ONE YEAR IN THE CLAM

Well here we are beginning September tomorrow.  We are loving the great weather.  There are now 5 full-time missionary couples, 6 Church-Service local missionaries who work 2 days a week and a number of volunteers.  So the library is, at last, fully-staffed.  Max and Mary are the Senior missionaries, meaning we have been here the longest of anyone.  So we are often asked to give our advice and opinion, and are the ones to take over if the director can't be there.  Max teaches classes on the Family Tree; he is working on his presentation as a keynote speaker on September 20th at a genealogy conference in Cerritos, California.  Mary does the scheduling and calendars groups that come in to the library.

The Christus at the Visitors' Center

Just to give you an idea of the people we help with their family history.  There were 2 groups recently of young men and women from various wards (One was in the Pacific Palisades Ward where the Garff's son is the Young Men's President).  They needed an overview of what can be done on the Family Tree.  Their leaders were well-prepared by getting all the young people log-in names and passwords.  Then the library staff members sat with them one-on-one at the computers to help them find a name to take to the temple for baptismal work.  Both times we were able to find some work for those we helped, even though much of the work had already been done, since some of the youth come from families who have been in the church for generations.

A brother and sister, about 45 years of age, came in wanting to find out about their ancestors.  They were not members, so Mary decided not to take them to the Family Tree.  They had brought some information and were able to find their family members on the Census, border crossings from Mexico and other documents.  They made copies.  We give first-time visitors a pedigree chart to fill out.  She was thrilled and said,  " I guess you see a lot of people find their families.  It's exciting for us."  (Incidentally, we do help non-members get on the Tree if they would like to; the temple work available does not show)

Many people come in to get temple cards.  Often the same ones over and over.  Some of the temple workers, who serve one week each month, come in to do research on their families on their down time.  Then when we go to the temple, we see many of those same people as workers.  This place is like a small town; we know and recognize many people as we walk the grounds, go to the Visitor's Center and attend the neighboring ward.  We have heard all the Temple Presidency speak at Family Home Evenings, Why I Believe firesides and at church.  President Huff, President Larkin and President Martz will be serving only until October; then their 3-year term will be up.  Our mission president, President Weidman came here a month before we did, so he and his wife will be here awhile.  Their son just came home from a mission to Chile and he and his parents gave a missionary report in our Ward.  They are from Texas.

We serve in the Westwood First Ward. Max is a home teacher and leads the Teachings for our Times lesson in the High Priests's group. Mary teaches primary to the Valiant 9-year-olds about twice each month.  

There was a Zone Conference one Saturday in Torrance for the missionaries from four zones. We attended and participated in the break-out sessions with the young missionaries. We played the parts of investigators as they practiced teaching simply. The local ward provided the lunch; then we returned to the Library for the rest of the day.

A Wind Skater at Santa Monica Beach

One P-Day this last month we went walking on the beach at Santa Monica and watched the sunset.  Another day we went to Newport Beach and then to Laguna Beach to meet up with Mary's childhood friend, Ann (Anneke)

Sister Evans with Sister Elder Moore

Moore and her husband, Bill who are serving a Military Relations mission at Camp Pendleton.  This is their 3rd mission--the first one to the temple in Hong Kong and another to the French-speaking Belgian Congo in Africa.  They also taught English to Chinese speakers in Beijing.  Anyway, since Ann was born in Holland and knows Dutch, there was a woman who came in the British Society who needs a document translated from Dutch to English.  Ann very graciously said she would do her best and would not accept any money for it.  It was fun to visit them and see how their newest mission is working out. We had lunch with them at Ruby's Diner, a hamburger joint that Mary's sister, Susan introduced us to when we previously visited them in Newport Beach.

As far as research on our own families.  Max is discovering at lot of information on Jane Stevenson/Clark line.  Mary has learned that two of her ancestors didn't originate in England. Daniel Williams (1759-1841) who was the Baptist minister in Fairford, Gloucester and married Sarah Peeters from Southwark, Surrey. From an obituary in the Baptist magazine, she discovered that he actually was born in Carmarthen, Wales and when he went to school in Bristol to study for the ministry, he couldn't speak a word of English.  Carmarthenshire is where Max's ancestor, Abel Evans was born.  So, Max and Mary have that in common.  And another surprise was that James Rigby's wife, Issabella, who Mary thought was also born in Lancashire like all the rest of the familly, came from Scotland. No wonder she couldn't find their marriage in the English records.  James Rigby (1791-1858) is Ann Rigby's father.

Last Friday we spent part of our P-day at the Petersen Automotive Museum. It's located at mid-Wilshire, near the LA County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits. We learned that the museum will be closing for a year or more for renovation beginning in October. It is a great museum that tells the history of the automobiles in Los Angeles. It has a great collection of exotic and unusual cars.

Mary with the 1914 Princess

Max on a Police Motorcycle

      

Brrrrrrrmmmmm!

JULY RECAP

July 4, Independence Day. We had the day off (meaning the library was closed, but it was our P-day anyway), so we got up early to go downtown to celebrate the Fourth of July at the site of Fort Moore, on the top of Hill Street, overlooking the historic El Pueblo de Los Angeles. This is where the Mormon Battalion, along with units of other American military forces, on July 4, 1848, raised the first American Flag in Los Angeles. The Mormon Battalion re-enactors were there to do the job. We had flags flying, muskets firing, cannons roaring, troops marching, and politicians orating.

The bas relief monument

A re-enactor

The musketeers

We went to Santee Alley, the famous discount and slightly seedy Los Angeles shopping district near downtown. Max bought a new tie and Mary bought a small rug.

Venice canals

Our next P-day adventure was going to Marina Del Rey, where we have rented three apartments for our children when then come to visit us in December. We walked on the beach and also walked around the nearby Venice canals, a neighborhood of nice homes where the streets, as in Venice, Italy, are canals.

A home on the canal

The following week we wanted to see one of the many waterfalls in the mountains close-by. We decided to see Sturtevant Falls in the Santa Anita Canyon of the Angeles National Forest. That is in the San Gabriel mountains, below Mount Wilson. The hike began at a Forest Service station and went down into a canyon, along a stream, and near a large number of historical cabins, built between 1910 and 1935, that are still used by their owners for recreation and relaxation. We met a string of pack burros as we walked in and later learned that the owners use them to haul in supplies and haul out garbage. There is no road there. It was a pleasant three and a half-mile round-trip hike, uphill both ways. They say the falls are lovely, but with the drought this year, it was barely a trickle. Still, it was worth the trip.

One of the cabins on the trail

What we saw

The falls on a normal year

Last Friday we went to Palisades Park in Santa Monica. It is a long, narrow park at the top of the bluff overlooking the beach and ocean. We brought a pizza for lunch and enjoyed the view and the quiet time together.

We spend a lot of time in the library, teaching, helping people get into the family tree and answering various other genealogy questions they might have.  A Samoan man was so thrilled to see his family members that he had tears in his eyes.  His wife said she wants to do the work for her mother, but will find out more information about her grand-parents so she can do them too.  Mary helped a young black man whose great-grandfather emigrated from Africa;  he was able to find the date he emigrated on the Census, then the ship he came on and his name listed on the ship manifest.  Max teaches photos and stories and how to attach sources to individuals on Family Tree.  Mary teaches beginning computers to those who need it.  She spends a lot of time working on the daily schedule for the workers in the library.  Today, even though it is Sunday, we went to the library for the British Society and in the evening went to a "Why I Believe" fireside at the Visitor's Center featuring McLean Nielsen, the producer of the movie, "The Saratov Approach" (He was also one of the actors). 

Love to everyone.  Elder and Sister Evans 

MOVIN' ON UP, TO THE EAST SIDE

June gloom is how the locals describe the weather in June. Like gray May, it is a bit overcast in the mornings. But it is usually sunny by afternoon, yet never too hot. We are still waiting for Spring. And now its Summer. We like it.

Earlier this month we attended the taping of the Prairie Home Companion radio program held at the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park. It was very entertaining. Garrison Keillor and his cast are very talented and can be very funny.

Garrison Keillor at the Greek Theatre

The next week we took a road trip for our P-day. We drove through Ventura County (and bought a case of fresh strawberries), through Santa Barbara, and then to Solvang, a small town with a Danish flavor that caters to tourists. We walked around the town, had lunch in the a cafe, and did a bit of shopping. It felt good to be in a small town, where the pace is slower and parking is plentiful and free. We also visited an ostrich ranch in the nearby town of Goleta. We took the back roads, through the mountains, on the return trip to Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful and uncrowded drive. Then we stopped at the ocean-front town of Carpenteria for a walk on the beach.

Mary at the Summit Vista on our mountain drive

The ostrich ranch

Our big event for the month was our move, finally, from our cozy studio apartment on the second floor to our one bedroom apartment on the third floor. The kitchen seems larger because we don't have the table there. We have a large desk for our computer and a credenza for our files and a larger and nicer dining room table. We also have about three times the usable closet space. And a room just for the bed. What a novelty! We started moving on Thursday morning before our afternoon shift at the library and finished Friday, our P-day.

Our one bedroom apartment

We still like to take walks around the Temple grounds and around the neighborhood. There are many beautiful, well-landscaped homes, and some unusual trees. We've include a photo of one of them. The Jacaranda tree has violet blossoms that fall to the ground and cover the streets and sidewalks. They are all around the neighborhood and grow in the median on Santa Monica Boulevard.

A Jacaranda tree in our neighborhood

Last Friday we went with three other senior missionary couples to the LA Dodgers game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers lost, 3-1, but it was a good game and fun to be in this historic stadium.

Our greeter. He is about seven feet tall

Now it is summer, at the library, we are receiving groups of young people for Youth Conferences.  Wards are bringing over high-priest groups now that President Monson and others have spoken out about family history in the Ensign.  And last Saturday, we had two large Primary groups touring the library with their parents and leaders.  Mary capitalized on their theme about families, temples and family history work. She had some power point slides to show family pictures and temples, inside and out.  Then she had the children fill out a family tree with the names of themselves, their parents, and grandparents along with the names of their siblings and the places they were born.  Then they looked up those places on  maps of the United States and the World from our extensive map collection.

Keep doing your family history.  As seen on a bumper sticker :  "Genealogy; it's how we raise our spirits"

 Love, Elder and Sister Evans

JUNE IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER

        Today there was a wonderful Mission Conference with Elder Ballard of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Schweitzer of the Second Quorum of Seventy speaking to us.  Before the meeting, Elder Ballard shook the hand of every single missionary there, which were about 300.  They totally filled the chapel and the overflow.  He had such a great spirit and made us feel like we can make a difference here.  We can nurture good feelings in our hearts and face each day with energy and enthusiasm.  We can become familiar with the scriptures so that the Holy Ghost will help us recall the right one to use when we are talking with investigators.  Elder Ballard served a mission in England 65 years ago; he knew Mary's parents there when they were in a little branch in Nottingham where her mother was taught the gospel and was baptized.
        A few Saturdays ago, 4 of us ( Our director:  Richard McBride, Jackie Ireland, Max and Mary) drove out to Ventura to help teach sessions at their family history fair.  We had to take our own computers and projectors along with thumb drives that had the power point lessons on them. There were about 14 people in each class.  It was a good day, but a long one.  Then, the next day, Sunday, it was the Jewish Celebration of Israel's Independence.  Public Affairs wanted us to go represent the church there.  I know this might seem very secular, especially since the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday and everyone on this day was casually dressed for a fair.  We were able to go to our Sacrament meeting and then went to Rancho Park Golf Course where we were to man a booth.  Max had arranged to have some beautiful posters made which really caught people's attention.  Then we had flyers printed up about Jewish family history sites as well as some CDs on the Tabernacle Choir.  There was considerable interest.  One lady in particular wanted to know why Mormons do family history; Mary explained how we believe everyone should have the opportunity to hear the message of the Gospel, even our ancestors who have died.  She also wanted to know why we have temples.  Mary said we baptize people who didn't have an opportunity when they were on the earth.  This woman then told how the Jewish people similarly believe in washing:  men have a place to cleanse themselves before they participate in prayers and there is a washing area for women to use in their synagogues.  
        Last Monday, there was a family home evening for the full-time missionaries which Max and Mary were in charge of.  There were about 24 there, including the mission president and his wife; President Weidman brought a cake he had been given for his birthday. It is a potluck dinner; we brought sweet-and-sour chicken over rice.  After the meal which is in the back room of the library, there is always an activity.  We had invited the head gardener, Kyneston Butchart to take us on a tour of the gardens and trees on the temple grounds which was a great thing to do in the evening.  Everybody enjoyed themselves.  Here are some pictures using Mary's new iPhone:

Note reflecting pool in background

Hollywood Juniper tree 

Canary Island Fan Palm

multi-colored rose bush in front of Temple President's home

        In the family history library this week, Max was helping a man who was coming for the first time.  After getting in the Family Tree, Max spent about an hour with him and as he left, he wanted Mary to take a photo of the two of them.  Many people come to get family name cards so they can do baptisms for the youth that they have brought to the temple.  Most don't realize how easy it is for us to get the cards printed after they have put the names of their ancestors on their pedigree charts.   There are still some people who have difficulty signing in to the tree; the number they need is on their temple recommend or they can bring a printout of their membership record number from their ward clerk. 
        We are enjoying having a free membership to 3 genealogy sites:  ancestry.com, find my past and my heritage.  All church members can now have access to these.  We need to put the ancestral information in the various sites so other people working on our lines can contact us. It's also a great way to organize your family history.

William Carey

        The ancestor who we will focus on today is William Carey.  He is not in our direct line, but he is the famous brother of one of Mary's ancestors, Ann Carey. William Carey (August 17, 1761 - June 9, 1834) was an English missionary and Baptist minister, known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society. As a missionary in Serampore, India, he translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.

Carey, the eldest of five children, was born to Edmund and Elizabeth Carey, who were weavers by trade in the village of Paulerspury in Northampton. William was raised in the Church of England; when he was six, his father was appointed the parish clerk and village schoolmaster. As a child he was naturally inquisitive and keenly interested in the natural sciences, particularly botany. He possessed a natural gift for language, teaching himself Latin.

At the age of 16, Carey’s father apprenticed him to a shoemaker in the nearby village of Hackleton. His master, Clarke Nichols, was a churchman like himself, but another apprentice, John Warr, was a Dissenter. Through his influence Carey would eventually leave the Church of England and join with other Dissenters to form a small Congregational church in Hackleton. While apprenticed to Nichols, he also taught himself Greek with the help of a local villager who had a college education.

When Nichols died in 1779, Carey went to work for another local shoemaker, Thomas Old; he married Old’s sister-in-law Dorothy Plackett in 1781. Unlike William, Dorothy was illiterate; her signature in the marriage register is a crude cross. William and Dorothy Carey had six children, four sons and two daughters; both girls died in infancy. Olds himself died soon afterward, and Carey took over his business, during which time he taught himself Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, and French, often reading while working on his shoes.

Carey became involved with a local association of Particular Baptists that had recently formed, where he became acquainted with men such as John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, who would become his close friends in later years. They invited him to preach in their church in the nearby village of Barton every other Sunday. On October 5, 1783, William Carey was baptized by Ryland and committed himself to the Baptist denomination.

In 1785, Carey was appointed the schoolmaster for the town of Moulton. He was also invited to pastor the local Baptist church. During this time he read Jonathan Edwards' Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd and the journals of the explorer James Cook, and became deeply concerned with propagating the Christian Gospel throughout the world. His friend Andrew Fuller had previously written an influential pamphlet in 1781 titled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, answering the hyper-Calvinist belief then prevalent in the Baptist churches, that all men were not responsible to believe the Gospel. At a ministers' meeting in 1786, Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world. J. R. Ryland, the father of John Ryland, is said to have retorted: "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine."

In 1789 Carey became the full-time pastor of a small Baptist church in Leicester. Two years later he published his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. This short book consists of five parts. The first part is a theological justification for missionary activity, arguing that the command of Jesus to make disciples of all the world (Matthew 28:18-20) remains binding on Christians. The second part outlines a history of missionary activity, beginning with the early Church and ending with David Brainerd and John Wesley. Part 3 comprises 26 pages of tables, listing area, population, and religion statistics for every country in the world. Carey had compiled these figures during his years as a schoolteacher. The fourth part answers objections to sending missionaries, such as difficulty learning the language or danger to life. Finally, the fifth part calls for the formation by the Baptist denomination of a missionary society and describes the practical means by which it could be supported. Carey's seminal pamphlet outlines his basis for missions: Christian obligation, wise use of available resources, and accurate information.

Carey later preached a pro-missionary sermon, using Isaiah 54:2-3 as his text, in which he repeatedly used the epigram which has become his most famous quotation: "Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God." Carey finally overcame the resistance to missionary effort, and the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen (now the Baptist Missionary Society) was founded in October 1791, including Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff as charter members. They then concerned themselves with practical matters such as raising funds, as well as deciding where they would direct their efforts. A medical missionary, Dr. John Thomas, had been in Calcutta and was currently in England raising funds; they agreed to support him and that Carey would accompany him to India.

Carey, his eldest son Felix, Thomas and his wife and daughter sailed from London aboard an English ship in April 1792. Dorothy Carey had refused to leave England, being pregnant with their fourth son and having never been more than a few miles from home. En route they were delayed at the Isle of Wight, at which time the captain of the ship received word that he endangered his command if he conveyed the missionaries to Calcutta, as their unauthorized journey violated the trade monopoly of the British East India Company. He decided to sail without them, and they were delayed until June when Thomas found a Danish captain willing to offer them passage. In the meantime, Carey's wife, who had by now given birth, agreed to accompany him provided her sister came as well. They landed at Calcutta in November.

During the first year in Calcutta, the missionaries sought means to support themselves and a place to establish their mission. They also began to learn the Bengali language to communicate with the natives. A friend of Thomas owned two indigo factories and needed managers, so Carey moved with his family north to Mudnabatty. During the six years that Carey managed the indigo plant, he completed the first revision of his Bengali New Testament and began formulating the principles upon which his missionary community would be formed, including communal living, financial self-reliance, and the training of indigenous ministers. His son Peter died of dysentery, causing Dorothy to suffer a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered.

Meanwhile, the missionary society had begun sending more missionaries to India. The first to arrive was John Fountain, who arrived in Mudnabatty and began teaching school. He was followed by William Ward, a printer; Joshua Marshman, a schoolteacher; David Brunsdon, one of Marshman's students; and William Grant, who died three weeks after his arrival. Because the East India Company was still hostile to missionaries, they settled in the Danish colony at Serampore and were joined there by Carey on January 10, 1800.

Once settled in Serampore, the mission bought a house large enough to accommodate all of their families and a school, which was to be their principal means of support. Ward set up a print shop with a secondhand press Carey had acquired and began the task of printing the Bible in Bengali. In August 1800 Fountain died of dystentery. By the end of that year, the mission had their first convert, a Hindu named Krishna Pal. They had also earned the goodwill of the local Danish government and Richard Wellesley, then Governor-General of India.

The conversion of Hindus to Christianity posed a new question for the missionaries concerning whether it was appropriate for converts to retain their caste. In 1802, the daughter of Krishna Pal, a Sudra, married a Brahmin. This wedding was a public demonstration that the church repudiated the caste distinctions.

Brunsdon and Thomas died in 1801. The same year, the Governor-General founded Fort William, a college intended to educate civil servants. He offered Carey the position of professor of Bengali. Carey's colleagues at the college included pundits, whom he could consult to correct his Bengali testament. He also wrote grammars of Bengali and Sanskrit, and began a translation of the Bible into Sanskrit. He also used his influence with the Governor-General to help put a stop to the practices of infant sacrifice and suttee, after consulting with the pundits and determining that they had no basis in the Hindu sacred writings (although the latter would not be abolished until 1829).

Dorothy Carey died in 1807; Carey remarried a year later to Charlotte Rhumohr, a Danish member of his church who, unlike Dorothy, was his intellectual equal. They were married for 13 years until her death.

From the printing press at the mission came translations of the Bible in Bengali, Sanskrit, and other major languages and dialects. Many of these languages had never been printed before; William Ward had to create punches for the type by hand. Carey had begun translating literature and sacred writings from the original Sanskrit into English to make them accessible to his own countryman. On March 11, 1812, a fire in the print shop caused £10,000 in damages and lost work. Amongst the losses were many irreplaceable manuscripts, including much of Carey's translation of Sanskrit literature and a polyglot dictionary of Sanskrit and related languages, which would have been a seminal philological work had it been completed. However, the press itself and the punches were saved, and the mission was able to continue printing in six months. In Carey's lifetime, the mission printed and distributed the Bible in whole or part in 44 languages and dialects.

In 1818, the mission founded Serampore College to train indigenous ministers for the growing church and to provide education in the arts and sciences to anyone regardless of caste or country. The King of Denmark granted a royal charter in 1827 that made the college a degree-granting institution, the first in Asia.

Carey's second wife, Charlotte, died in 1821, followed by his eldest son Felix. In 1823 he married a third time, to a widow named Grace Hughes.

Internal dissent and resentment was growing within the Missionary Society as its numbers grew, the older missionaries died, and they were replaced by less experienced men unused to the rigorous work ethic of Carey, Ward, and Marshman. Andrew Fuller, who had been secretary of the Society in England, had died in 1815, and his successor, John Dyer, was a bureaucrat who attempted to reorganize the Society along business lines and manage every detail of the Serampore mission from England. Their differences proved to be irreconcilable, and Carey formally severed ties with the missionary society he had founded, leaving the mission property and moving onto the college grounds. He lived a quiet life until his death in 1834, revising his Bengali Bible, preaching, and teaching students.  Known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society. As a missionary in Serampore, India, he translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.
   
Love from Sister and Elder Evans (Grandma and Grandpa)

GRAY MAY

Another month gone by. What did we do? Hmmm. No big adventures to report. We've been spending our P-days mostly preparing, not playing. As we mentioned last month, since the end of March, three senior missionary couples and one single sister from the Family History Library finished their missions and went home. That's seven out of the ten we once had. One single sister decided to extend for a month (thank you Sister Loveland!) and we welcomed one other couple. So with this greatly diminished crew, together with some Church service missionaries and volunteers, we've managed to get by. We will greet another couple later this month, and yet another in July.

In the meantime we keep busy. We have a one-day series of three classes that are taught about twice a month. Max teaches one or two of them, depending on who else is available, has not broken his foot, been called to be ward Relief Society President, or is moving to North Dakota (from LA?!).  [That's the case with three of the teachers].  Max was planning to teach the first class yesterday, when it got switched to the second time period and he was reassigned to teach the third class. Keeps you on your toes.

Mary has been called to teach primary in the Westwood First ward; she loves teaching these young boys. Max has four families to home teach. In a stake where 70% of the adult members are single, that means four people to teach. Our other activities continue as usual and as previously reported. Max enjoys his Thursday morning trips to Carson, San Pedro, and Palos Verdes to deliver mission mail. He is learning patience through the trial of traffic on the I-405. Mary takes that time for a water aerobics class. Life is good, but it's beginning to get hot; up into the 90s this week. We are anticipating what the locals mean by "Gray May."

We have some people who are regular patrons in the library. We wrote about one last month. Another one, a member of the Westwood ward, is a convert of about one to two years. She is an older Italian sister who came with her husband from Italy so he could receive medical treatment at the UCLA medical center. After he died, she joined the Church and remained. She understands English well enough, but has a very pronounced accent, so she is hard to understand. She works on her own family history research and also does indexing of Italian records, and she needs a lot of help with each. She had someone scan photos and help her add them to the Family Tree, but now she can't find the originals, so we keep trying to help her find them. Max was beginning to see her as a bother, looking for other things to do when she came in. But then he had a change of heart and decided to pray for her, first so she can find her photos, then then to help him be more kind, helpful, and understanding.  She has been to the temple to do baptisms for her family members, but has not received her own endowments. She wants to have the work finished for those that were baptized, and Max has been helping her get the names ready, but we don't think she understands what that means. Max recommended that she go to the temple for her own endowments first, and then she can go back and do the work for the sisters in her line. She doesn't have a phone (or doesn't accept incoming calls) so it hard for her to make a appointment with the stake president. Max has been facilitating that this week. He is also starting to feel a great deal of compassion for her and continues to include her in his prayers. He also was called up to the Visitor's Center one day when she requested a blessing and he did that for her. It is a little thing, and one that the young missionaries learn quickly and well, but it is a big change for hard-headed Elder Evans.

The young missionaries are having success in our ward. We have eight of them, a pair of single sisters and a pair of English-speaking Elders, as well as four Farsi-speaking Elders. We've had a lot of baptisms here, mostly Persians, but also a young English-speaking couple last week. We had a lot of Persian investigators here this morning, including a single man who is being baptized today and his friend, and a very nice and clearly very capable family of five. They have been to church several times, including the time we first met them at the Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebration in March. We feel wonderfully blessed to be "flies on the wall" to watch the hastening of the work among the Iranian people.

Mary walks home from her water aerobics class with a woman from Barcelona, Spain who she's hoping can get together with the sister missionary next door who is from Barcelona.  Cinta lives close to us and feels the peace that exists here when she walks around the temple grounds. She has been on a trip to Spain and will return home this week.

Mary and Max at work in the library

Mary also manages the schedule for the workers at the library which has become a challenge with new volunteers that need to be trained, but none of them coming very many hours.  She also is in charge of updating the calendar and posting classes.  Max does the marquée which helps to advertise classes and events.  We do have a new full-time missionary couple; they are very positive and helpful.  Boyd Dial is a former missionary companion of Mary's brother, John when they were young missionaries in Belgium; he has done a lot of indexing.  His wife, Nancy is helping with the microfilm ordering which is a large job here.  We have a new part-time Church Service missionary, Sandy who is being trained to do the once-a-month statistical report. Lloyd Reynolds, a Church Service missionary, helps maintain our equipment.  We have volunteers who help man the welcome desk and answer the phone.  When the Howcrofts come at the end of May, we hope that she can help with the cash register tally and financial reports we do every Monday.  And they both can ease the burden when people come into the library needing help. We get many new converts and others who need help getting logged in to the Family Tree, and members who need cards printed for temple work.  And there are a lot of non-members who come in who have been advised to come here for we have answers to their genealogical questions.

Along with helping patrons, Mary has been furthering her family line. She e-mailed someone who had a private-member tree on Ancestry.com and they sent back about 40 pages of very-detailed and sourced information on the Mills line.  There were five generations of men named Edmund Mills. Susannah Mills married William Louis Wheatley of whom Mary referred in the last blog.  Her father, grandfather and back were all named Edmund Mills.  The first one was born in about 1690, married Abigail Short in 1717 and was a sailmaker and lived near the Thames River.  Because of the data sent me, I researched the second Edmund Mills' mother-in-law, Lydia Nepar who left a will.  After transcribing it, Mary found mention of three grandchildren, Edmund, Spavin, and William Mills, who would benefit to the tune of £800.  She died in 1757 so that was a lot of money in those days.  It was to pay for their apprenticeships and their future.  Anyway it has been interesting to see that there are other persons today whose research matches mine with so much more detail and helps me to find so many more members of the family.

We are so blessed at having the Los Angeles temple so close.  Within five-minutes we can walk over and be at the door of the temple to enjoy the blessings of attending.  We feel the peace that work brings to our lives.  A few weeks ago, we took 5 men from the library and Lani Bucelli's grand-daughter to do baptisms for about 50 of Mary's ancestors along with a few of his.  Meadow did the female names and Max was baptized for some of the male names.  It was a beautiful experience.

TWENTY-SIX MILES ACROSS THE SEA

Wow! It has been a month since we last wrote. We've been busy. Our missionary force in the Family History Library is diminishing as elders and sisters go home. Since we came, from the eleven full-time missionaries at the library, we've lost one couple and two single sisters. Two more couples and another sister will leave within the next month. Fortunately, a new couple joined us just today, but the next couples are not scheduled to arrive until mid July. We do have several volunteers and a few Church Service missionaries who each work several hours each week, so we think we'll be okay.

We continue to be involved in helping our director teach classes. We have a three-day intensive course with twelve classes each month. Max teaches two of them and Mary teaches when some of the regular teachers are not available. We started another session starting today at 8:00. Max also taught two of three classes on the family tree last Saturday.

When we are not teaching, or preparing to teach, or cataloging books, or making up schedules, or working on the monthly calendar, or helping with the finances, then we help patrons. Many are non-members, and regulars at the library. We also have regular visits from members, and a large number of them, especially on Saturdays, come to the library to get name cards for the temple. A brother came into the library last week, saying he wants to become active again in the Church and go back to the temple, and he wants to find family names. He had done some genealogy a few years ago, but didn't know anything about the new resources. We helped him learn some basics and helped him learn how to find sources and attach them to the Family Tree. We told him to go home to work on it and to find documents, and to talk to his mother. He works on this a lot, and comes in a couple of times a week for help and to talk through issues and puzzles he encounters. He is very intelligent, and learns quickly. But he is also gentle and kind. He was born in Chester, the city in England where Mary was born. His story is one of dozens we see each week. It is a blessing to serve in this calling.

We also go to the Temple at least once each week (except for the two weeks in March when the temple was closed for cleaning). We've gotten to know some of the temple workers who live full-time in our apartment building, as well as those who come and stay for a week once a month. Each of these groups have a pot-luck dinner and a program on Monday night. We've been invited to join with the first week and the third week groups. Last night, after dinner, our program was at the Visitors' Center, where two children, a boy age 12 and his sister age 9, gave a piano and violin recital. We remember when our son Joe played one of the pieces, Meditation from Thais by Massanet. These children are truly amazing child proteges who have already won many competitions.

Santa Barbara Mission facade

Now, to our extracurricular activities for the past few weeks. We changed our P-day to Friday. One week we drove to Santa Barbara to visit the mission; one of Father Serra's Catholic missions, not one of ours. It is lovely, probably the best kept of all the historic California missions. It is called the Queen of the Missions. There is an Indian woman buried there who was left alone on an island for 17 years and was finally discovered and brought to the mainland. This was the story of Scott O'Dell's "Island of the Blue Dolphins", a children's book which we got from the library and both enjoyed reading.

A Mission garden

Passage from Church to cemetery.
Note the carvings above the door.

Memorial to the Isle of the
Blue Dolphin Indian girl

We also went to the beach and walked through the surf. We took the Pacific Coast Highway, a beautiful road along the shore and beaches, and relatively free of traffic. On the way to Santa Barbara we saw the large strawberry fields in Ventura County, so we stopped at a stand and bought a case of berries, picked that very morning. They were very large and delicious. We made a trifle, sliced them on cereal, put them in our salads, and just ate them fresh. Then we froze the rest that we still get out and use in our treats. It was lovely day.

Mary and Max walking on the beach at Santa Barbara

Another day we went to the county arboretum in Arcadia, near Pasadena.It has a wonderful assortment of trees, flowers, and other plants in a large park. Another nice peaceful day.

Max at the arboretum

Peacock crossing the path

Waterfall at the arboretum

View of the Avalon and the harbor from the mountain

On Conference weekend, since the library was closed Saturday and we had Friday off, we decided to go to Santa Catalina Island to spend the night. We took the 9:30 AM boat to Avalon and checked in to our lovely, old, quaint hotel, in a room with a balcony view of the harbor, the ocean, and at the night, the mainland. We walked around the town (one square mile only, but hilly), shopped, ate, and just enjoyed the atmosphere. However, we did not do the five-stage zip line nor the parasailing.

The casino (not a gambling hall) across the harbor

Mary on Via Casino

Mary  near the casino. Beach in the background

Sailboat in the harbor

A cactus garden

We returned to the LA harbor at San Pedro at about 4:30, in time for Max to get back to watch the Priesthood session of Conference. We listened to the morning session on Sunday, at the Visitors' Center, then we had an assignment at the Library in the afternoon. We watched the other three sessions on our computer this week. They were truly inspiring. We noticed that many of the leaders spoke directly or indirectly about family history.

The ancestor we will focus on today is William Lewis Wheatley, Mary's 2nd great-grandfather who was born on 26 August 1807 in Bishopsgate, London, England, to James and Hannah Wheatley. He apprenticed as a haberdasher, a dealer in men's clothing. On a Court Day the 2nd of June 1829, he received papers for "Freedom of the City of London" and was made free of the Haberdashers Company and took the accustomed oath. That same year on the 7th of September, at the age of 21, he married 18-year-old Susannah Mills in the parish church at Saint Olave Hart Street, London, Middlesex. They both lived to be in their late 80s. William Lewis operated a warehouse on the Thames River for the St Katherines Dock Company where he received silks that arrived in boats from China. He and Susannah had 8 children: William Edmund and Mary lived to be just 1 year old and another William lived to be age 12. Their son James and daughter Catherine both married but didn't have any children. Their daughter Susannah married and lived nearby and had 6 children and their son Henry emigrated to Australia and married 4 times. William and Susannah's son Edmund loved the sea and sailed to China to be the harbour-master there. He married a minister's daughter, Sarah Louisa Hobson and they had 3 children while there. William Lewis retired to Worthing, Sussex and died there on 24 August 1895. His will refers to him as "gentleman".

KEEP ROLLING ALONG

Hi everyone,  Happy St Patrick's Day,
It is amazing how fast the time is going.  The weeks seem to just fly by.  Last night we went to the departing-missionaries fireside; 2 sisters and 11 elders bore their testimonies and sang beautifully.  The spirit was very strong.  President Weidman asked for all the people who had been taught or baptized by these missionaries to stand.  There was a large overflow crowd. 

Last week, Max was involved in teaching the beginning 3-day Intensive classes (8 AM to 5 PM Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).  He was helping to acquaint those taking the class at the library with how to do research.  Our director, Richard McBride always tries to make it special for those in the class by providing them with a large binder with all the power-points.  And he also provides doughnuts, grapes, bananas and bottles of water.

 On Wednesday, although it was our P-day, we came in to the library for a quarterly Conference Call from Salt Lake.  Max and Mary are assuming a lot more responsibility now that JoAnn and Roy Hunt, our former office managers, have left.  Out of 10 full-time missionaries, 8 are going home before the end of May.  This  means that on Sundays we will be needed to open up the library and be there when any special groups or classes are meeting.

 On Sundays, Mary has been teaching the 8-year-old class in Primary about Abraham in the Old Testament. The ward building has murals on the walls of the Primary room and the Nursery.

Nursery room mural

Saturday, to celebrate the Relief Society birthday party, there was a luncheon with displays of things that the sisters have created.  There were beautiful paintings, quilts, handiwork, a formal table set in a Chinese theme, photography,etc. Mary brought her family history to display: a family history game (guess old-time occupations), a surname cloud, puzzilla (choose an ancestor and see his descendants that are on Family Tree), a fan chart, and a holder for family name cards.  There was musical talent also: a sister played her cello accompanied by the piano, a guitarist sang and Shawn King played 2 songs from her CDs. (She is the wife of Larry King).

A week ago Mary and Max went down to Newport Beach to visit Mary's sister Susan, her husband Robert and their friend, Joy who were on vacation there.  It was relaxing to walk on the beach and collect sea shells.  Max helped Susan set up Skype so she could talk face to face with her grandchildren.  It was a nice visit.   

Robert & Susan

Susan, Robert, Mary, & Max

Alisa Beach, Laguna Beach, California

And, finally, this morning at 6:24, we survived our first southern California earthquake, a 4.7 with the epicenter about 5 miles from here. It sounded and felt like a big truck driving down the hallway with the resulting shaking for 2 to 3 seconds.

MARCH RAINS

Hi everyone,
We are still here enjoying our mission and working hard with our own or helping others with their family history. Last month when we fasted, we prayed for rain, and now we have it. So much so that there are mudslides in some areas and water has seeped down the walls of the library so that we need a fan and dehumidifier where the scanners and microfilm readers are. The skies are gray and we need to bring umbrellas when we go out.  Hopefully, this will soon pass.



This is our Valentine's Day photo in the Library. The bouquet came from Max to Mary, but everyone enjoyed it.

Max and Mary are doing a lot of teaching:  In the 3-day Intensive, Max taught "Introduction to Genealogy" and the basics of "Family Tree";  Mary taught "Wills and Probates" and "Non-LDS Church Records".  We will be going to an all-day African-American "Discover Your Roots" conference on March 22 where Max is one of the teachers; Mary will help at the registration desk.  Then there is an outreach planned for May in Ventura, California where we have been asked to teach 2 classes each. Mary is going to substitute-teach Primary for the next 3 weeks while the temple is closed for cleaning.  The regular teacher is a temple worker and is taking the time off to go with her husband to visit their children in Missouri.  We also started an in-service program for the workers in the library.  To allow everyone to be able to come, the teacher does it twice a week for 1/2 hour each time.  We first had the Hunts teach us--JoAnn is really good at helping patrons from other countries and Roy then showed us how to solve some of the problems we might encounter on the Tree. (They have been the office managers here and will be leaving in a few weeks to go back home to Brigham City.)  Then Max taught last week how to find Census information if you have just an address on an envelope by using the Wiki or Googling Steve Morse.  This coming week, Mary will give an overview of "Research in England" using examples from documents of her own ancestors.  Each full-time missionary is going to take their turn to teach about something they are good at.

At the Torrance Stake Center. Note the decorative tile around the entrance.

For our day off this week, we went to the Autry Museum in Griffith Park which has a lot of Western Art and memorabilia.  Someday when we have grandkids with us,we would like to go again to Griffith Park to see the Los Angeles Zoo or Travel Town, which is an outdoor display of railroad cars and engines. We also want to go to the amusement park on the Santa Monica pier.  On our time off, we also have to get laundry and shopping done, clean the apartment, and maybe go to a session at the temple.  On one P-day this past month, we went to a Zone Conference in the Torrance Stake Center.

Last Monday the senior missionaries had our monthly social in the Library training room. We all bring food, pot luck. We were in charge of the activity. We handed out questions for the others to answer. As they did, we discussed each one. Mary had a list of 19th century occupations that they were to define. They all came from her ancestors' jobs. Max had a temple trivia quiz with a dozen or so geographical and historical questions. Everyone had a good time and enjoyed good food.

Mary has had some trouble with her back muscles and after going to a doctor was told to rest, take Advil, and not do anything for all weekend. Also alternate the use of a heating pad and ice packs. She needs to take it easy and not try to do too much. After taking his advice, she feels a lot better.

For a spotlight on an ancestor, Mary would like to tell about her search for Lydia Bingham (FamilySearch Family Tree KDSN-KQN).  Lydia is the wife of the first Jesse Hobson who lived in London most of her life, but the Census gives her birth in Cirencester,Gloucestershire.  According to her age in the census, she would have been born in 1800. She outlived her husband who died in 1850; she died in 1867. Her children were Jesse Hobson who married Sarah Maria Gamble, and after his first wife's death married Maria Louisa Statham;  Edmund Carey Hobson who married Mary Ann Scarlet;  Sophia Hayward Hobson who married William Carpenter; Emma Hobson who married Thomas Crowder; Mary Carey Hobson who married Samuel Liptrot Findley; and Louisa Hobson who married Thomas Sing.  One child didn't marry, Milton Hobson a daughter who was living with her mother, Lydia in 1861.

I didn't have any information about Lydia's birth or her parents.  Upon looking in Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, I found nothing; so I looked up Cirencester, Gloucestershire in the catalog and ordered a film. I did not find her christening on it. Searching for other clues, I noticed the middle name of Carey was given to two of the children. Carey was her husband Jesse Hobson's mother's maiden name. I wondered if Hayward was the last name of an ancestor.

When Lydia was married, she was very young, only 18 years old, and had to get the consent of her parents. Her husband was 8 years older than her and was a widower; his first wife, Elizabeth AnnWhitaker, died at age 24 without any children.  In looking at the witnesses on their marriage certificate, one was William Gittenson, a deacon in Maze Pond Baptist Church in Southwark, Surrey; the other was Sophia Elizabeth Hayward (since they named one of their children after her, she must be a relative or very close friend). So I looked up her records and found she was 1 of 4 children, two of them having the middle name of Milton. Her parents were Thomas Hayward and Rebecca Milton. Remember, Lydia's daughter was also named Milton. That must be a family name.

Then I found a newspaper announcement in the Times or London about the marriage. It stated that Lydia was the niece of William Gillman, Esquire. On the microfilm I had ordered, I found him to be born on August 28, 1761, and his siblings and parents were listed. So how does Lydia fit in? Yesterday I was looking on Select Marriages from 1538 in Ancestry.com, entered Bingham, the place and approximate date and found the marriage of Daniel Bingham and Ann Milton in Cirencester, Gloucestershire on 6 May 1787. Wow!  If that's Lydia's mother that explains Milton. Then I researched more and found on FamilySearch.org the marriage record of William Gillman and Lydia Milton on 26 June 1785!  That answers the question. The newspaper reported that Lydia Bingham was Gillman's niece. In other words, Lydia, Gillman's wife, was the sister of Ann Milton. Sophia Elizabeth Hayward's mother, Rebecca Milton Hayward was also a sister to Ann, who married on 11 October 1792.  So the witness to their marriage, Sophia Elizabeth Hayward, is Lydia's first cousin. Looking in the records of Nonconformists, I found the burials of Daniel and Ann in the Baptist's Burying Ground in Cirencester.

It is great to find Lydia's parents after searching for months.  I still haven't found her birth date, but I have enough information to link her to the right parents and get her temple work done.

Max wants to add this comment: Wow! A solution worthy of Sherlock Holmes! Or at least Columbo or Miss Marple.

Love from Sister Grandma and Elder Grandpa