These are a Few of My Favorite Things: Currently

As I departed my ASL practice session with one of the TA's named Charity, I was feelin' super awesome. I had already spent an hour that morning scanning through the 1914-1916 Emery County Progress searching for any signs that John Davis actually existed in the social world of said county (no success. I did however, discover an article about the Church being the social center of the lives/communities of the people which seemed applicable to my friend, Michael's thesis and research).

I find myself spending almost every spare moment at school in the Family History Library looking at censuses, searching passenger arrival lists, skimming through microfilm, updating PAF, etc. I just can't get enough genealogy and family history. I'm taking a U.S. and Canada Family History class this semester with Brother Kip Sperry. We are learning all the technicalities of Probate Records, Vital Records/Civil Registrations, etc. However, our assignments aren't very personal. Nevertheless, I enjoy using my own time [and almost every spare moment of it] to scavenger for those that have gone before in my ancestral line.

The more research I do, the better I understand these people. That's how I felt about Joseph Smith, his family and associates when I went on the Church History Field Study with Bro. Dick Bennett--these were real people. It's not just names or a nice story, but it was reality. They walked this land, worked, played, and lived. So when I read the 1913 Emery County Progress County Correspondence from Huntington and the writer says that the D. T. Davis welcomed a daughter into their household, etc., I feel connected to D. T. Davis and his family because they start to become alive to me--they become real, instead of names in some program or on some internet site.

For my birthday I really just wanted to visit the Manti Temple and go to the Huntington Cemetery to find the grave of John Davis. I've been doing research on this line for a long time now. And it turns out that John...my several great(s) grandfather was a member of the LDS Church. He was proselyted by some missionaries in Louisiana and joined the Church in 1899. When his second wife died in 1909, he headed out to Huntington, UT where his brother (Thomas William Davis)'s family resided [who were also members of the Church]. In 1911, John went through the Salt Lake Temple to receive his own endowments while also having the work performed for his deceased wives by proxy. He was sealed to both of his wives for time and all eternity by the power of the Holy Priesthood. Later, in 1914, he went to the Manti Temple and was sealed to his deceased parents.

After Caitlin and I went to the Manti Temple we headed over to Huntington via UT-31 Scenic Byway from Fairview. Huntington is FAR away from Manti. It looks so close on the map...haha. I probably should have planned better because when we got to the Cemetery...most of the gravestones were covered in snow. I figured they would have kept the graveyard cleared, but apparently rural areas such as No-Stop-Light-In-Town Huntington have no such concerns. Anyhow, Caitlin and I (who, by the way, was not even wearing pantyhose or boots...just a skirt and yellow slip-ons) found ourselves tromping through 2-3 feet of snow in the entire cemetery using a car scraper and a bowl to shovel snow to dig up headstones. We were having a hard time finding John Davis (I wonder why?!?!) and were having to run back to the car to thaw out every fifteen minutes or so.

After a series of calls back and forth with Mrs. Nancy (who couldn't find the graveyard lay-out online and tell us which plot John resided in)--I called my buddy, Ramon and he was helpin' us out big time. We had originally been looking by Owen W. Guymon and his family because he married one of the daughters of Thomas William Davis. I mean...sounds logical...look around relatives, right? WRONG! John was buried across the way in the smack-dab middle of the cemetery next to NO ONE! Well, that's a small lie. He is buried next to people...Booth, Meeks. But no one I know. And no one that I think he's related to! Anyhow, Ramon was explaining to us the coordinates of John Davis when I'm about ready to throw my hands in the air and give up. My legs hurt because the crunchy snow was cutting them, my feet were numb, and I was heartbroken that we had driven all this way and we couldn't find John Davis. Caitlin is about ready to kill John Davis had he not already been dead. I've got Ramon on the line tellin' me names of people he's buried next to--so I'm yellin' out, "Booth....Meeks..." all of whose graves are covered by several feet of snow so we can't see these headstones. Caitlin is out yonder diggin' up any place she thinks there might be a grave...when SHE FOUND JOHN DAVIS!! Handel's Hallelujah Chorus of the "Messiah" starts playing. I couldn't have been happier. We had found John Davis.

I couldn't have been happier on my birthday. Strangely, I did get happier. After we snapped a few photos of good ol' John Davis, we jumped in the Suzuki to defrost before making our way to Benjamin. Benjamin was difficult to find... Luckily, we speak English and so does mostly everyone else. So stopping to ask for directions benefited us twice that day. (Google obviously doesn't understand that there is more than one Fourth North...) So we found Benjamin and the pinata lady with the barn full of pinatas. I really wanted this Zebra Pinata for my birthday party, and I had met this lady at the Latinoamericano Festival back in September who had given me her card. $16 later I was putting a Great Dane sized Zebra Pinata into the back of the car! Yippee!

After we managed to get out of Benjamin, we stumbled upon Cracker Barrel to cap off the day. I needed to reward Caitlin for being so diligent in finding John Davis. So we got a table for two and pigged out on meatloaf and catfish. Then we had this apple struesel (sp?) pecan praline cinnaminy-goodness with BLUE BELL HOMEMADE VANILLA ICE CREAM! (You can't get this stuff up north in Yankee Land...this is a southern ice cream that is far superior to anything else in the world.) But, Cracker Barrel apparently has this contract with Blue Bell...which I whole-heartedly support.

So my birthday was a day filled with family history and fun times. All my wishes come true. But I also wanted to share another of my favorite things...ASL!!! I am havin' a blast in my class this semester. My teacher, Nanette is a trip. She always has us crackin' up. I didn't know ASL jokes could be so funny, but it really is. Our teacher is wonderful! She's such a good teacher. She's deaf, and has not verbally spoken one word to us since day one. Nevertheless, we have somehow managed to learn and communicate back with her. It's quite incredible and I wish I would have started taking ASL classes sooner.

My favorite TA is Charity Harding. She's super awesome. I've visited with her three times (we have to visit a TA at least five times in the semester). Even though I don't think fluidly in ASL yet (I still think in English...which is often a barrier while communicating), but Charity makes me feel so comfortable and it is so much easier to 'talk' to her. We've been able to share mission stories...I told her about a sign language dream I had where I was trapped in a basement and Janna Mistrzak was tryin' to kill me and I was yellin' in sign language to the people outside. haha. Sometimes I 'read' her stories. We have an assignment in class where we have to 'tell' a story to the class through sign language. So I go and practice with Charity. It's great to have someone understand you. And I love being able to semi-communicate to a population I couldn't speak to earlier.

I felt prompted to learn sign language because of this one experience I had on my mission. It was the day when Sister Pilipchak and I had gotten lost from each other. After I had called the District Leader and the Mission President, I was sittin' in McDonald's waiting for the Elders to come and escort me home when across the way there was a couple speaking to each other in Russian sign language. I was mesmerized. I wanted to talk to them SO bad! (I mean, after all, on the mission that's what we did 24/7 was talk to people.) And here were two people that I couldn't say anything to, not even "Bog jhiv!" ("God lives!"...that's just some MTC humor, and it's the truth.)

So now I'm learning ASL, and I find myself wanting to sign ALL the time. To myself. To my hearing friends. To my classmates. I think next week when I visit with Charity, I want her to teach me how to testify about Jesus Christ is sign language.