Hobbies and Interests

Dale Kroeker 2010

This Blog is a compilation of my various Hobbies I have, as well as my various day to day routines which have impressed me. My Hobbies/interests include Hiking and Backpacking, (This includes equipment for backpacking), online service projects, Family History, Music, and reading. I will be adding links to various sites to this page in future posts..

As you can tell, many of my interests do involve the church in which I do belong. (The church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.) Although I am a member of the LDS Church, I do not represent the Church as a whole. I will however do my best to interpret my views the best I can on Church info. Feel free to click on the side links or the video playlist below to get more information about the church and its values. You can also click here for my Pinterest board on my beliefs 

Family

Our family consists of 7 people: We Have from left to right top row, Jared, Myself and Adrian. In the Middle row from left to right is Jason, My wife and Daniel. Kneeling on the bottom is our only daughter Chelsea.

I have started a family blog and can be found here. This blog has activities such as what we did as a family as well as photos.

Church Activities

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, I have had many oppurtunities to be of service to other people. I have been a primary teacher (twice), Elders quorum secretary, Ward Family history consultant, Stake Family History Consultant, Family History Librarian (ten years), financial clerk (three times), membership clerk, and my present calling as a Ward Clerk. My favourite callings have been involved with doing Family History Work.

 I have had the oppurtunity to help out in a number of community service projects put on by Church Members.

• This includes being part of food drive for our local Food Bank. The members would distribute flyers on an assigned route into the community to tell when we would be out picking up the food. On the specified day to pick up the food, we would then go out  in our same assigned routes, pick up the food, and drop the food off at the church.  We would the food  onto the Food bank trucks.
• The members in our ward (local church unit) have also assisted in volunteering for building houses for Habitat for Humanity. This was of interest to me, especially when one of those houses they were assisting to build was my house. We spent one Saturday to assist in the construction. Much was accomplished that day.

Life itself has had its fare share of trials and problems. We have had to raise to Autistic twin boys. Our Hopes and dreams for them have been put on hold. Also, I have my own disability  which I have been living with. I do not know if living with the disability was worse, or taking drugs for controlling this disability was worse. I was councilled when using this medication not to put myself in stressful situations. (raising autistic children can be stressful).  The good news, is that the doctors have finally given me a new medication (Only been on the market for the last year) which does not have the side effects which previous medications have had. In reflecting upon the my past life, It has been the church and the gospel which has kept life more livable and given me perspective. The church and the gospel is like the glue which has kept things put together. The amazing thing is that I am still happily married to my wife of 26 years. I have been able to view things on a more eternal perspective. Some challenges can be resolved now while other problems may need to be resolved after this life is over.

Family History.

For the last 32 years, I have had an interest in Family History. During this time, I have been a Family History Librarian, Stake Family History Consultant, Ward Family History Consultant. I have really enjoyed my time in the service in family history. When I first started family history, everything was done by paper and pen. You needed to go to a family history library or use snail mail correspondance to find information on your ancestors. Now family history is done on computers, internet and email. There are websites devoted to finding your ancestors. One such site is Family Search site put on by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.  This site is free for anybody to use and/ or contribute. Some of the records are now online for others to view.

Have you ever wanted to create a family history fan chart to pin on the wall at home or for a family re-union? This web site will help you create a fan chart If you have not signed up, You will need to use your user name and password created while you were in family search or go to the login page to create an account. Your information will need to be in the family search site already for the fan chart to work.

If you want to contribute your family history, you can go to the family search site and enter your information.

If you want to volunteer in family history online, you can index records . This will help to make many of the online records searchable.

As a member of the LDS Church, family history work has become a very significant part of my life. We believe that the family unit can exist beyond this life and not "till death do us part." We do vicarious work for our ancestors in the LDS temples built all over the world. A display widget on the left side which shows many of the LDS temples.  

Online Service Projects.

I am currently Involved in an online service project as a Facebook Administrator. My responsibility is to permit people into a closed Genealogy Facebook group  https://www.facebook.com/groups/855993304493098/ I also track the members areas of genealogy research, Develop memes and distribute video content related to family history in this group

On July 2nd, Family Search Indexing Volunteers set a record for the number of records being indexed. 7,258,151 Indexed 3,082,728 Arbitrated 10,340,879, Total.  This was done by 46,091 indexers and arbitrators who participated in this historic event. I managed to get in some names.  I was working on the 1940 Census Records for the United States.

Another cool Family History Related activity is found at the Billion Graves Web site. If you have a smartphone, Ipad, Ipod, or Tablet with a camera, You can go to a cemetery near you and take pictures of the gravestones.  These pictures can then be downloaded to their website for other people to index. These indexed records will eventually go onto the Family Search web site for others to see.

Hiking Equipment

The following blog was created because of one of my favourite hobbies/interests, that of Hiking/backpacking. Before you can go Hiking, you need the appropriate equipment to aid you in your adventure. The following are some of the items in which I have used so far while backpacking. Feel free to add to the posts.

In the above picture I am wearing a number of items which may be of interest to you..

The first item is called a 2C solar light cap. I have found this useful for the following night time activities, Walking the dog, reading or setting up at camp, as well as power failures. No need to use batteries. Wear it during the day, and the solar panel in the cap will keep it charged.

The next item is called the Ribz Frontpack. While Hiking, have you ever needed something, but remembered that it is buried deep in your backpack? With the front pack you can put such items in the front for easy access.  These included items such as Flashlights, maps, snacking foods, gloves, etc.

The next item is called Geigerrig Hydration Pack. This unique design allows you to have pressurized water to used while backpacking or Hiking. Go to the website to see the other benifits

Music.

I had the opportunity to sing in the Millwoods stake choir on December 10th and 11th. The choir sang Handel's Messiah. The turn out was great, and many people were very impressed with the performance. We had been practicing at the church every Sunday evening since September to do this production. The sound system made us sound pretty good. A recording of the performance was also made.

Another place I like to listen to music is on the Music Channel on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint . You can click here

My music interests include artists such as Josh Groban, Celine Dionne, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Ryan Dan.

Another musical group in which I was impressed with is called Vocal point. They were recently in the NBC program The Sing off. (An Capella group) from BYU Provo. Their music can be found on Itunes.

Here is a group that I really like on You-Tube. they are the Piano Guys.  I have created a playlist of many of my favorite songs from this group and I hope you enjoy it