Teaching by the Spirit

Recently we were blessed to be taught in a mission training session lead by a general authority of the church. I will not say who it was so that I can avoid the possibility of misquoting him or giving any mis-information that could be attributed to him, but needless to say, it was a very instructive and delightful experience. He taught using this method and so afterwards, I summarized my impressions of the process and outline it here, including my own comments and added scriptures.

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Teaching by the Spirit
Purpose: Every encounter in our walk in life should be left in an improved condition.

There are times for preaching and times for teaching. the formality of the situation determines which. Most of our encounters with individuals or groups are teaching situations, however, both are potentially positive.

The Savior shows us the way to be instruments of bringing about improved conditions in any encounter, whether it be preaching or teaching.

The first important requirement is preparation. We need to be always studying, praying and preparing spiritually for this. As the occasion arises (encounters with people), these are the steps:

1. Invite the other (or others) to make an observation based either on what you have just said or what has been observed.

2. Based on that observation, present related idea, scripture, etc. (as directed by the spirit)and then ask an inspired question, leading the person to make another observation.

3. Continue the process (step 2) following the direction of the spirit, based on your previously prepared lesson plan (if there was an opportunity for that), or simply as inspiration comes.

As you are prepared, the Spirit of the Lord with direct you to ask these inspired questions. They should never lead to parroting back something just said, or requiring them to read your mind to come up with some answer you already have in mind. It should lead them to think and ponder and bring back an answer that comes from their heart.
An important component of this process is the need for "stillness." It often feels like, if there is silence, that someone needs to say something. Often, silence can be filled with the spirit, allowing for true teaching. The spoken word can often interrupt that process. Allow stillness to happen. It has a powerful effect.

Other considerations and thoughts:

When you have an anticipated encounter (or teaching situation), prepare some points to be presented and some possible questions that lead the discussion, but also know that the Spirit may lead you in unanticipated directions, based on the answers you receive.

Realize that in every situation, we all learn, whether we are in the "leading" position or not. The person, or persons, you interact with are not "objects" to be controlled, but rather "agents" who act for themselves. Lead them to act.

D&C 88:122 Appoint among yourselves a teacher, and let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time and let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken that all may be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privilege.

All (including ourselves) need to be kept on equal grounds. Anything else is of the adversary.

Alma 30:7 Now there was no law against a man's belief; for it was strictly contrary to the commands of God that there should be a law which should bring men on to unequal grounds.

Respect anything that the other person says, but be ready to lead them to higher thinking as guided by the spirit.

In preparation, be ready to present scripture passages and inspired stories (e.g. parables) to inspire thought conducive to spiritual progress.

Hope and the Truth

We (both Sister Buchanan and I) have the experience in helping some of our people attend the LDS Addiction Recovery Program meetings. I attend most every Tuesday night with one person and Sister B with one or more people sometimes twice a week.

These meetings are some the most spiritual meetings I have ever attended in my church experience. There is so much there in testimony of the Atonement.

I keep a few notes on my thoughts as I attend these meetings. I decided I would post some of them here. These are thoughts from two of the last meetings I have attended.

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ARP meeting, step 2 - Hope

This is not a program of self-control - it is a process of accepting the Savior as our control - turning to Him what we cannot do for ourselves.

Thought: It is not enough to be at a status quo - "maintaining."
We can, for a time, maintain a steadiness on our own - but we are  then deceived - not accepting our true and real potential. We need to rely on the spirit to know what we need to do next. The talk by Elder Larry Lawrence shows us how we need to ask what we yet lack - what we should be doing. The Holy Ghost knows us individually and what we need. President Eyring said in his talk, that once we receive that direction, it is important that we DO it.

Through it all, it takes the power of God for us to do it.

We are in a fallen world. It was necessary for us to come into a fallen world, but still, I imagine that it broke our Heavenly Father's heart, knowing what it would really mean to go thorugha fallen world - he forbade them from doing it, but knew that it had to be done. Heavenly Father and Jesus saw the fall - they knew what it really meant, more than any body else. They also knew what it would take to bring us out of it and back to them. They did not turn their backs on us - just because we brought it upon our selves. They are pulling for us, reaching for us, yearning for us to to take full advantage of what they have given us to conquer our fallen state. Christ has the power to bring us up to a better world (Ether 12:4 and Hebrews 6:19).


Another thought on complacency (status quo) - We can find it easier to be complacent when we choose to ignore the truth of our situation - usually through rationalization. Step 4 of the ARP process - Truth and making a fearless personal moral inventory. It is also important to write and record our inventory, also keep a journal. That way it will not be as easy to rationalize and forget the truth about our weaknesses. Moroni also helps us understand the need to understand our weaknesses, not as permanent character flaws, but as means to an end - discovering through humility to trust in the Lord and be improved by Him in ways that are impossible for us alone. (Ether 12:27)

a simple summary of our mission experience

I have not written very much concerning this mission. We are quite busy most of the time visiting people and helping many people get through difficulties in their lives, mostly helping them turn more to their Savior for help and finding the support and strength that comes through church activity. We had some people who are getting closer to being in full activity, especially in getting ready to go to the temple for the first time, or to return after a long time away. It is very gratifying to see some progress made and heartbreaking when troubles overwhelm some of our people we have some to love so much.

One aspect that helps us in this work in Family History. We have quite a few people, both new members and returning members, who have gotten very interested in progressing towards the temple because we have been able to find their ancestors and see what work needs to be done for them. I particularly love doing the research and know the the Lord is helping me find success in the work.

We love the work!

Apostles

As many of you know, I have been keeping up a chart showing the Apostles of the LDS church. I just updated that chart and it is on our website.

Here is the web address:

http://www.buchananspot.com/LDS/Apostles.pdf

It is also in individual pages in .gif form:

http://www.buchananspot.com/LDS/Apostles1.gif
http://www.buchananspot.com/LDS/Apostles2.gif

I hope this is useful to you all!

Mercy and Grace

We believe in and rely upon the Mercy of God, available to us through the Grace of our Savior Jesus Christ by his suffering in the garden of Gethsemane and his sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. Without this, nothing else makes any difference - nothing we can do, think or believe will be of any benefit to us.

As I was sitting in the temple last week, those thoughts worked through my mind. I thought that, though this is really at the core of our gospel belief as member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is too often taken for granted as we are so involved in other areas of the Gospel. It is important that we always remember the real reason we have faith and hope - Jesus Christ and his wonderful and incomprehensible atonement.

What I find also interesting is an experience I had last night, while attending an Addiction Recovery Program meeting. These are truly some of the most spiritual meetings I ever attend. In particular, as we were discussing the twelfth step, this statement was mentioned and discussed:

"Sharing your testimony of His mercy and His grace is one of the most important services you can offer."

It recalled to my mind the thoughts I had while in the temple last week. Wow.

With this I am sharing my testimony of the Mercy of God which is given to us through the Grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Is anybody out there?

Hi. I am not sure anyone is reading these blog posts much. I am sure our life here in Utah is not as interesting as it was in Germany.

I started writing some about the Danish research I do and occasionally I write something about our work here or something with the family.

I would like to hear from anyone who might be reading this to let me know if these posts are useful or what might be better to include in them.

Thanks!

Mission work

As you can see, I am not as diligent in posting about this mission as I was with the mission in Germany. The primary reason is that the work here is more intense, but also more personal. It is true that we had a number of people with whom we worked in Germany and the branch there, but we also had a lot of experiences beyond that that were more of interest to the people back home. The personal struggles people had in our Ravensburg Branch were private and not suitable for a blog. I sometimes mentioned a few people and posted their pictures. Here, we almost always are working with individuals and families with serious difficulties and our work primarily is encouragement and support in bringing them to full activity in the church.

In our small area - our stake - we are now working with about 50-60 families or individuals. Since all are quite close together, we often visit upwards of 4 or 5 per day (sometimes more) - even on our preparation day. The issues range from basic health struggles and weakness in faith to serious addictions and serious family problems, unemployment and life-threatening health issues. In the past four months, we have helped people get to Addition Recovery meetings, visited (or taken) people to the Emergency room, visited people in Intensive Care units and psychiatric lock-down units, faced domestic violence face-to-face, helped people receive Bishop's Storehouse orders, donated some of our own food, labor, baby-sitting, dog-sitting, even used a breath-a-lizer to move someone's car when they were unable to do so. The work is more intense here than it was in Germany because everyone is so much closer and there are so many more people and many in desperate need.

We have also had great success in finding family names in the genealogy of a number of people, had a number of people start to come to church who had not been for a while. We had a baptism a week or so ago, a beautiful experience where a man was able to baptize his 9-year-old daughter.

We love the work here and are very blessed my the Lord in the work. I am always learning more and more about the love Our Heavenly Father has for everyone. I am just starting to get a little understanding of how many suffering people there are in the world, knowing that the Lord has such compassion for them and relies on us to help make their lives even just a little bit better.

We love working with our sister missionaries. Right now we have a three-some, with Sister Malufau and Sister Ricks (who have been here a while) and Sister Ballif who is awaiting a visa to serve in Sidney, Australia. We don't have a picture of Sister Ricks (yet).

A New Grandson

Our daughter gave birth to a healthy little boy last night. He was born in South Weber, Utah in the house of a friend where they were staying (using a midwife). He was born at 6:45 PM (June 4, 2015) and weighed 8 pounds 14 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing well.

It looks like he already has the correct hairline.

Danish Online Resources for Family History Research

Danish Online Resources for Family History Research

The Danish government provides free online access to church and government records. This is a remarkable service. Because of this, it is possible to search and put together families and individuals much more quickly and with better results than in any time in the history of Danish research.

How to Begin

In my previous post, I mentioned the problems found in the FamilySearch™ data in some Danish families. The best approach to analyze and fix linkage problems in FamilySearch™ is to begin with the most recent Danish ancestor, usually someone who joined the church in Denmark. If there are a few generations of ancestors who seem to be correct in the records, you can assume for now that they are correct and go back to the last one that seems OK and start from there, verifying that their information is correct in the original Danish records available online.

Establish your Resources

It is good to start with a few resources to help in understanding Denmark and the way the records work.

The following list should be assembled or found available online. The specific list items are covered and samples are given in the next entries in this blog.

1. A detailed map of the area of Denmark where your ancestors originate. Unfortunately, modern maps may be a problem because of changed names and boundaries. If you can find maps or charts that date back to the beginning of the 1900's or earlier, you will be better off.

2. Learn the geographic divisions of Denmark. Basically, the country is divided up into Amt (County), Herred (District) and Sogn (Ecclesiastical Parish). Within the Parishes there are the towns, villages and farms.

3. Get a Danish dictionary. It is also good to get a specific list of genealogical names in Danish, especially since modern Danish words may differ from these old words.

4. A chart showing the basic handwriting styles.

5. A calendar showing feast days and special church holidays in the Danish Lutheran church.

6. A list of the different record types and years of coverage.

I have a web page with links to the online services available and some documents showing these types of records, help guides etc. The web site is 

           http://buchananspot.com/joseph/genealogy/DanishHelper.html
   [ Note: with the change in the church records server, this DanishHelper document was updated 28 July 2015 - jfb ]

Methodology

One of the most difficult aspects of research in Danish records is the fact that there are a set of names that are used extensively. Occasionally there are non-patronymic surnames, but usually a person's name is simply a first name (sometimes middle names) and the last name consisting of a patronymic: the father's firstname followed by "sen" for sons and "datter" for daughters. Women usually are always known by their "datter" name and not their husband's last name, so that aspect of the culture better helps us to identify the women.

Because of this method of naming children, some names are very common and it is vital that other information is found to further identify the person, e.g. birthplace, occupation, birthdate, etc. It is also important to use other records as they are available, such as census and probate records. Since census records are available online for the entire country, it helps the work, though only beginning with the 1787 census. With these records, you can tie families together better and verify correct names.

One caution to observe in all research is to not expect names (both of people and places) to be consistent. Even the "primary" records - the parish church records - have misspellings or alternative spellings. Therefore, it is good to have multiple references. For example, there is the name Christen and Christian which are very different names, but occasionally they were recorded as the other name. Another example is Ole and Oluf. Sometimes -datter is spelled out and often abbreviated -dt or -dtr.

In the 1800's and later, be sure to look for confirmation records for the children. They were usually confirmed at about age 13-15 and those records often show the birth or christening date as well, and usually the parents' names.

Handwriting and Format

The value of the parish records can be compromised by bad handwriting of the recorder. Sometimes you need to spend a lot of time looking at the records for the time frame to start to recognize certain letters. Consult handwriting charts and see the various alternative ways of writing the same letters.

Records beginning about 1810 usually are in pre-printed form books so it is much easier to find the different kinds of records and what dates and names are what because of the columns. The handwriting san still be a problem, but you can better find the information. Prior to this time, the records were on plain paper books. Sometimes, the recorder would separate births from deaths, etc. but sometimes they are all intermingled. You need to spend some time studying these records.

Completing Families

As you study the records, be sure to check for more children. Infant and child mortality was high in Europe, so there are many children who die early and do not get recorded in the secondary records. Use common sense and expect a child within about two years of other children. Often when a child dies, the next child of that same sex will receive the same name. Also be sure to check death records for children. Their age is usually shown in days, weeks, months, etc. Sometimes children are listed as stillborn or "dodtfodt" even though they may have lived for a few minutes or hours, so record them as being born and died on the same day.

Record your Research

Above all, as you do research, keep some kind of research journal. It is useful to refer back to these and see where you found certain records of certain dates to help find the records again. Also, it is very important to record when you do not have success. That way you and others do not have to go over the same area in vain. Be specific about what you were looking for and reasons for not continuing the search.

In FamilySearch™ you can record the source information. This is a lot easier if you have been recording the process of your research. Include the web information as well as the original record details and page numbers. You can record image number (Opslag) to help yourself and others find the same online records, but sometimes the records are re-scanned so the Opslag numbers may be off for subsequent research.

Seek Help

There are online resources on FamilySearch™ as well as people in the Family History center in Salt Lake who are very good in helping. Do not forget that there are also people on the other side of the veil and your Heavenly Father is ready to help us in our work, so prayer is also important.

Incorrect Links in FamilySearch™

Fixing FamilySearch™ Pedigree Linkage Problems

As I look into my own pedigree lines in FamilySearch™, I often discover that some of the information is no longer correct. Usually, the parents of one of my ancestors is no longer correct, often with impossible or unlikely dates or locations. This is more often a problem in Danish ancestry. In our work in our stake as missionaries, people ask me about their family information in FamilySearch™ and I find similar problems in their ancestral lines as well - also usually with Danish ancestors.

I am not entirely sure of the reasons for these problems, but it appears that other people who look into their ancestry see the option for resolving possible duplicates. Unfortunately, those not familiar with the distinctive cultural issues in Danish history combine records of people who should not be combined, in order to resolve these issues.

I intend to show here a few points of information that might help people recognize incorrect linkages in their pedigrees in the FamilySearch™ system.

In all of these situations or problems, it is very important to seek out the original or primary records to substantiate the real information. FamilySearch™ information alone cannot be trusted to resolve these errors. Sometimes, there are source documents listed in the FamilySearch™ information. In those cases, it is easier to resolve these problems.

Checking for Unlikely or Impossible Dates and Places

Often, the most obvious indication of an incorrect parent or pair of parents can be found in the birth, death and marriage dates. Mothers usually do not bear children when over the age of 40. Also, it should be obvious that mothers with death dates prior to the birth of their child is not possible. Look at the birth dates of parents, compared with the birth dates of the children. Sometimes, the parent is correct, but due to some combining with other people of the same name or simply erroneous data entry can account for this problem, but sometimes, it is the wrong people linked to your ancestor as parents. Another indication is unusual place-of-birth. During colonization or modern times, it is not unusual for people and families to move a lot during child-bearing years, but prior to those times, people usually did not travel far from their place of birth. 

For people with Danish or other Scandinavian ancestry, there is a particular problem because the people in those countries reused a small number of names extensively and, unfortunately, people have erroneously combined "duplicates" creating incorrect family linkages. I provide separate documents concerning Danish research, in particular, which should help in determining the correct information. See that information at the end of this article. 

Impossible or Improbable Family Sizes

Sometimes, there is an unusually large number of children in a family. When you check the children of a family, look for children who probably do not belong to the family. However, names should not be assumed to be unique for the children. In some cultures parents will name children with the same names as previous children who have died. It is best to take a look at dates to see whether they make sense. The spacing of children should be an indication of possible errors in incorrect children added to a family. Two years is normally a good space between children births, unless the child dies as an infant, in which case, a subsequent child may be born sooner.

Different Surnames

Depending on local culture, children with names different from their fathers surnames should be suspicious. There are countries where patronymics are used and children receive names based on the first name of their fathers or mothers. Again this is a case where original records should be consulted.

Repairing the Problems

There are various methods to be used in repairing incorrect family relationships in FamilySearch™. The best thing to do is to look at the "Person" view of the individual and look at the section that shows parents. Usually when there are suspected problems, there will be several sets of parents listed. As you look at the different sets of parents, you can most easily click on the "Preferred" box for that set and your pedigree view will show that proper linkage of the family. This, however will not fix the problem for other members of your family. When you have truly established that the correct parents are in the list, you can go to the other parents in that list (right side) and for each occurrence of the child click on "Edit Parents." you can there delete the relationship of the child to those parents. You should include in the comments why you believe that this particular set of parents is not correct. There may be more than one set of parents that need to be removed in this manner.

In some cases, there may not be the correct set of parents in the list and you may need to add the correct parents first. In this case, you must add the parents one at a time, then remove the incorrect parents as listed above.

Finding Sources

You can often find source information from right within FamilySearch™. This is in the "Hints" area. Usually these are records found in the indexing program of the church. You should be very careful to be sure that the people found are correct before adding them from these files, but it can be a very promising method of locating your ancestors and expanding your pedigree and family information in the system.

For particular areas of the world, there are other places you can go to online to search records for your family. The Ancestry™ and FindMyPast™ systems can be useful and the LDS church has agreements which allow you to use their extensive data files for searching.

For those people who have Danish ancestry, there are remarkable sources of information available for doing research online. I have a list of resources available that can help with this work. Also, I am writing some blogs which summarize methods you can use to do this Danish research, even with little or no knowledge of the Danish language.

- Joseph F. Buchanan

Status of this blog

Well, as you have probably observed, if any of you are still following this blog, I have not written anything for quite a while.

Our mission is keeping us busy. It is in someways that same as our mission in Germany, but in many ways it is different. We are involved with visiting quite a few people each week. Usually every week we begin to start teaching someone new and we have started some regular, weekly visits with people and are generally welcomed. Only a couple of times have we had people request that we do not contact them anymore. That is one difference from our work in Germany. People seem to be quite receptive to us here and welcome our visits and teaching.

We have definitely had some memorable experiences, but they usually are not for public release. For example, we helped one person work through serious suicidal feelings, including spending some time in the hospital with that person. We have had the wonderful experience of bringing some people from very low points in their lives. We have also seen s number of people start to come to church more and work towards activity and goals of temple attendance.

One major difference in this mission is that we are home and can be involved with family more. We recently attended the baptism of one of our beautiful granddaughters. We have family get-togethers and parties. We can care for grandchildren when the need arises. One problem with being at home, however, is the pressure of home and yard care and the distractions that are ever present at home. In Germany it was much better in being focused on the work. That is the major difference we see here.

One think I really like here is the ability to do more family history work, usually for others. We did some of that in Germany and had some marvelous experiences. Here I can use my resources more and have enjoyed helping others in their work. I especially enjoy the work on Danish research. One of our people asked for help and I have been able to work through a number of problems in the FamilySearch system in fixing the linkages in her Danish ancestry.

As a result of some contemplation on the FamilySearch linkage concerns, I have decided to start writing some documents describing my approaches to the work necessary in order to straighten out problems some people encounter in their ancestry in FamilySearch. The next few blog posts will be in regard to these concerns, first the general recognition of the problems and then some posts describing the work of research in Danish records.

Please feel free to let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like to see me post in these blogs.

We love the work of the Lord and feel that there is so much to do - in missionary work, in bringing the joys of the Gospel into the lives of others, in family history work and any other way the Lord needs us involved in His work.

Adjustments and Challenges

Here we are by our church building.

March began with our family birthday party on the 1st. We had a great time. It is wonderful being able to attend these now after mission two years of them.

Isn't she a charmer?

Spooner in uniform.

The week following our MTC experience was quite busy with mission meetings. We had a mission-wide conference and some training sessions for the missionaries receiving their iPads. This mission received their mission-issued iPads that week, culminating with a setup meeting on the 6th.

Sisters Reed and Stewart with us

One of the activities in a zone meeting

We also had a number of meetings with bishoprics and ward councils, receiving lists of people who we should start visiting. We visited some of them over the past two weeks.

Also, the past two Sundays we taught the missionary preparation class for the stake. We invited all of the students and had a great showing the first week (March 8) with 20 in attendance. They were very enthusiastic and the class was fun. There are some young people who are nearly ready to serve missions, including two young men entering their missions in the new few weeks, and also young people as young as twelve years old. One of our young men will be serving in Columbia and another in London, England.

Also during this time, we attended the production of the play "Jane Eyre" put on by the homeschool group, our granddaughter having written the script and several of the grandchildren performing (as well as out daughter). It was a wonderful performance. This was also on the 6th of March.

Our oldest granddaughter, also known as Avot, wrote and performed in the play.

Our daughter (on the left) was a narrator, a grandson is shown here in one of his several roles (sitting in the left chair).

Our grandson, known as Lek, standing over Goob who is in another role, injured and laying on the floor.

The play is over. It was a great success!

In our visits, we have had some nice times getting to know people. Most have welcomed us, but a few have been less open to us, which is to be expected. Many of our people have some serious difficulties in their lives, and really need the help of the Lord. We have had some wonderful meetings, feeling the Spirit of the Lord in our times with them.

On Sunday, the 8th, including our mission prep class, we had 9 events on our calendar. Our day started with an early meeting (after losing the government-mandated hour) at 7:30, another meeting at 8:15 and then our sacrament meeting at 9. We left that meeting a little early in order to get to Midway, Utah for another sacrament meeting - a mission report for Elder Benjamin Wasden. That was a great meeting. We hurried from that meeting to get back to West Jordan for the ward conference of the 44th ward, then went to a quick appearance of a birthday party (the son of a less-active family), then we had mission prep class. In the evening we went to Ogden to visit Irina, a member we were close to in Germany.

Last Sunday (yesterday, the 15th) was also busy. We also had a mission report, in Tooele, for Zach Thompson. We loved his talk. We also had a beautiful mission prep class, about 20 again in attendance.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to take the Spanish elders to Temple square with an investigator and her daughter. It was beautiful hearing them taught in Spanish and then go through one of the presentations there (also in Spanish).

I included the word "Challenges" in the title. We still have been experiencing some sickness. I have had a problem with coughs and sickness. It hit me first as we were leaving Germany in December. It hit me again as we were in Oregon. It hit me again on March 7th and lasted a while. I hope it is finally over. It has been hard to serve. I know the Lord will bless us.

Well, that was quite a bit. I did not realize that I had collected so much to share. The last picture shows a water-color painting Shauna received before we left Germany. We had it professionally framed and it is hanging with another in our how. We love Lothar, the artist who painted it, and taught Shauna how to paint. My has our lives changed because of our missions. It is wonderful!

Begin the Mission (2) - the MTC

This past week we were at the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah. It was a wonderful week. We opted to return home every day rather than stay in the MTC housing. It meant that we needed to be up every morning by 6 AM. Other than Tuesday, we were home by about 5:00 - 5:30 PM.

Basically, we had a combination of group sessions where all senior missionaries of our entry date meet together for training, then we spend a lot of time in our "districts" receiving individual training. The training is from the Preach My Gospel manual and we worked a lot in doing role-plays of how to get to know people, how to listen and to determine what is needed in our teaching. Even though role-playing involves some pretending - taking parts, it is amazing how much the Spirit of the Lord is with us in the process. We all learn a great deal in the process.

On Tuesday evening we attended a devotional, with Elder Caussé as the main speaker. His wife also spoke and talked about superheroes, especially missionaries. She spoke of the missionaries who converted her family in France. She spoke about how influential the missionaries are. He spoke about his experiences as a new Seventy, especially mentioning his experiences with traveling with President Packer to a Stake Conference. Elder Packer taught them principles, especially the second chapter of First Corinthians. The main theme is that we do no rely on our own wisdom in our work and teaching, but upon the Spirit. Humility is the key. We do not rely on our personal abilities, but upon God. He talked with us about being bold as missionaries, but bold in being true to the direction of the spirit, not in our own strength and knowledge. He told the story of Enzio Busche in his first encounter with the missionaries, especially that the elder was very positive, even when Enzio said he would not be interested in joining the church. Being bold is being humble and obedient. He quoted the end of D & C 121, about the strength we receive by being virtuous, giving us confidence through the spirit. He also quoted President Monson, "When you are on the Lord's errand, you are entitles to his help." At the end, he played a piano duet with a man he met in Rome, Italy, the music was an arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" and "The Spirit of God." It was wonderful.

We especially enjoyed getting to know the other missionary couples and some of the couples who came to give us guidance. One of the couples gave their name in the introduction, mentioning that the name, Finlinson, came from Oak City. I instantly realized that he must be a relative. I soon discovered that he is my second cousin, his grandmother, Ida Jane was the sister to my grandfather, Eddie Mathias Jacobson. We enjoyed talking about our shared ancestry and our similar mission assignments.

One of the couples in our "district" is Elder and Sister Towers. He has served as president of the Cambodia mission a number of years ago and will be serving with his wife in Hong Kong. They will be assigned to the Victoria 2nd Branch running the "Everyday" church. They will be taking care of setting up and running 3-hour block meetings on Tuesdays through Saturdays for the domestic workers, mostly from Philippines who work in the homes in Hong Kong. These women do not usually have Sunday's off.

This whole experience really gives us a spiritual boost in preparation for our upcoming service. Sister B and also learned better how to teach together. We are looking forward to a wonderful time in service.

The pictures in this blog entry are of people we spent time with this week. As you can probably imagine, this mission may not have the same type of landscape pictures that we had in our mission in Germany. Oh well. The experiences will still be wonderful.

This is our district, posing in front of the famous world map at the MTC:

The Fenskes, the Buchanans and the Towers.

My newly discovered second cousin and his wife.

Our district with our morning instructors, Sister Yazzie on the left end and Brother Smith on the right

Our afternoon instructors, Elders Swallow (l) and Teuscher(r).

The White Envelope ...

Well, the long anticipated white envelope arrived in the mail today.

We have been officially called to serve a mission again. We are excited!

We will be serving as full-time, set-apart missionaries in the Utah Salt Lake City South mission for 18 months. We are to serve as MLS, or Member, Leader Support missionaries. That means that we are going to serve while living at home. Our work will be in support of the Ward and Branch councils of the Wards and Branch within our own stake - focused on re-activation.

We have met others who are doing this same kind of mission and generally hear that it is a very rewarding, though difficult mission. Our bishop has already assigned us to work with some members and we have had some wonderful experiences in the work.

We will report at the MTC in Provo for 5 days of training, starting February 23rd.

As you can probably expect, the blogs in the future may not be quite as entertaining, since we are not traveling much and are within our own culture (basically). One of our units is a Spanish Branch, so we will also be involved with them.

We are very happy to again be serving the Lord in the capacity of missionaries. The blessings are in describable.

(Soon to be again)  Elder and Sister Buchanan