"Eastward...Ho!"

Grandpa and Spencer

   "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked..."  The summer of 1847 brought the pioneer saints west from Illinois to Utah, one step at a time.  Our backward journey from Salt Lake to Illinois (and eventually to Indiana) took just a few short days, one rotation of the Goodyear tire at a time. We felt so fortunate to have modern transportation instead of traveling by ox or hand cart.

   We left Salt Lake City after our last session of training at the Church Office Building on Friday, July 11th.  Our intent was to drive all the way to Ft. Collins, Colorado that day.  But by 7:00 p.m., both Michael and I were so tired that the little roadside motel in Rawlins, Wyoming ( 1/2 star higher in ratings than the Bates Motel) seemed very inviting. After a good night's rest, we continued on to Ft. Collins.  It was an enjoyable weekend spent with Kevin and his family.  I agreed to play Wii video games with the boys, but had to back out when motion sickness forced me to shut off my racing car.  Playing board games, eating out, and getting reacquainted with the grandsons was so fun.  We attended church with them on Sunday and then left Colorado early Monday morning.

Winter Quarters Visitors' Center

   Our goal was to visit two temples on our way to Indiana.  Denver was closed, but Kansas City, St. Louis, Winter Quarters and Nauvoo were all options.  We chose the northern route and plotted our course through Nebraska.  It was a beautiful drive.  Green fields were everywhere.  We stopped for a brief moment in Lincoln to tour the state capitol building and arrived in Omaha about 8:00 that night.

Playing the pump organ at the Kanesville Tabernacle.

   I experienced a tender mercy moment as we prepared to go to the Winter Quarters temple the next day.  Both Michael and I wanted to do ordinance work for our own ancestors.  The week before, as we were packing for our trip, I remember specifically putting my ordinance cards in a safe place to bring with us.  That morning in Omaha, I looked, and looked, and looked some more for those cards.  After half an hour, I resigned myself to the fact that I would do Packham work instead of Singleton names.  But I REALLY wanted to do my own - I am stubborn that way :)  So I prayed for some help.  I might not know where those cards were hidden in our loaded-down car, but Heavenly Father did.  I went back to the car, looked through the boxes that I had already searched twice.  As I opened one box, the idea came to look inside some notebooks.  No cards.  Another notebook.  No cards.  Then the reassurance came that the next notebook would be my answer.  Yes, there they were.  Heavenly Father almost immediately answered my prayer.  I was able to take my family names to the temple.

   Of all my regrets of the last six months, the greatest comes from not stopping and taking pictures of Clearfield, Iowa; Centerville, Iowa; Farmington, Iowa; West Point, Iowa;  all in Davis County, Iowa.  How dare they steal those names from us!  In fairness to the Midwest state, Iowa was beautiful.

They went west, we went east, but we both had to cross the
the Mississippi River.

   We also enjoyed our temple experience at Nauvoo.  Michael will share some thoughts about that in our next blog.  For this blog, I wanted to express feelings that came in our final moment in Nauvoo.  As we were heading out of town, we drove down Parley's Street and walked to the banks of the Mississippi River.  The early pioneers stood on that land, looked west and wondered what their future would be like.  Here I stood on that land, looking east toward Indiana and wondering what my future would be like.  Would I have the same kind of faith as my great, great, great grandparents?


"When the Saints were persecuted and driven from Nauvoo, Robert and Maria felt greatly blessed to receive their endowments in the temple shortly before they crossed the Mississippi River and headed west.  Although they were uncertain of what their future held, they were certain of their faith and their testimonies." (Elder William R. Walker, April 2014 General Conference).

We arrived in Crawfordsville, Indiana about 7:00 p.m. Thursday July 17th.  If we had taken another week along the "trail", we could have arrived on July 24th.  That would have been a perfect ending to our backwards pioneer trek.  We had arrived at our new home.

Digital Camera Training in Salt Lake City

Our week at Provo's MTC was a very general introduction to our life as missionaries.  The second week of our mission was specific to our call as record preservation specialists.  

Our "school house" for the 2nd week

We lived at our home in Syracuse and each day commuted to Salt Lake City, parked in the Conference Center parking, walked to the Church Office Building, and up to the 5th Floor.  Several floors of the Church Office Building are devoted to Family Search.  Ann and I were treated like royalty because not very many missionaries trickle through the system and end up with this assignment.  The program NEEDS missionaries, but now that senior couples can "request" certain assignments, there aren't many that are even aware of this type of service to consider it as a choice.  We were the only couple being trained our week, so we really were the center of attention.  The objectives of our five full days there were both general and specific.

Our first "exposure" to the digital camera equipment and software

Half our time we were learning the very technical process of "capturing" the digital images of old documents.  The 37-megapixel camera and controlled lighting are mounted on an elaborate, adjustable metal framework.  We learned how to control the camera through a computer with software written by the Church--focusing, cropping, rotating, and documenting each picture.  The digital files are so huge that it takes a terabyte drive to hold a week's work, and one of our images could be enlarged to a size many times its original without losing quality.  That's the reason for our blog title, Packham's Pixels, because our attention to detail is clear down to the pixel level of the image.

Getting some help with genealogical research at the
Joseph Smith Memorial Building

The other half of our time was helping us understand how our work fits into the overall work of Family Search.  Thousands of people are involved in finding documents that are needed, contracting with their owners to allow us to preserve them, preparing the documents, getting the teams in place (like us) with all the equipment and training they need, auditing the images for quality, archiving them, prioritizing them for indexing, arbitrating the work of the indexers, and then finally publishing the searchable data on Family Search's website.

Learning about handling old documents at the
Church History Library

Now there is a pin for Indiana on the map
of the hundreds of Family Search cameras at work

We spent a little time becoming familiar with each of these facets of the work.

At the end of the week, our heads were swimming with information, and we had learned enough to know that we had A LOT more to learn.  It was good, though, because it gave us our first glimpse of what life for the next 18 months will be like.

Lead Thou Me On

Entering the Missionary Training Center

   MTC: aka Missionary Training Center.  From the rumors I had heard about the training, I wondered if I would be spending a very long week at the "Missionary Torture Chamber" instead.  I was gladly relieved to find our days filled with laughter, useful information, and testimony building activities.
   We arrived at the MTC in Provo, Utah on Monday morning June 30, 2014.  Ninety-seven senior missionaries were assigned to meet at the LDS church building adjacent to the MTC.  We spent each day from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in devotionals, instruction in Preach My Gospel and practice activities.  The first day we were asked to stand and introduce ourselves and report where we would be serving.  Missionaries were leaving for such places as the Congo, Taiwan, London, Honduras, Chicago, Hawaii, and some would be serving in their home stakes in Utah.

Gale, Smith, Packham, Gittins, Bro. Barney

   We were divided up into districts comprised of four senior couples (or single sister missionaries) each.  Our district consisted of missionaries assigned to Fresno (office), Romania (Member, Leader Support), Church Office Building (missionary department) and ourselves.  Our trainers, Bro. Vance and Bro. Barney, were young returned missionaries that really lit us on fire and taught us well.  One thought we heard many times was, "No growth in your comfort zone, and no comfort in your growing zone."  This experience was definitely going to take me out of my comfort zone.
   What I feared most were the role-play situations. Members of the community had volunteered to play the roles of investigators.  Each day we would prepare a lesson to present to a specifically assigned "investigator."  Most memorable was our second day in teaching.  Linda was an artist.  This was to be her second discussion and she was somewhat familiar with the Book of Mormon.  She especially liked the picture in her paperback copy of Moroni burying the records.  As our discussion unfolded, we asked her to read a verse from the scriptures.  She mentioned that she had a difficult time reading,  She then told us that because of an illness, she was losing her sight.  Our hearts went out to her as we talked about Jesus Christ, the love of God in our lives, and how we need faith when we can't see the road ahead of us.  Michael felt impressed to sing Lead, Kindly Light.  Tears started to form in her eyes and we were so touched at how the words applied to her life, ". . . I do not ask to see the distant scene, one step enough for me."  It was a very special moment.
   Michael and I were assigned to compose a theme song for our District.  We brainstormed for lyrics using a tune we were all familiar with, The Golden Plates.

LDS Church building training

     
  We golden saints are bidden

          Far off to missions wide

          We pray God finds up faithful

          Our daily steps to guide.

          By small and simple ways we'll testify

          Hast'ning the work of God

          We'll share the Book of Mormon

          And hold to the iron rod.

   We joined the younger missionaries during meal time.  The cafeteria offered all you could eat!  It was entertaining to see the young missionaries interact with each other and feel of their enthusiasm.  We were in the MTC on July 4th.  During one of the meals a few missionaries came in the cafeteria carrying a large American flag.  After getting everyone's attention, we sang the National Anthem.  It was powerful to hear so many strong voices singing of gratitude for our country.  Just as impressive was when we sang Called To Serve in the Tuesday night devotional.

Yes, we are both going to Indiana.  I just couldn't reach that high.

   I was apprehensive going to the MTC, but I departed with the hope that God would help me fulfill my responsibility as a missionary.  There were moments that I didn't think I could do what was being asked of me, but each time, the spirit calmed my heart and allowed me to be at peace.  Those were tender mercy moments.  Just as Michael and I shared our testimony of faith in God with our investigator, Linda, I also came to say: "Keep thou my feet...Lead thou me on."

"I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go, Dear Lord"

Getting the Call

The thought to go on a mission was always in the back my mind, but it wasn't until last November, when Ann started to consider the idea, that we openly discussed it.

The thought of serving in a temple somewhere was what opened the door.  That seemed possible.  We targeted June 1st as an "available" time, and started working toward that.  We had understood, mistakenly, that we would have to wait until Feb. 1st to submit our application.  It turns out that couples can begin the process much earlier than the young elders and sisters.

It was interesting to fill out the online application--it became obvious how different Ann and I are.  We finally opted to make no preference as to where or how we'd like to serve, leaving it entirely up to the Lord and the needs of His Kingdom.

Between getting everything cleared up in my life, and Ann wrapping up her career as an accountant, things were "on again, off again" with the whole process.  Finally we received word that the Missionary Committee had cleared our call, and the "Big White Envelope" came April 24th.

"You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Indianapolis Indiana Mission.  Your primary assignment is to labor with North America Northeast Area Family History Records Preservation as a records preservation specialist."

Luckily, Ann's said the same thing.  They really did find something that would match both of us.

That triggered a lot of questions about the nature of our assignment.  Our best answers came from Family Search, our future bosses.  A Records Preservation Mission proved to be a very prophetic video.  It shows folks doing exactly what we've ended up doing.

Our call was to report to the MTC in Provo on June 30 for a week of general missionary preparation using Preach My Gospel, and then continue specific training in Salt Lake City the next week.  With that kind of deadline, life became a whirlwind of decisions--what to do with the house, the cars, packing, business matters, etc.  But it all miraculously came together, as did the call itself.

We can look back and see the hand of the Lord in every step of the way.  He guided our thoughts, He answered our pleas for support, peace, forgiveness, and He prompted others as they supported and guided us.

And the miracles continue, as we'll share with you, our friends and family.