Elle and her potato
frosting snowman!

Merry Christmas!!!

A whole week with practically NO work! You know me, I can't leave it completely alone. lol

Monday was unusual to say the least. Remember how I said I didn't have my drivers license last week when I got on the plane? Well, on Monday I decided to go to the DMV and get my new license. Without an appointment you take your life in your hands. I think I waited about 3 hours. But I finally got a NEW temporary license with my picture so I can get on the plane without a problem when we head home. Did you know that the post office will NOT forward anything from the DMV to the new address? So instead of sending it to Utah, they sent it back to the DMV and there it sat for 70 days before they probably destroyed it.  Anyway, this time they will send it to my Oregon address and Douhet can sent it to me. YAY!!!

On Tuesday, MyLiege did a photo shoot with us and the girls. It was so fun. I have never done that before. She is so talented and can make anyone look good. After the photo shoot I went to the "executive" luncheon for HawkSoft. I haven't seen most of those people for about 4 years now. It was fun to catch up and visit with them. I have continued to work for HawkSoft part-time ever since I "retired". I like keeping up with the progress HawkSoft is making. It is such a GREAT company to work for.

Wednesday, we went to visit our dear friend, Sassie. It was so much fun to visit with her. We talked about everything under the sun. After our visit we went to the Portland Temple to do some initiatory work. It was so fun to see several people from our old shift. We enjoyed it so much.

On Thursday, MyLiege planned a fun sewing project for the girls. We got to pick out cute material from her vast supply. Then we took turns cutting out our pattern and sewing our little zipper pouches. It was so much fun and mine turned out really cute. The others did too! Thursday night we decided to have the girls and Sean and MyLiege do the Nativity. Anna and Alyx both prepared musical numbers for our annual Christmas Eve family party so it was a great time to rehearse. I loved it. Elle made a beautiful Mary and Sean was a handsome Joseph. 😊

We stayed home on Friday because of the ice storm. Since it was a legal holiday, Sean didn't have to work so we stayed warm inside and played games during the day. After the games, the older girls went outside to ice skate on the drive way. It was a solid sheet of ice. The guys went to the basement and played pool for awhile. We decided to clean out the refrigerator for dinner and watch a movie. We choose The Man Who Invented Christmas. Everyone really enjoyed it. We put Elle to bed and then watched another movie after that.

On Saturday we were supposed to go to Sean's parents for brunch, but everything was still too icy to drive on. They have a very steep driveway! Also the family was supposed to go clean the Chapel but they couldn't get out. The brunch was postponed until Monday. The temperature started rising and by noon or so it had reached temperatures above freezing long enough to start melting the roads. Sean ventured out to test road conditions to see if we could to to Uncle Season's house. He reported once we got down the driveway to to the main street everything was good. So we chopped up our vegetables and straightened the house and got ready to go. By the time we left after 3:15, driving conditions were just fine.

Christmas Eve was fantastic. The whole family arrived at Season and Sara's sometime after three. We were the last to arrive. We had 14 of our 18 grandchildren plus all the adults. I was so pleased to see all the grandkids interact and mingle together. Not long after we got there, while doing final prep on things for dinner, the kids went upstairs to the bonus room and started singing. The most beautiful Christmas Carols filled the house. It warmed this Grandma heart!

After our traditional dinner of Chinese sundaes, we were ready to start the festivities. We gathered in the living room around the Beautiful Christmas tree. The white elephant gifts were passed around before the game began. There was lots of fun and laughter while we rotated to the right, opened a present, rotated again, stole a present, locked a present so you could keep it, and swapped presents with Douhet. After several times going around rolling the dice all the presents were finally unwrapped and the game ended...sort of. Then the trading began so everyone ended up with what they wanted (or what the kids wanted lol). It was lots of fun.

We next settled down for our Nativity. Most of the kids opted not to act it out this year so we decided to just focus on the story and music. I have to admit that I felt the Spirit a little more this year. I think perhaps we may have been getting a little too silly with our little play. It was nice to focus on the words and music. When it came time in the story, Anna played a beautiful rendition of Away in the Manger on the piano. A little later in the story, Alyx played her ukulele and sang We Three Kings so beautifully. The rest of the songs we sang together, and we sounded really good. We have some GREAT singers in our family.

After Silent Night we all just sat there for a minute feeling the Spirit. We had an impromptu talent show with several other grandchildren playing the piano. Uncle Shonee and Alena did a very fun duet of a song I don't know the name of. Not too long after that the party broke up and everyone went home. Once home, everyone opened their Christmas Eve present of new pajamas. 

Christmas Morning we woke up to a beautiful surprise. The girls all woke up at 7 and got dressed in the beautiful red Christmas Dresses and then from the top of the stairs they sang several Christmas Carols. It was so lovely and such a wonderful way to start Christmas. We all got ready and headed to Church early to get a good seat. Our Christmas meeting was lovely. The talks were great and the music was beautiful. We saw lots of friends and got to visit with them. Once home, Erik came over so we could visit with him and exchange presents. After he left we opened the rest of the presents. Sassie stopped over with her presents and joined in our fun.

After opening presents with Sean and MyLiege's family we headed over to Douhet and Kylee's house for dinner and a visit. Kylee's mom was there too. We had a wonderful visit with everyone. A little later the Missionaries came over for dinner. We had a very fun time telling stories and laughing. They probably think we are all a little crazy. When it came time to go home we couldn't believe how much time had gone by.

I could end it here, but one more thing happened when we got home. Sean was very excited and wanted to show us what he found. Apparently, while the girls were watching White Christmas Sean was working on Family Search. Specifically he was looking for Steve's great grandfather and found him. Not only was that a terrific find, but but when he plugged in the great grandparents we got 6 or 7 more generations back on his Wilcox line. He also found a great grand uncle on my mom's side. Happy Day. Oh, Aaron Eggleston, guess what? When we go back several generations we found out Wilcox was really Wilcoxen!!! I knew you would love that.

So at this late hour on Christmas, all I can say is "Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night."

Love to ALL,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister W

ilcox

Zone Christmas Dinner, Team Offsite (sort of), Christmas Concert, and Oregon!!!

The James Family Singers

Monday morning we had a wonderful Mission Devotion. Sorry, so much has happened this week, I can't remember what the devotion was about. Work was pretty slow and the Church Office Building was pretty empty all week. We had LOTS of snow this week. It was so cold and snowing all week long. 

President and Sister Holmes at our 
Zone Dinner and Elder Linford

Later that morning I had a Teams meeting with the Director of the Temple Division. This is one of the new divisions that was created when our department went through some structure changes. It used to be the Sacred Materials Project in our Interpretation Team. Jeanpierre and several others were in that group. They were all moved to the new Temple Division. We don't get to see them very often anymore. Most of them were "temporary" full time employees with an end date of April 1st. Jeanpierre is so excited as he was one they offered a permanent full time position to. He has been praying for that to happen ever since they created to original project. Anyway, his new boss wanted to talk to me about PLUNET invoicing. He wanted to know what we could do with the current invoicing process and I told him were we stand. Everything is in place just waiting to be turned on, but the email process is NOT 100% reliable yet. Unfortunately we don't have the resources to figure out what the problem is so I'm not sure anything will be done about it at this time. He informed me that he heard they have picked a replacement for PLUNET so maybe they will wait and see if that will have a better invoicing process.

In the Atrium at the
Bountiful Temple

After work on Monday we headed straight to the 26th floor for our Zone Christmas Dinner and Program. We had a very nice buffet with yummy food. It was so fun to see our whole zone together that didn't include a Zoom meeting. Because our Zone is so spread out we don't ever meet together in person. Sister Nicholls works at Ensign College. She arranged the entertainment for our dinner. Her husband served as Bishop to Steve James when he was a young man. He later became a producer and entertainer and has performed with his family to millions of people around the world. Three of their four children with them Monday night to entertain us with Christmas fun and beautiful music. It was a FANTASTIC program that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

Grandpa and Elle at Lunch

We found out on Sunday that there would be a limited supply of tickets to the Tabernacle Christmas Concert available for pick up in the Mission office on Tuesday Morning at 7:45 AM. We headed into work bright and early on Tuesday morning. Well it was not really so bright. It had snowed all night and was still snowing when we went to work. The sidewalks were pretty slippery because they hadn't shoveled them yet. And it was very cold. But, we made it to the Mission Office and secured two tickets for Thursday evening. Then we headed into the office for our Zone Devotional. The Merrells were doing the devotional and Elder Merrell was having sound problems. So, I grabbed the Christmas card I had for them and headed down to the 3rd floor West Wing as quick as I could to see if I could help. When I got to their office I was told they went to the 2nd floor so I headed there. I found them in Sister Matson's office and Elder Merrell was proceeding with his devotional. I dropped the Christmas card off, and went back to my office to hear the rest of his devotional.

This cute house on the way to the Temple

I continued work on my List clean up and started on creating an app that would automatically create a spreadsheet that we could copy and paste into existing workbooks that would update the list of Interpreters with current expiration dates and statuses. All they would have to do is copy and paste the new list into their existing spreadsheet. The app was a little tricky. I could get the basics done and I set it up to automatically run every Saturday morning so they can have a fresh list weekly if they want. The tricky part was to split out the interpreters and multi-language coordinators into a new line for every language they have. It took me until Friday with a little help from my Techy friend, Jeff to finally get it working. My goal for our remaining year is to be able to automate some of the tasks I have been doing that may not continue unless I can make them easy to do. 

The Tongan Team plus Aaron and Ljiljana

In the afternoon, we had our Section meeting. We were missing about 5 people who were on Teams, mainly because of the weather. I was pleasantly surprised to see Baptiste. I was able to give him a little treat and wish him a Merry Christmas! Our meeting went well. I think we actually went home at a decent hour Tuesday evening. 

Wednesday was interesting. Daniel cancelled our Team meeting because we were doing a Team Offsite on Thursday. So we scheduled a Temple Trip for around 4:00PM. In the morning I got an email from someone in the PSD department wanting to know if we still wanted tickets for the Christmas Concert. They had told me earlier that they weren't going to have any tickets. Since the PSD tickets are sometimes better seats I said yes. The seats we got from the mission were in Balcony 3. The tickets we got from PSD were in Plaza A. MUCH better seats. So, I gave the tickets to the Linfords because they weren't able to get tickets from the Mission. Come to find out they received tickets they weren't expecting later from a friend of theirs that were also better seats than Balcony 3. They were going to try and give the tickets away. It was still snowing all day so Sister Linford suggested we change our Temple time to earlier in the day while it was still light. Nothing much was going on so we rescheduled to right after lunch. 

About 10:00AM I created a Zoom meeting with Sister Matson. She was scheduled for the Zone Devotional on Thursday morning and wanted some help to make sure she knew how to share her screen and do her PowerPoint presentation. We got it all setup and her sound wouldn't work. It didn't make sense because Elder Merrell had used HER computer on Tuesday for his devotional and everything worked. So I ran downstairs again, to see if I could help. We played around with several settings and finally figured out it was her earbuds that were causing the problem. When we unplugged the earbuds and the sound worked perfectly. We figured out Elder Merrell didn't use earbuds when he gave his devotional. Now I'm wondering if he was trying to use earbuds on his computer when his sound wouldn't work. 

Curtis, Elder Wilcox, Sister Wilcox, Jarod

Then, just before we were going to lunch we get a text from Ljiljana asking if we were all set for the Tongan training meeting that night. WHAT??? We remembered talking about having a meeting, but all of us thought it was on Thursday night after our Team Offsite. She was checking to see if we had scheduled the 26th floor for their potluck dinner. We told her, we had already told her should couldn't have the 26th floor and besides they don't allow you do do a potluck dinner on that floor. You have to use catering. She then remembered that we told her she could use the 27th floor especially since there were only about 10 people. We said we would have it all set up and would probably be back from the Temple in time to help out.

The timing worked out perfectly. We dropped the Linfords off at the apartment and headed to the COB. We were there to help support the potluck and training meeting. Patrick, the area coordinator flew in from Tonga to run the meeting. It was nice to meet him since I had only ever emailed him. We had about 5 or 6 interpreters show up. The meeting was fun. We stayed and cleaned up and made it home by 8.

Thursday morning Sister Matson's devotional went perfectly. She was so happy. We received a chat from Elder Linford that morning saying they didn't want to travel in adverse weather conditions. We were supposed to go to Thanksgiving Point for our Offsite meeting at 11:00 AM. I had just talked to Elder and Sister Johnson who drove to the MTC that very morning and had no problems. They said to go a little slow get on the lane that is plowed the best. Well, Eunlan then said she didn't want to go. She was going with the Linfords. Daniel chimed in and said we should reschedule to next Tuesday. Of course we weren't going to be in town next Tuesday. Jarod jumped in and said he was going to go that morning because he was going to be on a cruise next week and wouldn't be able to go next Tuesday. So I chatted Jarod and said we would meet him since we weren't going to be there the following Tuesday either. Long story short, Jarod, Curtis, and the Wilcoxes met at the Museum of Natural History (the Dinosaur Museum) at 11 for our Offsite meeting. We had a GREAT time. Jarod is an awesome tour guide. After we saw lots of dinosaurs we went to lunch and then went home. Actually I went back to work. Everyone else will go next Tuesday.

After dinner we headed over to the Conference Center to attend the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with Broadway singer and actress Lea Salonga and renowned British actor David Suchet. It was so AWESOME!!! If you haven't seen the 2022 concert yet, please look it up on YouTube. You won't regret it. David Suchet told a true story that was so touching. At the end of the story they had the entire audience hold up their phone flashlights and they dimmed all the conference center lights. It was so beautiful.

Friday, we worked from home. We had so much to do to get ready for our trip and everything thing we needed to do for work we could do from home. We got all our laundry done, presents wrapped, everything packed, in addition to finished up that Power App project for my list as well as a couple hours of HawkSoft. It ended up being a much longer day than I planned. We finally got to bed by 11.

Saturday we got up at 7 to finish the last minute packing, and then headed to the airport. I had a "fun" adventure at the airport. I currently only have a "temporary" drivers license because my license expired. They NEVER sent me my new license and it has been well over 6 months. Anyway, when you fly they want a government issued picture ID. Without my drivers license I no longer have a government issued picture ID. I was afraid they weren't going to let me fly. They sent me through super intense security screening before they decided I could fly. We are going to go the the DMV while we are here in Oregon and see if I can get a new VALID picture drivers license. Wish me luck! 

After I got through security, everything else went just fine. Our flight was very smooth. I got to watch a Christmas movie during the flight. Sean, MyLiege, Alyx and Elle picked us up at the airport and took us to lunch on the way home. The rest of the day was chill. We enjoyed visiting and stayed up too late. lol

Enrique, Alyson, and Virginia

Sunday was SOOOOOOOO good. It was wonderful to see so many friends. It was exciting when Alyson came in. I have to admit, I hoped for a more surprised expression. Haha. She said she saw a random text or something about us coming for Christmas so it wasn't a complete surprise that we were there. She was the concluding speaker and gave such an amazing talk about her mission. It was everything I could have hoped for. One of the things that she learned was that she was meant to be there. At first she felt she didn't fit the mold of a "perfect" missionary. But then she had several experiences where her unique personality was exactly what was needed to reach a particular investigator. She said people came up to her after and thanked her for being her and reaching their friends on their level and where they were at. At that point she knew she was where she was supposed to be. She learned that she needed to put it all on the alter and let the Lord use her unique talents to do His will. It was AWESOME.

Elder Wilcox, Curtis, and Jarod

After Church we went over to Douhet and Kylee's for a nice lunch to welcome Alyson home. It was so nice to see almost the whole family. Sierra and Shonee were in Idaho attending the wedding for Shonee's niece. We missed them, but they will be back in time for Christmas Eve so we will see them then. 

Sunday evening we went to the Holiday Singers' Christmas Concert. It isn't Christmas without the Holiday Singers. Douhet and Kylee sing in the choir. This is the 29th year they have been in existence and Douhet has been in the choir since the very beginning. Their daughter, Audrey, sang a solo and did such an AMAZING job. Her voice was so sweet and beautiful. She didn't sound or look nervous at all even though she said she was terrified. It was such a beautiful concert. As usual they made me cry. I was so touched. 

We hope you have a wonderful week before Christmas!

Love and Prayers,
Mom and Dad
Grandma and Grandpa
Steve and Leslee
Elder and Sister Wilcox

Mission Christmas Concert, Team Christmas Party, Two Long Events, and Two Temple Trips

Work wise I spent much of the week cleaning up my list and adding all the area interpreters to my list. It started with only our Salt Lake City teams as that was what came over from our ITI program. We have always talked about adding the area interpreters so I spent a lot of time getting that set up to add. It took a lot of comparing and clean up to get them ready to add. By end of day Thursday and part of Friday, I was finally able to add them to the list. I'm excited by that as I believe it will make getting ready for General Conference easier in the long run.

Monday evening, we headed to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for our Mission Christmas Concert with our very own Elijah Choir. They did a marvelous job. They used a PowerPoint presentation to add to the program so we had stories, video clips, as well as beautiful music. And refreshments were served afterwards, although we didn't stay for that. We did visit with several friends before heading home.

Tuesday started with our Zone devotional. Sister Bentley presented a wonderful devotional about Family Search. She shared some great stories of her ancestors. I have been having a little more time lately to actually work on my Family History too. I love it. Since we had worked in the Temple for the previous 8 years prior to our mission we didn't get a lot of our own family names done. It has been nice since being on our mission to be able to do so many names. I still can't seem to get past my great grandpa Herman Locken, but I am finding lots of other family members. Tuesday evening we were able to go to the Bountiful Temple.

Venky

Wednesday was a fun day. It was also a vary long day. We knew we had an event that night, so we didn't go into work until a little after 9. After a little work we got ready for our Team Christmas Potluck. EVERYONE was there. It was the first time in a very long time that we were all together in person. Such fun. The food was delicious. The company great. The little presents everyone gave were thoughtful and loving. After visiting for a while we held a very "brief" team meeting. It only went 45 minutes LONGER than normal. Hahaha. After the meeting the Linfords headed home and we got ready for our evening event.

The event was actually two events. The first event actually had 5 sessions covering 3 days. The 7th and 8th mornings were all Tieline and didn't involve us to support. The evenings, however, were SLC teams and Elder Wilcox and I supported both of those. Normally we would have split it with the Linfords but they are covering two events while we will be in Oregon. The first event was called "2023 S&I Annual Training Broadcast Prerecording". It had a total of 38 languages. We had 8 languages in SLC on the 8th with up to 4 interpreters per language. We ordered Lasagna for dinner. Everyone loved it. It was supposed to end at 8:30, but we had a few retakes so it went to 9.

The back to back event was called "2023 S&I Annual Training New Curriculum Videos (5 languages)" and included only French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Since the same people were doing this event it was easier to just have those 5 languages stay and get it done in one night. It was expected to just be 45 minutes or less. There were several very short videos they needed to record. HOWEVER, the translation of the videos we received was not the best. A couple of the languages were ok and they were done around 10. French went clear to 11 as they had to retranslate the whole thing. Lots and lots of retakes. Aaron was the Supervisor for both events. And since he needed to be back early for the next morning Tieline recordings, he spent the night at our place. He has had several back to back late night and early morning events so we get to be his home away from home. When he talked to his daughter Emily that night, and told her he wouldn't be home, she wanted to know why. He explained it was late and he had to be back early the next day and he wouldn't even be able to see her. So she asked him where he was going to sleep. He told her he was staying at the Wilcoxen's (that is what he always calls us) apartment and she said, "I want to come!" We really like it when Aaron brings Emily. She is always very fun.

Lucky for us, Elder Wilcox decided to go get the car earlier so we wouldn't have to walk home after dark. It has really been cold lately. Well, it snowed all afternoon and throughout the evening. The sidewalks would have been horrible. It was nice to ride home.

On Thursday morning Aaron got up and left around 7:30. Since we were so late the night before we decided to do our showers Thursday morning. So after our Zone devotional, we showered and got ready. The Stevens gave our devotional and it was so nice. Sister Stevens shared a beautiful Christmas story by President Eyring. It is one of my favorites. 

At noon we (the missionaries) had a meeting with Xenia and Daniel about additional duties for the missionaries. We were a little apprehensive as Xenia is our Section Leader and there have been lots of changes going on. We feel they are trying to make us like Translation, not recognizing that Interpretation is completely different in our needs and duties. Well, as it turned out, they have got wind of the clean up I have been doing with my list, because a lot of the clean up has to do with making changes to PLUNET or Event Central. 

Back: Elder Wilcox, Daniel, Aaron, 
Elder Linford, Curtis, Jarod, and Venky
Front: Sister Wilcox, Sara, 
Sister Linford, Eunlan, and Ljiljana

Of course much of the clean up is within my own list. Anyway, they want me to go through their global list and do the same clean up as I have done with my list. They also want me to create a bunch of apps to make their list do more things easier. So because they want me to spend almost all my time doing that, they wanted to make sure the other missionaries were covering the "interpretation" things I was doing. As we listened we said, "we are already doing that". There are very little changes we have to make. Daniel wants to make sure we are sharing the events "every other one." So he is now going to be the one to assign which missionary couple is doing a particular event. I told him we were already switching every other one except for the big ones and we share those. He still wants it to go through him. So, now we have an extra step to do. No biggie.

That evening we got ready for our second event. This was a continuation of "2023 S&I Annual Training Broadcast Prerecording". We wouldn't have had to do this one, but the Ukrainians couldn't all make it on Wednesday night so they bumped to Thursday night with the last of the Tieline languages. Since it was last minute we decided to go off campus for dinner, meaning we ordered from a restaurant and Elder Wilcox picked it up. That night we decided to do Applebee's. 

Back: Elder Wilcox, Daniel, Aaron, 
Elder Linford, Curtis, Jarod, and Venky
Front: Sister Wilcox, Sara, 
Sister Linford, Eunlan, and Ljiljana

Since the weather was still bad and there were accidents all over, the whole Ukrainian team was late. Ganna was just a little late and we had a wonderful visit with her. Two of the brothers showed up about 45 minutes late and the last one arrived just as they were headed to the booth. He was the last speaker so we knew we still had time. The brothers took their dinners home as there wasn't time to eat before they had to start. Normally the Ukrainians go to their booth on the 28th floor. I asked if it would be possible for them to use one of the booths on the 27th floor so they could be near the engineer and we could be there to help if they needed anything. I had to print several talks for them. The engineer put them in the Portuguese booth which is right next to the engineer's control room. It worked out great as Aaron was able to visit between videos and we even wandered down to chat on occasion. We had a wonderful evening with them. We finished a little before 9. I helped one of the Ukrainians do his invoice before he left. 

Sister Linford

Friday was pretty laid back. I finished getting the area interpreters added to my list. I had to walk over to the North Office Building (NOB) across the street to get added as a user to one of the MacBook laptops we have. Daniel wants me to use that as our laptop to run our big screen. We have a cool spreadsheet that shows our "live" events and who is working them and what languages etc. but the laptop I have connected to it was updated several months ago and not won't stay on. It is constantly timing out so we don't really use it anymore. Daniel remembered the MacBooks we have on 27 for the interpretation booths have not been updated and therefore should not time out. The problem was, I wasn't an admin user on the laptop so I couldn't change the settings to set to never shut off. So, I went to the NOB and they set me right up. I also needed a USB to USB cable to connect to the big screen, but they didn't have one. So they ordered it for me and hopefully I'll get it early next week. Then we will be back in business.

Elder Linford

Saturday was pretty laid back as well. I didn't have any HawkSoft work to do. We had set up an Initiatory appointment at the Bountiful Temple so we headed there for a 1 o'clock appointment. I was hoping we could do more than just 5 names, but they are pretty strict. I did manage to get 6 names done because I was a little early. After the Temple we got some ice cream at DQ and then headed home.

Sunday we had a special treat. Elder and Sister Pearson were our Sacrament speakers. Elder Pearson also ran the second hour of questions and answers. He gave the most powerful testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith that I have ever heard. He pointed out how he was raised up from before the foundations of the world to usher in the last dispensation of the fullness of the Gospel. He was taught by all the prophets of old as well as the Savior Himself. He may not have had much of a formal education, but the tutelage he received at the hands of the ancients was more than any person who has ever lived or will ever live on the face of the earth. The Holy Ghost bore witness to me that every word he said was true. 

After he spoke about Joseph Smith, he proceeded to talk of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He bore testimony of the reality of His divine Sonship, His Atoning sacrifice, the life He lived on earth, and of His great love for each of His children. He shared a very personal story of how he came to know the Savior's love for him personally and how it changed his life forever. I could relate to parts of his story as the time I, too, learned for myself of the Savior's love for me. I know that He lives and loves each and every one of us. I know that He volunteered to be the Savior of the world so that all may live again. He overcame death and hell and He paved the way for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again someday. He gives all glory to His Father. He is our mediator with the Father and paid the price for sin that we cannot pay ourselves so that justice might be satisfied and mercy also. There are no words to express my love for Him. May we all remember who we celebrate this Christmas Season. Without Christ, there is NO Christmas.

Merry Christmas and All Our Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 

SNOW, December Already, PLUNET Crash, and First Presidency Christmas Devotional!!!

We had a nice Mission Devotional Monday morning. The Discovery Zone shared about what they do and the "Elijah" moments they have. Later that night we had a fun Family Home Evening. The Ipsons were in charge and we had a wonderful discussion/game about invitations we have received since President Nelson became the President of the Church. Our team won.🤣 

I'm a little sad as that will be our last FHE for 2022. December is packed with other Monday night activities. On the 5th we have the beautiful Elijah Choir Christmas Concert. Our Elijah Choir rivals the Tabernacle Choir. 😇 They do such a wonderful job. On the 12th we will have our Zone Christmas Dinner and Program at the COB on the 26th floor. That is always very nice. The following week on the 19th The Mission will have a Dinner and Program. We will be in Oregon and miss that event. And the last Monday in December is the day after Christmas, and we will still be in Oregon, so we are canceling that FHE. We've already got people signed up for the new year.

Tuesday was AWESOME. We had a great Zone Devotional to start the day. After we got to work, it started snowing and snowed ALL day long. The sidewalks were pretty treacherous on our way home. Around noon, we had the PSD Christmas Devotional and Luncheon. Last year it was just a Teams Devotional. This year it was in person. Bishop Budge spoke to us. Then we had a nice Luncheon at the top of the Conference Center. After lunch we went back to the Little Theater in the Conference Center and got a preview of the new Book of Mormon Videos Season 4 on the big screen. They are awesome. We have just finished with the interpretation of the videos in several, so it is all ready for the world.

Wednesday we had lots of snow. I actually got to wear my snow boots. Other than normal work and making preparations for the Christmas Devotional, we had a pretty slow day. We had our team meeting at 2, and of course it went over - as usual. It was so nice to see nearly everyone in the office. Aaron and Curtis were home, but they came Tuesday for the PSD meeting so we saw them then.

Thursday was the first day of December. I can't believe it is already here. We had a Zone Devotional to start our day. Elder Wilcox stayed home as he was a bit under the weather and didn't really have anything that needed to be done. I thought about staying home with him, but it is so much easier to do what I do on my three big monitors. It was a good thing I went in. Daniel and Sara both came into the office and I helped them. Daniel and I are trying to get some software we can use with Teams. At first I thought it was just a free add-on app for calendaring. After researching and trying to get approval, we found out it had a cost. I was ready to abandon the idea when Daniel said, "We have the budget and it will do what we need it to do, so let's pursue it." So that is what we are doing. Hopefully we will get it approved next week as we want to implement it before the first of the year. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my master list. I found out this week I can use ACCESS to work on my lists. It is SO MUCH NICER and I can use SQL in ACCESS to I get the best of both worlds. My goal is to get the master list completely up to date by syncing it with Event Central and PLUNET. Once that is done, we only need to keep it up to date with PLUNET, which can be manually done for those that come after me. I think that will work in the long run.

Friday, Elder Wilcox was back to normal and feeling great. We had a good day at work and planned on leaving early, but didn't quite make it. We left about 5:15. The Linfords stayed for an event called North America Central Hispanic Devotional with Elder Soares. 

On Saturday I worked on HawkSoft. Darrin had lots of certifications for me to do so it kept me busy all day. Steve went shopping. It is so nice that he doesn't mind shopping since I really don't like shopping. In the evening we worked on some Christmas presents and watched a little TV. 

Sunday was a busier day than usual. It started with some Scripture Study then working on my blog. I got an email from work about a rush job for a gal that does Portuguese Subtitles who was assigned to do the Christmas Devotional tonight. So I jumped in PLUNET to set up the order. I normally clone a previous order for her so everything comes in the way I need it, but no job came in. At first I thought I forgot to click on the copy job box. No matter, I set it up, but I wanted to check the price. I opened the order I had cloned but there was no job in the order. That was strange because I knew I had created it. I checked another one for her and it was also missing the job. I then ran a report for all the jobs for this interpreter and it was blank. Something was very, very wrong. I then got a call from Elder Linford. He was checking PLUNET for our Christmas Devotional tonight and it was COMPLETELY Empty. He was panicked as he knew he had set it up. I told him I was contacting our Tech guys as I remembered having a similar problem many months ago, and I was sure nothing was lost. I called Tim and Caleb in hopes one of them would pick up, since it was highly possible they were both in Church. Tim finally answered. I explained the situation and he said the system needed to be rebooted. A few minutes later, Caleb chatted in Teams wanting to know the problem so we told him, too. He was the one who knew who to call to reboot the system so he took care of that. Long story short, it is all fixed now!!!

Church was good. I so love meeting with our fellow Missionaries. We have so many friends and it is great to see them each week. Occasionally we run into some in the cafeteria and visit with them for awhile. It is always such a pleasure. Right after Church we headed over to the COB to get ready for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We had lots of Interpreters for this event. It is almost as big as General Conference. Lucky for us, that meant that Events covered the meal. They had a nice spread in the Cafeteria and we didn't have to do a thing other than enjoy and visit with the Interpreters. It was an awesome devotional and I hope you were able to watch it.

As Always, We Love You!!! May you have a Wonderful Holiday Season. And please remember that Christ is at the center of Christmas! You will enjoy this beautiful video to get you in the Spirit of Christmas!  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2019-09-0050-the-christ-child?lang=eng 

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox