042917

The last day for a few of our missionaries at the ROC.

This is the group we work with out in the South Wing (the garage).  Several of these will be finishing up their missions and moving on.  Some will come back in the fall and starting up again.  At any rate, the South wing is a nice place to serve.

 So, today is the 29th and we decided to go for a drive.  Zion National Park is only a few miles away.  We headed off to see what is up there and got a few pictures to show for our time up there.

 

Some gorgeous, rugged mountains are just about everywhere. 

 

Heading into the park.

 

There wasn't a lot of space to park and take pictures...

 

...and we got to go through the very long tunnel

 

...a really long tunnel...

 

Many of the mountains were very characteristically shaped

An interesting formation at the far end of the park before the tunnel

This is what the tunnel looks like from the outside and a little down the hillside.

    

Just such majestic mountains in the park as we head back down the hill towards St. George.

 

Stopping in Laverkin, we had to get the proverbial picture of Arlene in front of the local post office.  We also called and stopped by/visited the Porter's, our old Pleasant Valley Bishop and his lovely wife.  Had a nice chat and talked about family.  We have seen them back in Pleasant Valley ward a few times as they visited and we always appreciate their friendship.

042317

We got to Salt Lake the night before, the 22nd, in time for a dinner with Matt/Donae, Jon (Emmett)/Angélic, Karla/Kevin and Arlene and myself.  We first got there stopping at the TROC to pick up a few items for our ROC in St. George that we needed.  Then over to check into our hotel room and dump off the stuff in the car and head out to Orem and meet with the family.

Meeting down in Orem at Red Lobster, we had a nice dinner.  Everyone seemed to be happy with the meal.  Mine was pretty good, at least.

After dinner we headed over to Jon's and spent a few minutes with the grand kid's  Feonyx is kind of difficult to get a picture of him smiling so this was a close as I could get.  Well, in a couple of years maybe I can get a smile out of him that last more than a micro-second.

  

Grandma and Vyvian together.  You can plainly see how excited Vyvian is at being with Grandma.  

 

...and the happy couple spending a few minutes together before the madness that will come tomorrow.

 

After the marriage and just leaving the the temple...there was a lot of this.  Oh so much of this....gross...I guess I remember about the same thing about 43 years ago in pretty much the same place when Arlene and I were married.  Brought back a few pleasant but far away memories.   

 

North side of the temple

 

The East temple steps

 

Some of us together.

 

The whole family together!

 

The Three Amigoes together one last time!  Tommy Tolman, Kevin, and Kyle Gardner.

 

This is Kevin's "family" from Chicago.  The brother to the right will be Kevin's Bishop when he returns to Chicago with Karla and settles into his new life.  We talked a little bit when we could and he seems like a very nice guy.  They really love Kevin and know him pretty well.  

  

The reflection pool East of the temple.

 

There were a couple of moments when the stress of the day was not too awful depressing.  On the left is Karla's friend and her photographer.  Right is Angélic.  She was instrumental in helping getting into the pictures perfect most of the day.  She could see things that I never thought of.  

 

A kid does love his Mum.  Probably helping Mom make it up the hill.

  

A rose among the Tulips...

 

A vision to the future...

 

Ugh...there's that kissing thing again....

 

Towards the end of the day things were getting a bit tiresome.  A stolen moment of peace...

 

There were so many beautiful flowers all over temple square

 

A friend of the bride...

 

The stress of the day has worn them out.  A few minutes later they are off on a wild trip to the airport and a flight to Chicago for their honeymoon and finally, the rest of their life together.  Us?  Well, we took off to meet Jon/Angélic in Orem for dinner then down to St. George and another week of exciting family history work.  Gotta tell ya, though, it took me a couple of days to get my feet back under me again.  More to come.

041917

One of the things we do at the ROC (Records Operation Center for those of you that haven't figured it out) is "Zoning".  That's where we look at newspaper pages that have birth, marriage, or death related articles in them and we highlight them so the information can be extracted.  After we've been doing some hardcore indexing or PPA's (Post Production Audits) and we're tired of that, we will do some zoning for a while.  Looking at old newspapers and extracting the information there is pretty interesting and sometimes funny and helps relieve the stress of a hard indexing session.  Sometimes the articles are very interesting.  Recently I was reading articles about Hitler's butler and how he disposed of his and Eva Braun's bodies after they committed suicide.  First hand articles/interviews but I only was able to read the first installment.  I've read some pretty interesting articles from the late 1800s and around WWII.  fascinating stuff.  Oh, and actually got some work done too.

At any rate, on this day we had training from a Sister Trotter from Salt Lake main office, called the TROC or Temple ROC.

Sister Trotter is, maybe, 5 feet tall and soft spoken.  But very knowledgeable on Zoning.  We were able to ask questions and get answers that we need to have answered.

She had both a morning and an afternoon training session.  You can see the stand in front so you have a rough idea of how tall she is.  This, by the way, is our main meeting room for our twice daily devotionals and any main training that wwe need to do.

 

This is a pict of one of my monitors zoned for obituaries (we all have two monitors to work with).  Note that it's all green as deaths are colored green.  This is taken from the Boston Globe and it's in about 1924 so there are a lot of obituaries.  Once they are correctly marked, the data is sent to extraction so it can be sent on for people to use the data in the genealogy.  In this case, I am checking someone else's work then making changes/corrections and submitting the batch.

 

This is an interesting picture of how our ancestors are helping us do this work.  There are a lot of people here that believe they feel them guiding our efforts as we do the work we do.  

A couple of days later and we are off to Salt Lake for Kevin/Karla's wedding.  That would be next....

 

Here we are "lounging" at our workstations...now, if I can only get that left eye to stay open during the day....sigh.

041617

Easter Sunday.  I was born on a Saturday, the day before Easter.  As long as I can remeber, that has only happened once and that was when I was 11.  I don't think it has ever happened since then.  This year, however, Easter was on my birthday, April 16th.  I don;t recall that ever happening before.  I'm thinking I won't be around for that to happen again, at least, not very likely....

We were invited up to Pine Valley to visit with Connie Webb and attend church in her ward up there.  Since we have no responsibilities down in our ward, it's pretty easy to bail on our ward.  She also offered a ham dinner and we offered my German Chocolate cake for dessert.

The Pine Valley Church, Pine Valley, Utah.  The oldest church in the area.

If you followed the blog in Nauvoo, you would remember that Sister Webb went to church with us in Burlington ward and was a site missionary there so we got to know her pretty well.  This is her home in Pine Valley.  

 

The flowers are all in bloom here in St. George and some of these are imported from Nauvoo, although I'm not sure which ones.  

 

Lots of colors everywhere...

 

Connie and Arlene together as we head out the door.  A nice visit to Pine Valley on a sacred day.

041217

Today was the Decker's last day at the ROC.  They had pretty much poured their heart and soul into building up the ROC to what it is today so watching the turnover of their baby to a whole new crew of "unenlightened" people was hard for them.  But, they had served their time/their mission, and it was time for them to go home and get some rest.  Elder/Sister McAra are now the leads for the ROC and it will take on new directions and paths.  We just get to watch what happens.  We are learning about so many things that each day is a challenge.  Each of us has our own responsibilities and directions from the McAra's so, hopefully, we can all pull together to make it all happen.  So far, I guess we're doing what needs to happen.  Some of the stuff is pretty tedious but all necessary.  I do get to play with computers and work on the facilities some...nothing like Nauvoo, but that is OK by me.

The ROC had a party for the Decker's over at the Stake Center across the street.  It is the St. George East Stake Center building.  It has the St. George 7th ward in it, at least, 'cause that is the ward we attend.  It's so big we haven't met the Bishop yet and no one really knows who we are.  I suppose that's a good thing but it allows us to concentrate on what we're doing at the ROC.  Anyway, back to the party...

We had about half of the cultural hall occupied.

Plenty of food (slow cook pork sandwiches and lots of other stuff).  Sister Mathews here making sure everything is perfect.  She is another one of the full time missionaries and helps to make the ROC hummmm.  

 

We had a traditional Hawaiian goodbye dance by Elder/Sister Reise (probably misspelled)  who will soon be leaving the ROC as their mission is almost over also.  Elder and Sister McAra are keeping an eye on things from the front.

 

Most of the time the Deckers were watching intently, especially as sister Decker had tears in her eyes a good part of the time.

 

A retired Army officer, Elder Decker had developed a rapour with many of the missionaries serving here that was somewhat "antagonistic" when you first hear him talk but you quickly realize it was solely out of love for the missionaries serving and it is just his way of dealing with the pressure of working there and getting things up and running from absolutely nothing.

 

Elder McAra closed the luncheon out and the Decker's left for Indiana and their next adventure.  Most of us netting there will be a ROC somewhere near them in a few months.   

041117

I need to catch up a little.  sorry, I have been dragging my feet as we've been busy.  On the 11th the ROC had a get together of a few of the friends and ROC missionaries meet over at Chuck O Rama (gosh that is a terrible name for a buffet but it's not too bad) to have one of the last meals with the Deckers before they leave on the 12th.  Just sitting and eating, meeting a few new people and discussing things happening in our lives.

Elder/Sister Decker on the left, Arlene on the right.  The bald guy on the left was an electrician at the Nauvoo temple just before we got there on our last mission.  He left just before we arrived in 2015.  We didn't get much of a chance to talk.  I've seen him here a couple of times so I will probably get another chance later.  Elder and Sister Payne are to Arlene's right.  They serve with us at the ROC.

 More to come as I catch up.