Suzanne Du Puis

(Suzanne Third from left back row)

Suzanne Du Puis

Suzanne Du Puis was born in Villers-Cotterêts on March 25, 1882 to Alphonese Emilie Du Puis and Angeline Hortense Blanche Nodot.  She married to Pol Censier and had one child – Jean Censier in 1908.

Pol Censier was born in 1876 in Reims, France and his wife Suzanne was born just 80 km away.  I can imagine my great grandparents visiting Paris since they were not considered poor and lived somewhat close to this historical city.  At age 34, Pol died of unknown causes.  Jean was almost 2 when his father died and doesn’t remember him very well.  Suzanne remarried to Raoul Benison and Jean always remembered him as “Papa” and remembers him as a father.  Both Pol and Raoul were chemists I was told that Suzanne lived in Paris with Jean and Raoul for a little while when Jean was young for Raoul’s job.

When Jean was 17 he wanted to come to America which would mean that Suzanne would be left alone.  Raoul had already died and I am sure it was difficult for Suzanne to part with her only son.  Suzanne only saw her son a couple of times when he came back for army responsibilities until she moved to America.

My mother told a very interesting story about Suzanne’s possessions during the war and what happened to them to me.  Suzanne was living alone during the war and the Germans took over the houses in her village.  She was forced to leave her house as well as her beautiful items and expensive furniture and china. The Germans destroyed all houses in that area as well as the possessions that was in the houses.  Because of the wonderful trinkets and things of values her house was spared.  The main reason for this was because, during the German invasion, they found a tiny pair of German scissors.  The Germans did not destroy any of her personal belongings because of the scissors and she was able to bring them over to America and we still have these pieces today.

Suzanne was brought to America after the war to stay with Jean and his family.  Jean wanted her to come so they could take care of her in her old age.  She came over on the Normandy in November 1946.  She learned to speak English while my mother (her grand daughter) was taught to speak French. 

When my mother came home one day from school one of the china cabinets had fallen over and Suanne and Jean’s wife were putting all of the broken pieces back together. She loved these pieces of China and still to this day, my mother has a lot of these pieces that were glued back together on that day.

Suzanne died of a heart attack on March 3, 1955 and my mother remembers this event still while she was only 8 years old.

Picture at Summer Lake house (Green pond NJ) (Pictured from Left to Right: Edith Durant, Denise Stewart (in arms), Suzanne Du Puis, Suzanne Censier, Roby Censier, Jean Censier (Back)

Jean Censier

Jean was born in Braine, Aisne, France on October 14, 1908.  He was born to Pol Censier Suzanne Du Puis.  He was an only child and moved to a lot of different areas as a child.  His father, Pol, died when Jean was almost 2 years old.  He did not remember much about him unfortunately but his mother remarried a few years later to Raoul and Jean remembers him for much of his childhood.

Jean was considered to be somewhat of a troublemaker when he was young.  He was a brave young man and had to fend for himself for a lot of his life.  A funny story that I was told was that when Jean was only three years old, a dog was nipping at him.  Jean went and bit at the dog and bit the dog’s nose off.  He was a very tall man standing at 6’1 while most French men were about 5’5”.  He stood out and as a boy was kind of rough around the edges.  He got into fights and into trouble in school.  When Jean was 10 or 11 years old, the house that they lived in had no electricity.  Jean was very handy and hooked up a system so that the house had electricity.

Jean was 17 and wanted to come to America and at this point Raoul had died.  Jean had a very difficult decision, since he was an only child and his mother would be left alone. He decided to come to America and he had some names to contact and only a little money that he had saved up.  He called some of his contacts and told them that he had a background as a chemist.  His first job was in a chemical factory.  He actually almost died while working in the factory while working with a huge amount of chemicals and quit his job after this experience.  He then got another job selling lace material in Union City, New Jersey and then went to New York and worked selling high-class silks.  He was a self-taught self-made man. 

His plan was to stay in America only for a little while but ended up staying for his life.  He went back to France only a couple of times.  He was called to serve in the French Army and fulfilled his required time.  He was called back to France to serve in WWII and didn’t because he had a family in America.  He had married his wife Didi and had two children at this time.  He had become an American citizen by this time but never denounced his French citizenship and therefore was obligated to serve in the war.  He thought that he would be punished for not returning to France for the war and chose not to return to his home and mother.

My Personal History (Part 1)

My name is McKenzie Wallace Stewart and I was born on October 1, 1986 in Westwood, New Jersey.  I have a twin brother named Graham Hart who was born just seven minutes after me.  The way we got our names is because my mom, Denise Censier Stewart, wrote a list of names and my dad, Gary Hulling Stewart, picked the top two names because he thought they were my mom’s favorites.  I was born into a family with 4 older brothers and 2 older sisters.  When I was 5, another addition came into my family.  I finally had another younger brother, Zachary Alden Stewart.

My siblings’ names from youngest to oldest are as follows: Zachary Alden, Graham Hart, Tyler Durant, Whitney Leigh, Ryan Gibson, Lindsay Heather, and Jason Crawford.

            Growing up, I lived in Demarest NJ in one house.  I lived there until I was 21 years old.  I graduated high school in 2005.  I went and worked for the next 3 years. Growing up, I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I went to church, I fulfilled my callings, but I never really gained my own testimony.  When I was 18 years old, I went to EFY and gained my testimony.  I remember reading the scriptures and feeling the spirit really strongly.  The next day, we had a testimony meeting, and again that feeling came back.  I knew right there that I had to change my life around and I also knew that I was supposed to serve a mission.

            I didn’t always make the right choices, but I always tried to correct them.  I tried my best to follow the strait and narrow path.  Something else that helped me to go on my mission, although I had made the choice to serve before this happened, was my twin brother died.  He was in a motorcycle accident and he passed away almost instantly when we were 19 years old.  When I graduated high school, I prayed to know if I should go to college, I had received a full ride scholarship to Wesleyan University, or I should stay home and work.  I received the guidance to stay home.  At this point in my life, I was thinking if I had made the right choice.  I figured that I would be on my mission and that is why I stayed home from college, but I was still living at home and not on my mission.  When my brother passed away, I realized that was the reason why I was at home was because I needed to spend the time with my brother.  While I was at home working, I worked nearly every day with Graham.  I spent so much time with him during that year and a half and that time was so amazing.  I got so close to him and after he died, of course I was upset for a long time, I looked back and couldn’t remember the last time we fought.  I cherish that time that I had with him and it really helped me to cope with losing him.

            I finally put my mission papers in and received a call.  I was to serve in the Yekaterinburg, Russia mission starting on April 8, 2008.  This was some of the greatest time of my life.  I loved serving for the Lord.  Don’t get me wrong, because it was hard.  There was a lot of overcoming trials, and a lot of discouragement, but that just helped me to grow.  I learned to the Spirit talks to me and I learned how to rely on the Lord.  I was able to see my testimony grow so much on my mission as well as see other people gain a testimony.  Although it was a difficult mission, I saw so much success.  I was able to baptize 8 people and bring them to learn the gospel.  Each of those stories is in my missionary journal, which can be read anytime.

            Something else that I am proud of is how much I followed the rules.  I came off my mission with no regrets.  I worked hard and I left nothing behind.  Although it was it was sometimes difficult to wake up every day on time, I feel that the Lord knew that I was trying and he helped me have the energy to pull myself out of bed.  I tried to be 100% obedient and I tried to work as hard as I could.  I know that the Lord accepted my sacrifice of work, because he blessed me with success.  He helped me over come my trials and struggles, and he allowed me to be guided by the spirit.  On my mission, I truly felt that I became an instrument in the Lord’s hands.

            Serving in Russia, I obviously spoke Russian.  I got into the MTC and thought that I would never learn the language.  Just a few weeks into the MTC I saw the Lord helping me learn the language.  I studied Spanish in high school for 3.5 years and barely learned anything.  Just a few weeks in the MTC I had already learned as much Spanish as I did in 3.5 years.  I know that the Lord helped me in this difficult task.  When I got to Russia, I struggled but I tried as hard as I could.  I started to be able to teach the gospel with ease.  Within only a few months, I was able to have conversations outside of the gospel topics and then a few months later I started to better understand what people said to me.  I remember the time that I understood everything that was being said to me in a lesson.  What a great experience I had with receiving the gift of tongues.  The only way that I could have learned Russian was with the spirit and from the gift of tongues.

            After I got home from my mission, I adjusted pretty quickly to get back to “normal life”.  I went on a few dates and it didn’t take me too long to meet the most wonderful woman in the world.  I remember it so well; I went to a young single adult conference and sat near Tanya.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened until about 5 minutes into the talk.  Since I hadn’t been to my home ward in two years, I didn’t know a lot of people.  I kept asking who people were and when this girl walked in, I asked who she was.  She told me that her name was Lauren and she was a nanny from Utah.  I spoke to her for a couple of minutes after the talk but it wasn’t for a very long time.  I went home and thought a lot about her.  On Sunday I got called to be young single adult FHE coordinator.  This allowed me to have access to all the YSA’s phone numbers.  I texted all the people that might want to come to an FHE at my house.  Unfortunately, it was mother’s day and I got no responses except from Lauren.  She came over and she was the only one.  Whitney and her family were at my house and we all played apples to apples.  That was when I got to know her a little and starting thinking of her if she could be more than just a friend.  Over the next week we started texting and then we went out on a date.  She was so easy to talk to and she and I got along so well.  For our first date, we went to dinner at Bensi’s, which is an Italian restaurant.  We then tried to go miniature golfing, but it turned out to be closed.  We sat in the car for a few minutes trying to decide what we should do.  Neither of us wanted the night to end.  We decided to go back to the Broadbent’s house (she worked and lived there) and watch a movie.  We watched Valentine’s Day and we started to talk a lot more.  We spent a lot of time together and finally we started officially dating. 

            I remember talking to her about our future and knowing that I could spend the rest of my life with her.  We talked about marriage and both agreed that it was the right idea for both of us.  She and I prayed together and we both felt the spirit so strongly.  Over the next couple of weeks we made plans of what was going to happen.  Before anything serious happened, I wanted to meet her family.  I kind of knew that I would be living out west, and I would need a family where we lived.  I needed to know that I would be able to rely on her parents like I would my parents.  I went out to go meet them and I told her that it was a make it or break it deal.  Obviously, everything went well and I asked her parents for their blessing to marry their daughter.  We went to the Bountiful temple and she and her sister did some baptisms while her parents and I did an endowment session.  While in the Celestial room, I asked them if it would be all right to marry Lauren and they agreed.  They shared some wonderful stories about her and the family and it was so nice that they treated me like family.

Family History Indexing Report

Indexing is the process of putting indexes, or researched ancestral information, for record collections.  This allows researchers to quickly find records for specific individual.  It gives them access to these indexes online and allows them to search through them electronically.

            Over the past 4 weeks, I spent over 7 hours of indexing.  I was planning on only spending 5, as per the assignment, but I got so into it and lost track of time.  I started off with doing the batches from the United States and found that I could do some other areas.  I started doing England and Australia and then I even did a few that were Russian.  I am not sure what record type is but I am assuming it is the type of record that was submitted.  I mainly did people that travelled on ships.  The time period varied between 1850-1945.

The screen shot above was pretty difficult.  Russian script is very difficult to read.  I actually brought it to someone that is from Russia and they were able to help me with the rest of the batch.  I tried not to reject any of the batches that I did.  I know that it doesn’t get submitted as final until a few people go through each entry and have the same entries. 

Over the past 4 weeks, I was able to submit 85 batches.  Some were longer than others and some had only one name but I tried to work as fast as I could so I could get to more names.  I never used arbitration and am still confused how to use it for submitting my indexes.  I was indexing and it seemed to be a lot of single people and then I came upon a family of 6 people.  I thought it was really nice and I thought in my head that I was helping a family find their ancestors and maybe they are able to add an entire family to their ancestor list.

A lot of the text that I came across was typed but some of it was difficult to read.  I tried to sound out the letters before it and after to make a common name.  That seemed to be the easiest way of doing it.  I would definitely recommend indexing to others because it is a lot of fun and it also has a really important meaning behind it.  It allows people to find their family members from documents that they would normally not be able to search.

Plan of Salvation Worksheet

The Plan of Salvation

References	Answers
1.    Abraham 3:21–22; D&C 93:29–30	Man was also in the beginning with God before the world was created.
2.    Hebrews 12:9	We were created and perfected by our Father.
3.    Jeremiah 1:5	The Lord created a plan before he created us.  He knew us before we were born and we were called of God.
4.    Revelation 12:7–9; D&C 29:36–39	A war was fought in heaven and the Devil was cast out and those that followed him were cast out as well.
5.    Genesis 1:27–28; Abraham 3:24–26	Man was created in the image of God both male and female.  We were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth.
6.    Job 38:1–7	God created the earth and the stars and when everyone was joyous.
7.    Acts 2:37–40; Alma 12:24	We are commanded to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.  This will give us the chance to return to God and receive the Holy Ghost.
8.    Revelation 12:12	The devil is here to tempt us.  In the last days, he will be cast out and will not be able to tempt anyone.
9.    Hebrews 11:5	Death will come to all except those that have been and will be translated like Enoch.
10.1 Corinthians 15:22	Everyone will die like Adam did but because of Christ, we will all live again.
11.Luke 23:39–43; Alma 40:11–12	Christ suffers on earth and is rebuked.  Christ is crucified and talks about paradise.
12.1 Peter 3:18-21; 1 Peter 4:6; Alma 40:13–14	There will be the preaching of the gospel to the dead.  Those that accept the gospel will be in spirit paradise while those that don’t accept will be in spirit prison waiting to be taught.
13.1 Corinthians 15:29	The people that have died and accepted the gospel after death cannot be baptized except from those that are doing the work for the dead.
14.2 Peter 2:4	There will be a judgment where all will be made equal and everyone will receive the gift or punishment that they deserve.
15.Revelation 20:4–6; D&C 88:29; Alma 11:42–45	The judgment is given to everyone.  Those that did not accept the gospel are cast out.  The righteous lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
16.John 5:28–29; D&C 88:30–32	There will come a time where everyone will be resurrected.  Both good and evil will receive eternal happiness or eternal damnation.
17.Romans 14:10–12; John 5:22–31; D&C 101:78	Everyone will stand before Christ and be judged and give an account of their actions unto God.
·       Matthew 16:27	Every man will be rewarded according to his works
·       Revelation 20:12–15	There is a book of life which we will be judged out of
18.Revelation 21:8	The unrighteous will be cast out and have a second death in the lake of fire and brimstone
19.2 Corinthians 12:1–4; D&C 76:81–89	There are three levels of glory – Celestial Terrestrial and Telestial
20.John 14:1–3; D&C 76:71–80	The Lord has a place for everyone and there are plenty houses for everyone
21.1 Corinthians 15:40–42; D&C 76:50–70	The Celestial Glory is of the Sun and the Terrestrial is of the moon and the Telestial is of the stars.  Each one is as different as the other as the moon is to the sun and the stars.
22.Matthew 5:48; 1 John 3:2; Romans 8:17; D&C 132:19–24	We are commanded to be perfect and that is the only way that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father.