I have been working at the Family History Library since May 2009 as a Church Service Missionary. Here at the library there was a Missionary, Pat Smith, that is a Native American (Indain). She has been working here at the library for 10 years. She comes in on Mondays every week. She is very knowledgable. She uses a walker and takes oxygen from a tank.
One day out of curiosity, I went to her and asked her to show me how to help Native Americans find information about their ancestors. She showed me how to use the Dawes Rolls and the Guion Miller Rolls. She taught me how to use them. Then she wanted me to learn more about Native American research. I told her that I did not think I had any native american ancestors. She said that was allright. She just needed someone that was interested in doing Native American Research. So, I said I would help.
Pat has a 3 inch binder that contained 10 years of materials on Native American Research. Pat let me look at it several times and had me copy a couple of items from the binder.
About this time, another missionary, Sister Cameron, who has three Native American lines also became interested in helping. She asked Pat if she could take the 3 inch binder home and scan it onto a flash drive. Pat thought that would be fantastic. Sister Cameron took it home, but she could not find the time to scan it so she brought it back to Pat.
So, I asked Pat if I could take it home to scan it and put it on my flash drive. Pat said that would be great. Once I got it on my flash drive, I decided to put the information on a blog (web log - a free internet site). I created a blog called "Native American Research". The internet address is http://nativeamericanresearch.blogspot.com/
I created the blog last weekend and put information about the Dawes Rolls, the Guion Miller Rolls and several Native American Tribes onto the blog.
On Monday, I asked Sister Cameron to look at it. After looking at it, we decided to get together to look at the blog. Today, 8 July 2010, Sister Cameron and I huddled around a computer and looked at the blog. As we were doing this, another sister, Sister Camille Thomas, came up to us and said, "Elder Davis and Sister Cameron, I want you to pay close attention to what I am going to tell you."
She said, "Right now, there are four Native Americans around you: A Navajo, a Black Hawk, and two other Native Americans. One of them is dressed like a medicine man. He has placed his hands over your eyes and given you a blessing that your eyes will be better. These Native Americans are very anxious that this internet site be successful."
I told Sister Thomas to thank them, which she did and they said "You are welcome"
I did not feel their presence or see them, but I know they were there.
