BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

Greetings,
      Max and Mary continue to be active workers at the Family History Library.  Often Mary is at the Welcome Desk or the Cash Register.  Copies or scans are 10 cents each or 5 cents for those who work there. The young missionaries come in to email and what they print up is free.  Also free are FORs which are family ordinance requests.  Then we help patrons by printing up cards for the temple. We also charge for flash drives and some classes ($20 to pay for the book that we print for them).  Most classes are free, and are mainly to help people with Family Tree or increase awareness of the sources and how to use them. Max is usually at the Help Desk which is the family history consultant.  Helping patrons is our major focus.  Max also is busy cataloging books.

Dick Lisle and the 15hp. Star 

     We can also work on our own family history when we are not busy.  Yesterday Mary googled "Star Cars" to see what was on the internet about Edward Lisle's Company. We know all his family worked in the business.  But she did not know that our Grandpa Dick Lisle was one of the main car racers and won trophies for racing cars.  Here are a few pictures of him :

Dick Lisle in his Comet outside the factory

     Some of the races were for over 300 miles or even 12 hours.  The 15hp. Star won a gold medal in the Wolverhampton Automobile Club's meeting on October 2nd, 1909. It also won the 1909 October Senior Handicap at Brooklands.  Dick Lisle was racing from 1909 to 1914 when Mary's mother was born, and possibly up until 1922.  And if you read the account, at one time he lost a race because he crashed into a bridge.  

Mary at the "Blessing the Animals" mural at the Pueblo

Union Station

     For preparation day this week, Max and Mary rode the Metro (light rail which turns into heavy rail) to downtown Union Station. We visited the Pueblo de Los Angeles; in the center of this Mexican place is Olivera Street where there are a lot of outdoor shops, museums and eating places.  Then we walked to the Walt Disney Center for the Performing Arts where the Los Angeles Philharmonic plays in the winter.  It is a very unusual-looking building designed by Gehry.  We also went to the main library which is enormous, covering 8 floors and saw their genealogy section.  Max says this is a busman's holiday to look at what we do all the time.

Walt Disney Center

Los Angeles Public Library

     On Sunday, Max substituted in Sunday School and gave a lesson on "Finding joy in family history and temple work". The high priest group leader came over last Tuesday to ask us to teach a series of lessons starting in January to acquaint ward members with the "Tree".  This was a direct answer to our prayers.  Most of the other senior missionaries go down on Sundays to help with a struggling branch in the Watts area of the City.  They have asked if we wanted to join them.  So, we prayed about whether we should go down and help them or stay in this ward close by.  Staying close by, we can more easily help on Sundays when the Hunts, who are now our Family History Center managers, leave.
     Also on Sunday we enjoyed going to the Artesia Ward in Torrance for a Fireside for the departing missionaries.  There were 13 young Elders and Sisters who bore their testimonies, including our neighbor Sister Bateman.  It was very inspiring to hear their stories. When they go home, there are many more missionaries that will come to fill their places and then some.