27 August 2017

On August 20th we were asked to help with them in Harlem Days. This is kind of the same thing we do in Utah like Salem Days but it only last for one day and it is always on a Sunday. They take up several blocks and put booths down both sides where people can buy almost anything. Line, who is the director for the Halem FHC asked us if we would do a two hour shift, so we served from 1:30 to 3:30. Our booth was in front of the Police Station so it was not as noisy as it was last year. We had about 4 to 6 consultants working at the same time that would work with anyone that wanted to create a tree or find their ancestors.

This year I had the opportunity of working with three individuals. The first one wanted to create a tree and then add her family in. She had a book full of family that could go in. I instructed her to write down her username and password that she selected so she would not forget, but she chose not to and consequently we spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out what she put in. All she said was "I know you told me to write it down but I didn't."

After we got her in I gave her some basics on FamilyTree and we were able to get three generations in. She was really excited to go home and add all of the other family members that she had in her book.

The next two individuals just wanted to see if they could find family. I was able to find census records of both of them and they really got excited. It is so fun to watch when they find a family.

Diane just wrote about her experience at Harlem Days, and while she was doing that, Elder Dransfield and I took the train back to Lincoln Square to get our laptop computers, since there were only a few who brought them, and missionaries that had tablets.  But by the time we returned and I set up my laptop, I found that when I tried to set up an account with one of the patrons, I wasn't able to get it done without errors, probably due to the number of people who were logged into the hotspot being used powered by a generator.  By that time, Diane was ready to go back to the apartment and Elders Tom and Liz Hanson (the other full-time missionary couple assigned as Family History Missionaries) were there to relieve us.

During the week, we both have physical therapy--mine regarding my recent hip replacement and hers for her back, neck and hands.  On Monday, while I had physical therapy, Diane decided to walk in Central Park.  Shortly after I finished, she phoned to tell me that she wasn't sure where in the park she was, and started to make her way back to 66th Street and Central Park West near our apartment. Since I was also walking in the park, I took these photos from the corner of Central Park West and Columbus Circle, about a block from our physical therapists.

Orthology (Physical Therapy) is located on the corner of this building - 5th Floor

The world globe is located on the block with Trump International Hotel and Tower between Broadway and Central Park West and Columbus Circle here in New York City.

On the corner across the street to the east, Central Park begins.  It goes from 60th Street to 110th Street (where Harlem begins).  From the corner of Central Park, at Columbus Circle, these photos were taken about the time I received the call from Diane just prior to taking a walk through Central Park and back to the apartment.

Close-up of the base of the statue at the corner of  Central Park

Statue: Central Park West and Columbus Circle NYC

This was a very good week at the Family History Center.  I have been working with Ruth Braithwaite as she comes in with a specific goal for the day.  Her work is allowing cousins and her siblings to get together after having been estranged for many years.  So as she works with her mother's side of the family with the Ananias Jones, Ross, West, and other surnames, it has been a real pleasure to key the computer in finding records for her family.  Her family usually gives her some information and then tells her that she won't find any information on them, but we have been exceptionally successful in the New Jersey and Georgia records for her families.  Then she goes home, does her homework and contacts cousins for more information, and comes back with a new objective.

Last evening in stake conference, one of the speakers was Talvin Staton, a black member of the Church.  As a recent convert, having received his own endowment last week, he bore a strong testimony of missionary work and mentioned his conversion.  This was particularly impressive since he is deaf and dumb and used American Sign Language through an interpreter.

On Thursday, he and two of our ASL missionaries, Elders Edelfsen and Cross came to the Family History Center.  I had the privilege to work with Talvin, and whenever an explanation was needed, the Elders would translate.  Otherwise, we worked together building his family tree by pointing or using notes for the reason statements he entered whenever attaching sources.  In the process, he learned a great deal about how to navigate FamilySearch.org and Family Tree.

In the three hours we worked together, every time he found new information that connected to something he knew about the family, or enough information was provided for Family Tree to show that temple work could be reserved for a person, he would light up and become so excited.  We have learned that working with deaf members, they are much more animated in their excitement than hearing individuals!  So the first time it happened, I explained that what he was feeling was the spirit of Elijah testifying of the divine nature of families.

It was a lot of fun!  In that time, we were able to find and enter records for four generations on his Staton ancestors and their families from Edgecombe, North Carolina, some having many children.  After the shift change, Liz Hanson worked with him for about another hour and a fifth generation family with eight children was found going back to 1843.  From only having himself in the tree when we began, it was awesome to see what had been accomplished.  He is so excited to have the Deaf Branch help him with some of the temple work next month when they have their temple day.

On Friday, I was surprised to get a phone call from Brother Rod Barney, who is serving with Roxann in the Washington D.C. Temple.  He said he was reading our blog and was surprised to read that out home was going up for sale in Salem.  The Washington Temple will be closed for a month following Labor Day and he and Roxann plan to spend a couple of days in New York City, as they have never been here.  We invited them to stay with us in our small apartment if they were willing to sleep on an air mattress bed.  So this coming week we will be in touch to make plans together.

Also, just before the adult session of stake conference as we were entering the chapel, Abu Conteh (High Priest Group Leader from Harlem 1st Ward) a native of Sierra Leone in West Africa asked me to get him my contact information so he could make an appointment.  Today, I had a conversation with him on the phone, where he indicated he wanted to see if he could trace and do more on his family.  He has a family tree we have worked out together back to his grandparents from information he remembered.

I told him I didn't think we had records for Sierra Leone, as I had looked at the catalog a couple of months ago when working with him at Harlem during training of temple and family history consultants.  He told me that records were in Freetown, and that recently there had been so much rain that the mudslides from the mountains had buried 800 people in that city, and rains were continuing even from what he saw on the TV this morning.

While we were talking, I checked the catalog on FamilySearch.org and found that the 20 microfilms listed for Sierra Leone civil records had all been digitized, so they are available.  This week, FamilySearch will discontinue accepting orders for microfilms.  Any that we may need can still be ordered and remain here.  He made an appointment for us to meet tomorrow afternoon at the Lincoln Square FHC where we are serving to see what we could do.  My concern has been to help him get his own parents' temple ordinances completed so he could be sealed to them, as he is 82 years old.  Hopefully that can also be accomplished before we return home from our mission in November.

20 August 2017

Most of the second and third weeks in August involved quite a bit of physical therapy for both of us usually three times a week, and Diane was also taking occupational therapy for her hands due to a fall on Broadway last month.  Doctors appointments, xrays from Lenox Hill Radiology for Diane and Hospital for Special Surgery with Dr. Sculco for the six weeks follow-up of my total hip replacement surgery took quite a bit of our time.

On August 10th, all hip precautions were lifted and Dr. Sculco indicated he wanted to have a hip followup in one year.  Since we will be in Utah, a request for a prescription to his office for an x-ray will take the place of that appointment.  It was amazing to see the new titanium alloy rod and a ceramic ball and plastic cup in the xrays which Dr. Sculco declared a perfect and tight fit.  Working the muscles will take about six weeks from what he indicated.  Like me nurse sister said: "The key in recovery is the Chinese method: Walk [Wok], [Wok], [Wok].

Elder Adams during a walk through Central Park.

On Friday, August 11th, several of the Temple Missionaries invited us to join them along with the Hansons who also serve with us in the Family History Center and the Dransfields who are Public Relations Missionaries for a excursion to the Morgan Library, Downtown.

Main library room - Morgan Library Reading Room - supposedly as he had  it when alive

Elder DeBry, Elder Dransfield, Sr. Adams, Sr. Brown, Elder Hanson, Sister Hanson, Sister Harris, Elder Harris on the MTA Bus to Morgan Library.

Painted Ceilings in Rotunda of Morgan Library

Sr. Adams in J.P. Morgan's Study

Elder Adams - Entrance to Middle Ages Artifacts

An original edition of the Guttenberg Bible

Some of the special exhibit items in the library included exhibit items from Mesopotamia, the Guttenberg Bible, copies of Thomas Jefferson's draft journal, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" aka as the Battle Hymn of the Republic later, music scores of opera, etc.  Recently, a first edition copy of the Book of Mormon was on display, as well.

We have continued to provide training to Temple and Family History Consultants, and recently spent a couple of hours with a veteran FHC Director from Staten Island Family History Center who has requested we work with her in training as a TFHC using "Find, Take, and Teach" using the tools and resources that are now available in planning and executing experiences in "Helping Others to Love Family History" and feel the Spirit of Elijah.  This is proving to be a very powerful conversion tool in the New York NY Stake.

Earlier this week, coming from our physical therapy session early in the morning, we walked in quite a rain storm.  Later in the week, we took a photo of the family history center-temple, and the apartment building where we live on the 10th floor.  Both of these views were from Broadway between 59th Street (Columbus Circle) and 66th Street.

Elder Adams in the rain

Sr. Adams in the Rain

Lincoln Square Church Bldg and Tower - Columbus Avenue & 65th Street.

The photograph above was taken from Broadway at 65th Street and Columbus Avenue.  The Angel Moroni sits atop the steeple marking the Lincoln Square Church Building across from Julliard and Lincoln Center.  In the background is the Church-owned tower where some Senior Missionaries assigned to the New York New York North Mission with specific assignments like Public Affairs, Family History, etc.  The Manhattan Temple Presidency also live here, as well as Manhattan Temple Missionaries.

The last week of July and the first week of August, the temple was closed for semi-annual maintenance.  But on the second day the temple was open, the air conditioning failed and the afternoon session brought temperatures of 92 degrees.  The temple was closed for the reminder of the week while repairs could be made to the A/C unit.  As a result, there was little activity in the Family History Center during that week.

On Wednesday, August 16, Ruth Braithwaite came into the Center again and wanted more information on her father, Harry Ross.  By the time she finished, together we had found census records for her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather and their families, some of whom were quite numerous.  She is an older black lady but very gracious.  When she comes in she has a definite goal and it is refreshing to be able to work with a patron who understands that ancestors who want to be found almost jump out of the records--and others who do not want to be found just aren't found no matter what we do.  It is pretty amazing!

On Sunday, the annual Harlem Days Celebration was held. We were asked to serve in the Family History Booth. I [Diane] spent a couple of hours working with three individuals. The first one set up a new account and created her Family Tree far enough to look for records. The other two just wanted to search for records of any kind to find their family. I was able to find records for both individuals and they were so excited. They were going to go home and see if they could search on their own. It is such a joy to watch their excitement when they find a record showing their families. Golden spent his time traveling back to the apartment to get his computer and returned just in time to go back home.

Lots of different activities, food, and "music"- FH booth was similar to these.

6 August 2017

On Monday the 31 of  July, Lynn Wilcox, TFHC Director, took us all out for a brunch at The Sugar Factory located between the 68th street and 69 street on Broadway. We all thought that it was a small store that made donuts and all kinds of goodies. When they took us back in the back in turned out to be quite a nice restaurant. We all had a lovely time relaxing and enjoying each others company.

  Left F to B: Golden Adams, NobukoTakabori, Stanton Biddle, Tom Hanson.  Right F to B: Diane Adams,  Linda Martinez, Lynn Wilcox and Liz Hanson

This week, the hours of the Family History Center were shortened due to the temple being closed, as well as the unavailability of our normal volunteers who were given August off for vacations and other excursions they had planned.  Between Liz and Tom Hanson and ourselves, we served to keep the Center open during those hours.

On Tuesday, we began the shifting of the microfilms from the metal cabinets to the wooden cabinets that were now installed so that a remodel of the microfilm room could continue by putting in counters and shelves. Then a microfilm reader, a scanner and two computers can be permanently housed there. For quite some time, equipment was moved from that room as storage to an adjoining room at the beginning of the week and returned at the end of the week so it could be used as the nursery during church meetings.

With the help of another volunteer, Christine, we identified all the films that had been ordered recently as part of the private collection (since FamilySearch is discontinuing film distribution August 31st) and put a card in place of where the film would go.  Temporarily, these films are located in the lobby near the Family History Center for easy access to patrons who are regularly using them.

Microfilm Transfer to new cabinets from metal cabinets for remodel

By Friday, all films had been transferred and equipment we would have removed (including the metal microfilm cabinets, a film reader and cart, chair, and other things that were no longer needing to be stored) had been identified.  When physical facilities removes theses items, the remodeling can be completed.  But August being what it is, things won't settle down until September as so much is going on and people are often out of the City.

On Friday and Saturday, Golden worked with Ruth Braithwaite, a delightful patron trying to gather some records of her Ward family from Florida and South Carlolina.  Since she was not computer literate, team effort produced some good results and she was able to solve some questions by finding a couple of records that help clarify why the family didn't have much information shared at a recent family reunion.  Other than that, things were very slow during the week as far as patrons were concerned.

For the month of August, the hours have been shortened by starting later during the week and closing earlier in the evenings so that Hanson's and Adams' can serve between doctor and physical therapy appointments that are taking up quite a bit of time and sporadic schedules of providers.