There are actually five of us (two missionary couples and one full time employee) that are assigned to do digitizing. We completed two projects and started a third. At the beginning of the third project, the archive informed us that they could only work so fast in preparing documents for digitizing. Their specific instructions were that two cameras were to do one series of records and a third camera was to work on a different series. While we may not be the best at math, a quick computation shows that two plus one equals three. Wait a minute! Three is two less than the five of us. Guess that means that two of us have nothing to digitize.
We decided to rotate and take turns. Then we realized that three of the three of the five cameras were not suitable for digitizing, leaving only two cameras -- but we were still doing to much digitizing too quick. As of last Monday we were told that we should stay busy but stop digitizing and let the one full time employee carry on so that he could be paid for his work. All that needs to be done now is to figure out what to do with the four missionaries, part of which is us.
That still remains to be determined. One couple could go to Germany where there is more digitizing (likely the Powells since they have some knowledge of German). Another couple (us) could be used in the family history centre or help in the priesthood genealogy area. However, there are so many complications and challenges in making these changes happen that we (at least for the present) can only continue doing our family history at the family history centre. Please, just hold your breath until the next chapter. Maybe something will be determined this week. Stay tuned.
Our past week hasn't been too bad. We continued to stay busy. On Monday, we met two - not one, but two American families on the way home from the archive. They are both LDS! Both temporarily live in our housing complex. Both are BYU graduates and football fans. Both have young kids. Both arrived on Saturday, a week ago, and both are likely moving because it is too expensive to live in these flats. We also went to church with them today.
 |
| New LDS Couples - Carter & Pett |
 |
| Wicked |
 |
| Happy Wicked Goer |
 |
| Can't Go To Wicked Without Eating |
Wednesday and Thursday were days for research and making preparations for our trip to the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is in our mission and Paul's mother's family comes from there. Paul has worked on this family for over 40 years and is hoping to make one last break-through by going there. Since we're in between work right now, we thought this might be a good time.
Friday is another story. For the past three or four weeks Paul has had a bad left hip. He nevertheless kept right on going as if there was nothing wrong. Friday morning we rubbed the hip with deep heat. It got worse and worse. Eventually we decided that he'd stay at home and try not to walk on it. We also decided to go with a regular regimen of Ibuprofen. In the mean time, Annie, our budding genealogist, went to the archive to do some research and to prepare some of our past imaging for sending it off to storage.
We really worried about Saturday and whether Paul would be up to taking on a previously arranged service project to replace a part of a kitchen floor and help one of our single sister home teaching families. Much to our surprise, when we awoke on Saturday morning, Paul was able to walk quite comfortably. We along with Elder Holmes and Brother Maytham, were able to tear out the old floor and put in a new one and have Pizza Hut pizza and clean up by 1 pm. Good day! and Paul still feeling pretty good -- at least until BYU lost to Notre Dame, later that evening.
Today, Sunday, was a wonderful day, as usual. Perhaps the highlight was our ward's Primary program in sacrament meeting. Both of us felt so blessed to be there. Both of us couldn't help feel that in a small measure we were witnessing our own grandchildren in each of their Primary sacrament meetings.
Guess that brings us to this week. It's hard to think about our families being at home for Thanksgiving and us not being there. Yet, we know that we are here to represent the Lord in His work and to represent each of our family members in the Lord's service.
As for our Thanksgiving, we'll have a dinner on Wednesday evening with some missionaries from the other mission that work in the family history centre. We may do something by ourselves on Thursday evening, after being at the archives. On Friday, we hope to head to the Isle of Wight.
In the meantime, rest assured that we will continue to do our best. We love the Lord and have strong testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel. We love each other and our families and loved ones.
Have a wonderful thanksgiving,
Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, Elder and Sister Smart, Paul and Annie
 |
| Tourists at London Market |
No comments:
Post a Comment