Note from Mom. This week's emails are in conversation form with the red being mom and the blue being Braxton. Feel free to skip the red sections, but some of it makes more sense if you read the whole conversation. He seems a bit discouraged this week, but I think all missionaries go through that stage when they want to change the whole world, but realize they can't because God gave us all our free agency to choose. I think Braxton feels a lot like Lehi in his dream. He is standing there holding out the fruit to all those he loves and cares about, but not all of them will come and partake of it even though it is so desirable. Please pray for him and the Chilean people.
Dad,
I am doing really great I just sent mom a really
long letter about everything here. One thing that has been hard this last week
is that our bathroom is broken and we have to go to the Church to use the
bathroom.... It´s hard to deal with, but we do it. The Branch President
accidentally locked my companion and I in the Church on Sunday. We have to
borrow the key from the Branch President many days right now. We are trying to
figure out how to get it fixed, but it is just a trial for us, but we will be
fine. I am doing well overall.
Things are different in many ways and I am so glad
to live in the United States because there are so many things that are
different and hard to deal with that are just normal for the people here. I
never go bare foot in the apartment and other things. There are many other
things. Overall I am working hard and doing my best to serve and be obedient
and love the mission. Things are going really well and I love it here even
though it is so different. I love the people and this is what keeps me going. I
don´t particularly like some of the differences but they are bearable when I
think of the people I am serving and inviting to come unto Christ.
Love you have a great week!
Braxton
Hi Mom I am on right now and I was wondering if you
have found anything in your time with Family Search this week. Let me know if
there is anything that I can look into to help with things and if you figured
anything out with that name.
Hi. I sent you an email with Family History information.
Read it.
I have read all of your emails and I do not have
anything about Family History here...
Hey Braxton,
How was your week? Mine was good. Tuesday night we went to the
Logan temple with Nicole Parkinson for her endowment. Then Friday we
went up all day for her wedding, luncheon and reception. We got to see
Grandma and Grandpa Goode, Shara, Rob and the kids and lots of family at the
reception and lunch. It was a really nice day. I went to a
Technology Conference on Thursday that was okay. Saturday and Sunday I
had a sore throat, but it is better today.
Brandon Swenson has been called to the Australia, Melbourne mission.
He reports to the Provo MTC on December 17th.
Tyler Hayward has been called to the Illinois Chicago Mission. He
reports to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, October 29th,
2014.
Dallas Carter’s mission call was changed from Mexico to Texas McAllen
Mission Spanish Speaking. He reports to the Provo MTC on September
10th. They needed to keep him in the US so he can get his supplies for
his diabetes.
Colby left last week. Makoa spoke yesterday and leaves next
week. I think BJ speaks next week. Lots of them heading out soon.
We go to see the Ogden Temple Open House on Wednesday afternoon this
week. It should be fun.
Love,
Mom
That is crazy and Colby emailed me 3 days ago so that is great. That is awesome
for Tyler. That is the mission that President and Hermana Doll at the Chile CCM
served in before serving here. Also that change for Dallas will still be good
for him. I hope that it all works out well and that people have success. That
is really cool that so many of them are heading out so quickly and I´m glad
that you have the opportunity to go to the Temple Open House. If it had been earlier
I would have loved to have gone. I will have to visit it after the mission.
Sorry that I haven´t sent pictures lately. These
computers have a hard time reading my jump drive so I can´t upload them and
even though the Church has Wi-Fi there is a rule in the mission that I can´t
send pictures through my camera. We aren´t supposed to have Wi-Fi on any of our
things, so I am just going to use it as a camera here to be obedient and try to
figure out the jump drive with time. We go to a cyber each week that is in our
sector. The address for our apartment is Lo Espejo Colòn 163, Chile. Hopefully
this helps you find where I am currently. Thanks for all that you do!
I just resent it. I typed it in Word last week and then
copied and pasted it into an email, but my computer was being flaky that night
so maybe it didn’t send it. I can’t see it in my Sent Items folder.
Sorry.
I still don´t have it.... I really don´t know what
to do about it right now....
Braxton,
I will send it as a reply to this
email thread. I sent it with a new subject earlier.
You are right about Calvert Thomas
Goode being married to Merla Ione Fewkes. They are your great
grandparents. Merla got cancer and died on 4 December 1951.
After Merla died, Calvert did not
remain a widower. He married four more times.
First, he married Lois Juanita Fisher
on 2 July 1952. They were only married about two years and then they
divorced.
Second, he married Dora Bee in
1954. I have not been able to find her maiden name yet. They
divorced in 1956. I have very little information on her so far.
Third, on 13 July 1957, he married
Della Marie Middleton. That marriage lasted till 3 September 1959 when
she died, I believe from cancer.
His last wife was Florence Matilda
Anderson. They were married on 17 December 1960 in the Los Angeles
Temple. I don’t believe the other three marriages were in the temple.
Florence was a good grandmother to your dad, his brothers and siblings and to
all of their cousins. She was the only grandmother the kids
remember. She died on 7 February 1979. I think she also died of
cancer. Calvert seemed to have bad luck that way.
So the reason you are seeing the
Temple Opportunity in your list is because I have been working to try to find
all of Calvert’s wives and make sure their work is done. The sealing for
Della can be done because she was born in 1902 and it has been more than 110
years since she was born. The temple work for Lois Juanita Fisher cannot
be done yet. It has only been 108 years since she was born, so to do it
now we would have to have permission from her closest living relative. I
don’t know if she had other husbands or any children. I am still
researching her. Just ignore them in your list for now. In November
2016 we will be able to do Lois’s work. Maybe by then I will have found
more information on Lois and Dora Bee.
Family Search has a new tool I want you
to use. It is called the Descendancy View. This article by Family
Search explains a lot about the new Descendancy View, Record Hints and Attach a
Source. That is what I want you to start working with.
I think that John David Goode would be
a great place for you to start. Because Calvert Thomas Goode was the
first member of the church that we know of on the Goode line, this line should
be the most productive in finding people who need to have temple work
done. But we need to do the research first.
Login to Family Search. Click on
your Watch list. I have put John David Goode there. You can also
click on the drop down by Person and he should be near the top of the
list. Or you could do steps 1 and 2 from the article above.
Just under John David Goode’s name,
click on View Tree. This should open the Descendancy View page.
Here you can see him with his wives and children. Click on the right
facing arrows to expand and see more descendants. It won’t show you all
the living people, just the ones attached to you and I did add a few on one
line. Right now one of the daughters of the second wife named Kathryn
Jane Goode is not showing up, but maybe it will refresh and show her by the
time you read this.
John David Goode and Georgia Ann McCoy
had four children and then she died when Calvert Thomas was four years
old. One of the daughters, Jenie died in 1902, about three years before
Georgia Ann McCoy died. John David Goode then married Kathryn Maud Eagon
and they had two daughters.
To the far right you will see
icons. There are four types. The article above talks about Record
Hints. They are the orange icons. They will help you find sources
to verify the dates and places in people’s lives. Click on an orange icon
and follow the instructions in the article on how to add sources.
Blue icons give you Research
Suggestions. These are things like there is a gap of more than 4 years
between children, and no sources attached. These guide you to look for
additional records.
Red icons give you Data
Problems. These are more like red flags that something is definitely
wrong that needs to be fixed. These are things like the child was born
before the mother or the marriage date is too early or too late. They
help you fix things that are definitely wrong with the data.
Green icons tell you that there may be
temple work that can be done for the person. You need to make sure you
check for Duplicates before you reserve the temple ordinances.
We probably won’t find much temple
work to do starting with John David Goode, but we need to verify all the dates
and stuff associated with his family before we move to the next
generation. Working on his family will help you learn how to work with
Hints and Sources so it will be easier when you get to the next generation
back.
I am preparing a package to send to
you and I will try to include some family history stuff that will help you with
these families. That way you can have a hard copy to look at while you
work. I have histories of some of these people and a few photos. I
will try to get it in the mail soon so you will have it by the end of August.
Another way to work with Hints is from
the person page. In the top right corner, the hints for each person will
be listed. Sometimes it is easier to work from there if the person has a
lot of hints rather than going back over and over to the Descendancy page.
It also helps to open multiple tabs.
I have more information on these
families in Ancestry.com. I will tell you more about that in the next few
weeks.
I love you lots,
Love always and forever,
Mom
Do you need a card reader for your camera? Would that make
it easier to send the photos? Can’t you just attach the USB cable to the
camera. There is a port for that. I used it before you left, so I
know it works. The card is a mini card, that has to go in an adapter to
make it the size of a regular SD card. There were two of those adapters
in there. If you need me to, I can look for a USB adapter that will let
you pull the mini-SD card out and put in the adapter and then plug the USB into
the computer. What do you need to make it work? Do you need a different
jump drive to save the photos to from the camera?
We will have to go to the Ogden Temple when you get
home. It is really pretty.
Did you get the Family History email yet?
The problem is more with the computers they don´t
really have usb ports in the front of the computer and I tried it in the back
last week and it wouldn´t read it. I know how to do it but it won´t work. This
week I forgot to grab them so I can´t send anything this week anyway.
Okay. The ports may be disabled. Is your companion
able to send any of his photos? Ask the other missionaries if they know
how to make it work.
I am putting a package together for you. I will try to
mail it tomorrow or Wednesday. It has taken longer than I thought it
would because I have typed up some Family History stuff for you. Is there
anything you want or need?
Please tell me about your week.
Things went well but I´m trying to do Family History
right now. It has been crazy overall. There were frustrations but good things too. This
week I had 19 lessons and we have one Baptismal date that we placed last week
on Saturday for a young girl in the area whose mother is less active. She is
almost 9 so it will count as a baptism for us, but we are teaching her
currently. We have another Family that we taught and there are 4 people, but we
scheduled another appointment and they weren´t home which was frustrating. In
the previous appointment we asked them to read the Book of Mormon as a family
and pray about it and committed them all to baptism. We extended a date, but
they didn´t accept a specific date because they wanted to be sure of it. We
haven´t gotten back to them, but I am praying that they did what we invited
them to do and are working toward baptism. I am doing all that I can to help the
people here and trying to do everything possible to help them out in all that I
can. It´s hard to feel successful when everything looks like it isn´t being
that way. I am trying to stay positive and work as hard as I can. I know that
things will be just fine.
You should keep me updated on how things are going
with helping Becca with her Family History work as well. I really like to know
about how things are going at home as well.... It feels like I get very little
details about things at home too. I try to do all that I can, but it is hard to
read everything and get back to everyone. This will be the same time and day that
I email here for a while. I don´t know that it will change.
I have been writing less because you asked me to. I will
try to send you some paper letters with more details, but they will take longer
to get there, about a month from what I hear. Have you received any
letters from home yet?
I would love to tell you more about what is going on at home,
but then it takes you more time to read it and you have less time to write back
and tell us what you are doing. It is hard to find a happy balance.
Try sending everyone the same letter and include more details in it. I
know it is not as personalized that way, but you can try to answer a few of the
questions in the one email that you send to everyone.
I will pray for your family of 4 to be receptive and fulfill
their commitments.
I
don´t know what will happen with them, but I did get 3 letters that you sent at
the first part of July. I got the Temple names and one other I believe July 2nd
for 2 and July 7th for the other. It is about a month to get here. I´m trying
to find the balance in things, but I write very quickly and I am using time
when I don´t have letters to do Family Search. I am done with everyone’s
letters already today. I was really quick this week. There have been times when
I am writing you and Becca when I am rushed, but this week I don´t think she
will be on so I have time. I have around 30 more minutes.
Then please write more about what you are doing each day and
about your apartment, your area, your branch. Tell us some interesting
stories. Tell us about the lessons you are teaching.
I don´t have a whole lot to tell honestly. We found
12 new investigators this week, but we don´t really have any investigators who
are progressing very well. I am also having a hard time working with the new
views in Family Search. It is really hard to understand what is actually
correct and what isn´t from here. I don´t know how much help I can be or if I
need to look elsewhere. I don´t know much of what I need to do at this moment
with Family Search and I understand the new views, but what is correct and what
isn´t that´s the hardest thing for me at this time to figure out. I am doing
all that I can to help with this, but I don´t know what is the correct options
on this. Things are hard to discern on this for me.
The work has been good, but there are so many
challenges and I feel like things go by so quickly and that so many people have
perceptions of Mormons and that makes it hard to have lessons. Others who are
inactive are hard to help because we keep teaching them and they just don´t
want to change. We have a couple of less actives who are brothers and I think
that they both served missions, but they just don´t want to go through the work
to be active and participate in the Church. They both know that it is true and
important, but they just won´t bring their families to Church. This is so
frustrating. I do all that I can to help but people just don´t want to change
their ways of life...
We had 80 contacts this week.... We walked so much
and had 19 lessons.... We didn´t get to our goals in many things, but we had a
goal for 8 new investigators and had 12 so I am happy with that. I really want
to have more people accepting Baptismal dates and working toward them. This is
really hard because people are so resistant to change in their lives and that
bothers me because I know how good this would be for their life. They just need
to try it. Lately I think of it as an apple that the people just need to take a
bite to see if it is good before judging it and rejecting it. That is what
frustrates me more than anything is that they won´t even try it out.... There
are a lot of people who can´t do different things. Several people can´t read
and that discourages them. There are others who speak several languages. One of
our families we found this week is from Haiti. They speak French, Spanish and
understand English. Not all of them can read in the Book of Mormon in Spanish....
I really want to try to get a couple Book of Mormons in French for them but I
don´t know if that is possible.
There are so many things that are hard to deal with
here. We saw one family of 5 people that Elder Chuquel baptised that didn´t go
to Church this week, walking back to their home Sunday after shopping.... This
was really hard for us.... He was really frustrated with this... I don´t like
that in this city they have a ferria or a market in one of the streets. They
happen on different days, but one of them is Sunday.... This is so annoying
because many people aren´t keeping the Sabbath Day holy because of this....
They don´t have one on Saturday and I wish they would just do it then.... So
many frustrations for me here and this area is one of the highest baptizing
areas in the mission. Elder Chuquel is the missionary with the most baptisms
for the least amount of time in the mission. He is nearing 8 months in the
mission and has 10 baptisms. One thing I know to be true is that I am not going
to have a ton of baptisms in my mission but that this group of missionaries
here at this time is preparing Chile for those to come to have more success
here.
Chile has been promised to be a Lighthouse to the
World of church membership. It´s crazy that Chile has over 500,000 members but
so few are active. We figured that about 7.3% of the members come 1 time or
more in 3 months to be considered active. That´s so little. This is so hard to
deal with. So many inactives and less actives. I know that my mission won´t be
easy but I will have success with time and I am doing all that I can to prepare
Chile for those blessing that they have been promised. I know that others will
have so much more success. There are just so many people that aren´t keeping
all of the commandments and living up to their potential. I hope that this
gives you some insight into what I am dealing with here, but it isn´t much of a
problem just a trial right now. Many days we return home frustrated with only
1-4 lessons when we had planned on around 6-8 dependent on the day.
Things aren´t easy and Chilenos are work-aholics....
They work so much and it isn´t easy to get them all to church.... Retention of
members is a huge goal as well the new members are in retention for 1 year and
we do a lot for them. The people just change who is at church. The first week
the people who attended changed from 65 to 66 attending but 30 people were
different from one week to another.... This is a major problem for the members
and the branches and wards. I´m trying hard and I can only do so much for the
people they have to have a change of heart and accept Jesus Christ in their
lives. He waits at the Door and knocks awaiting us to let him in so that he can
bless us and aid us in all of our needs. The people just need to realize this
and see how important this is.
It sounds like most other missions in the church. So many
people who don’t make the gospel a priority in their life. You have
always had it in your life, so you understand how important it is, but you had
friends who don’t go all the time and don’t seem to care as much. Satan
has great power over the people and he knows what will take them away from the
gospel. Keep trying. I love you so very much.
Thanks! I do all that I can, but it´s just so
difficult seeing people that don´t have it and wanting them to have it as well.
So many hard times and difficulties that could be lightened by taking a
different path and letting Christ lift many of their difficulties. I know
things will work out, but I just wish things could be more progressive and seem
to have a greater impact. It´s hard to feel successful when everything seems to
be regressing....
All you can do is your best and
Heavenly Father will know that you have done all you can. Be
positive. Smile at the people. Be friendly and happy. Let
them see the light that is inside of you.
How is the language coming for
you? Can you understand and speak what you need to?
I have a harder time understanding the people but I
can speak usually and muddle through it when I don´t know all the words. I
usually can improvise but understanding everything and using the words properly
is a little difficult. I can´t pray in English anymore.... I´ve tried.... I
start in English and I end up in Spanish a few words in. It´s different but I
don´t mind all that much. I am working hard and trying to love this work. Thanks
for all that you do.
I love you have an awesome week. I am leaving WPEL and
going home to have Cub Scouts. I love you so much and I am so very proud
of you. I don’t know if you have more time or not, but I may not be able
to write again before you are off. I will try to send you some more
helpful information on the Family Search stuff.
Love always and forever,
Mom
Thanks so much and I haven´t had much success on
Family Search in the last 2 weeks. I am doing all that I can, but it isn´t
simple and I am really cautious because I know that it has eternal importance
for these people and I don´t want to make mistakes that hinder these people´s
progress. Thanks and work hard and enjoy your week. Thank you for raising me
the way that you did! It means so much to me. Thank you and I will talk to you
in a week! Love you and have great success!
