Shifting Tides

This morning it was rainy and cold, so we decided to stay in and do some much needed organizing in our flat.   We have traveled so much lately that we have not taken the time to do any true deep cleaning for a while.  The place is easy to keep picked up, but today we did those other chores - sorting out the closets and scrubbing floors and walls. We cleaned out the refrigerator and took inventory of the pantry as well.   We took every single can, box and package of food out of the shelves, wiped everything down, then took inventory of what we had so we could plan meals based on what we have on hand.

We know all this effort won't last. Within a few days of making meals and living life, all the lovely order in our pantry will get muddled and laundry will pile up again. Cleaning is one of those things that you don't get to keep. We will need to do it again and again.  But for the moment, it feels really good to have the place tidy and organized..

I am mindful of the scripture in D&C 119 that says:

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; 

When we got it all done there was a break in the weather, so we went down to Takapuna Beach and played in the sand, making a sand castle.

When we started, we began building quite a ways away from the edge of the water.  However, we were there just as the tide was shifting.   Before we knew it, the waves were lapping the walls of our little structure.   In  no time at all, it was washed out to sea.

It made me think of the impermanance of so many things.  As our mission winds down, I can't help but wonder what sort of difference all our hard work will have made.  Will we be completely forgotten after we leave, with no sign we were ever here - like our sand castle that washed away?

But there was something I noticed as we were building that dorky little castle.  Nearly everyone who walked past us on the beach, whether they were in groups or alone, families or couples - all of them seemed to take notice of what we were doing and smile.  A few made comments.  Some told us "good job!"    Silly as it may seem,  what we were doing there on that beach seemed to spread happiness to those who saw us.  Then, as we left the beach after our castle washed away, we saw a little boy digging in the sand further up from where we had been - building a castle of his own.  Was that because he had seen us building ours?  Perhaps.

In our own tiny way, we made a difference for good by making people smile, by setting the example of two people loving each other, having fun, enjoying time together playing in the sand.

That's no big deal.

But in this mission,   we have set a far bigger example.  We have taught principles of eternal familys that really do matter.   And in so doing, we really have made a difference.   Maybe we will be forgotten over time as other missionaries come and go.   But the skill sets we leave behind will matter.   The testimonies we strengthened will matter.  The friendships we've built will matter.

Our pantry will get messed up again, no doubt.

Some projects we work on will definitely be forgotten.

But the Gospel is eternal.  Family ties sealed in the temple continue.

No ocean will wash that away.

Return to New Zealand

After a wonderful, but HECTIC trip to the USA over the holidays, finally it was time to return to our beloved New Zealand.  Odd as it may sound, going back to this foreign land where we are simply visitors felt more like coming HOME than we ever would have expected it might.  We were so grateful for the time we had with our family in Arizona, Utah and Idaho.  Still, for now NZ is right where we belong.  We are fully ready to embrace the second half of our mission and do all that we can to make it even more of a success than 2015 was for us.  

It felt wonderful to walk barefoot again on our familiar Takapuna Beach.  No more bundling up in heavy coats and long-johns to face the freezing North America winter.

Change in Direction - Our Last English Class

After all the intensity of our island travels where we work directly with people, it is sometimes difficult to adjust back to our role as office support missionaries working on reports and staring at a computer much of the day from  8:00 AM to 4:30 PM.    We know the office work matters too, but it is a big switch I sometimes struggle with.

One of the things that has continued to keep us feeling excited and engaged has been our Tuesday night English class with Chinese immigrants.   Oh how we have loved those times!

However, things had changed recently. The core group of people who used to come have moved on.  Some had left the area. Others simply found other things to do.  As they develop more proficiency with the language, our advanced students no longer need to rely on our class.  So attendance had dwindled quite a bit in recent weeks.  Also, as the young missionaries from the Chinese Branch who we partner with to run this class go through transfers, different new people coming in have varying degrees of interest in keeping it going.  

Besides the change in dynamic of how the class was going, our biggest issue was the fact that our travel schedule is really ramping up.  With no reliable substitutes to fall back on when we are in the islands, it just didn't make sense to continue to juggle this class with everything else we needed to be doing. Teaching this class was never a part of our assignment.   It was something we had volunteered for as extra service.   We are very thankful for the chance we had to be involved with it for the months we have been going. But after some careful reflection and prayer about it,  we came to the decision it was time for us to move on.

Then, when we showed up this week for our very last class, we had a whole new group of students to teach.  This came after weeks of only two or three people being there.  Our last session was actually one of our best ever. It almost made us want to reconsider our decision to back out. 

 We had fun teaching them names of various body parts (eyes/ears/nose/mouth, hand, foot, arm, leg).   Then we went on to reviewing names for containers one would find in a grocery store.   We differentiated between  a Carton (eggs, milk, yogurt),   a Box (cereal, macaroni, tea, dry soups),  a Can (vegetables, soups, beans, soda or beer),  a Bottle  (juice, soda, oil, wine)  a Jar (pickles, peanut butter, jam) a Package  (noodles, or biscuits - the name here for cookies) or a Sack (flour, sugar, rice).   

 Sister Lee would draw each item on the white board as we described it.  She turned out to be a terrific artist!   Then we would have each student in the circle practice saying a sentence using the word.  "I bought a jar of _____"  or "I bought a box of _____".    If they needed help we would tell them something that would be a match for the container we were talking about in that round of the exercise.  About half of them were able to come up with their own ideas.   There was much laughter and praise throughout the exercise and a good time was had by all.  I am grateful we got to end our service with that class on a high point.

Some of the Sister Missionaries who worked with the English class for Chinese speakers:
Sister Skankey, Sister Lee, Sister Henderson, Sister Howell, Sister Yang
Sister Lee was our artist who made our last class so much fun.

We will miss the good times we had working with the English Language classes.  Even with the occasional frustrations and disappointments,  teaching these dear people from China has been a true high point of our mission experience.  

As we transition away from this weekly teaching language classes, I can't help but wonder what other opportunities for community service we might find next. We were told in the MTC that as Senior Missionaries we would have quite a bit of flexibility in how we used our time.  To a large extent, it really is up to us what sort of mission experiences we want to have.   While it IS appropriate to take some days to rest and to explore this beautiful country we are serving in, we do want to be actively engaged in doing good without having to wait for an assignment to fill all our time.  Some of that will be helping people with family history, but we look forward to finding other things to do too.

Northshore SeniorNet - Blogging Class

We were invited back to to present again to our good friends at the Northshore SeniorNet group. We very much enjoyed meeting with them last June when we came to talk about FamilySearch. This time I did a presentation on blogging and how it can be used as an alternate means of telling one's own personal history stories or to record family history. I showed them some of the family history blogs I have created over the years:
               Spirit of Elijah - basic research lessons and tools
               Pile o' Pendleys - My Father's family
               Krebs / Kurtz Connections - My Mother's family
               Remembering Fred - Larry's dad's stories and photos

Then I took them through the steps for how to create a blog and answered questions they had about best practice for sharing family information. They were a great group to teach - very attentive and engaged. Many of these folks are working on compiling books about their family heritage with the intention of self publishing them.  They were interested to know that they had an alternate option for sharing all their careful research that could be done with no cost.

I enjoy chances like this to get out into the community to teach. When we return home after this mission is over I want to keep looking for ways to do things like this.  I doubt very seriously that I will ever return to the academic world.  I have no interest in going back to the demands of crafting exams and grading essays.  Twenty years of that was more than enough.  But the interactive part of  teaching is something that is every bit as important to me as making music is to my guitar playing brother.  In one form or another, whether through one-on-one mentoring or leading a group, teaching is something I love doing and  hope to be able to continue as long as I live.
       

The Circus Comes to Town

Tonight we went to see the circus with a group of other senior missionaries.  It was great fun!  I was amazed by the way those kids could bend themselves and the elaborate acrobatics they performed.  

There are many things that we think are too hard, or might even call impossible. However when I watched those young children bend themselves like pretzels, or a lovely young girl stand en point first on her partner's shoulder and then up on his head, I had to admit that these kids were doing a lot of things most would consider impossible.  (They must be built with rubber bands!)

There were so many things I would have liked to have asked the performers.  How long does it take to learn those skills?   How do they overcome their fear of jumping into nothing, trusting they will be caught properly by their partners?

I have a terrible fear of heights, so the very idea of doing many of the things these kids did was beyond any imagination for me.   Beyond that - their balance was incredible.

Having had three different falls causing me injury in the past two years, I have mindfully been working on improving my balance lately.   One of the exercises I do for this is to stand on one foot while I am brushing my teeth.   I'm getting pretty good at it now, but when I first started I was quite wobbly.   I must admit it feels pretty silly to take satisfaction in being able to stand on one foot for two minutes when I see what this team of accomplished acrobats could achieve!

But then I had to remind myself, it does me no good to compare myself to others.  I am better served to compare my current ability to where I used to be.  I am making progress.  I am improving.  That's what matters.   Will I ever be an acrobat?   Not hardly.   But I will continue to stretch my own ability to build strength and increase balance.   In the future when I try to push myself to do something just a bit further outside my comfort zone, I will think of the kids in this show and be reminded that a lot more is possible than I might initially think.

Jane emigrates to Australia

We have continued to teach our weekly English class to the Chinese students whenever we are in town.  It has been a fantastic experience.   However, I did have one very sad thing happen.

A couple weeks ago, one of my favorite students, "Jane" (on the far right in this picture), came to me with a gift - a lovely orange silk scarf.  She said to me in her somewhat halting English.  "I go to Australia.  I get this for you.  You very good teacher".  I was deeply touched by her kindness and thanked her sincerely for the present.  At the time, however, what I THOUGHT was that she had taken a trip to Australia and had felt prompted to bring me back a gift.  I had no idea she meant she was actually about to move to Australia and I would never see her again.  She was telling me goodbye, but I did not understand that at the time.

When I showed up for class this week and she was missing I was disappointed.  I always look forward to seeing her as she is a bright student and very much a joy to work with.  I asked some of the others where she was.  They said "She moved to Australia.  She's not coming back."  I was stunned.

Suddenly it dawned on me the mistake I had made.  I felt terrible that I had not properly acknowledged her leaving.  SHE got to say goodbye to me, in her own way.  But I simply didn't recognize that at the time. So I did not get to properly say my own goodbyes to her.

I will miss this sweet woman who was in many ways the bright spot of our class, always encouraging others.  This also serves as a reminder to me that we never know when we will lose the people in our lives.  I want to be sure I acknowledge the people I care about while they are with me so there will be no regrets when they are gone.

Growing Older - Missionary Style

Last night we had another Senior Missionary Family Home Evening.  It went GREAT.  Elder Cotterell taught a fabulous lesson based on chapter 6 in Preach My Gospel, about how we can develop the attributes of Christ.  We had a wonderful discussion, with various people sharing ideas about the various attributes they were working on and talking about what it means to allow our very natures to be changed through the atonement of Christ.

I have been working very specifically on the attribute of patience, particularly as it relates to how I respond to the challenge of my broken wrist.  I have had many nights when I was not able to sleep well because of the pain and discomfort of this injury.  When it really gets hurting, I have gotten up in the night to read my  scriptures, to pray, and to ponder the larger concept of coping with adversity in our lives.  I've learned heaps in the process.

After the lesson we had a delicious meal of lasagna and salad that Sister Cotterell had prepared and had a good time visiting with the various missionaries - especially those who live in Manukau that we don't get to see very often.

When we came home, Larry and I enjoyed talking about all we had learned that evening.  Then we decided to watch a movie to relax before heading off to bed.  We are able to stream a lot of different films with our iPads and connect that to our TV, so that is what we did.

The movie we watched was "I'll See You In My Dreams" with Blythe Danner and Sam Elliot.  The film portrayed a group of older women friends - all on their own (most widowed, one divorced) and how they lived their lives.  Most of the women knew each other from all living in the same retirement community.  Blythe Danner's character, Carol, is the exception, preferring to live alone in her own home which is near by.  

While I enjoyed the performances of the actors (including a great line up of supporting cast - June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, and Mary Kay Place as the loyal friends, Malin Ackerman as the daughter and Martin Starr as the pool guy who befriends Carol) I struggled with the lifestyle I saw portrayed.  These women spend day after day playing cards, playing golf, and passing away the time with no apparent deeper meaning or purpose than their own amusement.

I could not help but compare that to the lives of the Senior Missionaries I had just spent the evening with.  Among our cohort we have people in their 50's, 60's and 70's.   We have a broad range of people from those with modest means (like us) and people with significant wealth.  However ALL of us have other things we could be doing if all we cared about was our own comfort and amusement.   We have left behind families, homes, and a few rewarding careers.  We have each come to the mission field at some level of sacrifice in order to dedicate a period of our lives to service.  We are missing out on significant births and deaths, graduations, baptisms, weddings, recitals, reunions and all manner of  important family events.  We are doing it because we believe our lives should be about something larger than our selves.  We are doing it because we be believe in the words of King Benjamin from the Book of Mormon when he said "When ye are in the service of your fellow man, ye are in the service of your God."

I am so grateful we have the opportunity to spend this season of service here in the South Pacific.  I am grateful for all the many lessons we are learning, even those that are really hard.  There are times I weep with homesickness and longing for my familiar family and friends.  There are times I worry about how uncertain my career future will be after taking this extended break away from the world of working.  There are plenty of things about living in a completely different culture that  are a challenge, every bit as big as the blessings and the beauty of being here.  But I would not trade this experience for anything in the world.

What Do Angels Look Like?

The concept of angels and what they look like is one that has always interested me. In popular culture there are all sorts of images of winged creatures that live in the clouds. I have a little bit different take on what angels are and the role they play in my life.

According to "What Christians Want To Know",

"Nowhere in the Bible are angels described like the pictures, paintings, or figurines of little baby cherub angels with wings that we so often see. Michael and Gabriel are archangels and they are anything but little and cute. They are powerful agents and messengers of God that are formidable in their own right. Angels are not effeminate looking and resembling beautiful women with wings. These are man made concoctions and do not come from the Bible. Even Satan, a fallen angel and a powerful one at that does not have horns and a pitchfork. He was perhaps the most beautiful and splendid angel ever created by God and of the highest order, but his pride caused his downfall and God caste him from heaven (Ezekiel chapter 14 and 28)".

Over on LDS.ORG it says:

"There are two kinds of beings in heaven who are called angels: those who are spirits and those who have bodies of flesh and bone. Angels who are spirits have not yet obtained a body of flesh and bone, or they are spirits who have once had a mortal body and are awaiting resurrection. Angels who have bodies of flesh and bone have either been resurrected from the dead or translated.

There are many references in scripture to the work of angels. Sometimes angels speak with a voice of thunder as they deliver God’s messages (Mosiah 27:11–16). Righteous mortal men may also be called angels (JST, Gen. 19:15)".

...

That last line is the part I have been thinking about, because yesterday I had an angel come by my office with a clear and direct answer to a heartfelt prayer.

Recently I have been pondering and praying how to best carry out my calling as a Family History Support missionary specifically as it relates to the Area Presidency's goal to implement the My Family 15 program throughout the Pacific.

We have shared the goal and instructions to stake leaders throughout many countries. Now we are trying to gather reports back about how the initiative is going. Some of the stakes have done a great job of motivating their councils to all get active in entering family information into FamilySearch.org and to do the available temple ordinances for their deceased ancestors. Some have struggled, so we are looking for ways to better instruct and encourage them. The hardest ones to know how to respond to are those who simply do not turn in any reports. They may be doing the actual work. Or not. We just don't know because there are some areas that despite repeated requests in person, by phone and through email, they simply do not turn in any information about how the program is going in their areas. That has been really frustrating to me.

So recently I have made this a serious matter of prayer to know what the best way might be to approach the leaders from the stakes who are not reporting. I have poured out my heart in faith, and I fully expected that the Lord would provide an answer. I just didn't know how that answer would come.

Then yesterday, one of the other senior missionaries, Elder Dirk Cotterell from Draper, Utah, came by our office. He and his wife work on the third floor of the Pacific Area Office, same as us, but they are on the other side of the building so we don't often casually run into them. However, on that occasion Elder Cotterell stopped by to say hello and tell us how much he appreciated the lesson we had taught at Monday night's Family Home Evening. He talked about how it motivated him to act, to write stories about his life. He asked me to specifically hold him accountable by following up with him when I saw him again to ask him how it was going.
He then shared a special passage about follow up from page 196 in the inspired book "Preach My Gospel":
"You can show your love for the people and your faith in God's promises by following up to help them repent and keep their commitments." Then over on page 200 it says: "Compliment and encourage people who are succeeding...Sincerely and frequently praise them. Express your gratitude for their progress and your confidence that they can succeed. Encourage them whenever you are with them. Express concern and disappointment when people fail to keep their commitments and thus fail to experience the blessings."

I actually got goose bumps as he shared this with us because I felt the Holy Ghost bearing witness to me that this was a direct answer to my earlier prayer.

I do not need to nag the people who are not sending in reports. I do not need to get discouraged or chastise anyone. All I need to do is love them. As I increase in sincere love for the good people we are working with throughout the Pacific, and as I increase my faith in God's promises, I will have greater power to bear witness to the blessings they will receive as they follow through with doing what the Lord has asked them to do through the challenge made by the Area Presidency, for truly, as it says in D&C 21:5  For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.

Pacific Area Presidency leading by example, showing their completed 15 in 15 Pedigree Charts

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to associate with these great leaders here in the Area Office. I am also grateful for all the righteous missionaries whose testimonies and example strengthen me. Today I am especially grateful for Elder Dirk Cotterell, who lives his life in tune with the Holy Spirit in such a way that he could be put in the right place at the right time and be inspired to say just the right things to be an angel to me, one bringing forth in a very personal way a direct answer to my prayers.

Angels are real. Sometimes they work in your same office building.

Scriptures about angels:

Jacob saw angels of God ascending and descending:Gen. 28:12;
Angels of God met Jacob:Gen. 32:1–2;
Gideon saw an angel of the Lord face to face:Judg. 6:22;
An angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it:2 Sam. 24:16;
An angel touched Elijah and said to him, Arise and eat:1 Kgs. 19:5–7;
Daniel saw the angel Gabriel in a vision:Dan. 8:15–16;
The angel Michael helped Daniel:Dan. 10:13;
The angel Gabriel was sent from God:Luke 1:19, 26–27;
The devil’s angels will be reserved in chains unto the judgment:Jude 1:6; ( 2 Pet. 2:4; )
People saw angels descending out of heaven:3 Ne. 17:24;
Moroni wrote about the ministering of angels:Moro. 7:25–32;
The Aaronic Priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels:D&C 13;

Family Home Evening

Since its earliest days the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has emphasized the importance of strong families and gospel teaching in the home.   That basic part of LDS culture and doctrine was formalized somewhat in 1915 by Joseph F. Smith when the first presidency of the church stated:

"We advise and urge the inauguration of a "Home Evening' throughout the Church, at which time fathers and mothers may gather their boys and girls about them in the home and teach them the word of the Lord…. This "Home Evening' should be devoted to prayer, singing hymns, songs, instrumental music, scripture-reading, family topics and specific instruction on the principles of the Gospel, and on the ethical problems of life, as well as the duties and obligation of children to parents, the home, the Church, society, and the Nation" (IE 18 [June 1915]:733). To assist parents in their stewardship, the first home evening manual was prepared that same year and distributed to members of the Church."
 See  Encyclopedia of Mormonism:


However, many associate teachings about FHE with David O McKay, who  reminded parents that "No other success can compensate for failure in the home"  during the April 1964 general conference.  IE 67 [June 1964]:445).


Again, according to Encyclopedia of Mormonism:  " In 1965, the weekly Family Home Evening program was more fully implemented, and a lesson manual was given each family to aid parents in teaching their children. Families were encouraged to participate in a home night once each week, which could consist of scripture reading, singing, and activities suited to the ages of the children. In 1966, stakes were urged to set aside a regular night for Family Home Evening and to avoid scheduling Church activities on that night. In 1970, Monday evening was designated as Family Home Evening, Churchwide, with no competing ecclesiastical functions to be held. Revised home evening manuals, with suggested weekly lessons and activities, were provided from 1965 to 1984"

Some families instituted very structured Family Night rituals with each member of the family being given specific assignments.   Others opted for a more casual approach, simply reserving one night each week for family activities with no outside commitments.

Prophetic Promises for FHE:
In 1966 David O McKay stated:"Great blessings come to those who carry out this responsibility. Last year’s lessons have brought many families closer to one another, and have brought a great measure of peace and harmony in many homes. We feel to say to you again, with our love and earnest assurances, that the Lord will grant rich blessings to all who will prayerfully and sincerely carry out this program.”
Since that time many prophets and other church leaders have continued to emphasize the importance of Family Home Evening and to give very specific promises to those who will make this a priority in their homes.   Among those promises include the following blessings:

Love at home will increase – Obedience to parents will increase – Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth – The youth will gain power to combat the evil influences and temptations which beset them – A greater measure of peace and harmony in the home – Will bring families closer together – Families will be blessed with better feelings between husband and wife and all family members – Couples will receive strength – Not one in a hundred of your family will go astray – Deeply increases personal worth, family unity, and love for our fellow man, and trust in our Heavenly Father.

(See Priesthood Manual Lesson 13: "Strengthening the Family Through Family Home Evening".)

My mother tried her very best to bring Family Home Evening into our family when I was a young girl.  Having converted to the LDS faith the year before I was born, she was determined to follow the council of the prophets to the best of her ability.  However, with no support at all from her husband and plenty of struggle with her wild brood of kids, it was pretty hit or miss how it happened at our house.

When Larry and I were raising our children, we were more regular about having FHE than I had experienced growing up, but we were far from consistent.   Still, we have some great memories and even a few special art projects from those long ago FHE nights.

But what is a "Family"?   What if there are no kids, or if the children are just babies or toddlers, or if they have special needs?

We have learned that Family Home Evening can be adapted to suit the needs of ANY family - from a person living alone, to a room mate situation among singles to Senior Couples whose children have moved away or any other living arrangement.

While living in Boise, we held "Empty Nester" FHE  at our home once a month, gathering together friends from our ward who, like us, no longer had children at home.  We definitely developed a greater sense of love and unity with each other through this.   Here in the mission field we get together with the other Senior Elders & Sisters twice a month, taking turns providing a short lesson and a light meal, filling us all both spiritually & physically.

Some Family Home Evenings are more focused on spiritual things.  Some are practical or just plain fun.

This week, Larry and I were in charge of the lesson for the Family Home Evening with the other Senior Missionaries.   We talked about writing personal histories and other ways of preserving special memories.   It went really well.  Afterward we had a light supper of split pea soup, salad and rolls with yummy bar cookies for desert.  (We made the soup, other missionaries did the salad and dessert, so it was a team effort).   

We really have come to love the missionaries that we get to work with here.   For now, they are like our family.   

I know all too well what a challenge it can be to carve out the time and energy to get everyone in the family together for Family Home Evening on a regular basis. But I also know the promises we have been given are real.   I hope with all my heart that my sons and grandchildren will get those blessing.  Families matter.  As the world we are living in gets increasingly chaotic and unsure, strong families are more important than they have ever been.

Giving Feedback

One of the responsibilities we have in our mission is to gather and distribute the Priesthood Key Indicator (PKI) Reports.   These are a monthly report we get from FamilySearch.org which shows data for  how many members of the church are submitting family names for temple ordinances and how many  have put four generations of information into the Trees website.  It is a measuring stick for the degree of engagement the people in a particular area have with doing family history.   

We get reports on a stake level which compare each of the wards or branches within that stake.  These get forwarded on to the Stake Presidents and to the Area Advisors.   We also get reports  by region (such as the Auckland Coordinating Council which includes quite a few different stakes, or for the whole Pacific Area) to track how the work that month compares to the previous month and for patterns over the previous year.

The part of the work that takes a lot of time is making sure the right reports are getting sent to the right leaders, and crafting the proper sort of message to each one to go along with the charts they receive.

The reports are a combination of line carts and columns of numbers. Not everyone easily understands the way the data is shown.  For instance, there is a column showing this month's numbers and a column showing the amount of change there had been since the previous month.   Red numbers in the column representing change mean  the change is going down instead of up.  Some who we send these reports to didn't understand that at first.

That means part of our job is to explain the data in a way that it makes sense to the person receiving it, helping them to understand what each section of the report is telling them as it relates to their folks.  Keep in mind we do this for people in quite a few different countries with different native languages, with a wide diversity in cultural and educational background.

Inevitably, some of the regions are doing a fantastic job, with robust family history programs that indicate much faith and enthusiasm among their members.   Some are not.   One of our challenges is knowing how to kindly encourage leaders from those regions where nothing much is going on at all.

As I do this, I have been thinking a lot about how we give feedback in our daily lives.   To what extent to we look for opportunities to praise people for their efforts, even when, or perhaps especially when, they have not met a standard or level we wanted them to?

I also think of all the different markers we use to measure our "success" in the various areas of life, such as:
   *  the number on the scale to see if we are too fat or too thin.
   *  the number on our bank statement to assess if we have plenty of money or feel poor.
   *  the number on school grades to determine how smart or skilled we are

In many things it makes sense to look at some sort of objective measuring line to give us feedback information of how we are doing moving toward a particular goal.

But after teaching for 20 years I am all too aware that no single grade on any particular test can really say how smart or how prepared or how capable that students is.   I also know that when I look at the number of pounds or kilos that show on my bathroom scale that doesn't even come close to telling the whole story of how healthy I am.

Likewise, as we work today to send out these emails all over the Pacific responding to the numbers we see on the latest PKI reports, we want to stay mindful that these good people are often doing the very best they can, even when the numbers show backsliding or no progress.  The reports do inform us of specific areas where we might offer more training or encouragement.   But in no way at all can we ever fall into the trap of thinking high marks on one of these reports mean that area of members are "better" than those who may have gone flatline in their numbers.

The data matters, and is a helpful tool as we work to strengthen leaders and members in the Pacific Area, helping them to catch the vision of the importance of family history work.   But it is not the whole story by a long shot.

A legacy of women

As we will be celebrating mother's day tomorrow, I've been thinking a lot about the women in my family - about the challenges they faced, the things they accomplished, the legacy they left me.

I knew three generations of women in my mother's family and heard stories of those who went before:

Nancy Krebs Pendley (1930-1983)

Florence Kurtz Krebs (1907-1988)

Gertrude Young Kurtz (

Anna Harvey Young (1953-1892)

Ann Bell Harvey (1811-1901)

I know far less about the women in my dad's line, but have many memories of my grandmother, for whom I was given my middle name.  I'm continuing to learn what I can about the women who came before her.

Jane Hutchinson Pendley(1903-1979)
Taken at Slide Rock in 1954

Edith Thomas Hutchinson (1873-1910)

Caroline Goss Thomas (1829 - 1896)

I also think about my granddaughters- Kaylie, Alex and Chesilee-  and wonder what their lives will be like - if they will be mothers and if so, what challenge they may face:

The role and expectations for women has changed a great deal over time.  The opportunities open to me and the responsibilities I shouldered have been incredibly different from those of my grandmother and great grandmother, let alone those who went before.  The world my grand-daughters are growing up in is shifting even more.   And yet, in some ways we are all very much the same.  We all long to be loved, to have our families be safe, to make our mark in the world.

As women we learn we can do hard things.  We learn that feelings matter.  We learn how we care for each other - our mothers and our daughters, shapes and defines who we are.

I never raised a daughter.   While I do have a sister who is precious to me now, she was younger, so most of my growing up was more influenced the the brothers born on either end of my arrival.  I have often joked that growing up with brothers and raising only son I have no idea what it is like to live in a house with the toilet seat down.

But through my relationship with my sister, my granddaughters, and innumerable friends I have learned much about the power of bonds between women that I never fully appreciated with my own mother.

So when I celebrate mothers day it is for all the powerful girls and women in my life and those in the generations who came before.   These relationships have blessed me in more ways than I can say.