President and Sister Peterson (we are the two in the middle)
He is the president of the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission 

This has been an amazing week as we had our first full week training in the British Zone; that means that we are working in the Family History Library in the second level of the basement (for those of you who know me well know that I worked in the lower level of the hospital) so we feel right at home in the basement. In our first two weeks as we were learning the basics of documenting and citing sources we had a one-on-one trainer. In the British Zone we have mentors who are not by our sides constantly but are assigned to help us with any of our questions (they are very helpful and we are grateful for their expertise). 

We are working with a notebook full of “story problems” to teach us how to work with and help library patrons.  An example would be: “where should you direct a patron who is looking for his ancestor, Elizabeth Rogers, who was born around 1845 in Penzance, Cornwall?” In England they did census taking different than in the United States so there is quite a bit of background information one needs to know to even begin looking for someone. It has been exciting and challenging to begin to discover the ins and outs of what we need to do.

We were also able to attend a guest lecturer who was here from England for the Roots Conference

We were excited last Sunday to get a call from two friends from our ward in Arizona, Wendy Pugmire and Doris Prince, who were in town and came and went to church with us. They had come to Salt Lake for business purposes and we enjoyed a nice visit with them. They also attended a special fireside that night given by Todd Knowles who works for the church as a consultant on the British Floor; he specializes in Jewish family research. As a specialist in Jewish research he travels as a guest lecturer all over the world and had such unbelievable stories to tell about "finding" Jewish ancestry.

Doris took this picture of the Salt Lake Temple Sunday night
from the 3rd floor of the Joseph Smith Building

On Thursday our friend, Cindy Allen, brought up the remainder of our belongings and spent  a couple of nights with us and we were able to have her go with us on Friday night to the “Mormon Tabernacle Choir Orchestra at Temple Square Spring Concert.” The concert was entitled, “Music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvoriak.” There was a guest pianist who was originally from the Ukraine, Mykola Suk. His Bio stated that his first concert was when he was 8 years old. To say the least he was astounding and very entertaining in his mannerisms. When he wasn’t actually performing he would totally turn his body to watch the orchestra behind him and he was very dramatic with his hand movements, foot pedaling, and body mannerisms. He sat on a chair instead of a bench and we could see why as the concert progressed because the way he leaned back he would have fallen off a bench. (Julie, I’m sure he must have got his start in “Let’s Play Music.”)

President Uchtdorf and his wife were in attendance at the concert and it was interesting to observe the  security that was with them. 

This is the picture of Mr Suk that was on the program  (not a great picture, but you get the idea).

Saturday we made our first batch of bread in Salt Lake -  YEAH!  We were excited to be able to share bread with several of the single sisters that entered the mission in our group as well as our home teaching families.  I think the best part of making bread is sharing it with others.  (Thanks Cindy for bringing the Bosch, and everything else)!

On Sunday morning we attended the Tabernacle Choir Broadcast (this is our 4th one since we arrived in Salt Lake); I don't think we'll tire of attending the broadcast (even sitting on hard benches behind one of the columns  in the tabernacle one can enjoy the great music and spirit that is always there.) We had the good fortune to sit by a couple from London (professional genealogists) who were here to attend the Roots Conference.  There have been many people in the library this week because of the conference.

Outside the Tabernacle
3/24/2013
(Some nice man, Bro Sutton from Idaho took our picture)

Byde 3/24/2013 after the Tabernacle broadcast

We took a few pictures to show you that the flowers are struggling in the cold just to survive.

The daffodils are doing well but the others look pretty droopy.

AND, one last thing on this Sabbath Day.

Today in Sunday School we were talking about being prepared and having a 72-hour kit as well as having food and water in the trunk of our cars and to make sure the food gets rotated.  One sister in the class mentioned that she did carry food in her car trunk but when she tried to eat the food it tasted like exhaust. Now for the "Bydism" of the day said to the entire Sunday School class:  "From now on just drive faster so that you can stay ahead of the exhaust"   There were a couple of people who just about lost it at that comment.