Thoughts and stories, by Pal

This is a great article telling of the influence of righteous grandparents on a young man.  We are going, in a few minutes, to the homecoming of our dear grandson who was on a mission in Taiwan, which I told about in blog # 470 a few days ago.  I will tell more about that later.  As grandparents we have a greater influence than we realize! The Influence of Righteous Grandparents: the Andy Bolos Story By Mark Albright  · July 19, 2015, in Meridian Magazine Dear Brother Albright, I was blessed to grow up in a home with good influences around me.  My mother, although a life long member, was not active for the greater part of my life. My dad isn’t a member and my parents were divorced when I was a baby. However, I was very fortunate and blessed to have a wonderful grandpa and uncles who honored their priesthood and took me under their wings to mentor me.  I lived with my mom all my life and my grandpa was always there for me. He was a cons...

The Expulsion from Nauvoo By Scot and Maurine Proctor  · July 23, 2015 This is an excerpt from  The Gathering: Mormon Pioneers on the Trail to Zion. Midnight Attacks and a Poisoned Spring By September, 1845, a scattered group of anti-Mormons of Lima and Green Plains, Illinois, met to devise a means of expelling Mormons from their neighborhood. As they met in one of their homes, one of their own number fired upon it. Then they announced through the neighborhood that the Mormons had fired on them—just the excuse they needed to begin a work of death and massacre. They began by burning the homes of the most vulnerable—those who lived in the outlying areas beyond the protection of Nauvoo. The burnings were almost a ritual. The mob would arrive at a house and pull the family out, women and little children being dragged sometimes from beds of sickness. Then the family watched helplessly as their cattle were scattered, their crops destroyed, and their h...

Today, being July 24th, we think of our pioneer ancestors.  Also there are many who are as a pioneer to their own family, being the first to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I have spent time this morning reading stories of some ancestors which have been submitted to Family Search, on Family Tree.  If any of you have not registered so you can access Family Tree, I encourage you to go to www.familysearch.org, and register.  If you are a member, you need the last 5 numbers of your current Temple recommend which is the last 5 numbers of your membership.  Or if you don't have that you can get your membership number from your ward clerk.  If you are not a member, you can sign on without that, but you will not be able to get some of the benefits the Church has made with different groups, such as free access to Ancestry.com, and other genealogical sites.   After you have signed on, in looking at your own private family tree, click on...

How appropriate this is for July 24th, in just 3 days!  This is for all you readers who have pioneer ancestors , or you are a pioneer in your own family, or country.  You can send in your own story! Today I begin a training period so I can go back to our local Family History Center, and be a volunteer to help others.  From about 1992 to 2011, I volunteered, and 2 times served a 1 year mission there.  But since then, there are so many new things in technology that I need to catch up!   I took a class recently on how to upload photos and other memories on to Family Search, in Family Tree, and I have had so much fun doing that!  Both Wayne and I have had health problems over the last year or two, but we are at a time things are going better, and I want to get back to one of the things I love most -- FAMILY HISTORY, AND GENEALOGY! ! ! LDS Church’s #IAmAPioneer Campaign Recognizes Past and Present Pioneers From Mormon News Room. The Church of Jesus...

We told some about our couple Senior Mission to Sweden  in blog #51 which I posted on December 27, 2013, early in my blog writing.  You can go back to that entry, and read more about Senior Missions.  I said then we would put more about our Senior mission in later blogs, and I just realized I haven't done that!  So today I'm including part of a letter I just sent to our grandson who will return from his mission in 3 days, -- our last e mail to him on his mission! Our grandson Ben Lieske, a few years ago. Elder Ben Lieske, taken when he first got to Taiwan.  He may have changed some when we will see him in just 3 days, returning from his mission in Taiwan. This is the e mail I sent to him.  It tells the story I want to tell, about our ride home on the airplane from Sweden, in 1996. ----------------------- 3 days from this moment, will be 3 p.m. on Wednesday, July 22nd, and you will be scheduled to come in to the St. George Airport in less t...

Try these suggestions about prayer.  It will lift your spirit and bring you joy! The Prayer That Will Always Be Answered By Joni Hilton  · July 15, 2015, in Meridian Magazine Prayer is one of the most misunderstood activities in the world. It is a direct link to our Father in Heaven, an opportunity to repent and realign our plans with God’s, a holy moment when we can express humility and gratitude. Yet most of us—even those who understand what prayer really is—fall into the “wish list” trap, praying over and over for the same blessings we feel our lives lack. Some cease to pray when life goes well, others become angry and blame God when things go wrong. Many people pray rote prayers without personal connection, others just “send good thoughts out into the universe,” and still others pray simply to feel good, with no expectation of a response. As Latter-day Saints, we know there is a loving Heavenly Father on the other end of the line, so to speak, a...

About age 16, I developed a tremendous interest in genealogy.  It was about the time I received my Patriarchal Blessing.  The old county library, long since demolished, had a section of genealogy books about early New England and I loved to pour over them. The old Library in St. George, where I spent many hours.  Reading was the main entertainment during the long hot summers here in St. George.  I had Aunt Sarah Wallace, my father's sister, and Aunt Vina Brooks, my mother's sister, who each had done considerable work on my two sides of the family.  In those days there were no copy machines, and I had borrowed and copied many sheets of the long pedigree charts and family group sheets.  I would look for those names in the books, and find it most fascinating.  Those names were of our ancestors who came to the United States in the 1600's, mostly Connecticut and Massachusetts. At Christmas time I had dinner at a friend's home and her brother was...