Highlights of the week July 15 thor' the 21st.

We had a very interesting day yesterday. Thursday Bryan had e-mailed me and asked if we would be home at 9:00 Saturday morning our time. That Jessica and Chris had gotten their mission calls that day and since Chris was working in Iowa and would come home Friday night, then they would open them then. He said that he would make a conference call with us and Helen & Al Bonneau who live in Texas and put it on speaker phone so we all can hear it. Jessica will be going to the Arizona, Tucson Mission, English speaking. Her letter said that her assignment may be changed due to the discretion of the mission president. (Chris’s didn’t say that.) Since she took Spanish in Jr. High, High School and College, even if she stays in the English part that it will definitely help her to know Spanish in that area. Chris is going to the Chile, Conception Mission. He will be speaking Spanish. I’ve been told there are many Germans down there too so he may have occasion to use the German he learned in High School. They both enter the MTC September 12, 2007. I tho’t it was so thoughtful of the brethren to have them enter the MTC on the same day since they will all be coming from Nebraska. They were very excited about their callings. We are very excited for them too. We will plan on flying to Omaha next month to see them all. It would be so nice if we could be there for when they went thro’ the temple for the first time. Bryan said even if we couldn’t be here for that we could certainly attend a session with them while we were there. When we were to the temple last Tuesday, I saw two missionaries come thro’ the veil for the first time and with their families and friends to greet them. I tho’t then it would be sooo neat if we could be there when Jess and Chris went thro’.

Yesterday at the FHC Karl and I finished putting his PAF program thro’ PAF Insight. From both my program and Karl’s we obtained 15 male names and 20 female names for Natasha & Collin to do baptisms for when their stake goes to do baptisms for the dead the first part of next month. Their were supposed to be 20 each but even with our two programs that is all there were, that was all we could find after putting everything thro’ PAF Insight.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday we took classes on doing German Research. I found it very interesting. Cindy Pack had so many neat suggestions and guides to help us in doing German research. She had word lists, and examples of both the German alphabet today as well as the Gothic alphabet, as well as other things.

Wednesday afternoon Sister Quigley told me that my microfilm was in from Blumenstein, Bern, Switzerland. It is the parish records from 1505 to 1785. I had really hoped to find Johannes Rufener’s birth record so I could find out who his parents are. I still was working on updating Karl’s PAF so I decided I would wait until Friday night when they had a missionary night to look at it. When I got there Friday night, I pulled the wrong card out of the file and didn’t think it was there. So I worked on updating Karl’s PAF. I guess it was a good thing tho’ because we were able to finish it yesterday and make the Temple Submission Disk to take to the temple to have the cards made up. We did that on the way home yesterday. I was able to do the STD my self. Brother Sweat had told us before how to check and make sure it was on the disk. It turned out that that disk wasn’t any good. I’m so glad that I checked it or we would have gotten nothing at the temple. I had to have Brother Sweat show me how to use the backup disk, (thank goodness that one was good) so I was able to make a new TSD. I really had a feeling of accomplishment after that. After I finished that, I went to look at my microfilm. I checked in the file again and found out I had looked at the wrong slip Friday night. I put it on the microfilm reader (I was able to do it myself) and tried to find 1780. I tho’t that I was at the end of the film and it only went to 1735. So I went back to the card catalogue from the SLC FHC and found the film that I had ordered and it said it went to 1785. So I asked Karl to go take a look at it. He found 1780. But we couldn’t find Dec of that year. Johannes Rufener was born 22 Dec 1780. It seemed to go from June 1780 right to 1781. I would think at that time most of the people there would be Lutheran and that that would be the only parish record. I was sooo disappointed. We found a Johann Rufener born in June and there were three witness listed there all with the last name of Rufener. I was so disappointed that we weren’t able to find anything. I’m not sure what to do now to find him and his parents. If I had found his birth record his parents would have been listed then I could go look for their records and his siblings. We have been told there at the FHC that if we are having trouble finding someone, we should put the child’s name on the prayer roll at the temple. They said that it really works! So I will do that next week when we go to the temple.

I think that covers the highlights of last week.