Sunday, September 26, 2021

MTC Devotional, BYU Law Symposium, and Wedding

We decided to go into the office on Monday rather than take the day off since we were taking a trip to Idaho at the end of the week. It was a good thing we did. I spent most of the week working on getting Interpreters into the system that only do General Conference. Being the newbie, I asked why they weren't in the system so I could add them to the programs I use. Most of them are either volunteers or Employees that don't get paid for interpreting for General Conference so they have never been entered into the system. Well, I found out they are still supposed to be entered into the system and validated that they are authorized to do interpretations for us. So now we are scrambling like crazy to try and get them in the system by next Saturday. We have made great progress. I asked our manager what do we do with the ones we can't get into the system in time, since they have interpreted for us in the past without being in the system. Since we have been informed why they must be in the system and to be compliant he said we won't be able to use them if they are not in the system so we are working really hard to make it so.

We were responsible for our Family Home Evening message Monday night so we decided to share what we had learned from Curtis a few days before about the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. (See last week's blog.) I put together a little Power Point presentation and it went pretty good.

This week was full of time changes. We had several special interpretations for a few General Authorities that have to take place before General Conference. Usually they use just one Interpreter and that person goes to the office of the General Authority to do the Interpretation. It is a very special experience for them. We, of course, don't get to experience that; but, it is great to listen to the Interpreters tell us of their experiences. This week we had a few that had to be rescheduled at the last minute for various reasons. Plus we had at least two or three that got added at the last minute. We are also scheduling General Conference recordings for General Authorities that are pre-recording their talks. There are a handful that we are doing. Those tend to come at the last minute as well, so I've been busy trying to keep up on those. All the while I'm trying to research Interpreters that need to be fast tracked into the system for General Conference.

On top of that we had an MTC Devotional with Elder Gong on Tuesday evening. The time got bumped up 1/2 because the Engineer wanted to make sure he had plenty of time to do mic checks before the event since it was live. Lucky for us the meal time remained the same. Elder Gong's wife spoke first. She shared how she and Elder Gong met at the MTC and how it is a very special place for them. She focused her talk on keeping the commandments and how that blesses our lives as well as the lives of those around us. She also testified how the Atonement heals us when we break commandments. She used an image of a broken china plate as how we may feel we are broken when we fail to keep the commandments. When we turn to Jesus Christ, He can make us whole again. We are never so broken that we can't be made whole again through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She talked about how artists will use a special glue to put together broken pottery and then sprinkle the repaired piece with gold dusting. The repaired piece is even more beautiful, stronger and more valuable then the original piece. They call the broken pieces "Precious Scars". That is what we can become when we turn to Jesus Christ and let Him heal us.

Elder Gong talked about some things the Savior invites us to do in the scriptures. One of them is to prepare every needful thing. One way to do this, he said, is to make our living place a place of prayer, and fasting, and faith. A place of order. We make our living space a place to receive revelation. He gave several examples on how to study the scriptures and how to get the most out of our study. He shared how to notice the many times things are repeated in the verses and see what they teach us. He showed how everything is tied together. It was pretty awesome to watch him put all that together a piece at a time and then see the finished result. I'm going to look at my scriptures a whole new way.

Wednesday and Thursday I was able to spend much of the day working on my Interpreter research project. We were able to activate quite a few interpreters. We still have a lot left, but I'm hoping to make a lot of progress this coming week. I enlisted the help of one of our part time language coordinators. She sent out a bunch of emails on Friday to our External Language coordinators so we could get those interpreters in the system. That was my largest group of people. Most of those are employees and volunteers. Our manager said if we could get the documents signed and returned before conference we could use them even if they weren't completely set up in the system yet. That will help a lot.

Thursday was another day for changes. We had the BYU Law & Religion Symposium. They changed the time on us three different times. It was pre-recorded so that made it easier for them to change times. Originally it was for noon with a lunch to be served. It would end at 3PM. That was perfect for us as we were leaving right after the event to head to Idaho for Djeryd and Eva's wedding. Well, on Thursday they notified us it was changed to 6:00 PM instead with a 5:00 call time and dinner. A little later they changed the call time to 4:30 but kept the dinner at 5:00. Our wonderful supervisors in charge told us to go ahead and leave just as soon as the meal was over so we left about 5:45.

We were already packed and ready to go so we left immediately. When we got to Idaho Falls, MyLiege called and wanted to know if we wanted to swing by Djeryd and Eva's apartment as they really wanted to show us, and we all met there about 9:00 PM. They have a cute little place and had fun showing it off to us. Then we headed to St. Anthony where MyLiege and Sean rented a big beautiful house. Paul and Carol were with us, too. We stayed up way too late talking before we finally went to bed.

We slept in on Friday before digging in to prepare for the bar-b-que / reception that evening. I jumped

on the computer for a while to make sure I caught anything I needed to take care of. We had a little "celebration" for our 50th anniversary since we were alone the week before. Sierra sent a beautiful family wall hanging to keep track of all our birthdays and extra tokens to add all the new family members we are gaining. I just love it. MyLiege had several of her gorgeous photographs from Silver Creek Falls blown up and mounted to beautify our new apartment. They give a us a little piece of home to look at everyday. Thank you again girls.

Later we did some quick shopping for a few things we needed, like balloons to mark the path to get to the house. Then we headed to Rexburg to pick up Madison so she could attend too. It was so fun to see her and learn all about the fun college life she is living now. We met Eva's family from Texas. Everyone just fit in so nice as if we have known each other for years instead of just a couple of hours. Djeryd's Senior Missionary Couple from his last area in Fiji live in Idaho so they came too. It was fun to get to know them and hear some of the stories they had to share. Steve made his Sword presentation and then Djeryd and Eva cut the cheesecake with the sword. It was fun. Oh, I had a nice surprise when one of Djeryd's room mates (and Eva's boss) showed up. He is a funny guy. Just before he left I found out that his Aunt Tristin is married to my nephew Scotty, who is my youngest brother's (Kris) son. When Mason left he said we were now related and that we had a great family reunion. lol

Saturday morning couldn't have been more beautiful. The weather was perfect. They sun was shining and all was right with the world. The sealing was wonderful. The Sealer was very personable which made it feel like he was family. The next wedding the Temple had scheduled was at noon so they let Sean and MyLiege's girls wait in the anteroom next to the recommend desk in the Temple. That was a special treat for them.

After the sealing we had time to take a lot of pictures. After pictures, Djeryd and Eva took off for a Honeymoon in Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

The rest of us went back to the house and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

We got up early this morning and all headed home. We made it back to Salt Lake City in time to attend our meetings which was very nice.

It has been a wonderful and full week for us. Now comes the busiest week of our mission as we gear up for General Conference this coming weekend. Wish us luck!!!

Love you ALL and have a GREAT week.

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Events, Costco Shopping, Moving, and 50 Years!

We had several major events this past week. I hope some of you watched the Face to Face with Elder and Sister Bednar last Sunday. We had 32 people there. We ate with one of our Cantonese brothers and enjoyed getting to know him better. Because of so many people, we served them down in the cafeteria. Since it was a weekend, that meant we were responsible for the whole meal, setup and cleanup. We missed part of the broadcast since we were still cleaning up. We had already watched the original taping of the broadcast a week or so before, but it was nice to see the edited and finished product. I thought it turned out very well.

Our Monday was typical with more work coming in that we needed to be aware of. We took most of the day off and paid the price on Tuesday when we had some surprises that turned into emergencies. We were informed that we were going to be moving into our remodeled apartment on Friday, so we took most of Monday to do some preliminary packing. Then we held our last Family Home Evening in our West Temple apartment. By unanimous vote, we will be continuing to host Family Home Evening in our new apartment starting tomorrow. We don't mind. We think it is very fun.

So Tuesday morning as we were reviewing our upcoming events we discovered one event that was happening the next morning and required a breakfast. It had been in "Prep" for so long we completely forgot about it. Apparently it came out of "Prep" on Monday and we missed it because of our day off. Anyway, we scrambled and got everything taken care of and our breakfast ordered. We also made final preparations for another event for Wednesday evening that was very large. While Steve was working on the meals, I was working on the final Agenda for our Team meeting that day as well as getting everyone entered into our invoicing system called Plunet.

Right after the Team meeting we went Costco shopping with Baptiste, our lead Supervisor. Apparently we get to do this twice a year right before General Conference. We bought nearly $600 worth of snacks and supplies not only for General Conference, but for all our events for the next 6 months. It was a very fun trip. I mean, how fun is it to buy tons of cookies and candy and chips. We bought a few protein bars too, to throw in a little healthy stuff. 😊

We received an email that day that we were able to move in on Wednesday. I wrote back and said there was no way we could move on Wednesday because of our busy event schedule and was told that that was the earliest we could move and we were OK to wait until Friday. Well, we decided to move in the stuff we packed the day before on Tuesday night. We thought we would just drop it off that night, but ended up unpacking and putting everything away. We also moved some furniture around to better suit us. I'm so glad we did. It made for a late night, but it made it so much better when we moved the rest of our stuff.

So, Wednesday morning started with an Event called Leadership Enrichment Series with Elder Gong. This was a new series so we were all in the dark. That is part of the reason it stayed in "Prep" so long. We just didn't have all the details we needed. We had a total of 19 people, 14 of them were interpreters. This was a zoom meeting with a panel of leaders. One of the main things they talked about was the demographics of the Church from about 1920 to a projection of 2050. It was fascinating. For example, we know that 1998 was when the members of the Church outside the United States became greater than the members living inside the United States. It is projected in 2025 that the members living in Latin America will surpass the members in the United States and Canada. They also shared the world wide Congregation Geography of the Church. Meaning, out of every 100 people how many are US, Europe, Latin American, Asia/Pacific, and Africa. They showed a comparison from 1980 where 72 percent was US and Canada and 2020 where it dropped to 42 percent. That doesn't mean there are fewer members, just that other countries are growing. Latin America is 40 % in 2020. They also showed some projections. Next they shared the Congregation Demographics between married, children, youth, and unmarried adults. Again comparing 1980 to 2020 the numbers are surprising. Married went from 42% down to 32% and unmarried went from 29% up to 54%. It was a fascinating event.

A couple of hours later we were doing the World Report October 2021. We had 21 to feed which included 16 Interpreters (4 languages) plus support staff. This was another crazy event with last minute changes. We actually had several other languages but they were either done on different days in the Conference Center or were done in country. For example Spanish recorded in the Conference Center on Monday. Portuguese on Tuesday. While Portuguese was recording we got word that another segment was being added to the broadcast. Since Portuguese was recording, they just threw that in and got it recorded. Spanish had to come back on Wednesday night with the other languages and just record the new segment. It was crazy. But we got it done. I hope you will all watch the World Report between conference sessions. There are some very cool segments.

We didn't exactly get to watch much of this event because our supervisor, Curtis, is a TALKER. He is fascinating and we always learn so much from him. He is a Joseph Smith expert. For example, several years ago there was some controversy over where Joseph and Hyrum were really buried. Apparently some evidence came out that the bodies were misidentified. Curtis wanted to know for himself if the long held belief was correct or the newer evidence. He had no agenda, he just wanted to know for himself. He is a genius, literally. Long story short, he spent two years researching all the information he could find, visiting the different sites, examining the two reported death masks of the brothers, and taking hundreds of pictures from different angels using a tool he designed and built so he could capture every angle of the death masks. When he was done he was satisfied that the original information was correct and the so called new evidence had been fabricated. He was able to prove scientifically his results. In talking with others he was asked to present his findings to several different organizations, including the Church History Association (not sure if that is the right name.) He even published a paper on the subject that is now used by different organizations and can be found by searching Curtis Weber Joseph Smith. Look for the PDF called Skulls and Crossed Bones.... We read the paper and are presenting it to our FHE group tomorrow. Needless to say he took the whole event time to tell us his story. It was worth every second.

Thursday was a busy day at work so we weren't able to leave as early as we wanted. After work we decided to move more stuff over to the new apartment. Our intentions were to move our bulky items and then go back to West Temple, shower and sleep. Our reality was to move the bulky items, go back to West Temple and pack up everything else and move that too, and go back one more time to get the last remaining things that wouldn't quite fit in the car and move that too. And of course we unpacked almost everything as we got to the apartment. We "finished" a little after 11 and were ready for a shower and bed. HOWEVER, we discovered the water heater gas wasn't turned on. It took Steve about 1/2 hour or more to read the instructions and figure out what the problem was, which was the complicated but safe ignition system. He turned it on and we had to wait for the water to heat up. SOOOOO we decided to finish reading our Come Follow Me lesson while we waited. I think we finally got to bed about 1:30 and 2 before we actually settled down and went to sleep.

We took Friday "off" since that was the day we were supposed to move. We hooked up the Internet and finished unpacking. I was able to start work at home around 10:30. Steve went shopping for a few things we still needed for the apartment. I spent much of the day working on a spreadsheet for General Conference. I contacted my special Excel Help Desk (Season) for some assistance. He helped me again on Saturday with another aspect of the project. Needless to say, this will make the whole General Conference computer interactions much more manageable. For example it would have taking me a couple of days to enter over 100 people into the Plunet system doing it the "old" way I was trained. With the new spreadsheet I had it done yesterday in just a couple of hours. And adding additional people will be a breeze.

On Saturday we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary differently than we ever have before. We started the day with an event at 6:30 in the morning. Baptiste was feeling bad that we had to be there on our anniversary; but, when he called me a little before 7 to tell me that he set his alarm at 6 instead of hitting the road at six he was very glad that we were working the event so we could get it started before he got there. This one was a Middle East/Africa North Devotional. We had French and Arabic languages. It was a Zoom meeting and families were on the call. It was fun to listen to the questions and comments from a number of children as they interacted with the leaders of the Church. They did a fun activity with the group. They showed an QR code on the screen and asked the viewers to scan it with their phones. A question then popped up and they were to key in their answer. As they wrote their one word answers, the screen then showed all the words reflecting in size by the number of people who said the same word. Loving was the one that got the most responses. The words continued to move around the screen and change size as more and more people responded. It was very fun.

After the event, we didn't really do too much for our anniversary. Steve reversed the doors on our fridge. I worked some more on General Conference. Around 3 we decided to go out for a treat and to get some things so we could hang up the wonderful picture blanket we had made when we got our original call and packed away in our "mission" box and totally forgot to open up when we got here because we thought it only contained bug repellent and stuff we would never use here. BUT, when we got to our new apartment we forgot it was our mission box so we opened it up and low and behold we found our beautiful picture blanket. SO, now it hangs beautifully in our living room. I am so happy!!!!!

I almost forgot. Here is the link to the video of the latest updates to the Temple renovation.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/temple-square-renovation-video-august-2021

Here are some pictures of our new apartment.

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Labor Day, Trainings, and Denny's Breakfast

A little over a week ago we found a little friend our the window next to the door leading out of the apartment building. We couldn't resist taking a picture. I forgot to share it last week.

This week has been busy and fun. Because of Labor Day weekend we actually had Monday off and took advantage of it. Steve has been wanting to take some closer pictures of the work on the Salt Lake Temple. He says there is only so much he can see from our office window. This first one was taken from our balcony. They have recently added scaffolding all around the Temple. They have also brought in a third huge crane to help with the work they are doing on the roof. The rest throughout this post are from around Temple Square.

After visiting around the Temple for a while we decided to go into the Tabernacle since it has been years since we have been there. One of the Organist was practicing so that was a treat. He was doing a concert later. One in the Tabernacle and then a repeat in the Conference Center. We listened to him practice in the Tabernacle and then listened to the concert in the Conference Center.

After the Tabernacle we went to the Church History Museum. I think my favorite exhibit was the Children's section. They have made a beautiful setting that focuses on the Temple. Part of the room makes it feel like they are in the Temple. They have lots of interactive things that help point them to the Temple.

They also have one of three identical pulpits that were made from President Hinkley's walnut tree. One, of course is in the Conference center. We touched that one when we were on our behind the scenes tour right after we got here. The second one is in the Church History Museum in the Children's section. The kids can touch it and stand at it and pretend to give talks. It is very cool and an exact duplicate. I think they said the third one is in the Tabernacle or perhaps it is also in the Conference Center where they can move it to different rooms for broadcasting the different events they do. I can't remember. One interesting thing about the pulpit is there are little fans in it that gently blow on the speaker to cool them from the bright lights that are on them when they speak.

After the museum we went to the Conference Center for the organ concert. It was really quite nice. The organist had us all move up very close as he said it sounds better up close. I thought is sounded great. The organist told us that the Tabernacle organ is best heard from the opposite end of the Tabernacle, but the Conference Center organ is best heard up close.

Then we headed to the airport to pick up Eva and Djeryd. We had a wonderful couple of hours with them before they headed home. After stopping for dinner we took them to the Church Office Building for a special tour. Since it was a holiday there wasn't anyone else in the building. If we would have had more time we could have toured the whole building. Instead we just showed them the three floors we work on. Djeryd's favorite part was seeing the Fiji Interpretation booths.

They really like the view from our windows and enjoyed seeing everything. We took them back to our apartment for another hour or so before they had to leave. They got to meet our Family Home Evening Group and even participate for about a half an hour. Everyone really enjoyed them and they seemed to enjoy everyone. It was a lot of fun. We played a game called "In the manner of the Adverb". Perhaps we'll play it in a couple of weeks when some of us are together for the wedding!

On Tuesday and Thursday we had area training events for Primary and YM/YW in Canada. We also covered North America Central in an event that overlapped the YM/YW for Canada by 1/2 an hour. We served dinner for both groups, although we only ate for one. lol

Wednesday they did a Sunday School training for North America Center on Zoom so we didn't have to do a meal for that one.

On Friday I finally finished setting up the General Conference Plunet order. That is the program we use for invoicing the jobs for the Interpreters. It is a massive order as you can imagine. Now I get to populate it with over 1000 interpreters for the 5 different sessions. I don't have to add all the names as many of the other countries will add their own names. But still, it is a lot of work. I spent much of the day trying to figure out how to get some of our Interpreters who are also employees for the Church into the Plunet system. We don't pay them but we do track their hours. It is a NIGHTMARE to get them in the system and supposedly if they are not in the system they can't interpret. Apparently many of them have been doing it for years without being in the system. I apparently have opened a can of worms. Eunlan, the supervisor over General Conference this year, asked me to set up a meeting for next week with all the people we need to talk to to see how we can get these people in the system, because for some languages they are the only ones who can interpret. Wish me luck on Wednesday!

Saturday we had a morning event for the Northern Area Arizona Area Conference. We ordered breakfast from Denny's as we wanted to serve a hot breakfast and since the COB Catering isn't open on the weekends we have to go offsite. We also wanted to try them out because we have MTC Devotionals coming up on Thanksgiving morning and Christmas morning and we want a nice breakfast. We are also considering making breakfast for them. I think that would be very fun.

That pretty much finishes our week. We have the Face to Face with Elder Bednar event today. I think we have over 30 people involved in Interpreting and supporting this event. We have been working on it for almost a month. I am anxious to see the finished product. I hope you will all be able to see it.