Missionary Activities

As well at our work at the Archives, we get to do a variety of regular missionary activities.  Here we are with an investigator and the elders from our ward at the Independence Visitor Center.

 Here are sisters from our ward at enrichment night Thanksgiving dinner. Here is the primary class that I subbed for for a couple of weeks.  (They were dressing up.)

 Elder Treasure has also been teaching a mission prep class for several weeks. 

  We love the variety of activities we get to do and especially getting to know many wonderful people!

A visit from the sisters

Joan and Mary came for a long weekend visit. We toured the home and studio of mural artist Thomas Hart Benton.  He died in his studio doing what he loved in 1975.

 

I love this photo taken by our elderly tour guide who was not familiar with smart phones.

We also saw and spoke to a Hallmark artist at the Crown Center.

 We toured several museums, ate bbq, and went to church sites.  It was a busy couple of days!

Here we are on Harry Truman's front porch.

 

Manicules Continued

We have found my favorite manicule so far.  It is hand drawn!  I wish we still used these.

 

We have finished homestead records from Nebraska and are now photographing naturalizations.  Some of them have photos attached.  I love seeing photos of people who came to America to a new life.

 

 

Above are husband and wife.  So far we've seen lots of people from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and England who came to Iowa and Nebraska.

October Outings

We made a mad dash to Louisburg (about an hour drive) early on a Saturday morning for Apple  cider and apple cider donuts before General Conference.  That bin is full of apples.

 

We watched the donut machine just like Homer Price!

 

And drove home through the missouri countryside.

 

We enjoyed a visit from dad Treasure and Marla; spending time seeing some sights and playing Hand and Foot.

  

 

We spent a Saturday seeing Atchison, Kansas including Amelia Earhart's birthplace and museum with a couple of other senior missionaries.

 

We went to Fort Osage for the annual fall muster . 

 

 

Found at the Archives

We have learned many things from our work at the National Archives.  One thing our archivist taught us is that the hand symbol below is called a manicule.  Here are some that I have found recently.  Note the address on the bottom one.  Hard to believe that mail could be delivered with just a name, city and state; no house number, street, or zip code for rural Nebraska.

 

 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

For my birthday we went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  It is really awesome, and it is free!  

 

These knights and horse were pretty great too.  The museum even had a booklet to go with this room full of activities for kids.  

   We only saw part of the museum, so will need to make another trip.

 

Bests of the Week at NARA (the Archives)

The best name of the week was William Waymam.  Say it out loud a couple of times.  Reminds me of the children's book about Wadney Wabbit.

The best document of the week is below.  Anything with red, especially from that era is special.

 

Best number of document images captured in a week is 7104.  It beat last week's number of images by one image (7103).  We were doing about 5000-6000 at the start so are getting better.

Let's play ball!

Our ward had a baseball activity a few Saturday's ago.  Most everyone played, even the little ones.

 

 

We had a couple of birthdays to celebrate, then time to cook hotdogs!  (I'm in there with a green shirt on.)

 

What we do All week

Monday through Friday during the day we go to the National Archives to photograph land records from  early 1900's Nebraska.  All of the records we camera capture are from cancelled or relinquished homestead entries.  When we come into the research room a cart is waiting for us with boxes of records.

 There are several file folders in each box; one for each homesteader.  Here are the calibration tools we use before photographing each paper in the file.

 When a box is complete we go back and evaluate the images and look for photos of fingers or shadows.  We reshoot any that are not good.  One box can contain between 500 and 1100 images.

A Night with the Royals

It was Mormon night a couple of weeks ago at the Royals baseball game and we got some cheap tickets to go.  I even found a blue shirt to wear!  Almost everywhere we go people wear Royals gear.  (Might have something to do with a World Series.)  Still, it's not as   good looking as Mariners clothes.

 

Records from the Archives

I've taken a few snapshots of some of the documents we are capturing.  Here is part of a letter from the wife of a homesteader who faced relenquishment.  (He got very sick.) Here is some very beautiful handwriting. And an envelope sent to a homesteader and returned to the land office. 

Steamboat Arabia Museum

The steamboat Arabia sank in the Missouri River in 1856 with 200 tons of goods onboard.  The river changed course and the boat was rediscovered 45 feet under a corn field in 1988.  We toured the museum with several other senior missionaries a few Saturday's ago.  It was fascinating! Here are some of the goods recovered. 

Getting Down to Work

July 5th we met with our FamilySearch supervisor to get started working at the Archives. During the week we photographed our first box of records and learned how to send them to Salt Lake.  We are crossing our fingers that they are good enough and we won't have rework. 

4th of July Weekend

Janice and John and kids stopped in on their way to and from their family reunion in Colorado.  We got to see them twice in one week!  Here we are at the Visitor Center.  On Monday the 4th we had a pot luck dinner with other senior missionaries, then saw a community band perform.  This was followed by a concert by the Hughes Brothers from Branson, MO and finally a fireworks show.  Here are a few of the missionaries waiting for the concert to begin. 

First Week

We stocked our kitchen with food the first week and generally tried to learn our way around Independence.  One day we went to the National Archives in midtown Kansas City to meet with our archivist,  get our researcher cards and have an orientation.  Here is the NARA building. We also walked next door to Union Station.  (We wear casual clothes to the Archives and wear FamilySearch name tags.) 

The Trip East

The mountains were beautiful through western Colorado.
 We were able to stop and see Andre', Michelle and Rhett for a couple of days in Boulder. Rhett was excited to show us his new skills on his strider bike at the bike park. We crossed Colorado and then Kansas.  Here is the view from our Colby, Kansas hotel.  Monday afternoon we made it to Independence, Missouri!  Too tired to take any pictures.

Last day of training

We spent the last day of training in Salt Lake at the FamilySearch offices.  Here is part of our group in the camera repair workshop. Here are some of the hard drives ready to ship out to camera operators all over the world. At the end of the day we hit the highway heading east to Missouri! 

Cameras!

 Here we are in front of our camera set up on the first day of camera training.  Our camera is worth lots of $!  It's so bright I need to wear sunglasses!