Thoughts and stories, by Pal

This lovely article was in the March 1988 Ensign.  With much turmoil and suffering in this world, I hope we all can remember to LOVE ONE ANOTHER! This was reprinted in LDS Living recently, from lds.org. We Couldn’t Preach, but We Could Love By  Annette Stevenson Print Share In the refugee camp … The plane glided above the peaceful green islands below. I looked out of the window in awe. Surely we were headed for paradise! One month earlier, my mission president had informed me that I would be sent to serve in a Vietnamese refugee camp on Palawan, an island between Vietnam and the Philippines. My companion had come from one of the refugee camps in Thailand, where she had been serving with twelve other LDS lady missionaries. She was strong, reliable, and full of charity. I remembered my introduction to her at the airport. I had heard that lady missionaries sent to the refugee camps ran the risk of losing their missionary discipline, and I was almost certai...

I posted this a year ago today, and it is still very appropriate!  It was blog # 472. 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 genealog...

This is a very interesting article, about pioneers wanting to go to "Zion".  I'm also going to post some about my pioneer ancestors.  I know that my own pioneer ancestors came for that reason, after having been persecuted a lot in Nauvoo, and other early settlements of the Saints.  I'll put more of our family pioneer stories on very soon. The Real Reason the Pioneers Came West By Maurine Proctor  · July 21, 2016 Image by Clark Kelley Price.  It was a September day in 1842 when George and Ann Quayle Cannon stood with their six children on the windswept dock at Liverpool ready to board the great ship  Sidney  for America. Crowds of emigrants thronged the gangplank, worried over details, and clutched a few remnants of the home they were about to leave behind.  They carried boxes, beds, and assorted bundles.  Some had cabbages, some cheese, some bread and butter stored in tins. Like so many others, the Cann...

This picture is of my husband Wayne D Eckman, in 1954, when he was in the Army, in Austria.  He lived to be 85 1/2, and before he passed away this last February 21, 2016, he had    685,007 names indexed,and 73,006 names arbitrated Worldwide Indexing Event Far Surpasses Goal with 116,475 Participants July 20, 2016 By Angelyn Nelson Hutchinson, Family Search Blog If you spent part of your weekend participating in the worldwide indexing event, you were in good company. The event far surpassed its goal of 72,000 participants around the globe; a total of 116,475 individuals worked to make the world’s historical records available to those doing their family history work. These individuals indexed 10,447,887 records to add to the treasure trove of information available to family history researchers. That final number of participants exceeded the original target by 44,475 participants—a 61.8 percent increase over the original goal. “Grateful” was how Collin Smith,...

This is a link to a short but very inspiring video! This is the link to the  prayer tonight given by Nathan Johnson, a counselor in the Stake Presidency in Kirtland, Ohio, in the Republican Convention.  It is worth copying and pasting, and listening to. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4611596/nathan-johnson-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints

This is inspired, so missionaries can stay in Russia! LDS Church missionaries in Russia now to be known as 'volunteers' By  Sam Penrod ,  Deseret News Published: Monday, July 18 2016 7:35 p.m. MDT Elder Tanner Camp, right, and other missionaries take Russian language lessons at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, in 2008. George Frey, Associated Press Enlarge photo» Summary Missionaries serving for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Russia are to be called "volunteers," following a recent law there that focuses on anti-terrorism measures but also restricts religious organizations in the country. More Coverage Mormon missionaries to remain in Russia despite new law restricting missionary work Russia passes law affecting missionary work A change is coming to the designation for missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are serving in Russia, with elders and sisters ...

TODAY, TOMORROW, AND SUNDAY WE ARE HAVING A WORLD-WIDE INDEXING PROJECT.  LET'S ALL GET ON THE BAND-WAGON, AND HELP ! FamilySearch Recruits 100,000 to Save the World’s Records by Family Search. org SALT LAKE CITY (July 15, 2016) —On July 15, FamilySearch International will launch the world’s largest indexing event with a goal of bringing more than 100,000 people from around the globe together online during a 72-hour period to save the world’s records by making them searchable to the public. “FamilySearch believes everyone deserves to be remembered,” says Shipley Munson, FamilySearch International’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. “All should have the opportunity to find their ancestors, and we provide a simple way for people to make those family connections.” During the 72-hour indexing period, volunteers can participate by downloading the FamilySearch software, a program that stores scanned copies of a variety of old records. Volunteers can the...