Where It All Happens

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Now that we know what mom's "mission within a mission" will be (namely, secretary to the mission serving directly under President Peterson), we also know that she will spend her days entirely in the mission office, which is in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. So, I thought I would share a few more photos and details of that special place...

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building, formerly the Hotel Utah, was built in 1911. This stately building, which was completely renovated and reopened in 1993, now houses the Legacy Theater, reception and conference rooms, a FamilySearch center, Nauvoo Cafe, and The Roof and The Garden Restaurants. The Legacy Theater is currently showing Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration, a film about the life and legacy of Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Not a bad place to work, huh?

Special Assignment

The second week in the Training Zone I sat beside Sister Gilbert most of each day and continued  to search and document the first 4 generations of our family tree.  We found so much information every day that the time just flew.  The internet is such a blessing if you know where to look.  I’m sending Tami a headstone picture to post as an example of what we now have.  George L. and Dulcebelle W. Elgin are my great-great maternal grandparents who lived and died more than 100 years ago (He died in 1879 and she died in 1906).

 

A highlight of the week was when Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy, Church Historian and Recorder, came to speak to us.  He told inspiring stories about the early history of the Church connected to genealogy and family history. He serves at the Church History Library and I have walked past him before.

Wednesday we had a meeting at the end of the day to announce the Activity Coordinators for our group (The new missionaries that arrived in March).  They really encouraged us all along to get acquainted and to organize activities at least once a month.  We stay with this group we trained with all through our missionary service.  Elder and Sister Morton were called to be our coordinators.  They are the couple that Sister Munger, Sister Calandra, and I eat lunch with almost every day because we all elected to bring our lunch and eat in the lunch room on the lower level of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We also often have Elder Davis with us, a young elder who wrecked his knee just before his mission and ended up serving with us. Our trainers told us emphatically that ours was an exceptional group. When we said they probably told every group that they insisted they did not. We did bond quickly and you should hear their prayers and spiritual thoughts at prayer meeting. They couldn’t be nicer.

Elder and Sister Morton

 

At the end of the day Wednesday I got to go inside the Salt Lake Temple for the first time when Sister Calandra and I accompanied Sister Munger to the baptistry to observe a baptism for an ancestor of hers.  Then at the end of the day Thursday we went back to do an initiatory session for the same name and others, so I got to see more of the temple.  Friday as part of our Go Forth activities we went back with our whole mission group, mission presidency, their wives, and our trainers to do an endowment session and then eat lunch in the temple cafeteria.  What an impressive edifice the Salt Lake Temple is!  No wonder it took 40 years to build. 

There was a lot of anticipation in my group about where each of us would be assigned to serve at the end of our training.  Last week we were pulled out of training one-by-one or couple-by-couple and taken into a room with all of the mission presidency and their wives, where we rotated between them and were briefly interviewed by them.  The purpose of all this was to assist them in deciding where each missionary should be assigned.

Friday was Go Forth Day.  We sang “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go, Dear Lord”, President Peterson talked to us, and they showed a power point presentation to prepare us to have a great attitude about our assignments. Then they called our names one couple or individual at a time to announce our assignment and introduce us to our new zone leader and his wife.  I’ll tell you next week where I was assigned.  Just kidding.  I’m the new secretary for the office of the largest mission in the world and President Peterson is my zone leader.  Pray for me.

Just Arrived, New Friends

Mom's first letter just came. I grinned from ear to ear reading it. I can't imagine a better place for her to be...she's in Karen Wellman Heaven! Here it is - enjoy!

Greetings from the smallest, largest, and best mission in the world!
•    Around 1200 missionaries (it varies a little) and 20 zones
•    Only about 4 city blocks
•    Located on and near Temple Square in Salt Lake City (Except for the Granite Mtn. Records Vault)

Chrysta and I left her apartment in Phoenix Tuesday morning, February 28th and arrived in Provo around lunch time the next day, with a stopover Tuesday night in St. George, UT where we visited the St. George temple and visitor’s center.  We ate at the Café Rio in St. George in honor of Mark and Laura (their favorite while they lived in Utah) and at the Los Hermanos in Provo in honor of Melanie and Tami (because they waitressed there while they lived in Utah).  We had reports of bad weather all the way there, but it remained clear until we arrived safely.

Because of reports of an incoming storm, Chrysta remained in Salt Lake City with friends (and my car) and I rode the FrontRunner train to Ogden where I stayed the night with Chris Price.  That was a fun little side adventure.  Chris kindly picked me up at the station, took me shopping for a file cart, and to dinner at Chili’s restaurant where I ate a bowl of hot potato soup and watched the snow fall.  Just for us! Everyone was talking about this late snow fall after such a mild winter.  I spent the night at Chris’ and got all caught up on our visiting and then she took me to the station to catch the FrontRunner back to Salt Lake City the next morning on her way to school.

Chrysta picked me up at the station in Salt Lake City and we made it just in time to my 8:00 a.m. appointment in the mission office to sign my apartment agreement papers and pick up keys.  Then we hurried to get to the apartment and unpack my car (which involved a trip up three flights of stairs and through three locked doors one way and two locked doors the return trip each time we carried a load) in time to take Chrysta to the airport at noon.  She was a lifesaver.  The snow held off for us while we got everything inside and then started to fall as we finished the last trip upstairs.  Blessed again!

Friday morning I reported to my mission home, the Joseph Smith Memorial building, for a lunch and orientation meeting in the Relief Society banquet room (you can’t imagine how fancy).  Over the next week I was repeatedly asked to introduce myself in various meetings and had my picture taken multiple times.  They guide the new missionaries around and keep them together so they won’t wander off and get lost.  After this meeting we met our trainers (mine is Sister Gilbert) and got started with one-on-one training on the third floor (the mission office).

The first day I met two of the other single sisters in this batch of new missionaries, Sister Munger from Idaho and Sister Calandra from Texas.  Everyone always asks where you’re from.  We all live in the Garden apartments and are sharing the experience of being new sister missionaries.  We walk to meetings together and have done some grocery shopping and sight-seeing together.  It’s nice to have someone to share all the amazing things we are seeing and doing.

Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. we were in our seats in the Tabernacle on Temple Square for a live broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word at 9:30. Our choice if we want to go. That particular Sunday the Bells on Temple Square joined the Orchestra and Choir. What a way to start your Sabbath!
Then at 2:00 we went to church across the street directly north of us (the only time I’m closest instead of farthest from everywhere we walk) in our new branch, the Salt Lake 2nd Branch. The branch is not small.  It just has no Primary or YM/YW because it is made up only of missionaries.  We are mostly senior missionaries but we do have some young Elders who for one reason or another cannot serve a traditional mission but still want to serve.

Monday morning we began our regular schedule of training for the next two weeks which looks something like this:

7:30-8:30 Mission Devotional, Chapel, Joseph Smith Memorial Building Mezzanine
8:45-9:45 President Stalvey with all new missionaries, JSMB 10th floor, Suites A&B
9:45-10:00 Break: JSMB 3rd floor Training Zone
10:00-11:30 One-on-one training, JSMB 3rd floor Training Zone
11:30-12:30 Lunch break
12:30-3:00 One-on-one training, JSMB 3rd floor Training Zone
3:00-3:30 Elder Vermillion: parking issues and walk to Church Office Building for security pictures
End of training day

Afterward we do our laundry, make calls to the internet service, pay bills, get groceries, take out the trash, cook dinner, wash dishes, practice what we learned that day at home, etc.  Monday night we had a Hail and Farewell dinner at the branch with a service project.

It varies a little from day to day.  Tuesdays through Fridays we start the day with Prayer Meeting on the 3rd floor in the Training Zone instead of the Monday Mission Devotional.  Different people come to talk to us about different issues or to take us someplace.  Tuesday we went to an orientation in the Church History Library.  They brought some artifacts down for us to see up close.  There was a first edition Book of Mormon (worth 60-70 thousand dollars), a Book of Commandments (more rare, worth a million dollars), and a page from Oliver Cowdrey’s transcription of Joseph’s translation of the Book of Mormon. Seeing something I have heard about my whole life does make it come to life for me.

I can’t imagine a better place to serve a mission.  I really do walk among angels every day. Our lessons, talks, and inspirational thoughts are funny, touching, testimony strengthening, and sometimes life-altering.  It’s beautiful here, historic, convenient, everything is done so well, and the people are so kind and considerate.   Did I mention I love my apartment?
 
I’ve already learned so much.  I’m so happy with what we have been able to do to attach sources to our pedigree already.  That sounds so much drier than it is when you find a picture of a headstone with your ancestor’s name on it and additional documents attached to the picture like a death certificate or a life story.  You read the inscriptions and think about what kind of person this was. I thought it would take longer to do what we have been able to do this week.  Can’t wait to get back to it Monday morning!

President and Sister Gledhill with President and Sister Peterson:

Salt Lake City, Temple Square

Welcome to what will be the landing for Sister Karen Wellman's mission letters. We can't wait to hear about her adventures in the Family History Mission at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. To start us off, here is an introduction to a few of the places she'll be frequenting:

Salt Lake City Temple

The Salt Lake Temple is the largest, as well as the most known temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons. Four days after the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 28, 1847 Brigham Young marked the spot where the temple would be built, but the site would not actually be dedicated until February 14, 1853, and the groundbreaking ceremony took place on April 6, 1853. Work on the Salt Lake Temple was temporarily halted during the Utah War, but was resumed in 1858. Construction on the temple would not be finished for 40 years, but on April 6, 1893 the presiding LDS President finally dedicated the temple.

Family History Library

When the Family History Library in Salt Lake City was dedicated in 1985, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said the structure—then called the Genealogical Library—was a “companion structure to the temples of the Lord.” President Hinckley, then serving as Second Counselor in the First Presidency, petitioned in the dedicatory prayer that the library “may be used by multitudes to search out their kindred dead that the necessary ordinance work may be carried forward in thy holy houses, with both genealogist and temple worker cooperating to the accomplishment of one glorious end.” 

Church History Museum

The Church History Museum, formerly called the Museum of Church History and Art, contains art and artifacts that tell the story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Located at North West Temple just west of Temple Square, the museum offers various art galleries, tours, videos, photographs and numerous significant artifacts related to church events and history. The museum also displays real covered wagons that were used by early pioneers of Salt Lake Valley, ship bunks used by immigrants from Europe to travel, an original 1830 copy of the Book of Mormon, a 1987 log home which shows what frontier living quarters were like, Brigham Young's 1847 pioneer trek, and a broad range of art pieces that dates back to the early settlers. Visitors can also enjoy a myriad of fine art collected from around the world. The Deuel Cabin which was built in 1847 by one of the first Mormon families to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley can be found between the Church History Museum and The Family History Library.

Church History Library

In June 2009 the new Church History Library building opened on the corner of North Temple and Main Street in Salt Lake City, Utah. This library will house the historical collections of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The impressive new building will be devoted entirely to preserving and sharing the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mission Map