Elder Renlund, PowerPoint,  and a Crazy Saturday

This is Baptiste's Cubicle

This week was pretty slow as far as events go.  We input quite a few for the rest of the month so we were busy.  We have a very large event that will cover three days for Roots Tech.  The biggest problem we had was it is still in flux.  Oh,  and the Supervisor in charge was on a cruise ship all week so he could only work on it when he had internet connections.  I wanted to wait until he got back before we created the PLUNET order, but he kept asking for updates on our progress with PLUNET.  After several major changes to the project I had Elder Linford delete the PLUNET order and start over.  Our supervisor is back on Monday so things should be easier.  

These are boxes Elder Wilcox
decorated for Baptiste so he could
pack up his stuff on Friday.

On Monday, after my eye doctor appointment we went home to finish working.  We received an email from our department manager telling us he has made some changes between branches within our department.  Interpretations is one and translations is another and so forth.  The manager decided to swap a supervisor from each of those two branches. I was really shocked to read our beloved Baptiste is moving to translations on February 7th.  We will get a new supervisor named Joelma. I immediately chatted Baptiste and cried.  He did too. We will all miss him so much.  My good friend, Sara, will be taking over much of what Baptiste was over so I will be working more closely with her now.  All week Baptiste has been the main topic of discussion everyday. We are ALL going to miss him so much.

I spent most of the week preparing for our Global Area Training meetings that will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I have to create the agenda,  get the prayers from 4 different countries,  and give a PowerPoint presentation on PLUNET.  I think I'm almost done.  Wish me luck. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with meetings,  more preparation,  and helping others. On Tuesdays, we are taking a Leadership Pattern class called "Lead Like the Savior."
It is so powerful. After only two weeks of the 11 week course it has changed my life. I eagerly look forward to each week's studies. Our Zone has been given permission to teach the classes to our missionaries. Our Zone leader asked me if we wanted to turn our FHE group into a class for the next couple of months. I took a poll from our group and the majority says YES. Little did I know that he also wants me to teach the class. I'm actually very excited about it because our group is so good at discussions and I know "teaching" this class will be easy. Besides I'll have just gone through the material a few weeks before. haha  

Throughout the week we had many new events come in.  At the beginning of the week a Stake  Conference for Portland Oregon came in so we claimed the event.  It was scheduled for Saturday Morning.  By Wednesday two more Stake Conferences were added to Saturday.  Then on Thursday we got another one that also included a Friday evening event.  So we spent Thursday and Friday coordinating 2 meals and snacks for everyone.  All events were for Spanish so Sara was going a little crazy getting interpreters to cover everything since each event had at least two sessions with two having three. Many sessions overlapped others so we needed different Interpreters.  Sara created an awesome spreadsheet to help us keep everything straight. One of the events (2 sessions) also had Portuguese. The Linfords covered Friday night and we covered all day Saturday. 

In the spreadsheet shown in the picture, Friday is the cream colored line at the top. Everything from the blue line near the top clear down to the line before the Purple line was our Saturday.  The spreadsheet below the first one is the one Sara did just for Saturday. It includes all the people for each of the 4 events for both Friday and Saturday. Eunlan is pointing to that chart. I added some color coding for the meals so we knew who was getting dinner (easy, one event on Friday7 night), who was getting breakfast (also easy, two events that started the same time), who was getting lunch (a lot trickier because we had three different events at staggered times), and lastly, who was getting snacks (mostly easy because we brought out snacks between each session for everyone, plus they came in and got leftovers from lunch for the afternoon snacks.)

Friday was AWESOME.  We had a very special Mission Devotional with Elder Renlund and two other Elders and all their wives. For two hours we were spiritually fed by an Apostle of the Lord and His fellow servants.  All the talks were great. They also had a Question and Answer time that was very interesting. Elder Renlund shared personal experiences that touched me deeply.  I wish I could share my thoughts and feelings with you,  but there are no words to express it. 

With that I will close.  I really cannot say more. 

All our Love and Prayers, 

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee 

Elder and Sister Wilcox ❤ 

Changes, Changes, and More Changes

It feels like every event we have had lately has some sort of change. It makes it kind of hard to make plans and then have to change them at the last minute. This is especially true when ordering our meals. We had at least two events this past week where we placed our order for X amount of meals and found out (sometimes the same day) that one of the languages in country can't do it because they are not allowed to gather due to COVID and can we cover it? So, not only are we scrambling to get Interpreters, but we have to ask the cafeteria to add more meals and we have to pay those interpreters at a RUSH rate. What I learned from working in the Temple is that this is the Lord's work and EVERYTHING always works out. It is the same here!

Monday was Martin Luther King day and the office building was closed. We actually stayed home and worked on a number of different things. I had another eye doctor appointment and I'm happy to report that my eyes are reacting well to the new prescription and actually doing much better now. We had our first Virtual FHE on Zoom. It turned out OK, but we didn't have very many attend. I think it was because I forgot to send out a reminder. We still had a good discussion with those who attended.  We'll see what happens this coming week.

Tuesday was busy with work but no events so we were all able to go home by 5.  I had been working on the last piece of my big project. I was trying to automate sending out emails with unique attachments to each area language coordinator. There is an app called Power Automate that comes with the new Office 365. I found a YouTube to show me exactly what I needed to do. The last piece was an add-on that I needed in Excel. To get the add-on I needed Admin authorization to download it. It was after hours so I knew I could get it that night.

I went in early Wednesday so I could tackle getting permission. After at least an hour of very frustrating and unproductive results, I was finally given a name of someone who could help me. At that time we had a BIG division virtual meeting so I knew I wouldn't get any help until after the meeting. No sooner had we signed in when the power went out all over downtown Salt Lake.  Apparently a transformer blew out. We had a Tieline event going on the 27th floor so I ran downstairs to see if they had crashed. The Church has put beaucoup (bookoo) bucks into our engineering systems. They were running on a backup system and never even saw a glitch. Power was out everywhere else on the floor, but engineering was running fine and all the "in country" languages were working smoothly. Baptiste then mentioned that we could still watch our meeting on our phones so upstairs I went to let everyone know. We used phones and tablets and it all worked out fine. It was a wonderful meeting that talked out future direction for the division and some cool new technology that is in the works for translations.

I had two more meetings throughout the day but the others were VERY short. I managed to get in touch with the guy that could help and he showed me a way I could use Power Automate without the Excel app. It took us about an hour to get it working but I'm so excited now. They only problem I have now is auto emails like that will not allow you to email outside the organization. MOST of the area people are Church employees so that is good; however, there are a handful that are not. So now they are working on getting me "white listed" to allow me to send mass emails outside the organization.  "Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty-bitty [work] space."

That evening we had a wonderful event with President and Sister Nelson and Elder and Sister Bednar. It was President Nelson's European tour. This was one of the events we had a last minute language addition to our SLC group. We ended up with about 30 for dinner that night. It was awesome hearing talks from all four leaders.

Thursday was a unique day. We held an all day off-site meeting at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on the 10th floor. It was kind of funny leading up to the meeting that there was no way we were going to have enough to talk about for 7 hours. Well, we were so wrong. We did end a little early, but that was because everyone was zoning out so Daniel said we should go home. We actually cut out several topics on the agenda so it could have gone another hour or more. Several of us had presentations to give on different topics. I shared all about PLUNET and how it affects everyone and why it is important to have everyone that does interpretations active in PLUNET. There were several other presentations given. We spent a lot of time working on our Global Interpretations Vision and Emphasis statement. The last part of our meeting was working on the agenda for our Global Area Training meetings we are having the first couple of days in February. One meeting will be with the Asia Pacific teams and the other will be with the European teams. Those of us who presented in our off-site meeting will also be presenting in the Global Are Training meetings. Obviously these will be done remotely.

On Friday we had two more events; one in the morning and one in the evening. We took the morning event. We realized the night before after we got home from the off-site meeting that we didn't order breakfast for our event...so we quickly put something together and placed an online order for breakfast with Denny's. So Friday morning Steve dropped me off at the COB so I could get things set up and he went to pick up breakfast. Then I met him in the parking garage to pick up the food so he could take our car home since we are not allowed to park in the parking garage during the week until after 3:00. So I took 16 meals to the cafeteria to set up breakfast. People showed up and meals disappeared. I began to notice there weren't going to be enough meals for everyone. Then I realized we only ordered 16 meals for our Interpreters. We forgot to order meals for the Supervisor, Engineer and the missionaries (us). The Supervisor took a meal which meant we were short one for one of the Interpreters. Well, we had saved a lasagna dinner with salad and dessert from Wednesday night for Jeanpierre, but we forgot to give it to him at the off-site. I had just texted him about how sorry I was for not remembering and he told me it was OK and to give it to someone else. So, I told our interpreter that we messed up on the order and that I had a lasagna dinner and would she like it. She said she had already eaten breakfast and would love the lasagna dinner so everything all worked out in the end. Later that evening, the Linfords did the other event. I love having the Linfords with us.

Saturday morning we had another event and the Linfords took that one as well because we had done the last two Saturdays in a row. Besides we were going to do a Sunday event. So on Saturday I updated the SharePoint site, took care of a few PLUNET issues and then got ready to start on a Leadership Journey class that we are taking. Elder Wilcox was still finishing up with his emails, or meal orders, so I decided to look for some Temple appointments. I scheduled some Initiatory for Feb 16 in the late afternoon and started looking for baptisms. I tried three different Temples and couldn't get in for 4 months. I tried one last Temple in hopes there were some cancelations. Ogden is a little far so we don't go there very often. Anyway as soon as I said Baptisms two appointments were available for the SAME DAY!!! So we did some Baptisms on Saturday afternoon. It was AWESOME!

Sunday we went to the COB for our event at 9:15 call time. Our three interpreters arrived and so did Curtis, our supervisor. We were only doing snacks that morning. (A BLESSING IN DISGUISE!) Pretty soon Curtis got a little excited and said the event wasn't supposed to start until 6:00 PM. He double checked just to be sure. Apparently it was setup with the wrong time in our programs. Curtis checked with the Supervisor software and with the Producer and confirmed that it was indeed 6:00 PM. So we asked which interpreters could come back. Only 1 of the three could. We paid them a minimum 2 hours for coming anyway. We called Sara and got two more interpreters and I set it all up again, this time for a RUSH job. The Supervisor said we were to do dinner, too. (Hence the blessing we didn't buy breakfast.)  So we got their orders for McDonalds and picked that up on our way back to the COB after Church. 

Like I said.  LOTS of changes all week.

Have a great week and stay safe and warm.

All our love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 CIVID Strikes Again

With COVID cases increasing and mandates back in place our job is busier than ever. Much of the travel for the brethren has been put on hold so  Zoom meetings have increased again. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that "...no unhallowed hand [or COVID virus] can stop the work from progressing; ... but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." ~ Joseph Smith  

Monday we had a good day. We started it with our annual visit to the doctor. Our doctor is pleased with the health of both of us. She basically said to keep up the good work. Of course she encouraged us to both loose some weight, but other than that all is good. We went back to work  and were busy adding and updating lots of events that were upcoming. One major problem we are having is getting valid PRJ (project) numbers for our events. They must be valid before we can pay our Interpreters or order our food.  I am still waiting on two mission PRJs from two events in December. NOT GOOD. Apparently there is a new system to generate the PRJs and there are some problems. Some have squeaked in at the very last minute. We are hoping this get taken care of very, very soon.

We had a special Mission Devotional on Monday evening. Keith Erekson has written several books including one about Rumors and Truth. He is a Director for the Church History Department. He shared several fun examples of things that have been believed to be true, but when researched they were found to just be rumors. He is a really good speaker and was entertaining as well has inspirational. We enjoyed it vey much.

Tuesday brought more of the same during the day and the Worldwide Missionary Devotional with Elder Soares in the evening. We had 8 languages here and 1 remote. It was fun to be with everyone again after several weeks of virtually no events. We did do things a bit different this time. Because of the COVID restrictions, we were asked to serve the meal rather than let them serve themselves. It was kind of fun. We had about 30 people to feed. I'm not sure how long we will need to do this, but I guess we can live with it.

Wednesday was a day of meetings. We started with a Division meeting. It was supposed to be in person, but was moved to online. It was pretty informative and it is nice to get the perspective of some of the other departments within PSD, which is our global umbrellas. Later in the day we had our team meeting. Sara and I gave a presentation about our project to help all the area language coordinators, as well as our Salt lake teams, help get those who are not active in PLUNET changed to active! The presentation went so well, that we were asked to make it part of the global training to the Areas we are going to be involved in at the end of the month or the beginning of February. Daniel (our manager) also asked me to prepare a short training  for the Areas on how to use PLUNET with their jobs. After our Team meeting, I had the PLUNET Governance meeting. That one is very SLOW moving. Most of the meeting is spent talking about the Translation team and doesn't pertain to Interpretations very much, but I am trying to get a few things pushed through. One thing that did come out of the meeting is another meeting for early next week to work on our invoicing problem. My fingers are crossed!

Now that the Linford's are pretty much up to speed we are splitting events to it is not so hard on any of us when things get so busy. It makes it nice. So on Wednesday night the Linfords did their first big solo event. They finished up the last session of the S&I Training with Elder Ballard. They did a very small event the Saturday before, but Wednesday was a little bigger. They had to get the food from the cafeteria and serve it to the Interpreters as well as all the other things we do. They said it went well.

Thursday was Elder Linford's birthday. It was pretty low key but we still tried to make it fun for him. We continued to enter or populate new events. We got word that we needed to move our FHE group to virtual for the next couple of weeks due to the COVID restrictions. We also were told that our special meeting with Elder Renlund has been moved from in person to virtual. It is disappointing but it will still be nice to have our own meeting with an Apostle of the Lord.  We were able to leave around 3:30 so the we and the Linfords could go to the Bountiful Temple for Elder Linford's birthday. We went out for ice cream cones after. 

Friday was a little crazy.  Baptiste was in charge of three events that were all taking place around the same time. He was over the Music and the Spoken Word at 9 AM. Not only was he in charge of it, but he was also the Interpreter for French.  This is one that is done at the Conference Center and we don't usually get to go; but, Baptiste invited the Linfords to come and watch since they haven't seen the process before. They enjoyed it very much. At the same time he was also in charge of a Mission Training Meeting that we were at. Since he couldn't be in both places at the same time he had Aaron cover for him so we got to work with Aaron. It was also a very good meeting. After both of those Baptiste went to his third assignment. He got to Interpret for President Eyring in issuing a new calling to a couple in France. It was very special for him.

Baptiste always working

Saturday the Linfords went to be with a son and his family so they could be there for the ordination of their grandson to the office of a Priest. They will be back on Monday. That left us the opportunity to be involved in two different area conferences in Utah. Both were supervised by Baptiste. Poor guy had so much to do in the last few days. It was nice to be with him as we always enjoy events with Baptiste. The first one was for Ogden and the second was in Orem.  Elder Rasband shared several off script stories and bore a very powerful testimony. We are so blessed to be here and have the opportunity to hear these special stories from time to time.

This past week we have been studying the Fall of Adam and Eve. I am so grateful for the additional information we receive from additional scripture to help add to our understanding of that story in Genesis. For example, in Genesis we think Eve made  mistake to partake of the forbidden fruit; however, from additional scripture we know that it wasn't a mistake but it was part of Heavenly Father's plan. If she would not have partaken of the fruit and if Adam would not have followed her lead, they would have remained in the Garden of Eden forever and we would never have been born. So, I for one, am so grateful for Eve's choice to partake of that fruit to make her wise and distinguish good from evil. She knew she would have to leave the Garden of Eden, but she could now fulfill the higher law to multiply and replenish the earth. Eve is truly the Mother of All Living!

We hope you will have a GREAT week. Stay safe and well. Take time to tell those you love what they mean to you. Put your trust in the Lord and He will direct your paths. May you find Peace in Christ!

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Back to "Normal"

Well, the Holidays are over and the slow weeks are a thing of the past. We jumped right in with both feet this week. 

On Monday we had a fairly relaxing day. It was the scheduled Holiday for the

Church so the offices were closed. Of course that didn't mean we didn't do any work. We took care of a few things on the computer in the morning. We had a few changes for the upcoming events for the week so we wanted to make sure we had everything set up right. We had one language that was supposed to be in country, but, last minute got changed to SLC. That meant we had to increase our meals. It wasn't too bad because the event was first thing Tuesday morning and we just give the cafeteria the names of the people coming and they just go through the cafeteria and get that they want so adding names wasn't a big deal. Later that afternoon I had an eye doctor appointment. I've been having some problems with blurriness, so we are working on finding the treatment that will work. Part of the problem is the very dry climate here. It seems to aggravate my very dry eyes.  After running a few errands we got ready for our weekly Family Home Evening. We were few that night, but we had a lot of fun.

On Tuesday we had four events. Three of them involved us and one was ASL in the Conference Center. The two took place in the morning and one in the evening. The Linfords took care of the morning events. And we took the evening event. That morning we did several languages all of which were overseas in the first session of the 2022 S&I Annual Training Broadcast with President Ballard. We only had the engineer and the supervisor so there was not much for us to do. We did put them on the list so they could eat. The other event that morning was the January 2022 S&I Area Director Council Meeting. It was for Spanish only. 

Later that day we had the second session of the meeting with President Ballard. We had four languages, including Spanish again. It was fun to be at an event again. When the event was over we were talking to Aaron, the supervisor. He was the supervisor that morning for the overseas languages. He lives over an hour away so he was planning on sleeping in the COB. We told him that we had a spare bedroom with a nice bed that he was welcome to use. After he thought about it for a minute he decided to take us up on the offer. We walked to our apartment, which I think is actually closer then if he would have walked to his car in the conference center parking lot.  hahaha. Once we got him settled and then visited for a while, we read our Come Follow Me together. We had a nice discussion before we all went to bed.  

Wednesday morning he headed back to the COB for the 3rd session of the Ballard event with several more languages overseas. We only had two events that day. The morning Ballard event and the Evening Ballard event. Since we had four languages we decided all four of us missionaries would do this event. As it turned out that was a good thing. We were there to help with the food, especially boxing everything up after we ate. Elder Wilcox and I had to leave early that evening as Elder Wilcox was asked to give a blessing to one of our neighbors who was scheduled for surgery the next day. We were glad we could do both the event and the blessing. We love the Linfords!!! I also had several meetings that day. One I hope will prove beneficial as I am trying to get some things done so I can do a mass update to one of the databases. I have one of the leaders of the group looking into an API solution for me. Please keep your fingers crossed. An API allows one program or source talk to another one and that is how I can do a mass update.

On Thursday we didn't think we had any events. Oh, there were two on the schedule, but one was a language coaching and the other was the monthly GA Wives meeting. 
I thought something was wrong with the GA Wives meeting when I entered it into the computer. Normally it says GA Wives Luncheon. We supply Interpreters for Spanish and French and they always go to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for the event and they eat there so we don't do anything. Well, about 9:45 a brand new engineer came in looking for Curtis, who was the supervisor for that event. We met the new engineer on Tuesday when he was in training at our other event. I think this may have been his first solo event. Anyway, I told him Curtis wasn't here but would probably be at the JSMB soon if he was not already there. Sam (the engineer) then told us that the Interpreters were interpreting in the booths and that the meeting was in the COB and not the JSMB. I went back and looked at the original setup and sure enough it said the COB. So I scrambled down to the 27th floor to get ready for the Interpreters. I also contacted Curtis to see if he knew they were going to be in the booths. He said he just found out and was waiting to see if any interpreters showed up downstairs. Long story short -- everything turned out great. The change in the title was on purpose. It was a meeting and not a luncheon.

It was the first time we got to see one of these events and it was great. They had two speakers who were professors from BYU and then Elder Nash spoke. The second speaker spoke about women and the Priesthood. She was very intelligent (has to be because she is a professor.) She said some things that triggered the "professor" mode in Curtis. He is the supervisor who loves anything Joseph Smith. He listened intently and he shared with us several quotes and stories that Joseph said that related to the Priesthood. It was all very fascinating. When the event was over we went to lunch and Curtis joined us and shared even more information. There is no stopping him once he gets started. We loved it!

That evening we and the Linfords went to the Bountiful Temple. It was a very nice session. We stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home for some ice cream. Very fun.

Friday was low key. We didn't have any events; however, we did get several new events to put in the system. January if filling up fast. It is nice to share the load with the Linfords so no one has to put in 12 and 15 hour days anymore. We all went home a little early.  

On Saturday we had three (well technically five) more events. One event (2 sessions) started at 7  and 8:30 AM. The next event (2 sessions) started at 9 and 10:30 AM. The last session for the second event started at 6 PM. Curtis had the first event and Aaron had the next one; however, since Aaron's morning events overlapped Curtis's event, he took it for Aaron so Aaron wouldn't have to be there all day long again. So we were with Curtis in the morning from 5:30 (we have to be there 1/2 hour before their call time which is 1 hour before the event starts) until after 1 PM. Curtis picked up where he left off on Thursday and proceeded to give us another wonderful lesson on the Priesthood. We have learned so much. The Linfords did the evening event.

After our event we went to Steve's brother, Roy and his wife Vicki's house. We had a wonderful visit with them for a couple of hours. We had planned on visiting over the holidays but between the bad weather, icy roads, and Steve hurting his knee, we just stayed home as much as we could. Saturday was perfect for a visit. The weather was beautiful and the company was great!

Next week is starting to look busy. We already have three events that we need to be involved in. The first is the Worldwide Missionary Devotional. I just love those.

Have a GREAT week!

Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad,

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2022 already. It seems like we just got here on our mission and yet, so much has happened.

On Sunday we had a wonderful day with Sean and MyLiege and the girls. They went to Church with us and it was so nice to introduce them to our friends. It was bitter cold outside and the wind was blowing. I told Elle that Jack Frost was nipping at my nose and she replied that "he is nipping at my ears!" The walk back to the apartment wasn't quite as bad, but still very cold. We had dinner and visited for a while. We were watching the weather report closely. Originally, they were going to leave on Monday, but the report said Monday would be a bad day to travel so they were thinking of leaving on Tuesday. We had arranged to borrow blankets and pillows again so they could stay with us. As it turned out, the bad weather day was actually Sunday, and Monday was the opportune day after all. They woke up at 3:30 AM and decided they needed to leave now. So they loaded the car and got the girls and left by 4:30. They called us to drop all their remaining food off. So, we met Sean and Anna in the lobby, got a box and bag of food, gave them one last hug and sent them on their way. We went back to bed. lol They managed to stay ahead of the bad weather and made it home by 5:30 PM that night to a blanket of snow at their house. I guess we all got a White AFTER Christmas.

MyLiege decided our apartment needed some help, so she purchased a few things to brighten this up. We also had a missionary couple going home so they left things they no longer wanted out for people to take. We picked up a nice area rug that matches our living room perfectly. I didn't think it mattered that much, but I was wrong. I absolutely love our apartment. It is so cozy and inviting. I can't wait for Family Home Evening this week to show everything off.

This week was the slowest week we have had since arriving here. There were only three events on the calendar and all three had nothing to do with us other then setting them up in the computer. So we went into the office late and sometimes left early. It was really good in one way because it gave all of us plenty of time to finish up a project I have been working on since before General Conference. I was on the final stage and unfortunately it required a lot of intensive labor from all four of us. I'm trying to identify all the Interpreters that are not in our PLUNET software so we can make sure

they get onboarded before April Conference. Unfortunately the majority of volunteers in the PLUNET system don't have their LDS Account name on their record and that is what I use to match them with the other software we use to make assignments. So, we selected all the blank account names and looked them up one by one by name to see if they were in the PLUNET software. If they were, we added the information we needed. If not, we left them blank. We divided the list into 4 and we each worked on it for several days. We finished on Friday. I selected the remaining blank ones and thought of another way to check if they existed in the PLUNET system. So I spent Friday and Saturday checking email addresses one by one for the remaining blanks and found quite a few more. The remaining blanks now are truly NOT in PLUNET so if they are to be used for Interpreting, they must be onboarded. We will be presenting our research in an Area Training Meeting later this month. Each area will receive instructions on what to do as well as a list of all their people and their status in PLUNET so they know which ones need to be added and which need to be reactivated. We are trying to avoid the headache we had last conference with people not active in PLUNET, and yet needed for General Conference.

We had another very cold and snowy week. It looks so beautiful and I love that we can look out our windows and see it, but don't have to be in it. Walking to and from the office hasn't been too bad. We bundle up and it is a fairly short walk. They do a good job of keeping the sidewalks clear so we aren't trudging through the snow.

We did manage to get to the Temple on Tuesday with the Linfords. We have another appointment scheduled for this coming Thursday. It has been so nice to be in the Temple more often. It is pushing me to work on Family History so I have names to take. The Linfords are a good influence on us. They served two Temple Missions before this one so they love going to the Temple a lot. They were used to being in the Temple everyday and try to go as often as they can get an appointment. We are happy with once a week and hope we will be able to continue that once things start getting busier.

Today we get to enjoy a delightful Break the Fast with all the Missionaries on our floor. We do it every month with a delicious Potluck dinner. It is so fun. We have several events this week and next week so things are getting back to normal. We also have an offsite training meeting coming up which we expect to be fun. We love it when our whole department gets together. Everyone is so great to work with and we all have a lot of fun together.

So, what are some of my New Year's Resolutions?

1. Go to the Temple as often as possible.
2. Spend more time in Gospel Study.
3. Look for more opportunities to help others and to serve the Lord.
4. Not get so frustrated with PLUNET because it doesn't work the way it should.

I hope you all strive to keep the Spirit of Christmas with you throughout the year. Of course that really means to keep the Spirit of Christ with you. As we strive to emulate Him and try to be like Jesus, we will naturally be kinder to others and more loving to those around us.

I wish you all a very Prosperous and Happy New Year! Let 2022 be AWESOME!!!

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox