When I awoke the first time this morning close to 5 am I did not intend to sleep an extra hour after reading scriptures, nor to go in for morning prayer meeting. But the thought persisted after my hour-long nap that I did need to go in to observe the in-service given by one of the experienced trainers as I was on the schedule to present this afternoon, and I did not even know what the presentation was about. So I hurried to exercise--a blessing that the mornings are cool enough that I just washed off a bit, got dressed, grabbed an apple to eat on my walk over to the Library and slid into prayer meeting just as the announcements were being finished.
Not only was it good for me to be there for the sake of the presentation, but the sister who gave the spiritual thought told of remarkable blessings that she had observed for the families of missionaries who served and patrons who provided ordinances for their deceased relatives. I am glad I was there to hear those stories.
I debated about coming back to the apartment, since I had not prepared anything for study group, and I was to do my first one-on-one with staff to check my competence in the new training modules. I decided that I really needed to eat a decent breakfast, or I would succumb to the goodies that others had brought into the staff room. Back at the apartment while I ate my oats and wheat I watched several episodes of the Family Search 5 Minute Genealogy series, since I was blocked from accessing the lessons to review.
When I got back to the Library, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the other trainers. As it happens, she has also had some concerns about the training modules.
Then I did a few minutes of preparation for the study group, while the previous class was going longer than scheduled. I decided that we would go on a "field trip" to the staff and the reference book shelves to get the books we would be using in our study. That was rather a fun thing to do, and was well-received. We spent some time refining our understanding of Kartenmeister, which is an online only gazetteer covering areas in Poland, Russia and Lithuania; worked through how to use the Prussian Gemeindelexikon; and found the Feast Days books [although we did not go through any learning with those].
The next hour was mostly spent demonstrating that I really did know how to Gather records, Choose a person to find out more about and figure out what information I still needed to find out. This process was less stressful than reading through the training presentations.
A short while later another trainer approached me. She thanked me for sending the email addressing my concerns about the training modules. When she read that she decided to add her own concerns and also sent an email, and highlighted some other concerns that I had thought of originally, but had not put into my email.
We did receive feedback this afternoon which acknowledged some of the difficulties and outlined steps to address our concerns.
With all sorts of other responsibilities I do not get a whole lot of time out on the floor. The time I was available allowed me to help several people. The first had some German phrases she needed translation for-- I knew almost every word and was able to find out the few I did not know by using the Thode dictionary and for one, Google translate, which just confirmed what I thought the cause of death was, I helped a woman who is setting up her own database of a particular surname in Virginia, but is open to the possibility of encouraging her son to fill in the lines on Family Tree in Family Search. I helped a brother get a marriage record standardized by getting rid of instances that were not standard.
Almost at the end of my shift I was asked to help a guest with Danish research. Although I do not exactly know how to do that particular special area, I did encourage her to go through all the Wiki materials and study the language, and to come back tomorrow when one most expert volunteer would be working in the evening. She committed to doing so.
Although I usually go to the temple on Tuesday, my MTC group was having a gathering not far from my apartment, so I opted to go to that. I am glad I did. It was nice to spend some time with the group. I will probably go with them to the Christmas Concert by the Tabernacle Choir on the 2nd Thursday in December if enough tickets can be acquired. The "light refreshments" turned out to be a very nice supper. I did have a very small piece of fresh apple cake for dessert, but instead of ice cream I opted for an additional serving of Cowboy Caviar, a marinated bean and veggie dish. One of the couples who lives in the apartments next to Garden Apartments walked back with us single sisters, which was nice.
My Sweetheart had a stressful morning at work, but we did get to talk for a while tonight. We are so blessed to be able to support one another when tough times happen. I am glad that I can be of some help to him, just as he is for me.
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