The Blessings of Our MIssion Call

before we even begin to serve.  Although we could be serving a variety of places within the Salt Lake Headquarters Mission, our call said primarily in Family and Church History.  I don't know if all people assigned to that mission have that on their call or not.  Either way, we are seeing some great blessings in relationship to family history.

I mentioned earlier that we had a zoom meeting with my extended Owen Family.  As part of that, I learned about a Facebook group called BF Owen Family Reunion. I introduced myself as a granddaughter of Robert Ves Owen and then asked a question about the history of the Owen reunion which appears to have been going on for a very long time.  People answered the question and my cousin Dan Gibson posted some old pictures from the reunions past.

A few examples:  That is very likely Kool-aid in those pitchers--it was staple at picnic in the 1960s.  That is my Aunt Lois sitting in the middle of the picture staring off (my Uncle Grant, her husband, took these photos.)

This is my grandfather, Ves Owen with his sister, Virgie (the youngest), and Thomas Albert Owen.  They were the younger bunch of the family.

The first woman on the bench is my grandmother--Olevia Owen.

But the real exciting thing was that Nancy Wilson, a cousin of some sort, reached out to me and asked me if I would be interested in some letters that my Grandpa wrote to Mary Virginia Owen in 1948-1950.  Mary Virginia was his niece--daughter of William Owen--who was the only one of the 15 kids who settled outside of the Pacific Coast.  They lived in Kentucky where his wife was from. She wrote letters to my Grandpa to ask questions about her extended family which she had never met.  Somehow the original letters ended up with Nancy's mother and then passed down to Nancy.  She had recently been typing them up so she began sending them to me....I then forwarded them to my brothers and sisters and my cousins.  Can you imagine how exciting it was to read letters that my grandfather wrote so long ago, about his family?  Each letter focused on a different brother or sister and included little memories of my grandfather.  He also included dates and names of their children.  We already had those dates but it reflected our grandfather's understanding of the importance of these things in family history.  At this point, my grandfather and grandmother had join the Church which he mentioned in one letter.  Over the past three weeks, we have gotten 18 or so letters.  It was a sad day when she said that this was the last letter of the collection, but what a gift these letters are.

My brother Rick wrote:  "These letters are amazing! I've read about 1/3rd of them so far. My comprehension of my grandfather's personality has probably doubled in the last two days. I'd read his poems before. And I remember a few things Mom shared about him. But this series of letters is really providing a sense for his personality and humor. Also, because they are on the subject of family history, there are these little nuggets of information that are just great -- sometimes shedding light on specific questions I have had in my mind.

The blessings of you guys serving a full time mission at the Family History Center are already starting to come, and you haven't even left yet. :)"

I agree.  How blessed we have been.

And to top it off, even before we knew about the letters, one of my cousins, Virginia Owen Tolman, asked if I would be interested in a photo of my Great Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Owen that hung in my grandparents' home.  Of course, I said yes and a few days later, this framed picture of him arrived at my home.

(To keep things straight, this is the grandfather who crossed the plains on the Oregon trail and was the one that I read his journal along our own personal trip along one part of his journey.)

How blessed we have been by those who have gone before us!  We have felt them close to us as we read these letters and talked/emailed about them.  I am sure that my grandfather never thought that letters he wrote to his niece in 1950 would bring such delight to his 21 grandchildren still here on earth in 2020.  How grateful I am for zoom meetings, Facebook groups and the internet that allowed this to happen....and the blessings of family history!