April 3, 2013

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.