Castles, Cookies and Conferences

 We had another chilly day in Oxford.  We took a walk - just as fast as we could walk - for exercise and to run a couple of errands.  We walked through historic Oxford - the closest walk, as well as the most picturesque.  We never tire of the old iconic buildings here.  I'm not sure if I have ever shown you the shortcut views through the backyard castle.

The old and the new(er) right next to each other in our backyard castle complex.

In our drives, we often go into the suburbs.  The farther we get from the center of town where we live, the newer everything is.  By "new" I mean newer than 100 years.  We see a lot of row houses, where all the narrow houses share walls with houses on either side.  

We go through little neighborhoods with houses all stuck together, and they have tiny yards that were probably originally meant to be beautiful little entryways into the homes, decorated with flowering shrubs and vines.  Now, they are mostly used as places to park a car and keep their large garbage cans - which takes up most of the small space.  Since everyone does that, you get used to it.

Today I made cream puffs with a light chocolate filling and then chocolate frosting on top.  One of the young people we gave some to is Francis, our math genius.  He is finishing up his PhD and looking at internships in London and the U.S.  When we asked if we could deliver some to him, he asked if he could stop by on his way home from his college.  Of course we agreed.  He came right upstairs to our door, and I couldn't resist asking him to come in, so he did for about an hour or so.  We sat across the room from each other visiting - with our masks on.  It was marvelous to have a young adult here!  

He shared his future plans and hopes with us and promised to play pickleball with SK when the lockdown eases up.  We so hope that will happen soon.  The government will be re-examining the lockdown on February 22, so that gives us a little over a week to prepare for a possible easing of restrictions.  I will feel a lot better about that when we are able to receive our second shot of vaccine.  However, we understand that the Oxford Astra Zeneca does not do well against the new strains.  But in any case, it does ease the severity. 

And now different labs are coming up with medicines that cut it short once you have it, so do I dare say that we may be over the worst?  There was a headline on the news today that said, "Britain may be in for a third wave that is worse than the other two."  I think I ought to quit looking at the news.  I just go to the BBC on my computer.  What a far cry from the TV news of my childhood.

Walter Cronkite and other noteworthy and supposedly trustworthy news casters extolled all the news of the day in rich sonorous voices.  But there was no choice about what news you heard.  You got what they wanted to report.  As the years have gone by, and as more and more channels joined the original three I watched as a child, you had the choice to change the channel, but not what they were reporting.

Even now, they talk about what they want to talk about, but here is the difference when you get your news from the computer:  Now you can scroll through the headlines of endless stories and click on the ones you want to read.

One cute incident:  our Oxford elders called this evening after two failed batches of chocolate chip cookies.  I walked them through the basic Nestles Toll House cookies recipe.  They sent this:

We had our Saturday night mission call.  It was all about RootsTech - which is going to be awesome this year.  SK and I have attended in years past, when we could stay in the Hotel Lia and commute into Salt Lake City.  We still paid a few hundred dollars to go to a smorgasbord of amazing family history and research classes.   I felt like a kid in a candy shop.

I have helped three people from Oxford get started on familysearch.org now, and am excited to share with them about this fantastic opportunity.

This year, the church is footing the bill to make it available for free to anyone wishing to attend.  There will be so many classes, so many wonderful helps and so much help for everyone from beginner to pro.  We watched some videos about it on the meeting.  It was said that to have access to all of the records and information on Roots Tech, you would normally pay $18,000.  And here it is free!

That sounds like a bargain.  Last year it was held in London, and it was going to be held in London again this year.  So go to the home page and register:  https://www.rootstech.org/?lang=eng

To register, you only need give your name and email address and agree to their privacy policy.  Right on the home page is a button you can click to find out the origin of your surname!  I typed in Checketts and found this:  "unexplained."  I don't know if it means the name means "unexplained" or if there is no explanation for the meaning of the name.  Oh well.  

I also found out that there are 785 Checketts in England, 269 Checketts in U.S. and 12 Checketts in New Zealand.  Of course, that doesn't include people like me - who are no longer known by that name!

There will be activities and challenges designed to help youth and young adults get connected, which will be interesting and rewarding.  Tell your teens about it! There is also a great deal of information about it on Facebook.   https://www.facebook.com/RootsTech/posts/3827587133954860

Once you're connected, you will have opportunities to engage in great activities - like finding out who of your relatives are registered for Roots Tech.  It is just fun.  And the really good news?  It will be available for you to watch for up to a year....at your leisure.

I'm hoping our mission president will say "Take those days and immerse yourself in the RootsTech conference.  The only thing is that he has probably seen the announcement that it will be available 24/7 for up to a year as you choose.

I am more than happy to focus on mission goals....but it is exciting when they collide with things like family history!