St. George Trip--February 22-24, 2012

We had a wonderful trip to St. George to visit with Kathryn's Aunt Mavis and Uncle Orr Hill. Mavis and Orr are young at heart and it is a joy to be in their home. Mavis is the perfect hostess and makes sure that one's slightest desire is met. She takes tender care of her precious Orr. He now uses a walker in the house and cart outside because he can only walk a short distance. He is blind and had a serious fall a few days before we arrived.

They have a beautiful home that overlooks the Virgin River. We had such fun visiting, playing games, enjoying family videos, and driving around the valley to see the growth of the area. We even discovered the area where our GPS had led us astray as we were trying to find their home for the first time.

From the back one can see how large it is. Family and friends are welcomed guests.

Mavis has always been an excellent cook and she keeps up on the latest homemaking skills. Her home is a warm, beautiful, welcoming, gathering place.

The St. George Temple can be seen from almost every window. Mavis continues to play the organ there. She and Orr served as Ordinance Workers there and in the Jordan River Temple for 25 years.

St. George is known for its walking paths. This path begins near the Hill home and winds down along the Virgin River.

Because of recent flooding, the Virgin River has been diverted and they are putting huge quantities of rock into the river bed to shore up the land.

It was fascinating to see what they were doing.

John is a wonderful companion. We're so grateful we are able to share these precious years.

Notice the erosion in the sandstone rocks near the base of a dry stream bed coming from the mountains down to the river.

Mavis and Orr have been heavily involved in the Sons and Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. Mavis is a docent and gave us a personalized tour of the Pioneer Museum with special emphasis on pioneers with whom we were familiar.

They showed us the new St. George Airport. Even though Orr is blind, he can still give helpful directions because he knows the area so well. We drove to the Arizona border, then turned left to get to the airport. I don't think we passed a car and we only saw two people in the airport though there were many cars parked around. We saw many private planes and if we had waited two more hours, we could have watched a scheduled plane land. There were many miles without any buildings but there were signs encouraging people to build in future subdivisions. St. George is really growing!

Orr has completed his autobiography. It is delightful because you hear his voice and his humor as he tells of his experiences. I didn't realize that he went into the Navy as a medic for four years and saw most of Southeast Asia. He served on both land and sea and had many unique experiences as part of the Greatest Generation. Then he was recalled for three years on the ship Boxer for three years during the Korean War. It was a treasured experience to read the book then have time to ask questions and share feelings.

We had a delightful visit with Karen and Hal Stead who now live in Uncle Harold and Aunt Zelma Stead's home. They are both involved in teaching and performing music. They have a wonderful family and there is a sweet spirit of service in their home.

Their daughter Shannon teaches dance with the Tanner Children's Dance School in Salt Lake City and has danced twice with the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. Hal has a professional recording studio in their home and demonstated an arrangement they are creating which was magical. On one track Hal plays the guitar, on another he plays the bass. On still another Shannon sings the melody and on another she sings the counter-melody. As the rhythm instruments are added this will be a delightful piece which Shannon will choreograph for the children to use as they present programs at various elementary schools. Both Karen and Hal do music arrangments.

When we asked about Karen's parents in Idaho they shared this incredible story of love and service: Karen's father has diabetes and her mother has Alzheimer's. The father takes care of the mother because, though she still recognizes family, she doesn't remember how to do household tasks other than making bread. However, she types well. She has indexed over 100,000 names for FamilySearch.org. She cannot download and set up the files nor submit them when they are completed, but she types very well and makes a remarkable contribution. I am amazed and grateful for the service that people continue to give even in difficult circumstances.

Roger and Edie's Mission Call

Roger and Edie DuPaix received their mission call on February 22, 2012, to serve in the Philippines Quezon City Mission as Public Relations Specialists. They were to enter the MTC in the summer but a call from church headquarters the next day asked them to come much sooner. After checking with his principal and the school district, it was determined that Roger could leave a week before school ended so they will enter the MTC for a week’s training on May 28 then fly to the Philippines. They will have monthly training here at church headquarters before they leave. Their mission will be for 18 months.

Quezon City is the former capitol of the Philippines and its largest city. Located on the island of Luzon, Quezon City (popularly known to Filipinos as QC) is one of the cities that make up Metro Manila, the National Capital Region. The Manila Temple and MTC are located there. Rogers and Edie will work with another senior couple under the direction of a church employee and will work with all of the missions in the Philippines. (The Church is building its third temple in the Philippines; this new one where Justin Keetch served his mission.)They will live in a modern apartment building across from the Manila Temple. Six days of the week they will be in their office and on Sunday they are to go wherever the mission president sends them. They have much to do quickly in preparation inasmuch as they are leaving two months earlier than they had planned. Sarah and John Southwick and Stephen will be living in their home in Sandy while they are gone. Roger and Edie will be a great asset to the work and they and their family will be blessed!

Lillian and Amelia--6 Months Old

It is amazing how much Lillian and Amelia have changed in this last week since they passed their sixth month mark. Lillian is nearer the hearth and Kristilyn is playing with Amelia.

This week the babies have learned to sit up. Amelia has also mastered the cute trick of the fake cough to get attention.

Amelia and Lillian are proud of themselves. They sat up for a long time. They seem more content to see the world from a different vantage point.

They have also discovered rice cereal and gobble it down.

They tried squash on Thursday and decided they liked that too. Babies are so much fun!!!

Grandchildren Are Special Valentines

Valentine's Day is for thinking about people you love. Our grandchildren are cherished.On Valentine's Day, 2011, Ruby Marie was born. She is now bravely taking a few steps.

Mordecai John loves wrestling with his dad, trains, and playing games with the family. He'll be four in March.

Emily, our oldest grandchild, will be six on Saturday. She loved the pee-wee cheerleading clinic last week.

Talisa and Emily together last summer at Mike's home. Emily is just five days older than Talisa.

Talisa loves kindergarten and crafts of all kinds.

Kira, two and a half years old, is a charmer.

Daniel loves Legos and being with people. Kindergarten is a great social experience.

Katrina brought Anna down to Primary Children's Medical Center for doctor visits twice in February.

Anna was feeling very happy. She will be three in March.

James and Grant love Legos also. They turned five years old just before Christmas.

James and Grant love putting together helicopters, boats, and tractor trailers.

Grant and James like activity books with dot-to-dots, mazes, and crossword puzzles.

Lillian Dianne is nearly six months old.

Amelia Ann is wearing the "monkey on roller skates" outfit that James picked out for her before she was born.

Amelia and Lillian are growing well. Amelia will giggle out loud when Grant jumps up and down in front of her. The boys love their little sisters!

Asking with Real Intent

We always learn a lot as we work with great missionaries in the Training Zone. My young missionary this week has been very willing to do whatever I asked and has great computer and keyboarding skills. However, we weren’t really getting any place very fast because his lines are difficult to research. Last Thursday afternoon just before the break, he verbalized his desire: “I really would like to find someone so I could take his name to the temple. I’d even work all day Saturday if I could.” When he returned to the computer, it was as though the heavens were opened and information just flowed. He couldn’t type fast enough. We found several different years of censuses to document two families as well as birth, death, and marriage records. By Friday afternoon he had extended his pedigree three generations and prepared six men, two women, and two couples to receive their ordinances. With joy we went to the Salt Lake Temple and printed out the cards. He will do the work for the men and send the other work to his family in Idaho. Moroni 10:4-5 we are counseled to ask with real intent, not just academic knowledge. We have to be willing to do something with the knowledge we are requesting. It was a special experience for us both to find so much information in such a short time.

John’s student is an accomplished researcher with excellent computer skills in PowerPoint, Excel, etc. She wants to know everything in detail about the programs we are using so John is teaching in depth the things we learned for certification three years ago. It is an intense review for him.

Saturday morning we did sealings in the Jordan River Temple, then initiatory work. Five members of our group brought family names cards to do sealings and we didn’t get through all of them. We have participated in this monthly sealing group since 1993 and for many years, in the beginning, we just did the temple names from the extracted work. Now people bring their own names to the temple so extraction work is no longer necessary. There are plenty of names in the Temple File to do if we don’t have our own.

Note: Extraction work is what our parents and others did faithfully in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They indexed the names, then the names were sent to the temple to have the ordinances done. Families were not put together. Children were sealed to parents or marriages were done. With indexing that we do today the information is keyboarded into a digital format so that it can be read and searched by the computer. No temple work is done but the information is readily available for everyone. This is the reason that it is important to search for duplicates in new.FamilySearch because some of the temple work for the family may already be done. I have also found it an excellent source for the maiden names for marriages where I knew the husband, the date, and the first name of the wife. In the last quarter of 2011 one billion names were put on computer into FamilySearch.org. In the current quarter of 2012, the goal is to add two billion more names because they have faster, better equipment. One of the zones in our mission is responsible for doing that work. The pace of family history work is accelerating in a miraculous way.