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: