missionary memoirs

 

My  missionary phone calls the past couple of days have come from the following area codes:

 

 

435 – N. Utah

808 – Hawaii

208 – Idaho

614 – Ohio

435

503 – Oregon

801 – Utah

520 – Arizona

801

435

602 – Arizona

573 – Missouri

61 – Australia

That last call today was from Sister Boylan. She is a new member of the church and was absolutely panicked that she personally had ruined new FamilySearch. “Don’t tell the prophet!” she said. “He’ll take away my membership.” It was a pleasure helping her because she was so funny and entertaining. She lives in a branch in Burnett Downs, Queensland. She had inadvertently combined her great-grandmother with her mother thereby doing what we call “hijacking a record.” I spared her the grim details.

Last night she had been at the church trying to get help from her local family history consultant. She said that they couldn’t help her and she told them, never mind. “I am just going to go home and call America!” At their horrified response, she replied…it’s an 800 number, you know.

We have 800 numbers for most places in the world. In fact, there are 6 numbers for African nations, 23 for Asia Pacific, including Sister Boylan’s from Australia. Even Cherylyn has a number she can call from Indonesia. There are 30 for Europe. I once had a caller from Italy. There are 28 numbers for Latin America and of course, two for North America. The one for Canada and the one for the United States. Actually, they are exactly the same number, 1-866-406-1830. I cannot tell you how many times I looked that number up before I realized…Duh!

April 6, 1830.

Many of the European numbers follow the same logic, with numbers like 800-1830-1830.

Sister Boylan was not able to talk on the phone and work on the internet at the same time, but she kept me laughing for 35 minutes while I removed the dozen disputes she had put up trying to proclaim to all the world that she had made a mistake and please don’t take this information seriously.

She asked me where I was located and was quite surprised and then mortified to realize she was talking to Florida at 5:00 pm. “What are you doing about dinner?” she asked. I told her not to worry because my husband was heating up the barbeque. That delighted her and of course, she told me to have him put some snags on the barbie for her! (I called my BIL and found out later that they are sausage like and eaten with most everything.)

After removing the disputes, I separated the incorrectly combined records. This is all pretty novice new FamilySearch stuff. For  my efforts though, she hailed me as an angel.

And that ended a pretty nice day on the phones.