Oh what a beautiful morning!

We had a beautiful week in the panhandle this week. The temperatures even hit the 80;s about midweek. It's such a strange thought to think it's still only February 9th. To get some housekeeping out of the way, that sounds very exciting about Harper Lee's new book. I know it will look beautiful to see her two books, both first editions, next to each other on the shelf. However, there is a time and season for everything, and that season has passed for a little while.

Some really neat things happened to me. This week we had Zone training. Afterwards I talked with another Elder in the zone. He happens to be Elder Nicholes. Now I knew that the -es was significant. Actually from the very beginning I knew we were probably related because if you spell Nicholes with an -es you are part of a small elite group. So we got talking and we are definitely related because his family helped settle American Fork and I know at least that Josiah Nicholes is one of his direct ancestors and probably Ernestine Dourine too. He recognized the names Sidney Nicholes and Amanda Wing as well so we'll see how closely we are related. He said he great grandfather (I think it was that) is Henry Nicholes and he was a sheepfarmer as well. I told him My great grandfather, Howard, and I was pretty sure my great great grandfather, Sidney Nicholes, were sheep farmers as well. He was pretty sure Sidney Nicholes was his great great grandfather as well (however I didn't find any son of Sidney Nicholes named Henry). Anyway it's an exciting event anyway and we will have to see how it unfolds.

Something else that's pretty cool (this time for the Waldron side of the family). I was looking through the Ensign for this month. It was all about family history which was pretty neat and then I get to a page and there is a picture of woman on it and I'm like, that looks like Hannah Maria Eagles. Anyway I read the article, and it was Hannah Maria Eagles. The lady who wrote the article is also a descendent of her. She included some pretty cool stuff on there about Hannah Maria Eagles, but also hinted at some other information she had that she didn't put on there. She is a professor at BYU and it would be cool if any Waldron could contact her. However it was very neat to read about her faithfulness in the church and to think of all the current church members that are her descendants.

We were able to work with a less active member this week and start building her tree from the ground up. Working with nothing but the few names and dates the member had, it was very neat to see, figuratively speaking, the tree grow new leaves. Not to mention all the temple work opportunities. There's a lot of accountability on a mission, but I think that it's taught me we definitely are also going to be accountable for the family history work we do or do not do. I just like to imagine that It's just like all the names we do temple work for are being written and stored in a personal book for us. One day we have to present our books to Jesus Christ. Do we want to present him with a thin book or a book that needs to be made into several volumes?

I hope you all have a good week! I love you all! Happy Valentines' Day!

Love,

Elder Waldron