032517

We have been busy all week doing indexing of marriage records for, mostly, North Carolina.  Records from the late 1700 up to 1940 or so.  I guess they wanted to see if we could actually do indexing of the records.  Arlene has a lot more experience than I do but after doing a thousand records, I got pretty familiar with it.  Of course, reading some of that old handwriting just never gets any easier no matter how you stare at it.  After a week of staring at old marriage records, we decided to go look at some local tourist sites.

The first one we stopped at was Brigham Young's Summer Home here in St. George.  It was crowded today so it took longer than normal to go from room to room.

 

View from the West end.

 

The descriptive plaque in front of the home.

 

Brigham Young had arthritis and the weather in St. George, being hot and dry, helps with that ailment.  He spent several years down here until he passed.

 

That is quite a mantle in the living room.

 

The dinning room.  The china on the table was ordered prior to his death and arrived shortly after he passed.  However,  he never got to eat off of them.  

 

The kitchen with the hot water heater and all.  

 

Kinda reminded me of Nauvoo and their stairways...

 

After walking through several bedrooms we ended up in Brigham's bedroom and were kind of surprised that his bed was not all that large.  Note the "chamber pot" at the foot of the bed.  Yeah, no indoor plumbing.  I also didn't see any outhouses so I'm wondering...

  

I noticed this picture on one of the walls and spent some time looking at the pictures.  This picture is kind of unique as it is President Brigham Young, his counselors and the 12 Apostles.  See how many you are familiar with.  Some of them are pretty young.

 

This is kind of a unique picture of the St. George temple back many years after it's dedication.  I couldn't quite get the colors right with the camera but it's good enough.  

 

Out in back they have this 150 year old Mulberry tree.  The pioneers used to  feed the leaves to silkworms to get silk for the women's dresses so they didn't need to dress in the course wool and cotton so prevalent in the area at the time.  

 After the winter home we went on a bit of a drive to Santa Clara just for a drive and to see the area.  We ended up at the Jacob Hamblin Home. 

 

A small roadside sign lets you know the home is just up from the road.

 

there is a nice view of the "river" that runs in front of it.  But, in this desert area, it's pretty much a creek most of the time.  It'll provide enough water for a few head of cattle and water some fruit trees.

 

This was Hamblin's saddle and, to the right, his Book of Mormon.  He was an Indian agent and worked tirelessly to help with the relations between the settlers and the local tribes.

 

During the bedroom part of the tour, the guide mentioned that the two women displayed on the mantle were his wives.  One of them lived until the late 1930's.   The two women were dedicated to each other and kept the family moving forward.  They were dedicated to each other.

  

The upstairs was one big room where they could all meet together and do the work that needed to be done to support pioneer life.  It was the hub of the house for most activities.

 

I noticed this rawhide chair.  Stylish, no?

After this little jaunt we headed home for some rest and prep for next week.  Looking forward to more training in some different areas of our mission.  I've got a date with the outgoing head of the ROC for a project that he needs to have us learn how to do.  That will involve more specialized things to do.  Indexing is interesting but this other stuff is a bit more challenging.  More to follow.  I'll try to include some pictures of where we work next week. 

031817

Heading down to St. George today.

Packing up and just about ready to go at Marilyn Boekweg's house in Herriman.

On our way down to St. George we stopped in Cedar City to see the progress on the Cedar City Temple.  It will be dedicated in December of this year and open for session shortly thereafter.  A beautiful temple.  

031717

Our last day at the MTC.  A final testing presentation, a couple more classes and we were done.  A few teary goodbyes and the MTC experience is history.

Here's that picture that everyone takes at the MTC in front of the world map pointing to their mission assignment.  Hey, we just had to do it!

 

The Rushton's were our partner couple for the week.  They also were with us during several months at Nauvoo during the last few months of our mission there.  We really enjoyed our time with them.  

 

The intrepid 4 together for their last time.  We're all saying goodbye as we depart on Friday afternoon.

 

A last look at our apartment door...

  

The jalopy is packed, the cards are turned in, Sister Seger is sitting in the passenger seat with a broad smile.  We are ready to  set sail for the next adventure in St. George.

  

Here's the morning class with our instructor, Brother Zufelt (on the left).  He was from the Roseville area.  He's related to the Zufelt's up in our stake.

  

Here's our afternoon class with Sister Pugsley.  She's on the right.  We had great instructors.  

Off we go to St. George!

031617

Well, we finally took a little downtime and went over to the Provo Temple across the street from the MTC.  Although the schedule says we have a couple of hours each night to ourselves, we simply did not have any time to do anything but study and get cleaned up from the day's activities.  However, since Thursday night was the last night at the MTC and we didn't have a lot to study for plus we had done most of the major stuff, or so we thought, we decided to take off for a short while and do a little more thought provoking activity.  That's if I could stay awake.  With the week's activities, it got harder every day.

The temple was beautiful, as usual.  Nice backdrop for this time of year.  With the warm temperatures the snow has melted off the mountains in the background.

On our way back to our apartment we stopped by the front of the temple for pictures.  

The temple looks even more beautiful in the late evening hours.

Tomorrow is our last day at the MTC.  We will finish up with classes in the afternoon then head back to Herriman, pack up the jalopy, then head to St. George Saturday morning.  We should be in our final mission area by late afternoon, just in time to shop for the weekend and prep for Sunday.  So looking forward to heading out!

031217

We arrived at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) on Sunday, March 12th to get settled in and get ready to start our training week on Monday.

Here is the entryway to a week's worth of work for the beginning of our mission and training on how to be a great missionary.  Through these doors we got our name tags, ID cards and the stuff we needed to start an exciting week of training.

The new name tags!

Our room once we got the stuff dropped off.  Nicely appointed for a training center.  I've certainly stayed in worse over the years.

The other end of the room.  Had a nice shower that was big enough to have some room to shower in.

This is the building we were staying in, M2.  The Seniors have the 3rd floor to themselves with their own little gym with a couple of treadmills and ellipticals to play with, although, I was the only one I ever sawing using any of the equipment.  Had it all to my self every night.  Did have an ice machine, down the hallway, that actually worked.

This is the entry hall after we picked up our name tags and security badges.  The "Chow Hall" is on the right.  They feed about 1200 per meal.  Surprising enough, there were a lot of sisters there.  We were asked not to take any pictures in the eating areas.  No idea why.

Isn't that the biggest mailbox you have ever seen?  I guess they get an awful lot of letters mailed from there.

They had some unique artwork there that was just really outstanding.  It was almost everywhere.  

Another of my favorite pictures.

 

This has to be my favorite baptismal picture.  I mean, really, that has to be a dedicated Elder to have a baptism under those conditions.  I am in awe of this Elder!

 

From the far side of the parking lot is this Eastern view of the mountains and the Provo Temple across the street.  We are planning on attending one night if we can get some free time.

031117

We met with the Records Operation Center Temple (TROC) in downtown Salt Lake City at the Joseph Smith Building (the old Hotel Utah) so that they could get to know us a bit better.  They are the ones that oversee the whole ROC operations throughout the world.  They talked about their mission and goals for the ROCs and how they operate, a good intro into what happens at the ROCs.  We also met most of their staff.

This is Elder and Sister Karren, the ones that coordinate the whole operation from the TROC in Salt Lake, next to their cube.  Really nice people.  We were there about 2 hours.

 

A cube farm to be sure.

 

We then went down to lunch in the Nauvoo Cafe and brought back some memories from our last mission.

 

The building next to the Joseph Smith building is where the Apostles have the administration building.

 Later that night we went to visit our newest grandchild, Vyvian Sharleen Jean Seger, Jonathan and Angélic's new baby.

Proud Grandma!

More to come!

030817

Set apart this evening for our new adventure by Presidents Westin, Johnson and Gardner.

President Johnson, Jim/Arlene, President Westin, President Gardner.  A great stake presidency.  We love them all.  Tabbi, Nathan and the kids were there to witness the event and add some color to the background.

Everything we own is now packed in a 10x20 storage shed in Placerville.

Packing up the RAV4.  Yes, it was very full.  We learned from the first time what we really needed.

The snow pack on top of 50 was more than I have seen in a decade.  It was way taller than the RAV.

Looking over the Tahoe basin as we get ready to leave California once again.  More to follow in the next few days as we head to Herriman to stay with Marilyn Boekweg, visit our grandkids, and start training at the MTC in Provo.