September 28th through October 4th

 September 28^th through October 4^th:  Monday I spent the
day fixing things around Charlotte’s house, like doors that would not shut and repairing sheetrock where little boys had made holes and dents.  

One of Monday's projects.  Sheetrock repair.

Mom went and picked up about 10 boxes of baby clothes and blankets for a humanitarian project in Guatemala.  We are going to ship all of this down with our stuff next week.  Mom and I had a date night and went to the movies for FHE.  Tuesday I met two old friends, Doug Thayne and Ted Milner, for lunch.  It was fun to see them and share a few hours together.  Then Mom and I did some last minute shopping for things that we want to send with the shippers next week.  Mom got to spend some time with Kate’s children and then they went to dinner together.  

Mom enjoying Kate's kids.

Wednesday we went up to the Bountiful temple and did baptisms and confirmations for some of the names we have found then we went to the opening of the church’s History Museum.  It has been closed for over a year and they have a new exhibit about the first vision and the restoration.  It was very interesting and beautiful.  Then we went to the Genealogy Library and did some more scanning and then got some help with how to find names using descendency or in other words how to find cousins or the descendants of an ancestor.  I had tried to do this as part of our assignment from our consultant, but with very limited success-- only 2 names.  However,  the person that helped me on Wednesday , Sister Howell, said my lines had been researched so well that I needed to go back to the late 1500’s and find someone who did not have a lot of sources attached to their name.  I decided on my ancestor Joan Sisson who was born in England in 1599 and died in Massachusetts in 1663.  I went back 11 generations.  Then I started looking at all of her children and then all of their children and then all of their children and so on and so on, until I got to descendants that had been born less than 110 years ago.  In the process, I would check each person to see if their temple ordinances, like baptism and sealing to spouse, had been done.  That first day of doing this I found about 30 names and had only covered maybe 5% of her descendants.  I was very excited.  On the way home, we stopped and ordered new credit and debit cards.  We need to make sure ours will not expire while we are out of the country.  Thursday I got up early and started looking for more names.  I spent 4 hours in the morning before I had to go to see an old friend, George Pearson, a dentist, and get an impression of my teeth for a new crown on the implant I had checked last week.  I found a few hundred more names.  In the afternoon, we took our granddaughter, Ellie, to get her scriptures and a scripture bag.  She turns eight in two weeks and that is what we always give our grandchildren for their 8^th birthday.  She was so excited with her scriptures and new bag.  Friday I spent the morning looking for more names.  We got a call from the temple department and they informed us that we have an appointment next Friday with Elder Quentin L. Cook to be set apart as temple president and matron.  This will be the first time we have had the privilege to meet with and be instructed by an apostle of the Lord.  We are so excited.  Then we got picked up by our son, John, and we headed for St. George.  By the time he picked us up, I had found over 500 more names.  I am a convert of searching for descendants.    John is going to run the St. George Marathon on Saturday morning.  He has the goal to run the marathon every 9 years.  He ran it when he was 31 years old and finished in 3 hours and 37 minutes.  He said he hadn’t trained much for this marathon, but he wanted to make his goal.  After getting John’s bib number, we went to my brother Tad’s home.  His wife Tove had made a big batch of spaghetti so John could carbo load for his run tomorrow.  We watched the BYU game.  Saturday I got John up at 4:30 am and then Tad and I dropped him off at the finish line where buses took all the runners to the start line 26.2 miles up the canyon.  We then went back to Tad’s and had breakfast and picked up Chris.  We then drove the back way to a junction called Veyo.  There is no way to see the runners except at certain places on the route.  This was the first place, 7.6 miles into the race.  After seeing John and cheering him, on we went back to Tad’s and played a few games of Rummikub.  Tad and Tove are addicted to this game and play it every day while they eat their meals.  It is fun and Chris and I decided we had better buy this game to take to Guatemala.  Then we started getting text updates from John.  When he hit mile 21 we headed into St. George to the finish line to get a picture of him.  He ran faster than he had planned and finished in 3 hours and 40 minutes, a pace of 8:25!!  Only 3 minutes more than 9 years ago.  We were very impressed.  He looked really good and we were happy to be able to support him.  We’ll try and be around for the next race in 2024.   

4:30am and ready to go.

Veyo, mile 7.6, and looking strong.

He stopped for a high five.

You can't really see. but this is an hour into the race and there are racers as far as the eye can see in both directions.  Over 5400 runners finished.

He is excited to be at the finish line.

50 yards to go.

10 yards to go.

Finished and not all that winded.

He can still smile after 26.2 miles.

He came back to Tad’s and we fed him lunch and he showered and he headed home so he could take his son, Badger, to his first general priesthood session of conference.  Chris and I stayed at Tad’s to watch conference.  Tove has a doctor’s appointment in Provo on Monday afternoon and we are going ride back with them.  Sunday we had a very uplifting day listening to conference.  What a blessing conference is.  

We took a Sunday morning walk by Tad's house.

They live in Ivins.  So beautiful.

Sunday conference.

Mom with Tad and Tove in front of their home.

Dixie rock.  You can just see Dixie to the left.