Connections

 

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s interesting how many connections there are in life. Through Barbara and John Robertson, one of the 3 missionary couples in the Family History Centre, we were able to find a link to a journal in the BYU Library written by Ken’s 2nd great grandfather Andrew Ferguson. He was born in Rutherglen, Scotland, joined the church there and was called to serve a mission. He left his young family to do so and traveled all over Scotland.  The family later immigrated to Utah.

The journal was written while he served his mission and records his travels and missionary service. His testimony is very touching and he gives a beautiful tribute to his young wife who dies. Ken and our son-in-law, Mark Robins, served in some of the same places  as Andrew Ferguson when they were on Scottish missions. When our son Andrew and his wife Amy and their 2 boys, Bryan and Matthew, lived in Scotland, they lived only 6 miles north of Rutherglen. It turns out that John Robertson’s 2nd great grandfather was a missionary companion to Andrew Ferguson and is mentioned in the journal. Now Ken and John are serving together in the Family History Centre. If any of you are interested in seeing the journal, here is the link:

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/Diaries&CISOPTR=7644&REC=1

 

Another connection: I worked for several years with Devon Tufts who was our assistant principal at Timberline Middle School. We had a retirement party together last May and Devon and his wife Judy put in missionary papers about the same time as we did. They were called to serve in the England, Birmingham Mission as CES missionaries. That involves working with young college aged adults. We were in the MTC at the same time.  Devon and Judy have a few days off when the universities close and are traveling down to London in a couple of weeks to see the sights and visit. We really look forward to seeing them.

We found out that another retiree from my school district, Paula Fugal and her husband Guy, a 2nd cousin of Ken’s, are also coming to England. They will serve as public affairs missionaries.

                                                                                                        Our friends, the Prices, left London today and are headed home to Chandler, Arizona. We will sorely miss them. They helped us get settled, were our mentors in the FHC and became our good friends. We wish we could have served with them longer but feel that we were fortunate to have been able to serve with them for 2 months. The picture was taken at “Sticky Fingers”, where we had a goodbye party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ken and I are preparing a power point presentation titled English Records on FamilySearch and will be presenting it to the public on 26 April- very scary! Ken feels if he could do the presentation on nutrition and I feel if I could do it on Plate Tectonics we might feel a bit more comfortable.

 

We had the chance to go to 2 wonderful places in the past week. We toured the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. The Cabinet War Rooms are the restored rooms of the secret British underground bunker used by British officials as a headquarters during World War II. Also housed in the remains of the underground bunker is the Churchill Museum, a small museum dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

 

Shortly after being appointed Prime Minister on 10th May 1940 Churchill visited the bunker. On surveying the complex he chose a room, saying: “This is the room from which I will lead the war” – it was the largest room in the shelter. Churchill's War Cabinet met here 115 times during the course of the war. The War Cabinet Room is preserved exactly as it was when it closed in August 1945. Churchill's red box, which went everywhere with him, sits on the table, and original maps line the walls. It is  interesting seeing all this and imagining how it must have been for the people in London during that terrible war, especially during the blitz. In the museum shop they had postcards with slogans used during the war. Here are some of my favorites:

 

I think the Keep Calm and Carry On is going to be our mission motto especially if we have to keep giving power point presentations to the public.

 

We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Saturday with Prices, Cambells, and Sister Groves, to see the Norman Rockwell Exhibit. It was fabulous! They had many of his original paintings as well as a display of all 322 covers he made for The Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963. I never realized how brilliant he was.

 

Before I post this I need to add one last thing- it’s our Jimmer Fredette story. Last spring Ken and I were invited to a Cougar Club luncheon at the Student Athlete Building. Jimmer was in the building and we rode the elevator up with him. What an outstanding young man. We told him that we enjoyed watching him play basketball but that we would not be able to watch during the upcoming season because we were going to be serving a mission. He was very interested and asked where we would be serving. We told him England. Even thought we haven’t been able to see many of the basketball games, it has been so exciting to follow Jimmer and the Cougars this year. Go Cougars!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

 

THE SCHEDULE and some random thoughts…

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Ken is in charge of THE SCHEDULE for those that work in the Family History Centre. This includes three missionary couples and the local staff. The Centre is open 49 hours per week and most of the time, 2 couples need to be there. The missionary couples work a minimum of 35 hours a week and the others work at various times, always subject to change. I think Ken has dreams about THE SCHEDULE. This past week we were the late shift and then also worked on Saturday. We are really looking forward to a preparation day on Monday.

We have been in England for 2 months. It has been an adventure. We are loving it, but it has been a challenge learning to live in a place so different from what we are used to.It’s starting to get easier. It’s also starting to get a bit warmer and the spring flowers are beginning to come up. Everyone says that spring is beautiful in London. I even bought a couple of plants and put them in one of the pots next to our front door. We live in the garden flat of a 3 story building dating from the 1800’s.

We go down a flight of stairs on the right hand side of the white and brick building. There’s a small patio area with potted plants around the stairs and a small garden area out back. It will be interesting to see what comes up in the garden. That’s the English word for yard. The photo on the left is our garden. The photo on the right is looking back down our street on the way to the bus stop.

 

I had a sweet experience at the Centre this past week. I was helping an older, very dignified gentleman who has been in before and has done quite a bit of research. He was looking through the microfilms of parish records from the 1500’s to find the birth and other information about his 12th great grandfather. He found the information and I talked with him as I was making scans (photocopies) of the records. He said, “You know, you people have a remarkable and invaluable collection of records here.” He kindly helped me read the record which was partially in Latin. It makes us feel so good when people are grateful for the service we are able to give.

 

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

PS Go Cougars!

Settling In…

 

 

Dear Family and Friends,

We have a sign-in clip board at the Family History Centre where the patrons sign in with their name, country of interest and mark a check if they are at the centre for the first time. Last week I was sitting at the desk by the clip board and reminded the patron to put a check if they were here for the first time. The patron looked at me with a very puzzled expression and wrote the word ‘check’ on the paper. Another example of the difference between the English we speak and that which is spoken in England. The English do not call it a check mark- it is a tick. Another difference- in our building we are in the basement. The next floor is the ground floor, then comes the mezzanine and finally the first floor which by my reckoning is really the third floor. We eat on the third floor which is really the fifth floor.  Every time I get in the elevator I have to think about where I really want to go before I push the button. So we are settling in but continually discovering that a lot of things are very different.

Who Do You Think You Are?

 

This past weekend we were able to work at the FamilySearch Booth at the genealogical exhibition, Who Do You Think You Are? It was was held at the Olympia Conference & Exhibition Centre. Ancestry.com was the primary sponsor and all kinds of genealogical societies were represented. There were quite a few people out from Salt Lake to help at the booth that was set up with numerous computers to show people how FamilySearch and the LDS records can help with family history. People who are into family research are well aware of what our Church has done to preserve and make available early records of the British people. Our Centre alone has over 60,000 rolls of mircofilm of parish records dating to the early 1600’s and civil records. For many of those records, which were filmed quite a few years ago,the originals  are now gone. People here give a lot of credit to the LDS Church for preserving their records.

Ken and I both had great experiences helping people understand how and where to search for ancestors. Ken was able to help a Jewish man who was searching for ancestors in Poland. I helped a man track down his grandmother who was born in South Africa and left an orphan when her parents died. She was taken back to a foundling home in England and later adopted. The Church actually has a record of her christening.  It is wonderful to see the gratitude from people we are able to help. This happens every day on a smaller scale in our Family History Centre. This is a very rewarding mission!

Grandchildren’s birthdays we’ve missed:

Spencer-11  Sorry about D Will!         Riley-0  Precious baby! 

 

     Joseph-13  A teenager!                Nick-12  A Deacon!

 

and coming up in March:

Kayleigh-13  Look out world!   Matthew-10 Taekwondo champ!

Happy Birthday to all of you sweet grandchildren! We love you!

 

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)