Language humor (unintentional)

A couple of days ago, one of my sons (D) came in and asked why we hated our toilet. It turns out that I had placed little sticker notes on various objects around the house so that my wife could learn few German words. In German, der, die and das are the equivalents to "the" in English and each noun has a gender. We have to learn those specific articles along with the words. Anyway, he knew what was meant, but it looked nonetheless like we had a death wish on the toilet.

Communications

As of today, our phone number is no longer working. The boys are still here, but are using internet only, no land line. (Even if they were to have opted for continued land line, it would have been a new number).

The best way to communicate with us is via email.

Our cell numbers will work good up until the 7th of January when we discontinue that service. The boys likely will keep their cell numbers after that.

When we are in Germany, we expect to skype and use internet phone options for direct communications. I know that we will have a cell phone there, but we don't know the details yet. In emergency, contact our sons at the house, or our married son who lives in West Jordan and he will get to us. If you need that number, please send us an email message or leave a comment on this blog post and we will get to you.

A whole new adventure awaits us!

We appreciate your good wishes!

Best gift of all

Our Christmas was a little different this year. First of all, it was very quiet, to begin with, just the four of us. It was joyous and happy when the others arrived and we just had a lot of fun together. Of course we had æbleskivers. We were able to Skpye with our Hungarian family and hope to get together with our Maine family.

Lots of good things were given to each other. The best, of course, is being with each other, though we deeply felt the difference with our two families far away.

The best gift, in my opinion, was a beautiful book put together containing pictures of the family, but especially the letters, notes and testimonies that were contain within. As John wrote in his third epistle: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. "

It touched my heart (and brought many tears to my dear companion) to read those precious words given to us by our children and grandchildren.

Thank you all so much!

I have at this point only read some (much), and expect to spend a lot of time, here and in Europe, re-reading this wonderful book.

German game and the mission

On Monday evening, We were playing a game we have and I noticed how much it matched the mission where we are going to be serving. The game is called Thurn und Taxis and is based on the history of the development of the postal system in Germany. It works around building the routes between the cities on the game map. The cities include many which are in the boundaries of our Alpine German Speaking mission (I list those with wards and branches):

Switzerland: Zurich, Basel (wards in both)
Austria: Innsbruck (branch), Salzburg (ward), Linz (wards)
Germany:
Freiburg (ward)
Stuttgart (ward)
Sigmaringen (west of Ravensburg Branch)
Ulm (branch)
Augsburg (ward)
Kempten (east of Ravensburg Branch)
Ingolstadt (branch)
München (Munich has 4 wards)
Passau (branch)

Not in the mission: (Germany) Carlsruhe, Mannheim, Würzburg, Nürnberg
Czech Republic: Budweis (now Budějovice) and PIlsen (now Plzeň)
Poland: Lodz (now Łódź )

I thought it might be interesting to see. Here is a photo of the map game board, (too small to read).

I assume the postal system has improved since those days (just kidding!)

- - - -

A side note...

I have been helping a neighbor with his genealogy and he has a line that comes from those parts of the Czech Republic. Back then it was controlled by Austria and was called Böhmen, known in English as Bohemia. Germany had a far reach back then (way before the 1900s).

- - - -

We are greatly anticipating our work with the wonderful people of that region.

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

I thought I would post the notes from my talk last Sunday, mainly for those of the family who weren't able to be there.  Of course, there are a lot of differences between this and what was actually said, but I enjoyed the process of bringing it all together. The Bishop assigned me the topic, this specific one of the Beatitudes.

Here it is:


Hunger and Thirst and you shall be filled

1. What do you "hunger and thirst" for? The expression goes: "I want it so bad, I can taste it…"  What is it that you really, deep down, want?

That really defines your soul and your life.

Even in popular literature there is a reference to this:

"It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts."  - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Wouldn't it be great to have something that would let us see what we really, desperately desire?

Do you know what it is that you "hunger and thirst" after?

"I don't check the Newsfeed, I feast on it." - Sprint ad in newspaper 12/16/2012

I put forward that once we have that hunger for righteousness, or the love of our Savior and for what is right, then we can be filled. We can been filled with peace, with hope, with courage to face daily adversity - or, in other words, be filled with the Holy Ghost.

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
or
3_Nephi 12:6 And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.

2. Does it say that they ARE righteous? No, it is what they really want, more than anything else. We stumble and fall, but we still work at it and do not give up.  Also, there is so much in life that cloud our resolve, our good intentions, and causes us to forget what we truly honestly desire. It can even make us replace the true desire with a counterfeit - something transitory, ultimately unfulfilling, empty and hollow, trite. It is important to take time to ponder and review our desires. This is accomplished by true introspection, prayer and following the directions of the Holy Spirit when they come.

3. Enos wrote about his moment of introspection. It demonstrates his "hunger"

Enos 1:4 And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.


4. [Elder Busche's experiences - see below]
 This not an ordinary experience. No everyone can be an Enzio Busche and have his experiences, but he searched much and worked hard because of his hunger, his "Yearning for the Living God."
But note: even when he came to the point of conversion and baptism, that was just the beginning. There is no end point of this process in life. It is a continuing process. So it is with us all. We are at different stages of our spiritual development. We may not even be where we once were. Once we lose sight of our true and deepest desires, we find ourselves in darkness and misery, because we have lost the Holy Ghost.

What must we do, then?

5. Here are some points:

a. Concerning the sacrament, Elder Don R. Clarke, in the latest conference said:

"Upon instituting the sacrament during His visit to the Nephites, Jesus stated, “He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.” They had been promised that if they hungered and thirsted after righteousness, they would be filled with the Holy Ghost. The sacramental prayer also promises that if we live up to our covenants, we will always have His Spirit to be with us."

[3_Nephi 20:8 And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.]

b. In Elder Bednar's talk in the most recent conference he talks about testimony vs conversion and talks about what the essence of the Gospel is.

6. In review, here are the points:

a. Determine what it is that we truly, deep down, desire and then evaluate our situation. If it is the true hunger and thirst for righteousness, we receive, "be filled" by the Holy Ghost.

b. Set a pattern of reviewing our lives to see if we are moving towards that desire, i.e. striving for righteousness. Again, the reason is so we can have genuine peace. There is no other way to receive that peace.

c. Remember that we are never finished. We have not "attained." It takes small successes - continual progress - changing and fixing over and over, knowing that the hand of the Lord is there to pull us out of the pitfalls, the potholes we find ourselves in. The Holy Ghost will renew us.

That is reason why we should seek out that deep desire.

[End of talk]
Here are my notes about Elder Busche:

Here are some interesting parts of the book written by Elder F. Enzio Busche, "Yearning for the Living God." When I was a missionary in that part of Germany, he was the district president (like a stake president, but they did not have any stakes then). He later was a counselor to our mission president.

I remember him telling us a little bit about his conversion. I also remember his powerful testimony.

He had a traditional upbringing in Germany, which emphasized philosophical thinking and intelligence over spirituality. He had some powerful spiritual experiences in his life that led him to start considering the power of the Gospel, many years before he actually heard of the church. The first story here is when he was in the hospital with a very serious illness, newly married, but had no idea about our church. He had had an experience where he heard the spirit tell him to pray and he would be healed. He then read the bible and considered what the truth was. Here is this first story.

In the Catholic hospital, there was a nun whose name was Irrenea. She was the most angelic human being one could ever imagine. Although she was in her forties of fifties, she behaved like a little girl. To see her walking, one would think she was almost dancing. To hear her talk was almost like hearing her sing. I never saw her discouraged or overly serious. There was always some merriment in her eyes and a sincere interest in the well-being of the patients. During the five months I spent in the hospital, I learned to admire Irrenea greatly. I watched her  because she was of the caliber I wanted to achieve in order to be acceptable to the other world, and I benefited from the daily exposure to the authority and dignity of this wonderful daughter of our Heavenly Father.

One day when she was not busy, I took the liberty to ask her if she could spend an extra minute by my bedside. She gladly agreed. I asked her, "Sister Irrenea, can you please give me the answer to just one question — just answer with a 'yes' or 'no.' Tell me, is the Catholic Church the trie church of Jesus Christ?" She was somewhat, but not overly, surprised. She looked off toward the horizon and, after some time, her gaze turned toward me and she said, quite matter-of-factly and without any apologies, "No, it is not. The church you are looking for is the church of the living Christ, and the Catholic Church is a church of dead traditions. You can only remain a member if you have grown up in the church, for then you are so caught up in it, it is difficult to leave it."

After a while, he tried his own church (Evangelical Lutheran) and learned, but found disappointment. He was visited  by the missionaries and met with them for quite a while, but through the process, he started to have feelings of hopelessness, basically that it was probably true, but he felt that he was not adequate or able to live this gospel:

… it happened that by and by, I came to know the doctrine of the Gospel. But the more I got to know of the doctrine, the more overwhelmed I became with its unique, vast completeness. The next step was fear, even panic. My mind was filled with the thought that if their message was true, I would be confronted with something I could not push away.

How ill prepared I was for this message as I saw myself in comparison to its ultimate demands! I felt that I was too far away, with too many casual attitudes and bad habits

… The power of my traditional thinking and my laziness in spiritual matters were so overwhelming that I saw no possibility of reaching the level of these young men...

He eventually agreed to be baptized and here is an interesting story about his interaction with his father:

Because of the great respect and admiration I had for my father, one of the most difficult aspects of my decision to be baptized was, of course, the question of how he would react towards my baptism. ...

My father's attitude was very serious and sincere when I told him. He said, "Before I say anything, let me sleep on it and I will talk to you tomorrow." He came into my office the next day and said, "I have something that I want to tell you. I have three questions for you." First he asked me, "Have  you really investigated this?"

I answered, "Yes."

Second, he questioned, "Have you really taken enough time? Did you look into all corners and read everything you could find, even the literature of its critics, or has someone pressured you?"

I replied, "No, there has been no pressure. I have done everything I could to investigate and I have also read the 'anti' literature."

He continued, "Then, here is my third question: Are you really convinced that this is true?"

Without hesitation, I answered, "Yes."

He said, "Well, then you have no choice. You have to do it. We have to follow our convictions in our lives. Otherwise, we will not be able to stand. Even when it is not popular, and even when people sometimes can't understand us, it is necessary to stand by our convictions. Otherwise, we are unable to stand."

I was completely overwhelmed by my father's final statement. It was so unique. I knew so many people who made compromises for all kinds of reasons, but here was my father who was concerned that I might have been brainwashed or coerced in some way. When it came to the final analysis, however, he respected my decision and was willing to support me.

[End of Busche notes]

Weekly report

For the sake of continuity, I thought I would write a few thoughts and report a few activities of the past week.

First of all, we are now both officially retired. Of course, I was retired officially last July, but now she is retired having worked her last day on Friday, the 21st. They gave her a lot of parties, gifts and even a decorated car (see picture). It is certain that she will be missed and will miss her work and people (maybe not the work so much). Anyway, we are focused on our final preparations.

As for that, both of us are engaged in language training several times per week. The MTC has set us up for individual German training in hour-long sessions over Skype. It is a wonderful thing. She is learning the basics of the language and I am learning narrative and conversational past, reflexive verbs, giving spiritual thoughts and having discussions. It is a blessing that we can do this without leaving our home. Wir sind von der Herr sehr gesegnet!

Last Sunday, we both spoke in Sacrament meeting. It went well. There were a lot of people in attendance and we were blessed to see so many come. Afterwards, we had food and visiting at our home (see a few pictures). I am thinking of putting my talk notes in another blog posting. She was released as Relief Society President just before she gave her talk. She did very well and was able to control her emotions.

 little Oak

Little Coop in uncle's arms

We finally got all our papers back and ready for our visas and sent them all off to the church travel department. They asked to have them by the day we enter the MTC.

Our homebodies both now have gainful employment, so they will be taking care of the home while we are gone. This coming week is very busy, with Christmas, especially. Payless is busy and has our son working some today and a lot this week. He went to another ward for church this morning before having to be at work at 10:30. Durufus has Sunday's off, but has been putting in long hours at Dominos and will do so also this week. At least now his car is running well.

We are happy and looking forward to a wonderful Christmas, though we very much miss our Maine family and our Hungary family. We hope to Skype with them on Christmas Day.

A few family pics

Here are a few random shots. First is me holding one of our little grandsons in the hospital in WJ.

Here is our famous bunny as dressed as a knight up by Soapy.

 Little Oak trying out the armor (taste test, of course).

Our Durufus after his successful job hiring!

New Grandson

No, this is not a repeat of the last blog.

The highlight of the day was our brief little Skype session today at about 2. We got to see our new little grandson from 8 time-zones away! He is a handsome little guy and Mom is doing well, now that the baby has finally come. Wow, two grandsons in a week.

We learned about the birth while I was at the church running water for the baptismal font and my dear sweetheart was off at a wedding shower across town. We both hurried back for the long-distance encounter. After the Skype session, we both went to the church to get ready for a wedding (not the one with the shower) and baptism taking place. It was a busy, but blessed day.

New grandson

Our second son's wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy this morning, at 12:09 AM. He is a charming little guy, very peaceful and wonderful. Hopefully those of our family know the details. If not, you know how to contact me.

I am very thankful to my Heavenly Father for such a glorious family. It is a joy to be with them and to share life with them!

Another shining little soul is going to be arriving any day now. We expected the grandchild's birth today as well, but that looks to be still a day or two away.

The Pind family

Anders Jensen Pind is my fifth-great-grandfather, born in Skovsøe, Ottestrup, Sorø, Denmark. In the later years of my father's life, he did a lot of research in the Pind genealogy and made considerable progress in finding families in that line of my mother's Danish ancestry. There have always been some questions about that line because the records are not very clear in some places and times.

As I was working on Danish research, I felt directed to look into this line to see what I could find. Since I started that back in September, I have come across a number of clues and insights and felt that it was important for me to pursue this for a while before leaving on our mission.

This blog entry will be fairly long because I wanted to explain some details and leave some research notes for anyone who wants to follow up on this while we are away. I still may do some work on this line while we are in Germany, but that is uncertain.

The notes I started making in September explain the process and some of the difficulties found in the Pind research:


Report on Anders Jensen Pind research, September - November 2012

I started working on the Pind line and found a probate record that cast new light on the family. It was the probate for Lars Christensen of Jærnbjerg (Jernberg) of Sankt Mikkels, near Slagels, Sorø, Denmark in 1793. It shows that his sister, Kirsten was married to Anders Jensen Pind and lists three children, including our ancestor Ane Marie Andersen. It also shows that Lars' mother had remarried and was married to Hans Andersen Pind who is Anders Jensen Pind's uncle (Jens Andersen Pind's brother).

This single probate record brings a lot of records together that were difficult to sort out because of the way the records were kept in the area at the time. There were several factors that make the records a problem. These are:

1. The lack of female (mother and wife) names in the record - It is normal for a death record to merely say: Anders Pind's wife buried, age 34. The christening of children fails to show a mother's name, either.

2. The people of the region used three churches in different towns for their christenings, burials and marriages. Most of the christenings are found in the Ottestrup parish, northeast of Slagelse. Marriages are sometimes performed in the St. Mikkels parish church, north of Slagelse. In the later years the family used the church in Hejninge, which is west of Slagelse. All the records still mentioned that Anders Pind was from the town of Skovsøe or Skousøe.

3. The various ministers used different spellings and abbreviations. Most notably, the name Christen or Christensen were sometimes spelled  Xten and Xtensen. Anders was sometimes spelled And. The surname Pind was not consistently used. It appears that some ministers never used the Pind name, others always used it without the patronymic, etc. Ander Jensen Pind was sometimes listed as Anders Jensen, And Pind or Anders Jensen Pind.

4. The names used were very common. It is often not certain whether the person found is the real person or just someone else with the same name. Most recently the research seems to indicate that two men were there, both named Anders Jensen, our ancestor usually referred to by And Pind in the Ottestrup records.

The Census and Probate records are very useful in this work. They are not primary records so they can not usually be relied upon for an individual's basic information. That is true because the record keepers were prone to errors and assumptions. The value of these records is that it puts people together in families. When a set of parents is shown with several children and the locations and dates are close to what is found in the church christening records, then there can be a better assumption made as to parentage and location of the people.

Prior to this information, all we had was that Ane Marie Andersen was the daughter of Anders Jensen Pind. The mother was possibly Maren Hansdatter or Margrethe Jensdatter. Now it appears that Kirsten Christensdatter could have been her mother, though no marriage record has yet been found. Margrethe Jensdatter is most likely her step-mother, the marriage taking place after Ane's birth.

Timeline

I made a timeline of known information to help figure out the details and hopefully get a better overall picture of the family. (The "Opslag" word means Image number in the online Danish records I found.  - See http://buchananspot.com/joseph/genealogy/DanishHelper.html )

Pind family chronology

21 Apr 1743 Anders son of Jens Andersen of Skovsøe born Ottestrup (Opslag 27 1720-1775)

16 Oct 1774 marriage of Anders Jensen Pind of Skousøe to

Maren Hansdatter  Ottestrup (Opslag 97 1720-1775)

(The Pind name appears between the lines of writing and it could be Anders Jensen of Skousøe and Maren Hans Pinds datter)

1 Jan 1775 christening of Anne, daughter of Anders Jensen Ottestrup (Opsalg 5 1770-1805)

of Skousøe [This is probably not our Anders Jensen Pind, but the other Anders Jensen]

16 Apr 1775 christening of Jens son of And Pind Ottestrup - Skovsøe (Opslag 5 1770-1805)

Hans Pind's wife was at the christening. This is quite certainly the oldest child of our ancestor. Jens appears in probates, census records and Military records as the son of Anders Pind.

6 Oct 1776 christening of Ane Marie daughter of And Pind of Skousøe Ottestrup - Skovsøe (Opslag 6 1770-1805) She is our ancestor.

23 Aug 1778 burial of And Pind's mother age 70 Ottestrup  (Opslag 51 1770-1805)

23 Feb 1780 marriage of Anders Jensen of Skousøe to (?) Kirsten Jacobsdatter St. Mikkels (Opslag 218 1640-1815 marriages only) This is possibly the other Anders Jensen.

3 May 1780 probate - wife of Anders Pind, page 86 (This is from my father's notes, I still need to find it)  The children listed are Jens, Ane Marie and Karen

25 June 1780 burial of And Pind's wife, age 34 Ottestrup (Opslag 51 1770-1805)

16 Apr 1781 christening of Karen daughter of And Pind Ottestrup - Skovsøe (Opslag 9 1770-1805)

This might have been a wife between Maren and Margrethe, possibly Kirsten Christensdatter, though there is absolutely no evidence of it. Karen could also have been illegitimate and Anders married her mother later the next year, though this is unlikely. Usually after an illegitimate birth, the couple was more quickly married. 

20 Nov 1782 marriage of widower Anders Jensen of Skousøe to 

spinster Margrethe Jensdatter of Heininge .

Hejninge (Opslag 46 1760-1814) Hejninge (p 136 Opslag 133 1648-1814)

betrothed 19 June 1782, November marriage also recorded on Opslag 135

20 Oct 1785 christening of Anna Christina daughter of And Pind Ottestrup (Opslag 12 1770-1805)

1787 Census Ottestrup - Skovsøe

Anders Pind listed with four children:  Jens 11; Anna Maria 10; Karen 7 all from first marriage;

Anna Christine 2 from another marriage. Wife listed is Margaretha Jensdatter

12 May 1788 christening of Maren daughter of And Pind Ottestrup - Skovsøe (Opslag 15 1770-1805)

20 Nov 1791 christening of Kirsten daughter of And Pind Ottestrup - Skovsøe (Opslag 18 1770-1805)

1791 Military Levying Rolls St. Mikkels

Jens, son of Anders Pind age 14 (should be 16)

Jens is continually listed in following MLR records, 1793, 1796, 1799, etc. with the correct ages in those records. MLR records only sons.

3 May 1793 death/burial of Anders Jensen Hejninge (Opslag 82 1760-1814)

20 Dec 1793 Probate of Lars Chistensen Jernberg (Skt Mikkels), Antvorsskov 1790-1834

Anders Jensen Pind listed as deceased brother-in-law to Lars Christensen, having married his sister 

Kirsten Christensdatter. Both Anders and Kirsten are dead. 

Children of that marriage listed as: Jens Andersen 18, Ane Marie Andersdatter 14,

Karen Andersdatter 11. This says that his second wife is Margrethe Jensdatter of Heininge.

This one records seems to tell us that Anders Pind was indeed married to Kirsten Christensdatter and that, at least, Karen was their child (born in 1781).

11 Dec 1794 burial of Anders Jensen's widow Hejninge (Opslag 88 1760-1814)

This is most likely Margrethe Jensdatter. Her children appear in the 1801 census living with the family of Ane Marie and her husband Hans Jensen, in Hejninge.

Five weeks to go

Yesterday I had the wonderful pleasure of visiting my cousin, who recently returned from serving, with her husband, a mission in Holland. They reported their experiences in sacrament meeting in their ward, along with their son, who just returned from serving in Washington State. After the meeting, we all gathered at their home and I had nice visit with her and really learned about some of the details of work in Europe. Besides the financial, practical, cultural and political details, the main value of the experience was that I could really feel the great and wonderful blessing of serving the Lord among the people there. It made the mission seem that much closer and real.

Also over the weekend (Friday, really) we contacted a coordinator at the MTC concerning language training. Since we are only in the MTC for 7 days, there will only be minimal experience in learning German there. We are to set up some Skype-based language instruction for the next weeks and then after Christmas we hope to have some days at the MTC in immersion experiences in the language before officially entering the MTC.

Exactly 5 weeks until then!

Travel information

We received our travel information today. We are to fly to Paris, leaving our fair state on Jan 7th at 4:55 PM (Delta) arriving in Paris the next morning at 11:25 AM (10 1/2 hours of actual flight), then after a layover of about 1 and a half hours, on to Munich, arriving Tuesday mid-afternoon.

Preparations

I have avoided making posts for a while. We have been busy with mission preparations. My companion and I love spending a little time each morning reading from the Book of Mormon, auf Deutsch. I read a verse in English, she in German and then I repeat it in German.

I have been working on studying the region and making maps. They are fairly large files so I will not post them here, though I am adding an image of the map they sent us, reduced in size. You won't be able to read the names, but you can get the idea. In researching the wards and branches of the mission, I  came up with a count of 36 Wards and 23 Branches. Liechtenstein has none, but there is a ward near there in Dornbirn, Austria.

We are now working on buying things (luggage, clothes, etc.) and studying the language. We will not be able to use our cell phones over there, so we will probably discontinue our account and cell phones here, so contact will mainly be done via email and Skype. We will likely be discontinuing our home phone here as well. The boys will be setting up something for their internet and will set up their own phones, I believe.

This is all very exciting and overwhelming as well. With the Lord's help we can do this.

November birthdays

We got together, as is the tradition. Of course, we are not all here, with the Singing Bees in Europe. Here are a few pictures.

Isaak's birthday

We visited Isaak's grave. It was on Monday instead of Sunday, because it got dark before we were able to get there on the 18th. Here are some pictures.

and the opening...

Well, we have officially opened the plain white envelope and here is the result:

We are called to serve in the  Alpine-German speaking       Mission, departing 31 Dec 2012     .


We are all excited and visiting together about this so I will post thoughts and reactions in the next blog.

Wow

First of two posts - "Anticipation"

Well, the long anticipated day has arrived. We received a large white envelope in the mail this afternoon, at 4:15 PM, actually. We have invited our family members to convene at our house for the official opening at 5:15 PM (Mountain time). The results will be reported in the next blog.

More Family History Work

I spent a number of hours yesterday and today going through old records and adding to the web site for the Heber Fielding Burton family.

The site home page is http://hfburton.buchananspot.com

Of the four family-based web sites I manage, this one generally has received the least attention from me. My wife and I went through a few piles of records she inherited from her great-great-aunt. In the process, I found a lot of pictures of family members that I did not previously have on the website.

- - - - - - - -
Now, since I have not been doing a blog very long, I thought I should add a few points about recent family history work.

1. Hans Sorensen family - I finished writing the history of Hans Sorensen, my second great grandfather earlier this year and had it published/printed. I made 225 copies and sold or distributed them all. The website contains a link to the history in PDF form. The document is 80 pages long, including many appendix pages.

I then later completed research into the son of Hans Sorensen, Soren Peter and posted a copy of that on the website as well. The Hans Sorensen history page is:

http://aeb.buchananspot.com/histories/Sorensen/Hans

2. I worked at a review of the research my father did on the Andersen line and ended up finding some new information about Anders Jensen Pind. I will put my summary of that in a separate blog entry.

3. Danish research - Over the past two years, I have bene able to do an extensive amount of research in Danish records right at home, because Denmark has released many volumes of records for searching and accessing.  In the process, I made up a web page to show people how they can get to these records and included a few pages showing some basic tools and resources in doing Danish research. THe web page is:

http://buchananspot.com/joseph/genealogy/DanishHelper.html

Well, this blog is getting big enough already.

New Challenges

I expect that there are tests on my resolve intensifying at this time. My health has been very good up until these past few months and now concerns are arising. It may be that there are still issues to be resolved and the Lord is bringing them up now instead of while we are on our mission.

Friday morning, very early, I was hit with kidney stone pain in the right side. It went away after 2 hours so I dismissed it as something quickly passed. Then, on Sunday morning at the same time as before, I was hit again and this time it did not stop. After a visit at Jordan Valley hospital and some tests, it appears that I am over it finally, but the tests revealed a possible other problem - a celiac artery aneurysm. The doctor is having me get another CT scan to be sure, but my doctor son thinks it will probably not require any special concern. I guess we just need to be sure before our mission.

Overall, I believe that the Lord is helping me strengthen my resolve to go forth and serve regardless of adversity. I still believe that my health is good and will not be a hinderance to my service. I know that once I am set apart, the Lord will carry me through any problems.

Progress and the past

I see this time as a critical moment before significant life changes. With the upcoming opportunity of serving the Lord on a 23 month mission, We are in the process of clearing and cleaning out the past and setting up for our new roles and challenges. A lot of what we are doing is going though the massive amount of things we have accumulated in the house over the past 32 years (including a lot I inherited when my parents passed on). What is significant? What is necessary? A lot of trips have been made to Deseret Industries (including this morning) and many items have been given away through FreeCycle. Our nephew is interested in some of the church books, which makes it easier to give them away. We'll see how that goes.

The other side of things has to do with preparation. One interesting development is that I recently discovered a new app for the iPad, NovoCard. I hoped that the iPad would be useful in my future work, and I hoped for some programming and database environment so I could make some organizational tools like I have done in the past. Up until now that hope has been in vain. NovoCard is based on the idea of HyperCard, which was my tool of choice for the past 25 years (lately using SuperCard). NovoCard is based on JavaScript, which I have already been using in web programming. The product is still in its early stages and some of the functionality is still unproven or not working (e. g. Functions), but that will be soon remedied. I have hope in it as a very useful tool for me. The author of the app has been communicating with me and is taking my suggestions to heart. An interesting point I discovered today is that he was once a Univac programmer like me, so we have some things in common.

The final point of this posting is that my spiritual preparation for the mission is ongoing. I love reading the scriptures and enjoy the inspirational insights I get. I have one that I have been developing recently and will post in another blog entry soon.

Upcoming mission

Well, the mission application process is finally completed, I hope.
We started this all back in February with our interview with the bishop. We then were able to start on the web page where we began filling out the various forms. Now, eight months later, we finally received word that the medical forms were complete and submitted. I suppose that one day I will document the process we had to go through to get this done. A lot of the delays were in getting into doctors and getting the doctors to fill out the full information needed, and also just waiting for the various people along the way (interviews, form reviews, etc.).

Now it will be interesting to see how long it will be until we receive our call...

- Laanjak

About Laanjak

Though my life experiences have been richly entwined with the Internet over the years, having a personal blog has never been one of my pursuits. Actually, I find it a bit presumptuous that anyone would actually be interested in what I have to say when it is not focused on a specific topic, such as family history, religion or online education. However, I felt it was time to start contributing to the rich fabric of lives and thoughts and ramblings that have become so pervasive in the Blogosphere.

About Laanjak ...

I invented the name Laanjak many years ago as the protagonist of a novel never written. Actually, I have written some of the first chapter and may eventually get it written. Being such a science fiction fan all my life, I thought to write a novel taking place in a decaying future colony on Mars. Laanjak and his friend begin questioning the authoritarian structure of their civilization and find ways to learn forbidden knowledge about their world and eventually break free of its grasp.

So far, the only thing to have survived from this literary foray is the name Laanjak. I am still amazed that this simple, seven-lettered name is still unique wherever I have have chosen to use it (usernames, etc.) and will continue to be the champion of the Laanjak name.