Flying Solo

We didn't exactly go flying, but we are on our own now. Our trainers went home this week. They both gave wonderful talks in our weekly Zone devotional on Monday morning. They were supposed to speak two weeks ago, but just as it was their turn the power went out so they got bumped. There is construction going on all over, not just at the Temple. Sister Hansen gave Elder Wilcox last minute instructions to make sure she didn't forget anything she wanted to train him in.

On Tuesday we have a shorter zone devotional to begin our day. It is only on Zoom and usually lasts only 20 or so minutes. We do that every Tuesday and Thursday morning. We are scheduled to present on August 10th. We then had our Team meeting in person. That has been on Zoom most of the time, but we will be doing in person every week starting August 17th. We did it in person on July 27th because it was the last one the Hansens attended and we had a potluck luncheon following the Team Meeting. We were responsible for organizing everything and I think it turned out really well. During Covid we were able to hold things like Potluck luncheons on the 26th floor, but now that people are coming back that floor is getting booked a lot so we had to find a different venue. 

We chose a room we have on the 28th floor and it really turned out nice. We had previously purchased gifts for the Hansens and for Elder Sitake who also left us recently. He is a Church Service Missionary. His wife just retired so she wanted to serve as well. He was transferred to the Church History Library so he could work with her. We still get to see him and his wife as they are both Tongan Interpreters, plus we tend to see them in the cafeteria during lunch almost everyday. On a side note, we have this wonderful elder brother who plays the piano for us during lunch everyday. Now that COVID is virtually done he is back everyday. It is such a treat.

Elder Sitake shared with us on Tuesday what he and his wife were told when they started at the Church History Library. They were told they were prayed there. The library had recently received some historical documents from Tonga and no one could read them. Since Elder Sitake and his wife are from Tonga, they are the only ones who can read these documents. When he shared that, the Spirit witnessed to me the truthfulness of what he shared and I couldn't hold back the tears. His wife also shared a very special experience she had the first time she did interpretation for us just a few weeks ago. Needless to say our luncheon turned into a very special experience for everyone. The Hansens also shared their testimonies and some of their experiences during their year and a half with Interpretations.

We got the Hansens a beautiful picture of the Salt Lake Temple and a door hanging plaque that says "Welcome" in a bunch of different languages. They really like it. They left shortly after the luncheon to visit their son and grandchildren who live in the area. They only came in briefly on Wednesday afternoon so they could attend one last event and not at all on Thursday.  They left on Friday.

Tuesday after work we finally got to go to the Temple. We have been unable to schedule appointments because our records are still in Oregon and you can only schedule within your Temple District. However, our Mission President has been working with some of the Temples around us and the Jordan River Temple has agreed to schedule several sessions a month just for our Mission. Our Zone gets one of those sessions so we can now go monthly. It also sounds like they are allowing us to start scheduling sealings and sessions in some of the other Temples. I'm very excited to schedule some sealings.

On Wednesday we had a treat when I got a text from Shirleen Bland. They were in town and wanted to come by for a visit. They were also visiting some friends of theirs from when they lived in Dayton who were just called to the Family Search Mission. So we got to give them all the grand tour of our mission and had a very nice visit with them. 

That evening we had an event for the Single Adults. It was a Concert pre-recording. Since it was already pre-recorded the engineers skipped through all the songs and just went straight to the interviews with the artists. The first one was with Alex Boyé. He had a fascinating story to share. They also interviewed Jenny Oaks Baker. The only comment the Interpreters made after the recording as how fast they talked and how hard it was to capture everything. Anyway, because they skipped all the songs it was an hour shorter then originally expected.

Thursday and Friday we were completely solo. We had the Caribbean Youth Conference event Friday evening. We ate dinner with a couple from Holland.  The wife's brother is in Holland and Interprets for us as well. He actually did a Dutch only session on Thursday and Sunday for the same event. On Friday we had Dutch, Mandarin, French, and Spanish all in our building. It was a concert followed by a devotion. The music was great. The speakers were good too, but they were all in Spanish and we didn't get the English interpretation so just took our Interpreters word for it.

Saturday we visited Erin Mildenhall Atkin. She was one of my favorite Seminary students from many years ago. She is married now and has the cutest little 1-year-old boy. We had a wonderful visit. I realized after we left that I didn't get any pictures. I am so bad about that. I'll try to remember to take pictures the next time we go for a visit.

We had the sweetest experience in our Sacrament meeting today. During the summer we have lots of visitors in our meetings. Today the extended family of one our missionary couples came not only to visit, but so their 8-year-old daughter could be baptized and Grandma and Grandpa could be there.  Grandma stood up to bare testimony and pretty much talked to her granddaughter and grandson. She shared how a bowl of fruit that was part of their dinner after the baptism had fallen off the table and the blackberries got smooshed in the carpet. It was a mess. She then talked about receiving promptings before that happened to not put the bowl of fruit in that place. She talked back to the promptings and said it would be OK as she was going to take care of it. She got a prompting again and again said it was Ok. One more time the prompting came. Then her son picked up the bowl and it fell on the floor and the big mess followed. She talked about listening and obeying promptings when we hear them. And if we do that we will continue to receive promptings in our life to guide us and help us. She also talked about how she got on her hands and knees and scrubbed the carpet until it was clean again. She compared that to getting on our knees and praying and repenting when we sometimes make a mess of things in our life.

A little later the Mission President got up and asked the young girl and her brother to come up to the pulpit and stand by him. He then told them that where they were standing is exactly where President Nelson stands when he gives a talk in his own ward. He said President Ballard and President Oaks stand there too. He then asked them to look out one of the windows on the east side of the Chapel that we were sitting on and told them that is where President Nelson's office is. He then told them to look out the other window on that side and said that is where President Oak's office is. And finally he told the little girl that he wanted her to remember that when she was 8 years old she stood there at that pulpit and looked out those windows and saw where the President of the Church worked and stood. He wanted her to remember that and think about that when she was 80. It was a very sweet experience.

We love being here and all the wonderful experience we get to have every single day. We love serving the Lord every single day too!