Not sure who was the
cat and who was the mouse.
So we, Elder Storrer
and I, are invited to Sister G. Roth’s for
luncheon yesterday. I have mentioned her
before.
She is a marvelous
older woman. Have been told her age, but
this time saw her Birthday Calendar with her birthdate on it. She is almost exactly 10 years and 2 months
older than Elder Storrer. It is off by
just one date. It was kind of fun to see
that.
But this blog is
really about something fun that happened.
I am sitting there, grasping words here and there, and picking up
familiar conversation. Some I get a
pretty good jist and other I am totally lost.
So when they were talking about Family History, I missed the whole
thing. After dinnder and the dishes are
cleared we end up in her upstair’s office at her computer. Elder Storrer informs me that she is going to
show him what she has been doing on her family history. So the computer is opened. She explains that the church as all the
records of Austria and other German speaking countries on line. We are talking about the records microfilmed
from the vaults.
She goes through some
of the records and asks, sweetly, if he can read any of it. Well he had been doing indexing before we
left for this mission. So he was not too
rusty. He selects a few records and
reads them. She expressed amazement. How can you do this. I don’t know anyone who can decipher it as
well as you.
Humbly, Elder Storrer
says, “I just can.”
Well I am not sure who
really was the cat and who was the mouse. Elder Storrer had forgotten-- About a month ago, in a seminary discussion her daughter in law and son
asked Elder Storrer if he could give an example of inspiration. So he picked the first one that came to mind.
While working in the
church genealogy, he was sitting in a meeting when Boyd K. Packer instructed
those in attendance if they would develop a program to read the old handwriting
of the various European countries. Something that could be taught in one week. Elder Storrer had been working on learning how
to read it for about three years. He felt he was just really getting a handle on
reading it. He immediately vocally
rejected the idea, as,, “Impossible, as he had been working on it for three
years. “Elder Packer, pointed his finger
at him and said, “You will do it.”
Humbly, Elder Storrer
took it to the Lord in prayer. That
night he saw a vision of how it could be done.
He immediately went to work. It
was genius all right. But he gives the
Lord credit.
Well, as we left
Sister Roth’s home, he was pretty proud of himself, believing he had pulled it
off. I reminded him of the story he had
shared weeks before with the Seminary. I
don’t know if he always understands the power of the spoken word.
I fell going down the
stairs last night and wrenched my back a little. (Tried to skip the last stair—accidently. At least I didn’t mess up my knee to
badly.) So I was tossing a little in my
sleep trying to get comfortable this morning, when the memory of yesterday came
flooding back into my mind. It suddenly
dawned on me. Older people in other
wards are teaching classes, trying to help ward members learn how to read the
old script. Here your dad sits, with the
knowledge in his head, how to do it and make I simple. The church still uses his program. A year ago, while sitting in a meeting, one
of President Mile’s counselors introduced a copy of some of his work. I believe that with the interest people have
all over the world in Family History, that we are sitting on a gold mine to
further the missionary work in this area.
We can offer classes other than Language and the standard usually
used. Now I have to talk it over with
him and encourage him to pray about it.
But maybe I won’t have to. If it
is inspired we usually come up with the same message by morning.
