A talk prepared by Elizabeth Anna Hansen Anderson in her later years:

I am thankful for the membership I have in the church. And for the many blessings I have received. My parents were Lutherans. The missionaries came to our home in Denmark, and five months after I was born, my mother was baptized in 1881 and became a member of the church. Father never joined and was bitter towards the church.

When we children were old enough so we understood not to tell our Father, Mother would send us on an errand every Sunday morning and then we would go to Sunday School at the same time. In the Lutheran Church it was a custom to have all the Children Confirmed when they were 14 years old, so we children were not baptized before that age.

After we became members of the Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), our only desire was to go to Utah. And as my brothers and sisters became of age, they immigrated. After my Father's Death, mother, my two sisters, a brother, and I immigrated also. Before we immigrated, Mother went to the Archives where she obtained her family record. After mother had joined the church, both Father and Mother's family shunned us all. So when we children were growing up, we never knew any of their families, not even their names.

When the Salt Lake Temple was under Construction, I remember the Saints in Denmark were all asked to donate toward the Temple including the Sunday School Children. We should give 25 ore each, which only amounted to 8 pennies in American money, which we children were very proud of. Little did I think then that I would ever have the privilege to immigrate to Utah and to be married and sealed in the temple for life and all eternity and to do work for the dead, but I feel now that I have just done part of the work.

Ever since we were married, we kept up the old Style family and Temple record book which of course we had much use of. I feel thankful for the encouragement we are receiving from the Church Genealogical Organization and I hope we will all be blessed with understanding to perform this responsible and important work. I also hope we will have success in getting our children interested. I can see for myself what I have missed by not getting information about my ancestors while my mother was alive.

I wrote to my brother-in-law in California, asked him if he had our Family Record on my Fathers and Mothers side and I was lucky enough to get it. But it came in form of one sheet of paper about a foot wide and a yard long. Every time I looked at it, my head would start to pound. So I decided I had to get help on it and I am now having it put up to date by an experienced genealogy worker and I hope I will be blessed to see to my work is completed.

I am thankful for the missionaries who brought the gospel to us in a foreign land also for my Mother who brought us up to be members of the Church even through the hardships she had to endure. I ask God's blessing on all of us, Amen.

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True to her faith in God, Grandmother passed away while on her knees praying with Grandfather at the end of the day.