January 10, 2016

NEWS FLASH - SALT LAKE CITY

This item has just come in from our correspondent in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It has been reported that the casts from Steve Walker (aka Elder Walker) hands have been removed.  Furthermore, the doctors report that he can once again use the keyboard and resume weekly posts.  Ha, ha just kidding.  I hate to admit it but once you take a break from posting to your blog weekly it gets a little harder to resume writing again.

Things have been rather slow at the library on the British Services floor as most guests that have visited our floor lately seem to be able to find what they need without much assistance from us Missionaries.  However, when we are able to assist they seem to have a variety of needs which give us a little broader perspective and increase our skills a bit.  My assistance has been a little bit more basic than the aid that Lorene is asked to render, but still is important to the guests.  Lorene has had the more complex searches, but she has been able to rise to the challenge.  I am starting to mentally figure how to navigate the aids that allow our guests to search and find their ancestors and am hoping to begin implementing those tools in seeking some members of my own family tree.  Lorene continues to try and fix errors that exist in family tree and it is very frutrating when some of the information that is entered is obviously incorrect or not even possible.  I still am trying to understand why our ancestors want to us to seek them out yet seem so hard to find at times, but it's probably because the things that are most important sometimes take the most effort to achieve.

We still have not been asked to speaking at the weekly Mission Devotional and that is a little discouraging.  We only know of one other set of missionaries who came in with our group back in September that have not spoken, and they are scheduled to speak at the end of the month.  We don't know if we have been overlooked, or if we are on their radar and just have to be patient a little more.  We have our four month interview with the Second Counselor in the Mission Presidency and his wife tomorrow and  we are looking forward to that opportunity.  We have some a great Mission Presidency and their wives are just as awesome.  Their concern for each of the missionaries is matchless.  We continue to grow as we serve and are so appreciative of the support that our fellow missionaires and family give us.

I'd best set this aside so that your favorite Editor-in-Chief, well at least my favorite Editor-in-Chief, can reveiw, revise and otherwise redact my writing.

I "redacted" that statement because Elder Walker is a little too generous with his praise.  I don't think I'm doing any better than he is, but I'm trying!  (I didn't even know what"redact" meant until he explained it to me.  I thought it was a typo!  So I had to redact something just to be funny, but what I said about my abilities compared to his is true.)

We've been given another assignment.  We have been asked to serve on the "Hail and Farewell" committee.  We have our first one tomorrow night.  It should be fun, but I hope we can keep up with all of our responsibilities.  This is the fourth thing we've been asked to dobetween our zone, our branch and the mission.   We've been greatly blessee, however, and continue to enjoy serving the Lord.