This week started our like weeks often do. We had our correlation meeting with our sisters then we took three sisters from our area to Ogden for a leadership meeting. While we are waiting for the sisters, we have study time. We did some preparation for our evening meeting which was a family home evening presentation on family history to a neat family in our neighboring ward, 14th ward.
The family had already obtained My Family booklets for their children and knew most of the information we usually ask the children about their families. We left some coloring pages that we have copied from a book we picked up at the Roots Tech Conference.
  Even though Tuesday is our prep day, we had an appointment with a neat family in the 13th ward. They didn't have a lot of experience with Family Search so we were able to get them into the program and then fill in some people on their trees so they could go from there. Later in the week we saw the family at a baptism and they had made contact with family members and obtained some needed information and asked us to come back this week and help them more.
  We have one new Zone leader and a new District leader. District meeting this week was getting acquainted with several new elders and sisters. They do a good job leading discussions on what is needed to help the missionaries be successful. Following our District meeting we had three other appointments. We had dinner with a young family where the father is less active but the mother and the children attend meetings quite regularly. Since we had recently had dinner with the parents of the father of the family, he was willing to set up an appointment for our sisters to come this week and meet them. We had a good visit and introduced the children to My Family booklets and left coloring pages for them as well. We then wen to visit a family in our ward. Two sisters live together, one is unmarried, the other divorced with two children. Only one child was there because the other had gone with his grandfather to a Jazz game. We had a good discussion on family history, the sisters know a lot of their family history but we left some suggestions on some tools available to help them answer some questions they need to answer in order to move forward.
Our final visit was to a family in the 14th Ward. They are an active family but they had some questions that we were able to answer. The children didn't have My Family books so we left some with them and some coloring pages as well.
   Thursday, we had set up an appointment with the bishop's family in the 13th ward who we had dinner with last week. The wife had some questions that with some research help and suggestions she was able to fill in some family lines. Later in the week she told us she had continued the search and found about 80 names that needed temple work. What a joy! Hastening the work is happening on both sides of the veil, those who have not had their work done are being prepared so they can understand and accept the work when it is done in the temple on earth.
  We had dinner with a family in the 14th ward that we had visited before. They had invited a less-active family to have dinner with us but they were not available. We discussed family history and suggested some programs they could use to find family members on lines they had not fully explored.
  Friday we had invited our sisters to lunch at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Sis. Geitz's birthday. We had a great meal, the restaurant wished her happy birthday and gave her a free dessert to celebrate the day. After the meal the waiter came by and said, you are all set to go, an anonymous person had paid for your meal. Wow, what a neat surprise! The sisters says it happens often to them when they eat out. What a kind gesture, how we appreciated that kindness.
In the afternoon we had another family history appointment with one of our ward mission leaders families that turned out very well. They want us to come back and help them learn about indexing which will be fun.
   Saturday we attended a baptism of a child in our own ward, Korbin Smith. It was a great baptismal service and the family was grateful we would attend. Ruth then stayed for our Stake Relief Society Conference. The guest speaker was Ardeth Kapp, and it was a wonderful meeting.  Sister Kapp talked about the power of love.  She gave  three steps to love:  1. Love of our Savior, 2. Love for  ourselves, and 3.  Love for others.  All did an exercise where each sister turned to a person next to her and with instructions about what they could say did the following:  1.  Small talk, (Get acquainted)  2.  Building your relationship of trust, (Find out about each other) 3.  What can we work on together? and 4.  What would you you say if you won't see that person again?  It was a powerful exercise.  Ruth said she felt such love for the person she worked with and helped her see her with different eyes. We then went to another child baptism following the conference.
   Sunday was a full day, we attended our Stake Presidency meeting with our sisters. The presidency are pleased with the work that the sisters are doing and are excited how well people are accepting the lessons we are giving in Family History. They cleared some dates for us to hold classes on "Every Member a Missionary". We are going to hold two classes in each of three of the buildings. We have lesson outlines and are now preparing to make the presentations. The first group of people will include families who currently have missionaries in the field and others who they feel inspired to call. We hope this will enhance our work in the Stake and help move our work forward and an accelerated pace.