Thursday and Friday (15^th and 16^th)

We are slowly finding our landlegs as we try to find our place in this beautiful place called the Milwaukee, Wisconsin mission. It is truly a beautiful part of the country. It is marvelously confusing in its layout, but Elder Lenhard is still the master of finding our way around. He has spent time on the maps, locating short cuts and better ways of getting to where we are supposed to be going. I have to say, it is appreciated, and usually, he finds a shorter and less traveled way of finding our destinations. I love it and am grateful he is my partner.

Thursday, we were on the computers for much of the day working on genealogy. We are heading up the organizing of much of the volunteers for the genealogy tent at the Polish fest. We are excited about it and met with the Sister Orne who is over the genealogy library in the South Stake (I keep getting it messed up with our being in the North Stake). She is over all the libraries in both Stakes, but she is careful about what she does outside of her stake. We are not doing the German fest unless we help another person who is doing that one. We can volunteer to help her, and we will. If she will accept us, we are good to go. We are still waiting to hear about the Irish fest.  I found the 10 best online sites for Polish genealogy online and was able to get a copy to Sister Orne. Several of them refer back to Family Search. Craig and I both also worked on our genealogy during the day. That night we had our Pathway meeting, and we are getting the layout more each week so we will be comfortable when we start. They are recruiting now, and it makes us more excited each time we go. We don’t really do anything, the recruiting is being done by others.  After the beginning of the meeting, we went to the library, and after a while, we got a tour of the library so we would be better prepared to answer questions about the libraries holdings. We were told to get a library card and then we could get on another site, which I don’t remember right now, but we dutifully agreed to do so.

Today, we got in our study time, and then headed to the gym. We really like the gym we go to – called Anytime Fitness. We are allowed to go anytime, even if it isn’t open. We have our keys, and it is open to us at all hours. Naturally, we will go when others are there in case we get stuck and can’t get out or off a machine without help.  Hahaha  There have been times!!!!!

When we left the gym, we took the left turn away from West Allis and headed out to see what we could find. We ended up in New Berlin, and what a beautiful area. It is out in the country. There is an historic part of the area, and we plan to go back. We passed two wonderful cemeteries. One is at a Reformed Presbyterian Church built by the Scottish in 1858 or maybe a little earlier. What a great looking building.  I always get  such a sweet feeling when I see old country Churches. I often wonder about the faithful who gathered there for so many years and had all the best intentions in doing good for their families and their neighbors. Yet, they were missing that vital ingredient of truth and the Priesthood.  We are so blessed.  Anyway, the cemeteries look promising for research

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We took one of the Hmong missionaries and one of the other missionaries to lunch at a Thai restaurant. The work is going slow for these missionaries. In the winter when it is so cold, if they don’t have an appointment, they stay in or go to ride the buses to GQ people there.  The Thai food was so good. We will go there again. They have a great lunch special, and we found nothing that we didn’t like. Craig slipped a card in with the bill.  Once we dropped the missionaries off, we came home to get organized (it was on the way), and off we went to the library in West Allis. We met a little volunteer named Georgi and asked her about genealogy programs. They have three computers with Ancestry  on them. I said if we had someone we wanted to teach, then we could bring them there. We got some information regarding the area and where we might find genealogy library holdings. She thinks there might be some in the main library downtown. We got some handouts on activities in the area. There are lots of things we can get involved in, and we will be looking into them next week.  

Elder Santos and Elder Lee (Hmong missionary) at the restaurant. My goodness, the food was good! That coconut with lemon grass beef soup was delicious. So were the Pot stickers! And brown rice.

(Apparently, Mom didn't want her picture taken. Dad tried anyway.)

I was watching one of the District videos this morning. I learned a lot about missionaries as young people who come together on their missions and have to learn to work with one another. It is the will of the Lord, and together they learn to be effective in His work. We are grateful to be a part of the work. We have had the opportunity to work together for 43 years prior to this time. We are blessed.