Saturday night with Rich and Lisa

Saturday night after priesthood meeting, we met up with Rich and Lisa Davis, our favorite 2nd cousins! (but we love them like we were 1st cousins!!) Our paths have crossed many times, starting with my early days at BYU where I met Rich and his sister Diane. My Grandma Dana would talk of how she loved their mother, Barbara Jean. She would always tell me that she and her sister Maude (Rich and Diane's grandma) wanted us to meet; that they knew we would be wonderful friends. We did meet and became great friends. For some reason in the later part of my BYU career my path began to cross more with Rich than Diane. Rich and I even ended up in the same ward the year before we both got married. Rich married Lisa in August of 1982 and I married Bob in November of 1982. Then as the children began coming, Lauren came first in November and Kirsty in January and the pattern continued with Keifer and Barbie and Justin and Michelle. I think we calculated that the 3 kids are all born within 6 weeks apart. When Lisa would find out she was pregnant, she would call me and ask if I was! We lived in the same town for the 1st part of our marriages and got together often and the kids grew to love their "cousins".
Although Rich and Lisa moved away, we still keep contact and try to get together whenever we can....................enough of the background....last night as we were visiting, laughing and picking up where we left off, (as if we had not been apart) we were catching up on the kids and jobs and everything. We talked about family and our great ancestry that had brought us together. Rich, who has been an avid genealogist following his mission, began telling us another story that had happened many years ago as he felt prompted to work on more genealogy. He said they were preparing to move from Mesa to Italy. They had about 3 weeks to get everything ready and he had a prompting to work on genealogy on the Macdonald line. He followed the prompting and called a few relatives to see if he could gather more research on a line where he had come to a stand still. He was referred to a relative named Lyal Millet who also shared his love of family history. Rich called the man and they conversed and then agreed to meet at the genealogy library across from the Mesa temple on Friday night where he would give Rich some information he had gathered. They had talked about their frustration in this particular spot and how to their best efforts the pieces weren't coming together. They met at the genealogy library, had a pleasant meeting where Lyal Millet shared with Rich his recent heartache due to the passing of his wife and they talked about the research they shared. Lyal gave Rich a box of information that he had been gathering for some time in hopes Rich would have more luck in putting the pieces together than he had been having. Their meeting ended and they both went on their way. The following Monday, as Rich and Lisa were exiting the temple some one posted a eulogy of Lyal Millet (who was a temple worker) at the exit door of the temple. He died a couple of days after his meeting with Rich.
This story has deeply touched me. It reminds me of stories from the Book of Mormon where the records were passed from one to another. It reconfirms to me that the heavens are open and this work is real. I'm grateful that Rich is so dedicated to genealogy and finds such love and passion for it. What a blessing he is to our family and I'm so grateful my Grandma wanted me to meet him! We love him and Lisa and the kids and grand kids and look forward to many fun memories with them!