Living Close To City Creek, Temple Square, and the Family History Libraries

Canyon Road Towers

When Kathleen and I came to Salt Lake to serve in the Family and Church History Headquarters mission we weren't sure if we wanted to plant our roots here. We first rented in the Brigham Apartments and then had the chance for more living space in Canyon Road Towers. We decided after my serving two missions and after a lengthy discussion about what was going on in real estate to activate my license in Utah.

This has been such a fun ride. It's been a great decision. I'd say it has been the most successful part of our real estate and mortgage career outside of the fabulous success we had owning our own mortgage company. To top it off I get to stay heavily involved in genealogy and family history.

The benefits of living close to City Creek, Temple Square, and The Family History Library are better than what I anticipated. We love it here. To break up my busy yesterday I walked to the Apple Store to figure something out regarding my new iPhone 6, stopped for a treat at Kneaders, and sat around to enjoy watching folks busy going from one store to another. The day before that Kathleen and I had lunch at our favorite local restaurant, The Blue Lemon. It's a great life style close in and downtown.

We recently took the Christensen family from Missouri on a typical tour of homes for sale in downtown Salt Lake City. We started at Canyon Road Towers and then toured: Garden Towers, Terrace Falls, 838 Condos, One and Nine, Trolley Regent, American Towers, Trevi Towers, and what was available in Zion Summit. Whew, a tiring day for all, but educational. I will let you guess which building was their favorite. Can't guess, call and ask. 801-923-4735.

I have a website where you can see my latest listings, other favorites, and do your own search. Usually I have the search box on  this website but just in case here is the link to it: http://www.homesearchinsaltlake.com/

Many are like us, come and decide to stay. Others are like the folks from Missouri who have family here and want a second home or like recent buyers from Idaho Falls who think they will retire here. In Canyon Road Towers several started with this as their second home and now their homes in Pocatello are the second homes. Many are downsizing which is a challenge.

I certainly feel energized with the success we are experiencing, grateful too. The market was sort of slow for most agents and sellers last year. That changed in early January. All indicators confirm that the market is going strong now. It's an important time to take action if you are considering downtown Salt Lake City.

Serving A Family History Mission

Church Headquarters Campus

Family History Library

Church History Library

Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Church Office Building

Administration Building

Temple Square

Publishing this website is for me motivated by serving as a missionary at family history - church headquarters and my recent attendance at the  RootsTech Family History Conference.

For many years I have enjoyed working on my family tree. I seem motivated now to include working on life histories as part of my love of genealogy. Even though this will be a part time hobby I will try and regularly post relevant articles regarding my research. I will also post stories, sites, tools, and technology information I discover.

Kathleen and I are serving full time here in Salt Lake City. Kathleen is supporting questions from family history centers and training family history center directors. My assignment is involved in recruiting and processing people to serve part time and at home in family history service. We work in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building which is part of the Church Headquarter Campus. Please leave a comment if there is something we can do to help you.

The family names in the pages to the right are those including my Great Grandparents lines. The next generation includes: Osborne, Amick, Freeman, White, De La Garza, Oneal, Rich, and Kilbourne.

There are ways both members and those not members of the LDS church can serve. The family history libraries, indexing in general, and the 1940 census indexing project are area's anyone can serve.

We have about 500 church members serving 15 or more hours per week from home. These at home missions are becoming more important. We expect a need of 1000 more at home missionaries in the near future. Some of this is driven by the growing interest in genealogy, some will be driven when we open up the new Family Tree to everyone, and the need is great even now. At home missionaries go through two months of training. It consists of about 1.5 hours a day plus practice for those two months.  These are support callings. Questions are coming into church headquarter in such great quantities that the full time staff and missionaries just can't answer fast enough.  At home missionaries login and take the questions for help.