I Love Lucy at the Soap Factory

John and I went with three other members of our ward last Tuesday to the Deseret Soap Factory in Magna for a welfare assignment for four hours. We have often done assignments but this was our first experience here. After prayer meeting and a humorous safely film we were given our assignments. They also served cheese and crackers, fruit, milk and chocolate milk for the morning break. John and I were working on the line to fill liquid dish detergent containers. I filled the plastic bottles from an automatic dispenser with two seconds to get the filled container off and the empty one on. Another sister screwed the lids on the bottles and John made up a card board box, filled it with a dozen bottles, sealed it shut, and put it on a pallet. You need to imagine Lucy Ricardo on the assembly line boxing chocolates and you will get an idea of what was happening with me. The job wasn’t hard but it was constant. The bottles had to be filled to an exact level. Between the dripping spout and the splashing detergent, if I didn’t do it exactly right on time, I ended up with very clean hands and only had a few major messes where I had to stop the belt. In all John loaded 1320 containers of dish detergent or two and a half pallets. That will make a big difference in a lot of homes! Things I learned:

1. Every job is important and needs to be done well. No job in too mundane.

2. Don’t be distracted. When you stop thinking about the goal, you get into a mess.

3. Don’t become prideful. Even though you have filled hundreds of bottles perfectly, you still have to fill the next one with exactness. If you become lax, you get yourself into a mess.

4. When you’re in a mess, don’t stay there. Repent, change your ways, and move on as quickly as possible. There are always people to help and encourage you.

5. I understood better Grandma Lillian Stead Rogers’ gratitude of being able to come to America and to get a high school education and skills to be a secretary instead of going to work in the noisy factories in England when she finished eighth grade.

John Rogers' Cousins

Thursday, January 19, 2012, the Rogers cousins met at the viewing for Geraldine (Jo) Rogers, the widow of their cousin, John D. (Jack) Rogers, who died in 2008. After greeting John D and Jo's children--Sammy, Gerrie (with whom KAR worked at Redwood Elementary), Tony, and Keith--we met in the foyer and talked for about an hour with other cousins Dan & Lauana and Rob and Tammy Rogers (sons of Uncle Lynn & Peggy Rogers). Kathie shared the book of histories and pictures that she has compiled over the past year.

The cousins: John, sister Kathie Smith, sister Lillis Byers, cousins Dan and Rob.

John and Kathryn Ann, Dennis and Kathie, Lillis, Luana and Dan, Tam and Rob

Dan and Luana --Tam and Rob

Dan and Luana live in Kaysville. Dan is now a sealer in the Bountiful Temple. Rob will be retiring and leaving his post in Washington, DC, at the end of February. They have a home in Orem. Tammy is caring for her mother who fell and has serious injuries.

Dennis and Kathie, Kathryn Ann and John, Lillis. We really missed having David and Craig and the spouses with us but everyone was eager to know of their welfare.

Lynn and Patti Rogers Anderson. Patti is a half-sister to John D. Rogers.

John doesn’t have many cousins and it is always a special occasion when they see each other.

On the Rogers side there are only four living cousins: From Aunt Blanche, there is LaRue. Aunt Blanche's other children are Dale who died in 2009 and Wilbert who died in 2011. From Uncle Ofie, his daughter Patti is still alive. John D (Jack) died in 2008 and his wife, Geraldine (Jo) died this past week on 15 Jan 2012. Both of Uncle Lynn’s sons are still alive, Dan and Rob.

On the Stead side, there were only four cousins. Pat, Uncle Harold’s daughter died in 1997. His son, Hal, is still alive as are the children of Uncle Albert, Diane and Jim.

Spiritual Experiences--January, 2012

We are teaching interesting full-time missionaries this week. John’s student is a young missionary who has his BS in Physics and is an expert on the computer. My student, Karlak meaning “most hungry” is an Inuit (Eskimo) whose specific tribe has been reduced to twenty members. She was born in an igloo and lived the nomad life until she was nine, living in an igloo in the winter and in a teepee in the summer in Northwest Territories, Canada. Her father was killed in his attempt to obtain food for the family, and the mother and the children were left alone in the igloo until they were rescued (dug out of their snow covered igloo) by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police weeks later. The police fully expected them to be dead. Karlak, her mother and her sister were still alive though other family members had perished. Karlak was profoundly deaf and was sent to Winnipeg, Manitoba, then to Vancouver to a school for the deaf where she learned to read and write English and American Sign Language. She had communicated with her family with home signs but reads and writes English beautifully. She also reads her native language with its unique alphabet. When she was twenty-one, she learned about the LDS Church and was baptized. When she was thirty, she married her husband in the Alberta Temple. They had known each other for four years. He is also deaf. They are amazing, capable, faithful people who now live in West Jordan. It is our privilege and sacred charge to train the incoming missionaries. They teach us as we teach them.

Saturday morning we did sealings at the Jordan River Temple. It was an incredibly spiritual experience to seal John Rogers and Maria White. He is a second cousin from Denton, Kent, England born in the mid-1800’s. John did the research necessary to connect his large family and it has been a joy to do their work because they have been so receptive. We have been doing sealings once a month since 1993. We used to have a group every Saturday morning but now there are groups only two weeks of the month. John and I were the only married couple in the group this time though we had nine people there to do the work. It is a special opportunity to be able to participate in these sacred ordinances.

January 2012 Tender Mercies

We’ve had a week of tender mercies. My student was Sister Susan Rasband. She was originally from Heber so I was related to both her and her husband. It was a very fun week. She has done a lot of research in Ontario, Canada, and as we were making some additions and corrections to new.FamilySearch I noticed that one of the contributors to the file was Edna Sandell. Sister Sandell is currently serving in the TZ for the second time and was raised in Ontario, Canada. When I told Sister Sandell, she brought her flashdrive over and they were both able to share information and sources. They are also cousins!

John’s student was Sister Beth Davies, a professional genealogist. When the four of us had lunch together in the COB (Church Office Building cafeteria), Sister Davies asked if we knew an Elder and Sister Rasband from Pleasant Grove who had served a mission in Kauai, Hawaii. Of course! Mom and Dad served there while Sister Davies’ husband was the bishop the ward there. After the Davies lived in Hawaii for four years they moved American Fork, Utah, and attended my parents’ missionary homecoming and exchanged Christmas cards for many years.

The expensive battery for my digital camera was missing from its case on Tuesday and after searching our house, I decided I needed to buy a new one. When Kristilyn came on Friday she asked if I was missing my camera battery because Friday morning it suddenly appeared on the floor in front of her sofa. “I know that it hasn’t been there before this morning!”