This week has been so rewarding at the FHC. One of my daughters-in-law reminded me that one of the gifts of the Spirit is Knowledge, another one is being able to teach others that knowledge. I had to become a missionary at the FHC to realize that I have these gifts. I have taught Primary, Jr. Sunday School, Beehives in Young Women’s and Relief Society. I have had good success in all of these but I never tho’t of it as having those Gifts of the Spirit. But there at the FHC it is so obvious that I am so blessed. I have been able to retain most of the things I have been taught and am able to teach it to others in such a way that they can understand it. It is such a wonderful experience to be able to do this. Since the first of the year I have been so busy that the time has just flown by. Busy with teaching and helping both new missionaries and patrons to learn new things and help them find the information they are looking for. Elder Killian, the director at FHC told us that we have cleared more than 225,000 ordinances last year. The first two days we were open, January 2nd and 3rd, we cleared more than 2,000 names. They add up the numbers at the end of each month. It will be interesting to see how many we do this month. Elder Killian told me last Wednesday that when he first started there at the center as a missionary 14 years ago, that they only cleared 20,000 ordinances all year long and they were probably the majority of them duplicates. And of those over 225,000 ordinances this past year that over 200,000 were probably not duplicates. I think that is so exciting.
Last Saturday I had such a special experience. I had spent the morning helping two new missionaries (this was only their second day there at the center) get a acquainted with their PAF program and clean it up, get rid of duplicates, etc. I also helped quite a few patrons as well. As I was going back in the big room after eating lunch one sister waved me over to where she had just seated a man and a woman at at computer. She introduced me that Bill and Adrian were there and Bill was not a member and had a name to put thro’ temple ready. I asked them if they had brought their information. They hadn’t brought anything with them. However, Bill could remember all of the pertinent information. I showed them how to bring up a new PAF program (you need to use PAF to put a name thro’ temple ready) and had Adrian type in her name, address, etc. I told her to type in her husbands name first. That’s when I found out that they weren’t married. Since the Sister hadn’t told me the last names I just assumed… Anyway, Bill typed in the name of a young woman and her birth date and place. When he was typing in the death date, he got quite emotional and left for a few minutes. I said to Adrian, “you say he isn’t a member?” and she said, “That’s right.” I then asked her how it came to the point that he wanted his wife’s work done. (I had told them he obviously was very close to this young woman and Adrian told me she was his wife.) Adrian also told me that she and Bill had “been keeping company” for 17 months and that his wife had appeared to her and had asked her to get her work done for her. She said that she finally was able to approach him on it and he was agreeable to have her work done. After we put the name thro’ temple ready and got the submission disk completed, Adrian asked us the purpose of the FHC and other questions about it. I let the other sister take over and went back to helping others. But while Bill was in the other room trying to compose himself, I told Adrian that when my sons went on missions, they didn’t have to fill out the four generation family group sheets and send them in with their application like they do today. I said that this showed me why they do that now; that I can see how family history can be a very powerful missionary tool.
This morning my husband and I went into the first new missionary class of the year to teach the “computer, basic skills class”. My husband ran the computer and I did the teaching telling them different things about the computer and how we use them there at the center. We have 19 new missionaries. I found out half of them were retired educators. I found that very interesting. About 2/3 of them felt comfortable with the computer. The other third didn’t know much about them. I taught in the new computer lab for the first time. It is great. As I told them about something, my husband would show them on the main computer with the overhead projector on the wall then they were able to do the same thing on their individual computers. I also had a worksheet for them to find certain things on the computer. Sister Hendricks had allowed me a full two hours but we were all thro’ in a hour and a half. By doing this I get to meet the new missionaries that work on other days besides Wednesday and Saturday when I work. The class went well and I think almost everyone learned something new. Even those who know computers because we do a few things differently there. One of the sisters had arranged for four of the missionaries to be in there to help them if they had difficulty with the assignment. It was a rewarding experience.
On the way home we stopped at Office Max and got a new 8 GB USB drive for $20! The first one I got for me less than two years ago was a 2 GB that was selling for $80 and was on sale for $30. With everything going up technology is definitely one thing that the price is going down. It is sooo nice. I’m going to use that new USB drive for my backup for everything. My 2 GB USB drive is almost ¾ full. I have over 600 pictures on it of people and documents. It holds much more than I tho’t it would.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
It’s the first of a new year. We had a lovely Christmas. We went down to Karen & Kent’s about 2:30 pm Christmas Eve Day. Shani & Jon and children as well as Kylie were already there. Jon is doing sooo good!! It is good to see him able to walk and move without difficulty. He talks well but when he’s trying to explain something you can see him thinking of how he wants to say it. I remember doing that too. Brittany & Wes came a little later. My husband’s mother was there by the time we got there too. One of her young neighbors and his family has in-laws just down the road from Karen & Kent and so he went right past their place so he dropped her off and then picked her up the day after Christmas. She really enjoyed being there and we enjoyed having her. She would have spent Christmas alone or we would have had to go get her and take her back otherwise. It worked out really well that way. We got another five generation picture on Christmas Eve; one with Porter in this time too and Macie a little older. The others weren’t to excited about getting it but were compliant especially since I was so adamant in getting it. Who knows how many more opportunities we will have to do this. It really doesn’t happen that often.
We fixed our Crème Burlée French Toast while we were waiting for others to get there.
Karen and Shani told us what Macie was doing earlier with her little play cell phone: Macie was going around handing her phone to people she handed it to me and said it is your mom she had Kylie talk to Brittany and she had shani talk to a friend than she handed the phone to Kent and said here Papa it's for you and he took the phone and said who is it and without hesitating she said it's Jesus and Kent the look on his face was priceless he wasn't so sure he was ready to talk to him. We all had a good chuckle over that.
We had prime rib for dinner that night. Kent does a really good job of cooking it. That and Dutch oven potatoes. It was all very luscious. One of their neighbors, Bob came and also Kent’s parents were there too. Bob and Kent parents left before we had our Christmas Eve program. Jon and Brittany had a thumb fight while we were waiting to start. Jon did very well. Brittany said, “I wish I could say I was letting him win, but I’m not!” We didn’t read the Christmas Story in the scriptures this year. Macie, who is three, was there and so we did things a few things differently. Karen had some figurines of the nativity so Shani put each individually in a lunch bag with a piece of paper explaining the character, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, a camel, a donkey, the three wise men, shepherds, etc. it also had a Christmas Carol and the page number it is found on on it. Brittany, Shani, Kylie, Wes and I all took turns playing the piano. We’ve never had so many players before! I used to have to do all of it. It was nice to be able to sing the carols instead of just playing them.
Christmas Day Kylie knocked on our door at 7:10 am. We needed to get started because Kylie had to be back to Kimberly by Twin Falls to go to work by 2:00 pm. it was blowing and snowing. It took us a couple of hours to open all of the gifts that were there. Brittany & Wes spent the night since Julie (the children’s mother) had their children. They left about 10:00 to meet Julie in Tremonton to bring the children back to Idaho. Brittany called after going thro’ Malad Pass and told us it really should have been closed because there were so many cars on the road; but they made it thro’ and then made it back. We were thankful for that. Karen had checked on the internet and found out that the freeway between Pocatello and American Falls was closed because of blizzard conditions. We weren’t really surprised. They left about 9:30 with Kent driving Kylie and Karen following in their suburban, and drove her to Massacre Rocks beyond American Falls taking the old Highway 39 that runs right passed their house. Karen said she had never driven in such bad weather and she hoped to never again.
Karl, Mom and I went down stairs and watch a DVD about Gordon B. Hinckley’s life. It was very interesting. Karen & Kent got back about 2 or 2:30. Brittany & Wes and children got there about 4:00 or so. It was good to see the kids again.
As we looked at the blowing snow I was glad that we always stay until the day after Christmas. We have done that for ten years or so since we ran into black ice and wrecked coming home after dark on Christmas Day. Staying until the day after makes it possible for us to spend the whole Christmas Day there. We play the games usually after it gets dark and that’s part of the most fun.
We left around noon the day after after Cameron Williams and his family stopped and picked up Mom to take her back home. When we got back to IF we could tell that they had had snow here but not nearly as much as there was in Blackfoot.
We had a very quiet New Years Day. We didn’t really celebrate New Years Eve either. We did put up our Christmas decorations. (The big room still looks kind of empty without the tree.) It pretty much took us all day. Karl said he thinks he made at least 16 trips down and up the stairs getting the empty boxes them taking them back down. I’d guess even more than that because we had more than eight boxes up here.
We went to the center for the first time in two weeks on the 3rd of January. I really didn’t think we would have any patrons come in but I helped at least five myself so there were many more than I tho’t there would be. We cleared over 800 ordinances that day. Counting the ones cleared the day before over 1,000 were cleared. So the work is going on and this year is starting out with a bang. We cleared many more ordinances last year than we did the year before…thousands more. We are on the down side of our mission but if things keep going well, I and I hope we will extend again.
We fixed our Crème Burlée French Toast while we were waiting for others to get there.
Karen and Shani told us what Macie was doing earlier with her little play cell phone: Macie was going around handing her phone to people she handed it to me and said it is your mom she had Kylie talk to Brittany and she had shani talk to a friend than she handed the phone to Kent and said here Papa it's for you and he took the phone and said who is it and without hesitating she said it's Jesus and Kent the look on his face was priceless he wasn't so sure he was ready to talk to him. We all had a good chuckle over that.
We had prime rib for dinner that night. Kent does a really good job of cooking it. That and Dutch oven potatoes. It was all very luscious. One of their neighbors, Bob came and also Kent’s parents were there too. Bob and Kent parents left before we had our Christmas Eve program. Jon and Brittany had a thumb fight while we were waiting to start. Jon did very well. Brittany said, “I wish I could say I was letting him win, but I’m not!” We didn’t read the Christmas Story in the scriptures this year. Macie, who is three, was there and so we did things a few things differently. Karen had some figurines of the nativity so Shani put each individually in a lunch bag with a piece of paper explaining the character, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, a camel, a donkey, the three wise men, shepherds, etc. it also had a Christmas Carol and the page number it is found on on it. Brittany, Shani, Kylie, Wes and I all took turns playing the piano. We’ve never had so many players before! I used to have to do all of it. It was nice to be able to sing the carols instead of just playing them.
Christmas Day Kylie knocked on our door at 7:10 am. We needed to get started because Kylie had to be back to Kimberly by Twin Falls to go to work by 2:00 pm. it was blowing and snowing. It took us a couple of hours to open all of the gifts that were there. Brittany & Wes spent the night since Julie (the children’s mother) had their children. They left about 10:00 to meet Julie in Tremonton to bring the children back to Idaho. Brittany called after going thro’ Malad Pass and told us it really should have been closed because there were so many cars on the road; but they made it thro’ and then made it back. We were thankful for that. Karen had checked on the internet and found out that the freeway between Pocatello and American Falls was closed because of blizzard conditions. We weren’t really surprised. They left about 9:30 with Kent driving Kylie and Karen following in their suburban, and drove her to Massacre Rocks beyond American Falls taking the old Highway 39 that runs right passed their house. Karen said she had never driven in such bad weather and she hoped to never again.
Karl, Mom and I went down stairs and watch a DVD about Gordon B. Hinckley’s life. It was very interesting. Karen & Kent got back about 2 or 2:30. Brittany & Wes and children got there about 4:00 or so. It was good to see the kids again.
As we looked at the blowing snow I was glad that we always stay until the day after Christmas. We have done that for ten years or so since we ran into black ice and wrecked coming home after dark on Christmas Day. Staying until the day after makes it possible for us to spend the whole Christmas Day there. We play the games usually after it gets dark and that’s part of the most fun.
We left around noon the day after after Cameron Williams and his family stopped and picked up Mom to take her back home. When we got back to IF we could tell that they had had snow here but not nearly as much as there was in Blackfoot.
We had a very quiet New Years Day. We didn’t really celebrate New Years Eve either. We did put up our Christmas decorations. (The big room still looks kind of empty without the tree.) It pretty much took us all day. Karl said he thinks he made at least 16 trips down and up the stairs getting the empty boxes them taking them back down. I’d guess even more than that because we had more than eight boxes up here.
We went to the center for the first time in two weeks on the 3rd of January. I really didn’t think we would have any patrons come in but I helped at least five myself so there were many more than I tho’t there would be. We cleared over 800 ordinances that day. Counting the ones cleared the day before over 1,000 were cleared. So the work is going on and this year is starting out with a bang. We cleared many more ordinances last year than we did the year before…thousands more. We are on the down side of our mission but if things keep going well, I and I hope we will extend again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
