Merry Christmas!!! 

I hope your Christmas was Merry and Bright! We have had a wonderful Christmas week. I think I forgot to mention that Steve slipped on the ice Sunday morning and really bummed up his knee. He as in pain most of the week, but still managed to walk to work everyday. Our work week was very slow. On Monday we had a small but good Family Home Evening. We played a fun Christmas Carol Opposites game where we were given some silly phrases and we had to figure out what Christmas Carol it represented. We mainly worked individually, but towards the end we were working together. I'm pleased to say as a group we got 100% right. We sang the first phrase or verse of each carol. It was so much fun. We love our Family Home Evening group. 

Tuesday was a busier day than expected. We were done with our projects for the most part; however, after submitting all those invoices for Interpreters that had been outstanding for some time, we got a lot of emails from Interpreters thanking us and asking tons of questions. I spent most of the day answering emails. I was also given another project that day that luckily didn't take too long. I had to notify lots of people for the Sacred Materials project to be sure and send in their vendor forms so we could get them in PLUNET, so they can actually do the Sacred Materials project. (I think some were after the fact, so we really needed them to turn in their paperwork.)  I got a lot of emails from these people too.

We had the one and only event we got to attend this week on Tuesday. Elder Uchtdorf recorded a 2022 S&I Young Adult Area Devotional. We actually got to watch most of the event as all of our projects were up to date. The event was for the Asia Pacific with nine different languages.  Originally we were only going to have two languages in Salt Lake, but as I was reviewing the event to make sure everything was in order, I noticed that two other languages had Salt Lake people assigned. Sure enough, they have been moved to the Booth, which means a Salt Lake team. Elder and Sister Linford didn't catch it because they still don't know the people yet. Luckily Elder Wilcox noticed it and had already ordered the right number of meals. We ended up feeding 18 people that night.

I thought for once I wouldn't have to be on the computer through the event. Well, not quite so. The event was scripted, meaning they had the text already and only needed to read it. However, there was a short video that also needed to be interpreted, so my additional computer time was adding the simultaneous jobs to each language. It only took a few minutes, so I did get to watch most of the event without having to work through it. It turned out a little shorter than expected. They had music, the short video, and Elder and Sister Uchtdorf as speakers. It was all very nice.

Tuesday also brought a special treat. Sean and MyLiege decided to come a day early because of the weather. They couldn't get into their house rental until Wednesday at 4pm so we gathered up some extra blankets and pillows from a couple of our FHE families so we could put up everyone at our apartment. Our event ended just in time to be home in time to meet the family. We had so much fun that evening. We had tons of blankets and quilts to make some pretty some beds on the floor for two of the girls. One was on the couch and Sean and MyLiege had the spare bedroom. Everyone fit just fine. 

We let the Linfords know we would probably take off most of Wednesday, especially since were were done with our projects. I had several emails I needed to take care of in the morning and managed to complete everything and still have a leisurely breakfast, and then headed to the COB for a tour. The Linfords were holding down the fort. After our tour, we went to the cafeteria for lunch and to listened to our piano player play Christmas Carols. 

After lunch we wandered on Temple Square and headed over to the Family Search Library. We stopped at Deseret Book to window shop for a bit.  Once at the Family Search Library we spent time in the Discovery Center. We had a lot of fun. Then it was time to head over to the Rental house so they could check in and get some groceries. We went too, to enjoy the evening and have dinner. Grandpa had to read a nightly Christmas story to the girls. It was so cute. I think he read to them every night we were together.

Thursday, the Hawkins decided to visit the Mall. So we just hung out at the apartment and had a lazy morning. We all headed back to the house for dinner before heading to Thanksgiving Point to see Luminaria. Of course it had to rain. With Steve's knee still hurting we rented a wheel chair so he would haven't to walk all night. It was a good thing too, because it was pretty muddy in places and I know it would have been hard for him to walk. A friend loaned him some snow pants so he stayed toasty warm. Even with the drizzle, it was still beautiful and everyone had a great time.

Friday was Christmas Eve. We got to the house a little after two. Djeryd and Eva were coming in around three. It was so good to see them. We hung out all afternoon and evening talking and eating and having a great time. We had a Zoom call around 6:30 with the rest of the family who were all at Season's house for our traditional Christmas Eve celebration. It was great to see everyone. We tried to project it on the big screen but we just couldn't get it quite right. Douhet made a cute Christmas Eve video of the Christmas story with a recording of Steve reading it from a previous time. He used a cute little Nativity set to act out the parts. So fun!!! He promises to send us a copy of the video so we can watch it again. After the kids opened up PJs and Grandpa read another story, we headed back to our apartment. 

We didn't get up quite as early as we thought for Christmas morning, but we headed over as soon as we were ready. They had already started opening presents not being able to hold off the kiddos any longer. We still got to see some presents get unwrapped. We had a delicious breakfast and just hung out all day as the kids flitted from one present or game to the next. I think Steve's favorite part was being able to watch a football game. Sean played with a new drone he got. He did a bit of crashing before he got the hang of it. hahaha

After a scrumptious dinner we all headed to Temple Square to see all the beautiful lights. We also saw a darling Nativity video projected on the ceiling of the Tabernacle. While we were in there taking some pictures, Sister Linford came by and grabbed my phone so I could be in the picture too. It was nice to run into them in the Tabernacle. We saw them a few other times as we wandered around Temple Square. They have some beautiful little scenes depicting the Nativity around the world. Luckily it was NOT raining. We enjoyed walking around. We visited the Assembly Hall too. Then we walked over to the Conference Center on our way back to our apartment. It was a nice new tradition to start...at least while we are on mission.

Sunday the kids come over to go to Church with us in the Joseph Smith Building. We got another nice dusting of snow last night. Everything looks so pretty again. It sounds like we are headed into another bad snow storm this coming week. Sean is evaluating travel time and feels the best window for leaving will be on Tuesday instead of Monday, so we are going to round up blankets and pillows again for Monday night with us. Woohoo!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful and Happy New Year. 

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Music and the Spoken Word Special, 2022 Tabernacle Choir Concert, and Brad Wilcox

We didn't have our normal Monday morning Mission Devotional because they moved it to Wednesday evening. I'll talk about that later. We did have our Family Home Evening and shared our Family Traditions with hot chocolate and cookies.  As we shared our traditions I showed the wonderful 2020 Christmas video our children put together for us for last year since we couldn't all be together. Everyone loved it. I'm sure we will watch it again this week.

Tuesday was pretty full. We were doing the interpretations for a special Music and the Spoken Word to be shown on January 2. I hope you will all watch it. They interviewed several people from various places around the world and talk about their New Years traditions. The really cool part was we got to watch them do the interpretations in the Conference Center. It is always fascinating. They brought in a few children to do the voices of children in the video. One little boy is only 5 years old. He was so cute. His sister did the young girls voice. She is about 11. Anyway, the language coach fed the little boy each line and he said it with such enthusiasm and excitement. The boy he was interpreting for is 12. I wish you could listen to the Spanish channel...at least for the little boy. The engineer will cut out the language coach's voice and splice all the little boys voice together for a very smooth and seamless segment. The engineers are so good.

That same morning the Linfords handled the 2022 S&I Young Adult Area Devotional with Elder Cook. That was their first solo event. Of course they did just fine. They ended just about the time the French team was supposed to do their interpretations for Music and the Spoken Word, so they rushed over to the Conference Center to observe. Well, everyone came early so they all started early for their language segment. And most of them did so well we called them the One Time Wonders. They didn't have to do very many retakes at all. The French started early and didn't do any retakes and were done before the Linfords even got there. I felt bad they missed it, but I know they will have another time. We still got to show them some of what the engineers do and they got to talk to several people.

That evening we managed to get an appointment at the Ogden Temple do finish up our sealings.  Since our days are much slower now, we left early in time to do a 4:15 sealing assignment. It was very nice and we got all of our names done. When we left to come home, the weather had turned very cold.  That day they announced we wouldn't be meeting early for our Mission Devotional on Wednesday to take a mission picture because a big snow storm was expected. Well, we managed to make it home before the snow started falling. A couple of hours later we took this picture from our front room window.

On Wednesday we only had coaching events. One event is called Friend to Friend Coaching. We tend to call it the Event that just keeps on giving! Sister John, Primary General President and her counselors are going to be recording the next Friend to Friend message in both Spanish and Portuguese. Originally it was scheduled for 4 different coaching sessions to help prepare them to be able to record their messages in both languages. Sister Johnson did just fine. Her counselors; however, required more time to prepare to record their messages. What started out with 4 one hour long sessions for each language has turned into 12 sessions. Several of those were the counselors calling the coaches up and asking if they could please do an hour zoom meeting to help them. We wouldn't find out until after it was all done. About every other day Baptiste would chat me and say, "can you add another session for Carmen and Sabrina and deliver and approve them for 1 [or 2] hours"? I think we are finally done as I believe the actual final recordings have been done. 

Wednesday we had the awesome treat to to hear Glenn Rawson and Jason Tonioli give our Mission Christmas Devotional. Glenn is the fantastic story teller and Jason is an AWESOME piano player. Several years ago they got together and decided to take "Music and the Spoken Word" on the road. Glenn tells stories and Jason makes up the music in the background. Sometimes he plays a familiar hymn. Other times he just makes up an interlude. The music always goes with the feelings that Glenn is portraying as he tells his story. Many times it is not rehearsed as he doesn't always stick to a script. He tells stories as the Spirit directs him. He treated us to a "History of the Saints" centered mostly around Christmas themes. Some of the "Saints" were not members of the Church, but people who influenced Christmas for years such as Silent Night composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. Glenn told the story of the childhood of Franz Xaver Gruber. It was a wonderful night. Afterwards we were given a small Christmas gift of a Mission neckless or lapel pin of the SLC City with a diamond chip in it and the Mission name around it. Very, very nice. We also received a box lunch for dinner since they didn't want to gather because of Covid. We were supposed to do a Mission picture on the steps in the Joseph Smith building but because of the snow and ice they didn't want anyone to feel they had to come. The devotional was broadcast over Zoom. Still we had a pretty good turn out.

Thursday we got a real treat. Sara's husband works for Church Security. He got 4 tickets to the Thursday night taping of the 2022 Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square at the Conference Center. She wanted to give them to us and the Linfords as they couldn't go.  I told her that Elder Wilcox and I had an event that night, but I was sure the Linfords would want to go. She offered to cover our event for us. I looked at the event and saw that it would end by 7:30 which was when we were supposed to be in our seats in the Conference Center. I saw that Aaron was in charge and thought he wouldn't mind if we left early. We could clean the booths on Friday. We contacted Aaron and he said to GO FOR IT! So we went. Megan Hilty and Neal McDonough were the guest performers. We were way up in the upper seats far on the right side of the conference center. It was still magical. Luckily they have big screens so you can see what is going on on stage. The concert was great and I hope you will watch it next year.  They always record a year in advance. 

On Friday I continued working on submitting invoices for Interpreters who messed up when they tried to submit them. For some they had invoices that were months old that they haven't been paid on. I thought with everyone I submitted that it would be a wonderful Christmas present for them to see that money show up in their account. I sent them emails so they would know what I was doing. For some it was a very substantial amount. It really makes me happy to finally get this done for them.  We still have a lot more to do. I have the Linfords helping me. My goal is to have it done before the end of the year. It should be easier to keep on in the future. I am still working with the PLUNET people to simplify the process for them so there won't be so many that don't get paid.

Saturday we stayed home. Well, I stayed home and Elder Wilcox ran a few errands. I just about perfected the spreadsheet I need to send to all the Language Supervisors around the world with the status of their team so they can make sure everyone they need is in PLUNET so we won't have all the little "surprises" we had this past six months. Sara and I will be presenting training to all the areas in January.

We got a second treat for Sunday. On Friday we got notice that our PSD department had tickets to the Christmas Concert and to the live broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word Christmas Special. The same two guest performers were doing that presentation but it was shown this morning. We were chosen in the drawing and so were the Linfords. Our seats were FANTASTIC. We were right up front in the lowest level right in the center. We couldn't have asked for better seats. They did a lot of the same songs they did for the Christmas Concert so it was nice to see them up close and personal. AND Elder Brad Wilcox was a few rows in front of us and John Bytheway was just a little behind us. We spoke to both of them and got a picture with Brad Wilcox. He is so funny. He asked for the second picture.

We have a short, but exciting week ahead. We only have one more event we get to attend before next year. All four of us will work this event because it is our last. Elder Uchtdorf will be doing a S&I Young Adult Area Devotional on Tuesday evening.

And then Sean and MyLiege and their kiddos along with Djeryd and Eva will visit us for Christmas. We are so excited to be with family for this beloved holiday. We will have 4 full days off so we will get to spend lots of time together.

May you all have the Merriest Christmas with family and friends. Please know that you are so very loved by your Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. You are also loved by us! 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

4 Devotionals, 3 days with slacks, 2 Christmas Parties, and 1 Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang

The Sister Singing Christmas Carols

Last Sunday we did the Live First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I hope you all had the chance to watch it. It was wonderful. I loved the little 6-year-old girl who played the violin. She did an amazing job. I also enjoyed all the wonderful talks. It is the best way to begin the Christmas season.

Monday was the first slacks day. We left early that day so we could prepare our dish for our first Christmas party. I also finished up work at home. That night we went to our first of four Devotionals. It was our monthly evening Mission Devotional on the first Monday of every month. They usually have a special speaker for that Devotional. We heard from Elder Mark Pace, The General Sunday School President. He gave a wonderful talk and shared some of the beginnings of the first Sunday School in the Church.

The front of our Apartment Complex

Tuesday was a very busy day. It started with our 2nd Devotional of the week. This was are weekly Zone Tuesday morning devotional. Our Branch President presented on Tuesday. He some interesting things he and his wife do in their mission assignment. They review all the Church magazine in all the different languages they are produced. They check for broken links in the online version of the magazine. They talked about how many languages they work with. Some of the languages we don't even interpret yet.  We cover over 90% of the population with the top 10 languages we do. The other 10% is the other 80 plush languages we do. They Church does a wonderful job to get the Word of the Lord to ALL of Heavenly Fathers children in their own tongue. I'm so grateful we get to be a part of that work.

We had our Team meeting followed by our potluck luncheon and first of two Christmas Parties. We were missing Jeanpierre  and Eunlan from the team. They joined us via Teams for our meeting. Both are supposed to be next week sometime so we can see them before Christmas. We have such a wonderful team. After our party we worked for about an hour before we got ready for the Post Recordings for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We were supposed to have almost the same number of people as we had on Sunday; however, Curtis forgot to tell me that three languages weren't going to be there. Bottom line is we had so much food left over it was ridiculous. Needless to say we have dinner for a while now. And that was after we sent home lot of food with our Interpreters.

Front Row Left to Right:  Baptiste, Sister Petty, Ljiljana, Aaron
Back Row: Elder Wilcox, Sister Wilcox, Sara, Elder Linford, Sister Linford, Daniel Curtis
Missing: Jeanpierre and Eunlan

On Wednesday I had another slacks day. It was also getting colder. I spent most of my week working on writing the new PLUNET Operations manual.  Elder Hansen had written a 50 plus page manual before they left. I cut it almost in half.  I also rewrote the instructions for the Interpreters to use when creating and submitting their invoices. I'm happy to report that one of sisters who has never successfully submitted her invoice on her own before has now submitted two of them all on her own!!! I guess the new instructions worked.

That afternoon we had the third devotional of the week.  Our Publishing Services Department meeting was a very nice Christmas devotional by Bishop Waddell of the presiding Bishopric. He shared some really nice stories. We also heard from Brother Isom who is our PSD manager. Wednesday evening Sister Linford and I went to see Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang at the Hale Theater in the Round. It was so fun. We got free tickets so that was nice. The special effects were incredible. The music was great. The acting was so fun to watch. They did a great job of making the car float and then fly. It was very believable. 

On Thursday morning we had our fourth and final Devotional for the week.  Our Zone leaders had to fill in at the last minute because the scheduled presenters had an emergency they had to go home for. I sure hope everything is OK.  They shared several little famous Christmas song videos. It was really nice. I continued my work on the PLUNET manual. I also worked on several more complicated PLUNET orders. Elder and Sister Linford are doing most of the PLUNET orders now. It is good in one way because it leaves me free to work on the manual and other projects I have had on the back burner. However, it is hard in another way; because I don't know what is going on anymore. I used to know when all the events were taking place and now I haven't got a clue. I also helped several other Interpreters get invoices submitted so they can get paid.  I sent them the new instructions to help them in the future. Hopefully I'll start seeing a decrease in requests to fix invoices.

Thursday evening we attended our Zone Christmas party. We had a nice catered dinner on the 26th floor. We got to visit different missionaries we don't usually get to see. It was very nice. We also sang longs of Christmas Carols after dinner.  Sister Checketts is a younger senior missionary. She is her 40's and is a emigration lawyer. She decided to take a year off work and serve a mission. She works for the law offices in the Church.  He is also in our FHE group. We love her.  Anyway, she has tons of energy and loves to sing so she organized the sign along.  It was so much fun...especially when we said the 12 days of Christmas where each table was a day and had to act out what we were while we sang it as loud as we could.  Our table was 6 geese a laying.  I'll leave that to your imagination on what we did. Needless to say we had a lot of fun.

Thursday also brought SNOW.  The morning was so foggy we couldn't even see out the windows on the 28th floor. We were literally in the clouds. If we went right up to the window we could look down and see but that was it. Just looking straight out the window was very eerie. 

Friday was my last slacks day. Technically it shouldn't have been a slacks day because we actually had an event that day. We are supposed to where dresses or skirts for events. However, because I know longer know what is going on we all spaced the event until that morning when the Linford's were doing their review. Luckily, it was snacks only so we were able to cover our bases. Also, luckily I was wearing very nice slacks so it didn't look too bad. The event was for Roots Tech in March 2022. We have pre-recording lots of segments for the event. We only had our Portuguese team and no one even noticed I wasn't "properly" dressed. It was still so cold and we were walking so I'm glad I had on slacks. Originally, we were supposed to have a Mandarin and a Portuguese team; however, we had problems populating the Mandarin team. Two of the interpreters were not in PLUNET and we can't use them if they are not in PLUNET. (One of those projects on the back burner I need to work on.) Finally, Aaron, our Supervisor, called Taiwan to see if they could cover for us. They agreed to get up early and be prepare to interpret at 5:00 AM to help us out. Well, as the event was getting setup, Aaron finds out that they really wanted Cantonese and not Mandarin. Apparently, they just said they needed Chinese and that usually means Mandarin. So we were scrambling to figure out what to do when we found out the brother that needed the interpretation speaks fluent English. He served his mission in Washington State and it attending BYU Hawaii. So we told the Mandarin interpreters "thank you very much, but we don't need you after all". Luckily we still paid them for their willingness to serve and because they got up early to help us out.

Saturday was a real day off. I did some work for HawkSoft, I also updated our Zone SharePoint site before we went out to run some errands and get haircuts. Just as we were leaving to run our errands we opened the door to find out we had been Stocking'ed. Someone left a big red Christmas Stocking filled with lots of goodies at our door with instructions to enjoy our treats and then fill up the Stocking and drop it on someone else's door within 48 hours. So we picked up some treats on our errand run and dropped the stocking off this morning on our way to an early morning event.

Today, Sunday, we have been able to "attend" the Mesa Temple Rededication sessions. We didn't think we were going to do this event because it is for ASL only; however, we were asked to help out. The ASL team usually works in the Conference Center. They wanted to try a smaller venue so they asked if they could use our 28th floor and if we could help out. Of course we jumped at the chance. It has been so fun to get to know this team of amazing interpreters that we haven't worked with before.  They like the venue and think they may be doing more events with us in the future. What surprised me the most is that some of the interpreters are deaf themselves . They can do text interpretation...meaning they have a script. There is a coach with them in case the speaker goes off script. but other than that they can interpret the script. We had a wonderful lunch with them today and got to know several interpreters. Some have partial hearing, some can't hear at all and some have full hearing. Their stories are cool to listen to as well. I hope we can do more events with them.

Well that about covers it. We did have 4 devotionals, 3 days of slacks, 2 Christmas parties and 1 Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang this week. 

I hope you have a wonderful week and are filled with the Christmas Spirit in your home and in your life.

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox