Anyway, Wednesday morning I was reading in June's issue of the Ensign where President Monson said:
As you pursue family history work, you are going to find yourself running into roadblocks, and you are going to say to yourself, “There is nothing else I can do.” When you come to that point, get down on your knees and ask the Lord to open the way, and He will open the way for you. I testify that this is true.
Well, I decided to take him up on his promise. I knelt and said a prayer and went to the computer. Within 5 minutes, I found John, Hannah, and 3 of their daughters back on Long Island in the 1870 census. I don't know what I did differently this time than I did all the other times I had hunted for them, but this time I was successful.
That doesn't give me Hannah's maiden name yet, but it's a help because I had been looking for her death in Ohio and Wisconsin and also had been searching the 1860-1880 date range. Now I know to try in New York and am only looking in the 1870-1880 date range. I thought that was pretty amazing. A prayer answered immediately. Love it.
Our stake held Youth Conference this weekend. Part of Friday's activities included watching the movie "The Saratov Approach" which was based upon a true story of 2 missionaries being kidnapped in Russia in 1998. On Saturday, one of the 2 missionaries, Travis Tuttle, spoke to us. Fabulous story.
Back in 1976 when we lived in Louisiana, there was a missionary serving from our ward, Thayne Larson, and he and his companion were kidnapped in South America and held for ransom. An interesting similarity in both stories is that in Elder Tuttle's case, the two kidnappers changed their minds and dropped the missionaries off in a field somewhere. In Elder Larson's case, there were many kidnappers and one at the camp didn't like what was happening and turned everybody in and Elder Larson and his companion were rescued--after the companion was shot in the shoulder by mistake by the police. (I just googled Thayne's name and came up with this telling of his story. Click here)
OK. Back to Youth Conference.
We also had a talent show as part of conference. Hannah performed 2 numbers. One was her singing, with her ukelele, The Mariokart Love Song. Then she and her friend, Becky, did a skit where they sang and rapped and in the end sang the "Little Details" song that Hannah's done before. It was really a lot of fun. Becky had someone record it, so I hope to get a copy and post it. I started recording it but my memory card ran out of space very early on. I had only taken one still (and the quality is poor) while they were setting up, so that's the only photo for now:
As for the "news," Hannah had strep throat at the beginning of the week, but recovered quickly.
Glen heads off to Young Women's Camp tomorrow. I'm staying home with Alex and Hannah.
Eric sent us 2 emails yesterday. One was short with a photo and one was a great email where he went into a reminder of what it is he does as a family history missionary, but we read it on my Kindle while at Youth Conference and somehow the newsy email got deleted...it's not in the trash or in any other file. I'm going to have to ask Eric to re-send it.
I managed to figure out how to get the other photo out of the email and onto my blog. Here is Eric with 3 other missionaries...sort of. This was from some kind of photo booth and it looks like their faces were pasted onto a photo. They had 2 big events this past weekend on Temple Square. Friday night was a Polynesian get together and on Saturday it was a British Isles Pageant where Eric and some other missionaries got to be on stage and sing as part of the show. Anyway, here's the photo:
Andrew and Heather have been back in Provo for almost 2 weeks after taking a 5 week class in the southern Utah wilderness that was considered a study abroad class. It was a combination art, science, and English class. The work of the class (photos, drawings, and writing) is on display at BYU right now (see below). Andrew's responsibility was to collect everyone's report and to format it all into a book which would then be published. The book will be the field guide of insects of the Lytle Ranch Preserve, (where the class was held). One of the three teachers involved told Andrew that when the book is published that Andrew could take that book anywhere and it would get him a job. Meanwhile, though, he's a dishwasher at the CougarEat on campus.
If you want to check out the show, The Mohave Desert: Insects, Writing, and Art display will be on the 3rd floor, west wing, of the JKB until July 31st. Wish I could see it.
