missionary memoirs

As a missionary helping patrons, I often have to ask them for their birthday so that I can log into their account and have a look at it as it looks to them. I secretly have two little FamilySearch wishes.

The first is to one day to help a patron with my same birthday. I don’t expect them to be born the same year, just the same date. Once however, I did have a patron that had the same birth month and same birth year.

My other little wish is to help a patron that I know. Last night, when I logged in there were three calls waiting in the queue and I could see that the first call from from a 407 area code. Wow! I thought, a Florida caller.

“Hello, this is Sister Carter answering new FamilySearch questions. May I have your name please?”

“This is Sister Whitcomb, a family history consultant, calling in for Sister Wilson, just a second and I will pass her over.”

“Sister Whitcomb, this is President Carter’s wife, Debbie Carter.”

Thus ensued and all the surprised and delighted chat that you would expect plus a couple of questions. “Do you do this from home?” (Yes.)  “How many hours a week do you work?” (15)

We could have easily kept on chatting, but since we were on the church’s nickel and I am invited to Sister Whitcomb’s son’s wedding reception in a few weeks, I asked to see what I could do to help waiting Sister Wilson. As it turns out, not a lot. Much as I would have loved to have impressed them  with my FamilySearch skills, hers was a problem that had to be escalated.

So I haven’t really helped anyone with my birthday, nor a patron that I know, yet…but, I am still patiently waiting…it could happen!