Epic snow in Virginia - February 2010

Two daughters and their families living in Virginia (9 of our 17 grandchildren) cause us to keep close tabs on anything happening in the DC area. This has been a winter none of them will ever forget. Storm after storm closed roads, schools, church, even mail delivery halted for a couple of days at one daughter's home, and dumped more snow than anyone could ever imagine. At their homes, they measured between 34 and 36 inches of snow in one huge storm and more came two days later. School was cancelled for over a week (I think they told me 11 snow days so far this winter) and roads didn't get plowed for days. It was so deep that the youngest kids couldn't even go out to play in it alone because they couldn't manuever through it unless a path had been cleared for them. After living in Texas for eight years, Katie's move to Virginia last summer may have come one winter too early! Back breaking snow shovelling!

Fun to play in . . . less fun to take off the driveway.

Their back deck!

The path to get out of their back door and off the deck. Nice to have someone old enough to help shovel.

Couldn't resist including the latest photo of the newest grandchild. Check out that long black hair! And her big brother seems happy to have her join the family. Getting through the holidays on a mission without family around wasn't so bad, but not being there when this darling baby was born to hold her and help her mother (baby number five - she needed the help!) was much harder than I anticipated. I hate even thinking that she'll be 16 months old and running around before we ever see her!

Chinese New Year at the Edinburgh Ward - February 19, 2010

There have been so many Chinese baptisms in the past year in Edinburgh that we almost have a mini-Chinese branch inside the ward. To help integrate and educate the members and to have a good time learning Chinese culture, the Chinese converts hosted a Chinese New Year's party. These young students spent so much time preparing one of the best ward parties we've ever attended.

We have four Chinese-speaking elders in the mission. This is the first American called to speak Mandarin in Scotland. He is dressed as a Chinese king passing out gifts for the New Year celebration.

We knew there would be a sampling of Chinese food but did not expect an entire dinner. Our native Chinese elder and two other male Chinese converts cooked this meal for 100 people at the mission home. Delicious!

The Chinese girls were responsible for the program - piano performance, Chinese dances, tai-chi, videos explaining Chinese culture, vocal solo, games, and group singing. An amazing evening! These student converts come from Taiwain, Hong Kong, and mainland China and will be capable Church leaders when they return home.

The program ended with some of the Edinburgh Chinese converts and the Chinese missionaries singing the first LDS hymn written in Chinese. We were invited to try and sing along - BUT . . . Mandarin would be so challenging to learn! We're taken by surprise everytime we sit next to one of them and they open their Chinese scriptures and read the characters vertically from top to bottom.

St. Andrews Abbey and Castle - February 13, 2010

Besides the golf course, St. Andrews is famous for its universities, the old abbey and the castle. Unfortunately, the castle and abbey did not survive the Reformation and you can now only imagine what they looked like based on their remains.

The work required to build an abbey of this size took the lifetimes of hundreds of people, usually lay monks. Their stone workmanship was amazing and the quarrying and the building of these structures, given tools available at that time, stretches the imagination to believe they could do it. We went to the top of the square tower pictured above - 164 tiny circular stone steps that only allowed people to pass on the stairs if they were very friendly!

View from the tower top. Looking down on abbey spire on far right (see picture above), gives a good view of the remains of St. Andrews castle (ruins beyond red-roofed buildings).

Touching the freezing cold waters of the North Sea near the castle. Yes it is salty.

All abbey remains begin to look alike, but St. Andrews has a notorious history setting it apart. In 1546, George Wishart, a Protestant preacher, was betrayed by Catholic Cardinal Beaton, who had Wishart burnt at the stake just outside the castle. The exact location of the burning is marked in the road by his initials in stone which you can see just in front of the rear tire in this photo. George Wishart's friends then took the castle and murdered Cardinal Beaton in the castle and hung the Cardinal's body from the castle battlements. They then formed the first Protestant Church in Scotland at St. Andrews castle.

North to St. Andrews- February 13, 2010

This P-day we decided to take the scenic coastal route going north to St. Andrews, home of the world's most famous golf course.

We got detoured onto this one-lane country road that shows a typical stone fence on one side and hedgerow fence on the other. Fortunately, there was not much traffic!

The coastal village of Anstruther is home to a noted fisheries museum. Being short on time, we will now have to return to visit the museum!

The harbor on the North Sea at Anstruther.

Imaging Parish Records - February 2010

We image lots of dregs before we come across nuggets. Most of what we have done have been wills and testaments from Sheriff Court Records of various Scottish locations. Hopefully, when these are online, some members will find a will from one of their ancestors and they do provide names for temple work. But recently we imaged 154 volumes of parish records from the Inverness area, and though they were much harder to prepare for imaging and to image, they were fascinating! There were many nuggets buried in their pages. I held one document written in 1642. Surprisingly, the condition of the paper and ink in those parish records was amazingly good and well preserved.

This is the first page of one of the nuggets. It's a genealogy, including some family history information, of the Macdonald clan from the Highlands. The first progenitor of this clan listed was John Mor Tanister, who was assassinated in 1427. The loose papers took this genealogical line through 1861.

Page 8 above is the middle of 14 pages. Our missionary calling is about production and quality and we don't have much time to read the documents to even catch many of the nuggets (typically our six camera operators image between 40,000-50,000 images per week). But we caught ourselves stopping to read some of the Church book pages as they were so interesting and some were so old.