I love America

Here is my latest creation made with love and help from Nattie, We honor America and our new calling to serve where much of Americas history was made. This week has been a collection of activities to finish up before I fly out to get Valerie and her kids for the LUND reunion. On Monday after talking with Rose of Sharon about our scanning training, we found out that she wants us to start on July 6. One week we will be at the Chatterley reunion and the rest of the month will be training. After hearing this we receive a call about the Simi home and it looks like Jim has decided to go down there to make the repairs on the home before we leave!  Also this week, we confirmed with David Else about him living in our home while we are gone. ALL this news and each day we also prepare for the whole LUND family coming to Utah. We are blessed to be able to see most of ALL our family before we leave for Philadelphia. We are also blessed to be able to serve full time together again.... in Philadelphia!!

preparing for the LUND Reunion

The passed week we have been busy preparing for our mission by talking to the Mission President Anderson. He wants us to have our scanning training before we go to the MTC which means July. We have our two family reunions before we can leave. The LUND reunion has been taking most of our time as we are in charge. It will be in Midway in a few weeks. This week we made aprons for the granddaughters to wear while serving food and cleaning up. We also put old family photos in frames. Today we went to the Midway chapel to count and plane the table arrangements, decorations, and display tables. Included in this post is a photo Angie took when she came to visit this weekend, a photo that Nikki took for our mission application. I also included my grandma Aagot when she came to America from Norway. She loved hats and now I can happily see a family resemblance. The last photo is Djalmar, Aagot and their first two daughters  Temie and Vange.  I am reading and studying family history. I am loving the connection and love that I feel for them.

PHILLY, here we come

Friday May 22, 2015 we received our next Mission papers, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Mission North America North East Area Family History Record Preservation. We report to the MTC Aug 3.
Several unique thing about this call:
1. we did request it
2. we did talk to the people who are scanning there now and met them last year at the Orem Processing center. We read their blog and checked out where they lived
3. we did call both the Mission President and the Temple construction supervisor
4. Most unique, in Simi Valley we had to follow our letter carrier around the block and wait until she got to our house to receive our big letter and then rush off to serve as ordinance workers in LA. Here in Orem, our letter carrier saw that it was a mission call and delivered it first thing in the morning. We were serving at our Service Mission at the time. Later as we were preparing to go to the Provo temple I checked the mail and there is was,,,early!! And we are delighted

Akumal at Casa del Sol

a much need trip at Casa del Sol. We walked the pueblo, swam in the lagoon, rowed in the bay, hiked in the ruins of Coba, sat at the beach at Tulum, Attended church in Tulum for fast and testimony, dined on shrimp and fish and meals prepared by our local chefs. We loved resting and reading during siesta time and Jim even got to chop down the jungle growth to help Frank prepare the land for a structure honoring Lennie

cousin Elinor White Hart

The blessings of doing family history is getting reacquainted with cousins. Elinor lives about 1 hour North of us with her two sons, Danny and David. She is the daughter of Margot, my fathers third older sister. We had a great first visit at her home. Not only she is a great record keeper, but she is an artist and poet. She is almost 84 years old. She has a brother with children and grandchildren that we will call and visit with.

descendancy work on FAMILY SEARCH

We have been serving our family history mission at the Orem Processing center for over a year, We learned how to do Descendancy search from our good friend, Brother Hawley, In doing this search we find family members as least 115 years after they have passed and then 4 generations over. This means we are finding relatives, greatly removed cousins, whose work have not been done, Along with the fact that my cousin Stewart Neel hired a professional genealogist and he found grandma Aagot Marie Randby Lunds real family (she was adopted) so , these lines opened up.
Monday Morning, Jim and I got up at 4am and took Mariah and Andrew, along with Austin Lund and Karina to the Provo temple for Baptisms for the dead, This is a joy that I have been waiting for a long time. Now, I will be able to complete the rest of their work, I am so happy that I can serve my family both living and passed. I love family history and am so happy that Jim and I can serve together

a visit with Uncle Lee

Uncle Lee turns 90 this year in March 2015. Here he is in 1944 on leave in World War ll. From left in this photo is LaRue, Jean. Lee, and not sure who the rest are. Is it Joyce and then Celia? I always prided myself in knowing which twin was which but now I am challenged every time I think I know. Now that we all have daughters and grandchildren I try to see which sister looks like their offspring. What did I learn from the visit? Lee told the story of how popular he felt when his train drove through Salt Lake City and he had all  j his beautiful sisters cheering and waving for him. He says it was never quite in his home. Most of the fights were over clothes. The sisters were always borrowing each others things. Because of my love of family history, next week some of the grandchildren will be able to do temple baptism for Aagots family. This information was received by my doing the descendancy lists, I am so happy that I have the opportunity to help my family be together forever.