When We're Helping We're Happy!

And we sing as we go;                    
And we like to help others,

For we all love them so.

Many, many years ago I received my Patriarchal Blessing. I have read and studied it many times over the years as I have used it help guide my life. Several places in my blessing it talks about "an important mission", but never really tells me what that mission is. I have pondered that many times and tried to figure out what my mission in life is.

As I have served now for a little over 6 weeks I think I know what my "important mission" is. I am to give service in whatever way is needed. I had an epiphany last week that helped me realize this. Since we got here we have been extremely busy and consequently we have been extremely happy. We have loved every minute of our service.

July, things started to slow down and that was OK; because, we had plenty of learning to catch up on. Last week was the slowest we've had and according to our trainers it was the slowest they've had in the 1 1/2 years they've been here. We were pretty much caught up and trying to find some busy work to do. I started getting a little depressed and I didn't know why. I was still happy to be here and I still love my mission; but, something was missing. I prayed to know what was missing and why I was feeling the way I was feeling.

About that same time Steve (Dad, Grandpa, Elder Wilcox) started asking questions about ways to make his tasks easier for him to remember and easier to do. He has a lot more different things that he does than I do and having it all thrown at him at once was a bit overwhelming. So, we started looking at some of the tasks he does and seeing if there were ways to group some of the spreadsheets together. Low and behold I started getting happy again. 

For example he had about 3 to 5 different spreadsheets to track meals that we are responsible for providing for the interpreters before events. As we opened each one and realized that it pertained to the food in some way we added it to an existing spreadsheet we had that tracked the actual meals by date. We added the "rotating menus" as a separate sheet to the workbook. Then we added the outside restaurants that we sometimes use so we have all the places we get meals from in one place. I then asked Steve what he has to do to choose a meal from the catering services at the Church Office Building (COB) where we work. Our rotating menus were just the main course and he said he has to choose a salad and some side dishes and desserts and drinks from a list of offerings. SOOOOOO, I decided to see if I could add the options to the spreadsheet and make it so he could just choose the main dish from a drop down menu and then some of the available offerings would automatically show under the main dish. He could then choose which ones he wanted by putting a number of servings next to it. ALL zeros would then be eliminated and his complete menu would be available to copy and send to the catering service.

He used it for the first time last week for a meal we are having next week. It worked pretty slick.

Next we tackled his event and interpreter tracking. He needs to know who is coming in order to provide a list to the parking personnel so interpreters can get into the COB parking. That also gives him a head count for the meals.  The training had him tracking all these things in different spreadsheets so he was copying the same people multiple times and pasting them into a different spreadsheet for parking, meals, access badges, and reminder emails, etc. He also tracks the events in a master spreadsheet and then copies and pastes some of that information into several of those different spreadsheets. As we opened each spreadsheet and determined what it was used for we again realized we could consolidate the information into one master workbook. With several lookup functions he is now able to enter the event information in one place and have it populate in several other worksheets. He can also select his interpreters from a drop down list and have it bring in all the information he needs for parking, access badges, expired contracts, and much more. So with those two things we went from about 10 different spreadsheets down to 2.

Yesterday, I took it a step further and created an email merge so from that Master Spreadsheet he can now connect to a Word template that will automatically fill in event name, date, time, etc. and send out email reminders to the interpreters with all the information they need to know for the event, meal, and parking. He will get to try that out this week for our Wednesday event.

And finally, to finish my thoughts about my "important mission", I'll tie it back to this past week. We had the first leg of the Temple President Leadership Seminar on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening. Next month we will finish the seminar. I was really looking forward to listening to the talks in these sessions; however, I found myself spending a lot of time working with different interpreters and supervisors with different computer issues. Interpreters needed help with submitting invoices. Supervisors needed help with a program we use that is not particularly user friendly. I was very happy to help and found myself filled with joy. I heard a few talks, but the joy I felt from helping was even better.

So, I believe my "important mission" is to help wherever and whenever I can. That is what I was called here to do. And I will do the very best I can to help everyone I can in everyway I can and whenever I can. Because....

When We're Helping We're Happy!!!