Global Training, Screening, the Beechs, and Trains

This has been a fairly busy week. We started the week with another Zoom Family Home Evening. Sister Bartell was in charge and led a wonderful discussion on the National Geographic documentary entitled "The Rescue". It is about the 12 young boys from Thailand and their soccer coach being caught in a cave for over 12 days. They went in for a day hike one day in the spring before the normal rains came that would fill the caves with water. Apparently the rains came early and furiously and before they could turn around and get out they found themselves trapped. The documentary was about the monumental efforts of people around the world to help recue the boys. Our discussion centered around the many ways the Hand of the Lord was shown in the rescue of those boys. So many received promptings and impressions that led to their recovery. Many of the things they were inspired to do had never been done before. Some were against every rule of safety and they did their best to choose some other way; but finally realized it was their only choice. They risked their own lives to save these boys. On top of that they found 4 other men who were trapped that no one even knew were missing. They saved them too, and learned valuable things in that shorter rescue that probably saved lives when they finally found the boys. The biggest miracle from God was everyone one of the boys and their coach were all rescued. One of the rescuers lost his life and they almost stopped any further rescue attempts after that, but thankfully those who were doing the diving knew they couldn't quit. It is an amazing story.

On Tuesday morning we did our first Global Area Training meeting for Europe, Africa, Central, and South America. Wednesday evening we did the second meeting with those in the Asia Pacific. There were four of us who did a presentation and everyone did a great job. After our Tuesday presentation we decided to put all the separate PowerPoint presentations into a single presentation and then just pass control to the speaker. That went much smoother on Wednesday. I had several responsibilities for these meetings. I created the Agenda, got the prayers from four different countries, created one of the PowerPoint presentations, and later putting all the presentations into one presentation, recording the meetings, and finally making sure the videos and the presentation were uploaded to our knowledge base called Wisdom. Prior to the meeting I had spent a couple of months putting together the information to send to the Area Language Coordinators which consisted of a spreadsheet of the individual language team and their status in our various systems, instructions on how to onboard those there were inactive or missing from Plunet, instructions on how to create and send invoices, the Candidate Information form, and finally the Election for volunteered language service form. I also worked on an automated process to be able to send these out to all the area coordinators with all the necessary attachments. I sent those out on Saturday evening. The most fun part about both Global Training Meetings was getting to talk to so many people around the world before the meeting started. I started both meetings about 15 minutes before the start time so it was very fun to visit and get to know people who, to that point, I only knew their names, and now I have faces and actually talked to them. It was very fun.

On Wednesday we had a wonderful potluck luncheon for Baptiste since he is moving to the Translation team next week. We are going to miss him so much. As we were visiting and eating, we all realized it is probably the first time our entire team has been together since before COVID. I don't think we had everyone there when we first arrived. It was so nice to have everyone there. The picture with no masks was our complete team, We took another one with Joelma added and for some crazy reason, Aaron decided to put his mask back on. He actually spent the night at our apartment that night because we had an event that night and he had another one first thing the next morning. Needless to say I chastised him about his mask. He said he was messing around and thought he took it off before the last picture. hahaha

On Thursday we held a Screening event for interviewing prospective interpreters to bring onboard. With General Conference in just a couple of months we are always trying to grow our teams...especially the more obscure languages like Hiligaynon. It went very well and everyone that came, except one, was selected to complete the onboarding process. We had 4 young men that we chose for our Lingala team last November. They are already in the process of being onboarded. We invited them back to be screened for French and each one passed with flying colors. So we will increase two teams by 4. We do French a lot more than some of the other languages, so it was a good thing they are already in the system to be onboarded.

On Friday we intended to leave a little early to help the Beechs move in. They are new missionaries from our very own Oregon City Stake and we are so happy to have them here, and they are in our building. Not only are they in our building, but they are our next door neighbors. We made a welcome sign for their door and intended to meet them in the afternoon, but of course one thing led to another and we didn't leave until 5:30. We did stop by to welcome them and invited them to our apartment for a little while so we could visit. I am hoping they will join our FHE group as well. They will be doing training next week and will find out where they are assigned on Friday. We are so happy to have them here.

Part of the reason we didn't leave as early as we wanted was because of a couple of meetings I had in the morning and afternoon. I spent the morning helping Sister Petty, who handles all the new and renewal onboarding requests. Through all the preparation for the Global Area Training, Sara and I were tasked to simplify the paperwork to onboard new people. They also wanted it to be consistent with all the different departments that do onboarding, Translations, Sacred Materials, and Interpretations. Sara did a tremendous amount of work, and because she has been involved in the special Sacred Materials project, she had an inside scoop on how they were doing things. We evaluated all the different information gathering forms and made decisions on what forms to use for everyone. These turned out to be different than what Sister Petty had been using, so I spent Friday morning creating email templates for her to use that already have the wording and the attachments for her. All she has to do is key in the email address and click send. It will be far easier for her in the future.

After lunch I had two other meetings. One with our Turkish team lead and one with our Plunet expert who just got hired last month. We talked for quite a while going over the issue we have with invoicing for our interpreters, and all the changes the Linfords and I have to make every single time we add interpreters to Plunet orders. The prices should come in with the correct amount, but they don't so we have to change the prices every time. Caleb agreed that both my concerns are valid and he thinks he can help get them fixed. I hope we can see some progress BEFORE General Conference gets going in full swing.

On Saturday we did something we will probably never do again.  Hahahaha February is FREE transportation month and all the public transportation systems are free. So Elder Wilcox decided we should ride the commuter train from one end of the line to the other. We walked about a mile to get to the train station and just barely made the next run. We rode all the way to Provo and then all the way to Ogden and finally back to Salt Lake where we got off and walked a mile back home. It took us almost 6 hours to do every thing counting the walks and the 1/2 layover in Provo. It was fun and I'm glad we did it. But we both realized there is a reason we don't particularly care for public transportation. Some of you understand! There was free Wifi so I took my laptop and was able to still work on the things I normally work on for my Saturdays, including connecting to HawkSoft and doing some download certifications. Hahaha

Sunday we had our monthly Break the Fast. It is always fun, especially as we are getting to know more and more people who live in our building. For most of them our only interaction is with Break the Fast to it takes a while to get to know everyone. We love it and are enjoying our mission so much.

Through the "Lead Like the Savior" course we are taking I am learning so many things about myself and what I need to do to be more like my Savior. One thing I learned this week was how much my Patriarchal Blessing is about my whole life. There have always been some things that I just kind of wondered about what they really meant. As the years have gone by, I have seen more and more the fulfillment of the blessings and warnings in my blessing. This past week it was like everything was finally put into perspective. I saw why things in my past had to be, even though I could never understand why they had to be that way when I was living it. I especially learned why there was a particular warning in my blessing. When I was younger, I used to think the warning was in there about 40 different times. It seemed like every paragraph I would get the same warning. Needless to say it is only mentioned about three times. Anyway, I have always taken that warning very seriously and strived diligently to heed it in my life. Because of this past week I finally know why it is there and why I needed to think that it is in my blessing 40 times. I needed to take it seriously or I could have easily succumbed to the very thing I was being warned against. I still need to heed the warning and guard against it, but now I know why. 

I am so grateful for the blessing of my Patriarchal Blessing in my life. It truly is my own personal revelation and my guide throughout my life. I have read and studied it often and it has directed me throughout my life. And now, looking back, I can see the Hand of the Lord in ALL of my life and how He is guiding me back to HIM. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my Savior and all He has done for me and all of God's children. I want to be like Him and I try everyday to do what He would have me do.

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox