Broken Computer?

I am still not sure about this computer stuff.  For years we had DOS then Windows and now Apple - yep different systems to learn.
We were told that our next module would be posted Tuesday night and that we could work on it from then and be ready to attend internet conference on Thursday.  Well, after 9.30pm I gave up checking to see if the module had been posted and went to bed.
Wednesday morning early I checked again but it was not there.  I usually go to Beading group on Wednesday 1-4pm and was hoping to get the module done before I went.  Just after 11am I checked and it was up but I wanted to eat lunch before going out so I went and made lunch and thought I could start on the module then go to Beading Group.  Around 12 noon, I went to the computer but could not make it work.  TRAGEDY!!! I thought I might have broken it or something.  I kept trying to get onto the internet but it was not something I could do.  So I called Apple Care,which is a service we purchased just in case something went wrong and we needed expert attention.  After a few minutes of diagnostic exchanges, the man on the Apple phone line asked if we had internet.  I assured him that our bill was paid up and yes we did have internet.  He asked me to check the modem - I did and horror of horrors - the internet was down.  In Panic I called the repair service only to be told that the net was indeed down but would be repaired shortly.
I decided to take my two latest paper pieced quilt blocks to the group at beading just to show them, and I decided that I would not stay long but that I would go back home and work on the module.  I went home at 1.30pm only to find that the internet was still inoperable.
I did not realize how much I depend on the computer and the internet.
So, not to waste the time, I sat with my scriptures and started work on the readings that had been set for us.  Oddly enough this module was on Patience.  A quote from President Thomas S. Monson caught my eye -"Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature.  There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all.  Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required." Ah yes, food for thought.     I read the scriptural references that dealt with patience and it was a very uplifting and calming experience.  At the end of my readings I went outside and pulled the dead and very dry tomato vines out of their boxes and upturned the boxes to dump out the used and I might add root filled potting soil from the tomato growing venture.  There is no way we can hope to re-use the potting soil - but I do know some people who do just that.  It was lovely being outside in the sunshine with a slight breeze blowing.  I watered the fruit trees as well,  They were very dry, even though we have had some rain lately.
Our neighborhood is filled with blossoming trees.  They are all very early but we have had such warm weather that they seem to think that it is time to bloom.  Luckily my fruit trees have not started to bloom but the buds are all swollen and pink tips are beginning to show.  I hope that if they bloom that we will not have a freeze again - because I really want fruit from the trees this year.
Still no internet!  UGH!!!
So when Bill came home he said - lets go out for dinner.  Yay! no cooking tonight!.  Well, as we drove off we began to wonder if we had enough cash on hand to pay for the meal if the credit cards were not able to be read at the restaurant.  We also wondered if the stores in the area all were having a hard time - Walmart was not having a problem because they use a satellite connection to download and upload card purchases.  We had a nice dinner and by the time we got back home the internet was up and running and I was able to do the module ready for the Thursday meeting. It took till way past 10pm. to complete the work.  Whew!
Just as we were going to bed, Bill told me that a big grocery company had bought out many grocery chains across the nation.  Locally they bought Albertsons and Safeway - Bill works for Safeway.  One store chain from Maine that we patronized a few times while out there named Shaws, was also one of the chains that is now a part of the Albertson/Safeway deal.  It will be a interesting thing to watch if they try to take on Walmart.  Walmart sells something of everything but a huge grocery conglomerate might just give them a run for their money in the grocery department.  Walmart has a reasonable grocery section, but it is minuscule compared to the huge grocery stores - but their prices are better than the huge grocery stores.  You cannot win them all.
This morning we read in the paper that some vandals had broken into the facility that housed the optical cable and cut the cable, thus causing the whole northern half of the state of Arizona to be shut down - read that brought to its collective knees.  It shut down banks, stores and 911.  It makes me wonder what would happen to America if someone hacked the power grid - we would be totally lost and in the dark.  No internet, no phones, no planes could fly, no trains could run - in fact the whole country would grind to a HALT....and we thought that 9/11 was horrendous.

end of the first week

Busier than a one legged man in a can kicking contest.......well that is the best description I can think of.
We were asked to submit 10 batches of indexing.  That does not sound like much but the records are from the 1800's and the writing is difficult to read.  One record in particular had beautiful to look at writing but the most difficult to read at the same time.  The person had a backwards slant to the letters and seemed to be writing with a pen that had a flat edge to the nib so that all the letters were thick on their left side and extremely thin lines the right side.  The only way I could read this record was to ask the program to enlarge it to 125% and then ask for a reverse image - i.e. to have the letters appear white against a black background.  I spent all my time on Saturday doing this indexing.  I learned a lot about the process of indexing and when I get to work with the public, I will have to be vigilant to help them with all the required fields of data.  Accuracy is of most importance.
The most recent activity was a learning activity that took 9 hours to complete.  It consisted of thought questions that followed a prescribed reading activity.  Since the thought questions were subjective answers it took time and I was exhausted when it was over.  Training is succinct and sometimes exactness eludes me.  Oh well!  I sleep well after these sessions - exhaustion will do that!
On the family scene, Ethan has been going to gymnastic events and a very large one in Minneapolis netted him 5th place overall.  We are very proud of his efforts as this was an exceptionally large event.  The biggest he has ever attended.  The following weekend he went to another meet and came in 3rd over all and added 9 medals to his collection.  Pretty soon he will need a tractor trailer to carry his medals around.  This coming weekend he will be going to a meet in DesMoines, Iowa.
I am in a block of the month paper piecing activity and the first two medallions are done.  The papers for the next block have arrived and I am hoping that it will be a calming activity to keep me intact during the intense training sessions.

 this is block one and is done in oriental fabrics.  below is block two.  both of them are a visual picnic.

Real - as in Velveteen Rabbit.

Familysearch has issued me with a name tag and I am required to wear it when I am sitting at the computer taking calls or if I am at church or if I am at the Family History Center.  Its primary purpose  is to 1.  remind me that I am part and parcel of the Family Search endeavors and 2. To remind others that I am engaged in a Church Service Mission.  I got to wear it today when I went to the Family History center for the staff training session.  I am now real - like the Velveteen Rabbit.
The only thing I did for training today was to go back over the indexing project to correct some items I left out - mostly because I was not aware how to get it done.
The project was for marriages in New York City in 1835.  As I read the names and typed them into the system I began to think about the brides and grooms and wondered how they met and after they married, what kind of life did they lead.  The magnificent thing about this indexing project is that the names of the parents of both the bride and groom are on the paper.  So often we just get the couple and the date of the marriage and no parents.  That makes things rather hard when we really need to have both sets of parents.
Last night I was indexing an obituary list.  We have been asked to add all the names in the obituary in the order that they are listed.  One man had about 30 grandchildren, all of them named, including the wives or husbands as recorded.  The obituary even listed the two nurses who took care of him. The obituary stated that after the funeral, all were invited to Al's home for refreshments.  "Al" did not have a last name for us to index, but looking back through the indexed obituary, we found that the deceased had a brother named Allan and so we put the abbreviation of his name along with his full name in the index.
Tonight, my leader called me and gave me a new set of identities for me to be able to use to search for information when people call in.  I know little about this as yet, but I suspect that it allows me access to areas not open to the public, and perhaps this is the area where I will be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat for the patron.  Yay!  I love pulling rabbits out of the hat for people.  My most recent experience was tracking my son in law's genealogy and starting with only a few names, I handed him 469 names of people who are his ancestors.
On another occasion I was handed a German Language Bible from an estate (it was scheduled to be burned).  In it were 6 names and a few dates.  I managed to extract the entire family record, print it up, and I managed to find a living descendant.  Turns out she lived 60 miles north of Sara and I got to meet her.
I held a part time job in town in an antique store and as I was closing up shop, a picture of a pretty little girl caught my eye.  I called the owner and asked if I could take the box of papers and try to find a living individual to return them.  She said yes, and I found many people connected to the little girl, who is now in her 90's.  I also found a researcher from 65 miles away who is connected to this family and in the box she showed me her grand mother holding her mother as a baby.  It was a very valuable family picture to be sure.
So I look forward to trying to find "rabbits" and pull them out of the proverbial hat.
My team leader called me tonight and she is fascinated that I still speak Japanese fluently.  Her daughter is studying Japanese and So we talked together for a few minutes.  Her daughter does not speak the language but rather reads and writes it.  I can only speak the language - the writing system is more than I can begin to handle.
I wish to relate a spiritual experience  - a miracle if you will.
In January 2013 I had surgery on my left eye for a hole in the macular.  The sight was non existent in this eye prior to the surgery and because of the surgery, the sight is somewhat restored.  In order to do this mission I need to have good eyesight and as few difficulties as possible.  I have prayed for a blessing that my eyes would work well so that I could do this service for my fellowmen.  I noticed today when I was doing the indexing that my sight was excellent.  I am grateful that God has heard my prayers and the prayers of my friends for my success at this missionary endeavor.

The first day of training.

My phone rang last night and the area code was the same as ours but the caption underneath said, "Sedona".  Well in times past this has usually meant that some sort of timeshare company wants us to go there and listen to their pitch and then sign us up for a time share in Sedona - about an hour away from Prescott.  Well, If  I am to go to a time share, then it had better be in some exotic place other than Sedona.

Last night when this call came in from Sedona it was a friend who is serving a mission in the Quetzeltenango temple in the mountains of Guatemala who called me and congratulated me on my new endeavours.  I was very happy to hear from her. She and her husband will be returning to Arizona about August this year.  She was using a  Magic Phone Jack connection that allows her to make local calls; Imagine that, a call from a friend serving in the Guatemala highlands?  It is almost on the same plane as my friend Graham who sent me an urgent email from Australia asking about the fires in Prescott while I was living in Lincoln Nebraska awaiting the birth of our fourth grandchild.  I also got a call from a friend who lives in the Great Smokies in Virginia asking about the men who lost their lives in the fire at Yarnell.  It is interesting to note that the president of the other quilt guild here in Prescott , mounted a campaign to make quilts for the people who lost everything in the fire.  She worked diligently to see that the effort was completed, and within weeks of its completion, she died.  It was as though she had a special calling from the Lord to see to it that this humanitarian effort was seen to fruition and then he called her home.  The unfortunate thing about it is that her family declined to have a memorial service for her after her passing so those of us who worked with her were left to grieve alone as best we could.  

The scripture I refer to in the blog is from Malachai,  "Behold, will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:  And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we take this scripture to point out that the way the heart of the children is turned to their fathers is manifested in the great interest in Genealogy in the world today.  And I hasten to point out that our Church did not start the Genealogical trend.  It did, however, start gathering records and storing them and making these records available to the people of the world for free so that they can track their ancestors.  

I am very grateful for the opportunity to be asked to serve the people who call in with questions about their research problems and hope that I can “pull a rabbit out of the hat” and tell them where next to look or even find the elusive ancestor for them.  More and more records are coming on line every day and through computer technology people can find their ancestors and record them.  Genealogy is a very satisfying pursuit.

I have received a training calendar and apparently next week it begins in earnest with the commitment to be engaged with learning activities for 5 to 7 hours per day.  Yep, it seems like the training will be a full time job.  

I just got off the phone with my Training supervisor and already my head is spinning and we did not do any formal training………AARRGGHHHHH!

She did, however, help me to find things on my computer that I did not know were there and how to use them.  I am sure that further contact with her will give me more insight into this computer connection etc.  She is a lady whose daughter is studying Japanese, and loves all things Japanese, and her call name is Okaasan which is Japanese for mother.  She has told her daughter that I speak Japanese and her daughter is delighted.  However, I doubt if I will ever get to talk to her daughter - that is not the purpose of the connection with this lady.  She is my training assistant for the next four weeks.  

She sent me the outline for the classes for the next four weeks and I will have a lot of work to do offline as a result.  This is more education for me and I hope to use it to the advantage of the patrons who call in with genealogical problems.

Not only will I be working with helping in the genealogical problem area, but will also be helping with the indexing venture.  My assignment already is to do 5 obituary indexes and 5 other indexing items.  The Family History Dept is very interested in doing the obituary indexes because this year is the year of the Obituary - so they say.

Starting again

In 1970 I went to Japan to serve a proselyting mission.  It seems more than a lifetime ago now, but I am still fluent in the language and when I speak to a Japanese person they are always taken aback that a caucasian can speak their language.  Mostly they are under the impression that no one can master their language at all because they think it is so difficult.  Well, the reading is impossible for me, but speaking is ok.  After all, babies soon learn to speak the language they hear around them and they do not master the written language till much later - I did not even attempt to master the Japanese writing system.
In 2011 my husband and I went to Maine to serve a Family History Mission, digitizing court and other historical records and we served there one year.  We did a lot of work in the time we were there and we made a lot of friends as well.
In September 2014 I felt prompted to apply for another mission - this time as a church service missionary, helping people with their genealogical research questions.
Ah yes!  I am in over my head this time, but they promised to train me and the training starts tomorrow, February 16, 2015.
My goal is to document the mission, much like I documented the mission in Japan and in Maine.  Each written page documents what is happening and is in actual fact a historical record of this time in my life.
Today I was set apart by my Bishop to serve as a Church Service Missionary for Family Search.  I will now wear a name

tag that 1. tells the world who I am and 2. tells the world what I am doing.  Japan, Maine and now Family Search.  Each name tag has special meaning to me.