The longer we are here serving in the Family History Library and experiencing doing family history myself, the more excited I get about it. This week we went to the Draper Temple and the peace and joy we felt there was truly miraculous. Every week we have time off from our library duties to specifically go to the temple or to work on our own research. We love our time in the temple so much. It's where we perform saving ordinances for our ancestors in hopes that they are accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the other side. I'd love to answer any questions anyone might have about this!
Over the years, I have felt a lot of frustration in my family history efforts for my own family lines, but lately I have been discovering ancestors from Sweden and yesterday I found a whole family on my dad's mother's side. I wish I knew these people's stories. I'm hoping that I will be able to search for their histories and learn more about them. I had a little tender mercy yesterday as I was searching my Grandma Brady's line. She has a sister named Hedwig and I found a marriage record for a Hedwig who's parents matched my grandmothers. I remembered somewhere in my mind that my dad had an Aunt Harriet and I thought that perhaps Hedwig went by Harriet! I received a box from my brother Pat recently of some of our parents letters and memories and so last night I went through some of it. One of the first things I found were some family group sheets of my dad's parents families!! There in front of me was Hedwig (Harriet) Walther! Harriet was really there in parentheses! I was so happy. I don't claim to be a genealogy specialist, but I know that it's a big deal when you find something to back up a hunch!
We had an amazing mission conference last week with Elder Foster from the Seventy (an office in our church's leadership). He gave a wonderful and very inspiring Power Point presentation about family history. We are hoping that it will be made available to wards and stakes throughout the church. Our prophet, Russell M. Nelson, is asking us to all become involved in doing family history work. We are excited to be a part of this worldwide push to bringing families together!
So, I guess I'm a little proud of our latest bulletin board. I feel like I'm learning and a beginner in so many things in this mission, but when I get a minute to be creative (even if the ideas come from Pinterest), I feel really happy inside!
This weekend we went to see a barbershop quartet concert at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. We love all the free concerts that are available here! We also got to hear Hannah sing "Be Still My Soul" in her church and Mike and I sang "Let the Holy Spirit Guide" in one of our Sunday meetings. It was a musical weekend!
On Sunday afternoon, we had dinner at Eric's place--always a fun, yummy time. We got to get our Violet fix too! She makes us smile!
We love family time! We have a large family and it's a treat whenever we can be with any of them! I love this quote from one of my favorite church leaders, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities."
Finally, I haven’t posted any pictures of the beautiful Temple Square flowers lately so here are a few taken by my friend and co-missionary library worker Sister Rol.
That's all for now! Please smile and know that "it will all work out in the end and if it hasn't worked out, it isn't the end!"
1 comment:
Your letter was great, inspiring. I enjoy all of them. Violet is a little doll.
Best wishes.
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