Today I gave my 3 minute talk--which seemed to be well-received. In fact, our mission president asked me for a copy [unlike most of the talks I have given in church the instructions for this one were to print it out, give a copy to the signer for the deaf, and read it verbatim!] so I just handed him the copy I had read from. So that I do not lose track of the talk, I am going to copy it and put it at the end of this post.
The day at the Library went well, too. This morning I was scheduled to be a helper for the first three hours, and that is exactly how I functioned. I helped four guests, and was successful in helping 2 of them find individual records of ancestors. The other two were happy with being taught how to use the records and resources that we have on Family Search. One brother committed to putting his information onto Family Tree, and one of the other guests also plans to add information to the tree.
The weather turned sharply cooler today, but I did not get rained on. I was happy I had gotten out my all-weather coat last night.
The Trainers meeting went over time, but I did not have any specific duty to attend to afterwards, so that was not a negative. I presented my first in-service PowerPoint--and received some additional information to add to it.
At the very end of the shift I was able to finally take a picture of a family entry in the Eppingen Ortsippenbuch which I needed in order to clean up another set of records. This evening I worked on that until my Sweetheart called. Then we enjoyed a nice conversation for more than an hour. I so much appreciate having the opportunity to talk with him and pray with him--a true blessing.
Below is the talk I gave this morning in the Mission Devotional:
I am Ellen Fehr.
I was born in Indiana, but was “carried by my father” to Missouri when I
was 8, and I have lived there ever since, except for 9 months when I was in
college, before I left school to marry. I am the mother of three daughters,
grandmother of eight, and great grandmother of two with one on the way. My
husband died in 2008.
I have had numerous experiences with seeing the hand of
the Lord in my life. As a child I was
apparently quite spiritual. My mother
said of me that I sang before I talked, and that I baptized all my dolls. At age 6 I asked my Mom if we had the right
church. Until a few years ago I did not
realize what distress this must have caused my parents, as my father was a
Lutheran minister. All I knew at the
time was that my mother told me never to say or even think of that again.
What I did not connect until recently was that I was
taken along at age 6 by my father to confirmation instructions which he taught
to the eleven and twelve year olds. I
was just quite delighted to be given my own catechism—but the internal result
of those instructions was that I learned that while maybe Jesus loved me, God
did not like people, and He especially did not like women, because sin and
trouble were brought to the earth by Eve.
I was also taught that the Old Testament prophecies were
all done away—only the prophecies that had to do with Jesus had any
validity. After all, we now had the New
Testament. But a few years later I
realized that at least one of those prophecies was fulfilled in the year of my
birth, 1948—Israel was restored as a country! Perhaps a decade after that I
began to wonder why there were no prophets in our day—why did God not care enough
about us to send us prophets?
Eventually, through many difficulties, I became humble
enough to agree to learning with my husband about the Mormon Church—of which
all I knew was polygamy and race issues
What a joy it has been for me to learn the true Gospel
of Jesus Christ. I have now been a
member for more than 42 years. I am here on this mission because of a wonderful
blessing given me at another humbling time last year by my home teacher and
former bishop. I will be here until the
end of April, when I will return to Missouri and marry my Sweetheart, who
turned out to be the gift I was told in that same blessing that I would
receive.
I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen
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