptop into a computer place and have them clean up the viruses and put a protection on it. Tomorrow is our Temple/Research day, so we called the Moser's and we're going to Logan to meet them for lunch and go to the temple there. They work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Think Ashlee Hillin is going to join us, too. It will be fun to see them and visit. We dearly loved them when we served with them at the Institute.
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