Edvalsons in England: 4 June 2018

Summer Term has begun. We teach an hour long “Introduction to Family History” class on Wednesday nights. We’re using an old 2012 manual and it is so out of date that we only use inspirational thoughts from it. Technology has completely changed Family History to the point where we really only need to inspire the class to do it and then show them all of the tools that practically do it for them. If you get connected in FamilySearch, ancestry.com or any of the other FH Sites, the technology will do a lot of the research for you and all you need do is keep it all together, check on the accuracy and record it. So much fun. I’m inspired all the time and although really busy doing other things, I am able to do lots of Family History here and there. The sites keep sending me names to do and most of the names are from England. Since I believe the veil between earth and heaven is very thin, and my family in heaven is intimately connected to me, I figure they’re clamoring for me to find them and “sort them out” as we say here in the UK.

Last weekend, I finished doing some FH work, closed my computer and the next time I opened I saw the “dreaded question mark on the folder” sign from Apple. That means my operating system is missing and not in action. Luckily I backed everything up about a month ago, so we took is down to the apple store and Max, the Genius figured out that we could wipe the drive clean, put in a new OS and add my files etc. later. They would also fix a scratch on my screen - and all for nothing. Now I know why I do Apple. This is, of course, also why I believe I’m lifted up by celestial help.

In other technology news - I got to speak at Allyson’s daughter, Clara’s baptism last week. Yes, she was baptized in Texas where she lives, but I was able to speak from a video hookup so we could watch the baptism and she and everyone else could watch me giving the talk about the interesting fact that I, Dana Jay, was baptized on May 26, 1971, Allyson Jay was baptized on May 26, 1989, and Clara Jay was baptized on May 26, 2018. We are so organized.

So many blessings on the mission. I’m also grateful that my health is much better and thank you for your many prayers in my behalf. Our Chinese friend, Andy, is soon to graduate with his degree in Physiotherapy and return to Hong Kong. We wanted to do a HotPot gathering before he left so Elder E. And I went to the Chinese supermarket and bought a HotPot and piles of food for the party to be held this Wednesday. We did HotPots a few months ago with the Mandarin speaking Conference here at the Institute and were wanting to do it one more time to learn how to do it ourselves. After the shopping trip, Andy took us to a great Chinese restaurant and ordered dim sum. We actually ate Deep Fried Squid Tentacles, Salted fish and chicken fried rice, some kind of pork wrapped in eatable Saran Wrap (it looked like it) and some kind of crab or prawns balls..not sure. Elder E. Loves this kind of adventurous eating, but I’m not so hot on it. However, it was great. I loved everything and when we were done and said goodbye to Andy, we walked home which meant going up 60 steps. Ha! I laugh at those steps. Yes, I was breathing heavily, but relaxed on the mile walk back home. It felt great to get outside and walk.

So today is a big day for us. It’s the day Marel and her family arrive at the Institute. We’re pretty excited. A lot of the students are finishing exams and going home so the population is down a bit and we have time to travel around with the Stocks. We’re off to Alnwick Castle tomorrow to take Harry Potter flying lessons so really looking forward to spending the day up north at one of the Harry Potter movie sites. We’re also going to Malham Cove, another HP site close to us and a steam engine trip to Bolton Abbey and various other sites around this area. We’ll tell you more about that in our next blog. Love and blessings to all.

Sister and Elder E.