Month: November 2021

Day#4 Family History Journey

It is 4:15 pm and I am just doing my Family History and blogging for the day. I didn’t get up at 4:15 am because Gil and I went to the Utah Jazz vs. Atlanta Hawks basketball game Vivent Arena last night. The Jazz won the game and we had fun watching the game from the Security National Mortgage suite at the arena with some of Gil’s co-workers. We did get home late and since I didn’t have my Intermountain job today, I decided to sleep in until 5:15 am.

Gil and I got up and went to Vasa. I did a light workout because I meet with a personal trainer at 8:00 am. That was an interesting experience in my weight loss/preparing to do the Lotoja relay journey. I learned that I have 32% body fat and that is after I have lost 25 pounds! I hate to think what my body fat was when I weighed close to 180! Brayden, the personal trainer, said I have weak gluteal muscles and tight hip flexors. He proposed that I continue the cycling classes and meet with him once a week. I told him I would think about it but I think I might do it as I tend to not push myself very hard in training and I get frustrated when Gil tries to push me.

I got a chance today to talk to my mother, Serena. She is such a wonderful woman who still serves many in her community through her work with the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, her ministering for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, her service and concern to her family, her indexing work and serving in the temple to mention a few of the things she does. Is it any wonder that I am on not content to just take it easy even though this is my “day off?” My mother told me that she had already texted her siblings asking them about how they celebrated the holidays when they were young so she could answer the Storyworth question for the week.

My father responded to the Storyworth question: What are you thankful for? with the following list:

My wife

My children

Our family

Our house/home

Our friends

Our garden

My health

Jesus Christ, my Savior, My Redeemer

My Father and Mother in heaven

My earthly father and mother

My brothers and sister

My extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins)

My wife’s family

Good food

My membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Priesthood authority

My sister-in laws and brother -in-laws

My ancestors – my family tree

My church leaders

My physical body

My life

This beautiful earth

I am so very grateful for truly amazing parents, Max and Serena Watt.

I just got back from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple where I was able to do ordinance work for distant ancestors. I love using the Ordinance Ready application in Family Search.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple at Sunset

Tomorrow night after serving dinner at the VOA Homeless Youth Resource Center, I am going to be watching this presentation on Zoom. LDS Earth Stewardship is a great organization that is working to help members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints be more aware and active regarding issues of how we use the bounteous resources of this earth.

2021 FALL FORUM”Conservation and Reverence for the Earth”, with Dr. Paul Alan CoxThursday November 11th, 7:00 – 8:30 PM

Attend in person at BYU (Provo, Utah)
or join us online via Zoom“Reverence for the earth is taught both in scripture and in the temples. Care for the planet and compassion for the plants and animals we share it with can become an act of worship if we explicitly acknowledge the Creator and our contingency as stewards of His masterpiece. Modern revelation reaffirms our responsibilities to protect and care for the creation.” Dr. Paul Alan Cox has lived in remote island villages searching for new medicines. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes known as the Nobel Prize of the Environment and was named one of TIME magazine’s eleven “Heroes of Medicine” for his discovery of a new HIV drug candidate. His conservation foundation, Seacology, has set aside over 1.5 million acres of rain forest and coral reef in 60 countries around the world.

Cox was both a Danforth Fellow and a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard where he received his Ph.D. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Brain Chemistry Labs in Jackson, Wyoming, a not-for-profit research institute focused on finding new treatments for ALS and Alzheimer’s disease.REGISTER TO ATTEND IN PERSON
REGISTER TO ATTEND ONLINE VIA ZOOM

Day#3

I decided to study my husband’s family line and found some really cool stuff about his fourth great grandfather who joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in England. His name was John Parkin 1. He is buried in the Bountiful Cemetery. I think I might take my in-laws up there on a drive.

John Parkin’s 5th great grandmother is listed as Sarah Harrison born in Derby, Derbyshire, England around 1652. She has no parents listed. I am looking for her parents as well as other children she and her husband, John Parkin, may have had.

Day #2

Monday, November 8

Heavenly Father is already blessing me and my family! Yesterday was a very good day. The extra hour of sleep as Daylight Savings ended was an added bonus. Fast and Testimony meeting at church was a great experience made sweeter for having Gil with me. Bro. Earl taught Sunday School and he is someone I consider a master teacher.

During Sunday School discussion of Come Follow Me Sections 125-128, I was able to share some of the insight I have gained from studying about Family History based on verse 18 in section 128.

18 I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time.

I haven’t spoken much to Gil about Family History journey but I think he was very touched by the discussion and some videos that Bro. Earl shared from the Come Follow Me lesson. I know that having him by my side yesterday during Sunday School was a direct blessing from the Lord.

Gil and I visited his parents later in the afternoon. We were able to take his mother, Brenda, on a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was nice to visit with her and be outside. We saw a cloud coming up the canyon and it engulfed us, lowering the temperature a good 10 degrees before we got to the van.

After we got back to Brenda’s house, I was able to show her on her phone how to make an appointment to go to the Draper Temple. We made two appointments for December. Using the Ordinance Ready app in Family Search, we found 6 names to take to the temple for those visits. We also looked at some of her ancestors in Family Search and found a great, great, great, great, great grandfather who lived in Ireland. She hadn’t know she had any family from Ireland. We used the Discovery Search on the Family Search site, so easy to navigate.

I have had a goal for several years to help Gil’s parents write their life histories and to record their stories. I have typed up some of the stories Gil has told me and a couple from Brenda but for some reason, I really struggling use the app to record his memories. I am going to contact the Riverton Family History library today and see if their recording studios are open and available so I can take Gil, senior, and Brenda and start recording their stories.

My parents have been doing Storyworth and I am learning so much from their writing. My sister, Anna, has been spearheading the Storyworth experience and I need to help her by writing a letter to my aunts and uncles asking them to contribute to my parent’s story. That is my goal for tomorrow.

This article from the Family Search Blog talks about the Benefits of Journaling and how journaling is an integral part of doing Family History. I am also learning so much about how to upload and download pictures, link resources to my entries and how a blog works. I certainly have a lot to learn but it is a truly exciting journey.