Home Stretch

Ready to teach babies about their heritage.

Just keep walking.  

We are on the “home stretch” in our US/Canada lessons, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be “home,” secure in our ability to help others research—but the lessons have been a “stretch.”   Last week, we completed LDS; African American; and Native American Lessons.  Native American was an all-day marathon as we looked for a Cherokee family in records and filled in pedigree charts.  We hope to complete the final lesson this week:  DNA.   And then we need to start at the beginning and review all the lessons.

            Success stories as a helper for me included helping a woman discover the names of her great-grandparents and that their parents were born in Finland.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the immigrant records.  (I tend to have research nightmares in my sleep--  that was one of them.)    Another woman I helped, discovered some things about her father and his family that made her laugh.

            The first day of the new year was nice.  We spent almost the entire day with our daughter, Lindsey.  We enjoyed Mary Poppins Returns—we can’t quite sing along as we can with the music of the original Mary Poppins, but we did like the uplifting music.  After that we shopped for a few hours for shoes and dresses.  Yes, even Elder Challis shopped.  I can’t even remember the last time that happened.

            It was comforting for us to be with Lindsey as it had just been confirmed that she has cholestasis, a condition in which the normal flow of bile is affected by the increased amounts of pregnancy hormones.  It can be harmful to the babies and causes miserable itchiness for Lindsey.  Her doctors are monitoring the babies closely, hoping she can carry them to 36 or 37 weeks.  Apparently, the harm is greater to the babies in the last two weeks of pregnancy, so doctors generally opt for an early delivery.  We are praying for these little ones and an itchy, but courageous, Lindsey.

            Yesterday (Saturday), we went to the Mt. Timpanogas Temple--along with half of Utah Valley.  The Salt Lake Temple is closed this month and since we had a couple of other things to do in Utah Valley, we decided to include going to a temple there.  Anticipating that the recent changes would make the temple a little busier than usual, we met Lindsey at 5:30 am in the temple.  We did not “beat the crowd,” but we did get tickets for a 6:30 session.   It was lovely, comforting and good to be there.   We are grateful for the inspired changes and for a living prophet and apostles.  Heavenly Father probably wishes that the numbers would always be so great in his temples.