The week before Christmas brought some family issues that affected our blogging skills, so we took a week off to get our collective head screwed back on right.  Besides, I can't think of any other excuse for not posting last week.  A few days before Christmas resulted in a second round of antibiotics for Lorene to deal with an infection, and we think that maybe she is over it now and are hoping for no more recurrances.  Although she has had some minor health issues since we started serving here in Salt Lake City, they have not been debilitating and for the most part she has recovered very quickly.  We know that overall she has been blessed with good health and has been able to serve even with minor disruptions.

Christmas was rather quiet and, to our recollection, we have never had an entire Christmas morning just to ourselves.  The peace and quiet was rather nice, but a little lonely, and we able to enjoy just being together remembering why and what Christmas really means.  To top the day off we went to our Branch for a Christmas dinner with our fellow missionaries.  We were sad that several of our missionary friends were not in attendance as they spent the time with family members who live live close by, but we had no regrets about spending the time with our mission family.  We were especially sad that our adopted mom, Sister Sharon Walker, was not with us, as she has gone home and been released due to some health issues.  We love her so much and will ever be grateful for her friendship, and we call and check up on her on a regular basis.

In less than a week we will begin a new year and, with it, new opportunites as well as new challenges. The past year has gone by very fast; we are hoping that this year passes more slowly. We want to savor our new friendships as long as possible and want to be more effective at helping others find their ancestors and to continue to search and find our own family members (Steve) and clean up the records in Family Tree (Lorene).  Time passes too quickly to waste it, thus my New Years's wish is to be more effective with what time is allotted to me and to develop a more meaningful relationship to Him who we follow.  The Savior is only as far away from us as we put Him, and thus conversly is only as close to Him as we draw close to Him.

We have both recommitted ourselves to our Mission which has brought a great sense of peace and comfort to each of us.  We have been trying unsucccessfully to concentrate on our Mission as well as dealing with some family issues at the same time and it has been very hard on us emotionally as well as affecting us somewhat in our service at the Family History Library.  We have come to realize that we will likely have some of these family issues long after we are no longer serving as missionaries, but we won't always be here on a mission serving others and helping them find and become connected to their ancetors.  Although we still have love our family and care about them, their issues will no longer prevent or diminish our opportunnites to serve and help others as we put the Lord first and His work of bringing families together.  We also know that because we are here on a mission, the Lord will watch over our family and He will be there for them.

I just want to add a note about what Steve wrote in the last paragraph.  I was writing in my journal this morning about how difficult it has been to balance our time, efforts, and emotions between the family issues, health concerns, and our missionary responsibilities.  As I finished writing about my concerns in these areas, the thought came to me through the Spirit that we must "Seek . . . first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness . . ." (JST Matt. 6:38).  I didn't share this with Steve until after he wrote (and I edited) the blog. I am awed that he and I had the same inspired thought about putting the Lord first.  One blessing that has come to us as a result of our missionary service is that we are becoming more united.

May your new year be a joy to you in all the aspects of your life.

December 6, 2015

Another week of our Mission has come and gone as quick as all the rest which is rather scary.  Things continue to be rather slow on the British Services Zone.   However, that is a good thing as it has given us both time to concentrate a little more on our own research.  Lorene is becoming an expert in correcting errors on Family Search and I am becoming more confident with Ancestry.  It still is rather difficult for Lorene to find new names, and I have been able to find some new names that need to be verified,but the names, dates and places seem to be a good match.

Last night helped put some of my feelings about my grandmothers family come alive and the following is a summary of what felt and learned:

A Trail of Personal Discovery

As missionaries we have been encouraged to share Elijah moments with our zones, and as a fairly new missionary I had always thought those moments were to be about our experiences with our guests to the Family History Library.  However, I have come to realize that such moments also include our experiences with our own family research.  Last night while I was sleeping, I had a dream and a very strong impression that made me realize how pleased I will be to meet my great-grandparents and my great uncle, Gustav Janousky.  This impression was manifested to me as a banner on my FamilySearch Family Tree which simply said: "You will be pleased someday to meet Charles, Clara, and Gustave".

Many years ago when I first expressed an interest in Family History, my Grandmother Walker told me that her parents and step-brother, Gustav, immigrated to the United States from Germany before she was born.  She further told me that Clara, for whom my grandmother is named, was initially Gustave's nanny.  With only their names, dates of birth, and information as to when and where they lived in the United States, I began a search that has lasted many years.

Thanks to my wife's encouragement over the years to do my family history, perseverance, and modern technology, I have been able to piece my grandmother's story together.  I have found several U.S. census records that include my grandparents, ship passenger lists, pictures, and marriage and death records which have verified what she told me.  We all have a story to tell and now is the time to ensure that future generations will know our stories through our own family histories.

In my quest to discover my great-grandparents and great uncle, I found the passenger list that tells me that they immigrated from Prussia on the ship "Rugia," they left from Hamburg, were going to live in Washtenaw County which is in Michigan, and arrived in New York on May 2, 1892.  After being in the United States for only a few days, Charles and Clara were married in Ann Arbor, Washentaw, Michigan on May 7, 1892.  Now, seven-year-old Gustave had a mom again.

Until recently I had run into a brick wall with my great-uncle Gustave.  Gustave is included in a special 1894 Michigan Census and in the 1900 U.S. Census living with my great-grandparents,  his two half-brothers and half-sister, my grandmother, in Ann Arbor.  However, that's where his trail ended.  Recently I found Gustave's death certificate which brought a sad closure to my sleuthing.  Gustave died in 1909 at the age of 22 just before the 1910 Census, and had been recently been discharged from the U.S. Navy. The fact that as a recent immigrant Gustave enlisted in the U.S. Navy tells a whole lot about his allegiance to his new country and also makes me proud to be a military veteran myself.

The research of the census records helped to fill out my grandmother's family unit.  Four boys and two girls (one of which is my grandmother) were born to Charles and Clara in Ann Arbor, and all but one were buried in the same cemetery in Ann Arbor as my great-grandparents, which makes me feel that they were a very loving family.  After my grandmother married in Ann Arbor, she and my grandfather moved to California in the early 1950's and they are buried in same cemetery as my parents.  Researching the Death Certificates of Charles and Clara have provided clues about my great-great grandparents that have sparked an interest in finding the next generation.  Hopefully, I will be as successful in finding out and tell their story too. 

This journey of confirming and discovering the story of Charles, Clara, and Gustave is a personal witness to me that the scriptures are true as they tell us "the heart of the fathers will turn to the children and the heart of the children will turn to the fathers."  Further-more, I know that just as the Holy Ghost is a Being of Spirit that can come to us, Elijah has a tangible spirit that can come to us also. It is through this spirit of Elijah that I have taken this journey and will be pleased to someday meet Charles, Clara and Gustave.  

Steve and Lorene 

December 6, 2015

We certainly are not part of the milineal generation.  The previous post was supposed to have been published last week because that was almost the end of November and it didn't make show up in our blogs, so now you have two blogs to catch up with to see how things are going with the Walkers.

Things have slowed down on the British Services Floor and I think it has more to do with the time of the year rather than a lack of interest in Family History.  Most of the guests in our zone know what the are doing and who they are looking for, or they go directly to the Staff for assistance.  However, we do have some who need help and otherwise we keep ourselves busy doing our own research, or in training.  We have made friends with one of the guests who is from New Zealand and we have been able to help him with his family tree on Ancestry.com or in correcting things in FamilySearch.  He is going to be here for almost a year, so I am sure that we will get to help him many more times,

We have both been given extra assisgnments in our zone which we give new experieces and allow us to be of assistance to our zone leaders.  Our zone leaders are so very dedicated to running the zone and put in so many extra hours to ensuring that the zone runs smoothly, I am glad we help them.  It feels great to be needed and to feel like we are contributing to the zone.  However, Lorene's first love is to be able to help the guests when they come to our floor.  I am not quite there yet, but working on it.  We will be helping with weekly devotionals, music and daily thems, some reports and reviewing new training modules.

On Friday night we took Lorene's brother Wayne out for his birthday and we had a nice visit with him.   Wayne and our son Michael could almost be brothers.  They are both unmarried, live alone and its take little to satisfy them.  Saturday we went to a musical production of "A Christams Carol" at the Hale Centre Theater, and it is what the name implies, a theater in the round.  We thoroughly enjoyed and had the opportunity to spend some time with many of our fellow Missionaries. We had a nice, although very short visit with our daughter and her family last night.  They were here for a couple of family activities for LaVerl's family.  We went over to Temple Square to look at the Christmas lights and then came back to our apartment for hot chocolate to ward ourselves up.  It was nice to spend some time with them.  

We continue to have time to worry about all of our children the problems that have to face in their lives.  Some problems and issues and concerns are greater than others and some times they make good decisions and some times they don't.  However, agency gives them the right to make their own decisions and we continue to hope that when they make the now so good choices that they will learn a better way and not to repeat them.

Steve: It's hard to beleive that November is almost gone and over with.  Even harder to believe is that tomorrow will mark three months that we have been serving as full time Seasoned Missionaries. (Doesn't seasoned sound so much beter than being called Senior Missionaries.  I haven't figured out the average age of the Missionaries that are here, but I belive that we are on the younger side; however, that may be just hopeful thinking.)  This weekend was a little strange for us, we actually had a four day weekend due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, our Thanksgiving Day was great, we only had to cook one dish -- green bean casserole.  I guess as a Missionary I should be be more truthful, Lorene actually cooked the casserole, and I forgot which one was hers and didn't even get any of it.  At any rate, we had dinner with about two hundred other Missionares, played games and, most importantly, we had great company.  We ended up sitting at a table with six young elders, and it was the best part of the afternoon.  Our daughter, Katie, encouraged us to have dinner here in the Mission rather than trying to go home, and I am so glad that we did.

This week at the library was a little slow, which didn't surprise me due to the holiday.  I finished my training workbook this past week which was a relief to our Zone Leaders, and which I probably should have done before I received my certificate, but it all worked out in the end.  I am now starting to create my own cliff notes to help me learn how to find ancestors in the various countries included in our Zone which should help me.  Additionally, my mentor seems to be a little more accessible which should be helpful.  We have two new Missionary Couples starting this week in our Zone which will be of great assistance to our guests.  It will be interesting to see how many guests we have come to the library for the next month.  It was a little sad, a group came from another country this past week to primarily do research in our zone and they did not know that the library was closed on Thursday and Friday.  We continue to be happy to be serving in the British Zone and for the knowledge we are gaining.

Lorene has been commenting for the last couple of weeks about how surprised she was that it hasn't snowed.  Well, yesterday Mother Nature must have been tired about hearing the inquires and blessed us with not only cold weather, but also some white, powdery covering to go with it.  I rather liked it, but Lorene would have been more than happy to let the white stuff stay up in the ski slopes.  As for me, I hope this was not the the only snow we get for the rest of winter, but please don't tell Lorene that I said that.

Lorene: I always like to say that I like snow as long as it's outside and I'm inside keeping nice and warm.  It's so pretty to look at, but it's also very cold.  I don't do well with being cold, but I think I'm doing pretty good as long as I bundle up as much as possible. 

I want to tell you about an experience I had this week.  On Thanksgiving morning, I received an email questioning something I did in Family Tree.  Both the woman who wrote and I have ancestors named William McKenzie, and when I did something on mine it somehow affected hers.  So I went on Family Tree to see if I could figure out what I did and why, but it was something I did during our first 2 weeks of training here and I don't remember.  I emailed her back and told her that, and I promised that I would do more research and figure out who belongs to whom.  I told her that as a missionary in the British Zone I have access to many records and professional consultants that can help me.  She emailed me back the following: