Serving in Southern California

Hello everyone,

We are now officially serving in our mission. We are called to the California Carlsbad Mission and began (at the MTC) on the 6th of May and are now in our place in Irvine, California. The Carlsbad and the Irvine missions are being combined on July 1st and they put us in an apartment near the Irvine mission home. As of July 1st, our missions (all of Irvine and a large portion of Carlsbad) will become the Newport Beach mission, named after the temple in our mission.

This is a picture Shauna took of the temple in one of our recent visits there (only about 10 minutes from our apartment).

We arrived in Carlsbad on the 19th.

This is a picture of the office door in Carlsbad (with my reflection in it).

A day or so later, we made it to the beach (in Oceanside).

This is a picture of us on the beach.

So far, we have been visiting both mission offices and learning from the office missionaries there. It appears that our main function, at least for now, is to get acquainted with the process of each office to be able to help our new mission president, President Reeves, and the offices get going as a combined concern as soon as possible in early July.

So far, we have been to lots of office processes, apartment visits (Shauna with Sister Van Aarle) and car inspections (me with Elder Van Aarle), etc. including me helping Elder Okine here in Irvine take in and pick up cars for maintenance issues.

It is interesting that we are in the church directory (CDOL) in the Irvine mission, but in the computer system (IMOS) in the Carlsbad mission, so we are pretty much dependent on accessing our tools through the two couples we are replacing. Even at that, it is not certain how we will end up in our duties. We are flexible and willing to do anything that comes up.

Also a great blessing is to get to know so many of the wonderful missionaries serving here in these two missions. One of the new sister missionaries is from Tahiti, so French is her native language and she misses hearing it. Shauna spoke briefly to her in French and the missionary was so excited to hear it (It also turns our the our president here, President Clark is fluent in French as well). Also, we have a Farsi Group of members (from Iran) and a very vibrant Chinese ward. We attended our first baptism here the night before last and it was all in Chinese, with an interpreter. It was wonderful.

This is a great work and we feel the hand of the Lord in everything.

A Fun (and blessed) Meeting

My wife and I were in downtown Salt Lake City the other day, meeting with a young man, Andrew, from our mission in New York, along with his mother, who attended the Salt Lake Temple with us. That in itself was a wonderful experience and we loved being with them once more. Andrew is now in the MTC in preparation for his mission service (to the Utah Salt Lake City mission!).

As the proceedings began, one of the officiators in the session looked somewhat familiar to me and as I finally could see his name tag, it was confirmed that he was my high school German teacher, Mr. Vreeken. What a blessed "tender mercy"!  I wondered, with the sacred nature of the whole experience, whether I would actually be able to speak with him. As we approached that final step in the process, I was overjoyed to have him be my guide through the last step. Still, it was a sacred experience and the solemn nature precluded my speaking with him, so I just smiled as he finished and I said a quiet, "danke schön" as I moved on.

In the next gathering area, I wondered whether he would be coming through that place as well. After visiting with our New York people for a time, I was excited to see my dear old teacher come through and I made my way to greet him. He was very happy to see me and wished to see my wife as well. We had a wonderful, yet brief, reunion (still in quiet tones befitting the sacred place). What  wonderful "tender mercy" blessing!

I had not seen him since graduating from high school almost exactly fifty years ago. I loved seeing him again, especially in that wonderful place.

The Lord blesses us when we least expect it.

Touch

Touch

I touch,

  yet ripples move

  beyond my grasp.

They are,

  yet none

  precede the flow.

Ere long

  the sheen's

  restored to glass.

Yet still

  I rest

  and think I know.

All changes:

  Others come and go

and touch

  and grow —

together on

  we flow

and touch each other.

Until the end

  when One

  who can and loves,

will touch

  to make a sea of glass.

- Joseph F. Buchanan,  August 2008

 [ up to this point unpublished ]

Random thoughts found in my old Journal entries

I am in the process of going through old hand-written daily planner pages, which eventually became the place where I wrote journal entries. I am typing these into the computer. Sometimes I wrote thoughts that occurred to me at the time. Here are two that I recently found in my 1990 transcription process.


Thought:
"As society and its economy becomes more refined, the more brittle it becomes. It is less tolerant to problems. Things that used to be commonplace irritations or setbacks now become tragic catastrophes. We become more and more dependent on artificial supports. [In other words, ] Life goes on, don't expect it to be perfect." - Joseph F. Buchanan, journal entry for 23 Feb. 1990, while on ice fishing camp at Deer Creek , Utah.

Observation:
"All people have the same basic life characteristics. They just put a lot of appearances in the way. Accept a person — let them be without judging rapidly." - Joseph F. Buchanan, journal entry for 24 Oct. 1990, West Jordan, Utah.


The last one shows a common theme I had in my writings. I was quite guilty of judging people and things quickly, especially my own family. It has been a struggle most of my life. I hope I have made some progress, though I still suffer from this practice of unfair judgement and the ensuing feelings of frustration and anger. I am trusting more and more (at least trying to) in my Savior to make me a better person and to be meek, understanding and loving to all around me. It is only through Him that I can be who I should be.

Interesting Family History research experience - Jens Andersen Pind

Anders Jensen Pind is one of our ancestors. I remember my father spending a lot of time sorting out this Pind line. In my recent efforts, I am going through my father's research notes from way back in the 1970s. Most of the work was completed at the time and the temple work done.

As I was going through one file, labeled "PIND," I saw that most of the records were from the 1600's. In reconciling my father's notes and charts with the current state of things in FamilySearch™ my experience is mainly to leave things alone in FamilySearch™for such older records (before the early 1700s). One reason is that there have been many others work on this line and the second reason is that a lot of the current state of things is a bit confused by the many people who unknowingly have combined a number of these people out of existence.  It is a battle I do not want to get mixed up in. Since there are so many similar names in these old records, people have mistakenly combined people where they should not have merged. Rather than try to get things back in the correct state, I am resolved to know that they have once been correct and their temple work done, so leave it be.

I hesitated on one particular sheet, however, and felt I needed to give it a little attention rather than throw out the entire file. Jens Andersen (sometimes referred to by the last name Pind) is in the system and some of his temple work is being done again. On my father's research notes sheet, he lists a wife and her parentage. This is not listed in familySearch™. I started working to get her connected to him and look for children. I researched his military records and am reasonably sure I have the correct information for him now, and the children attached to the couple. They already existed and were elsewhere in the system, but I was able to bring them together. They have four children I have found: Karen, who died in her twenties, apparently not having been married; Anders, who lived to adulthood; Magrethe (or Margrethe) who also lived to adulthood; and Kirstine who died as an infant. A couple of years after the passing of their youngest child, their father, Jens Andersen died, and then Ane Jørgensen died soon after that, but got married again shortly after Jens died, but (obviously) before she died. She ended up with a child from this second marriage, but the little girl died soon after birth. At the time, I searched quite extensively and could not find any information concerning marriages for Anders and Margrethe.

They did not leave me alone, however. I finally tried my last resort method: do a general Google™ search. As it occasionally happens, I found a hit! There is a web site where a person in Denmark has published his family information and he is related to Anders. I went through his information and verified the names and places there with published church records in the Danish State Archives and in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints genealogical images scanned from the original microfilms. When I was finished, I ended up with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for Jens Andersen and spouses of his posterity numbering about 46 people, most of who were previously not known in the FamilySearch™ records. I am attaching a scan that shows the original research sheet of my father's. The posterity can be found on FamilySearch™.

I must mention that I decided to not reserve these names for temple work (for the most part). I have found that I can come up with many, many names for the temple, but do not have the time to do them myself, and I do not have more than a few of my family who are able or willing to help, so I tend to get swamped in the work. I decided to instead just get them entered (along with source info) and leave them to see who might pick them up. So far a a handful of people have taken a few of these names, I assume they are cousins of some sort, most likely descended from Ane Pedersen Anderson Lovell, my great-great grandmother with a huge posterity (Jens Andersen Pind is her great-uncle).

I am monitoring the list to make sure no one gets lost in the end. I feel the influence from the spirit and from the spirits of these people driving me to find them and get them in the position to have their work done.

I love this work. It is so rewarding. I really love these Danish ancestors and their families. I hope to meet them in the next life.

An update about everything, including mission

I really haven't written anything for a long time. I guess it is time to put everything together for you (if any of you are still reading this blog)...

We finished our mission in the New York Rochester mission in the last part of September 2018 and then took a long trip getting home. We stayed for a few days with Mary's family in Medina (Mary, Quinn, Tova and the baby gone to Argentina at the time), then visited Montreal (the temple there), the Adirondacks, then the Boston and Hartford temples, a visit to family in Maryland, then to Virginia rto see Beth and Ray, on to Ohio, Chicago, a weekend in Sioux Falls to see Jonathan and family, then home.

We got settled in at home, then visited family in the Boise, Idaho area. After a few more weeks, we did a temple trip to southern Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. In the process of time, we prepared for and then submitted applications for our next mission.

Over the New Year's holiday weekend, we visited sunny Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see Jonathan and his family for a while. It was sunny, but below zero at times.

Through all this, we have also attended temple sessions fairly often here at home.

(deep breath)

Now we are looking for our next service opportunity.

Yesterday we received our mission call to serve in the California Carlsbad Mission, to work in the office there. We will head out on May 20th (MTC and then drive to Vista, California) for an 18 month mission there.

We miss our dear friends in New York. We hope to go see them before heading to California (just on the way, right?) and also to visit with Mary and Aaron's families there.

We love being involved in family, friends and in serving the Lord. His blessings are beyond comprehension at times.

Updated Apostles chart

For those of you who have been looking for an updated Apostles chart from me, I have it for you here.

I am currently having problems getting into my buchananspot server, so I decided to at least post the updated PDF document here (I hope it works).

We had a wonderful conference. I am excited to see the work of ministering ramp up. As I told a few people, it seems that all members are going to be like us as MLS missionaries. Instead of Member-Leader Support, I thought of a new application of the initials: Ministering, Loving Service.

The Lord is wonderful! He is hastening this great work!

I did try them as a PDF, but the blogger server would not accept it, so these are jpeg documents. If you would like the PDF, please let me know (with email).

Thanks!