General Conference Report - Better Late Than Never

Our Incredible Engineers

Sorry, this is late, but we have still been working on General Conference. I am writing this now in the car on the way to Oregon for our youngest grand-daughter’s baptism. We are so excited for her and to see family and friends of course.

Here is a quick recap (I do not think I know what that word means) of the week leading up to General Conference weekend. Our 4^th Monday Mission Devotional always focuses on a particular Zone in our mission. The 28^th of March focused on the Church History Library. That is where the Beechs serve. I remember it was very interesting, but to be honest with everything General Conference going on the rest of the week, I don’t remember any specific things to share with you.

From our Portuguese Team

Tuesday was busy with Supervisors, events, and meetings. Actually, the whole week was busy with Supervisors events, and meetings. We had General Authority pre-recordings all week with as many as 4 in one day. Those didn’t specifically involve us, but Curtis came in the office after those events for an hour to two. Eunlan was in almost everyday. She is in charge of General Conference and said she could get more done in the office. Aaron popped in for a couple of events, and even Sara came in one afternoon. We even saw Daniel a few times. It was nice to see so many in the office.

Baptiste and Aaron

We had our last pre-conference meeting on Tuesday. We invited all of the missionaries that were helping with conference to join us. I got to do introductions for everybody; staff and missionaries. It was a pretty fun meeting. Curtis was as entertaining as usual. Everyone seemed to become instant friends. Eunlan explained and overview of conference and Curtis shared the schedule and what they would be doing. He then told them to contact me to give them a tour sometime that week. Almost before the meeting was over I had several requests for that very afternoon. I had to delay it until the next day or rest of the week as I had another meeting I was already late too because of course our meeting went over, plus we had a Temple appointment at 4:30 so we were leaving early. Tuesday evening was about the only night we didn’t have any events.

From one of our Events

I came home from the Temple and worked until after 11. I have been wanting to put my data into SQL to make things a little easier for the other missionaries as well as for me for quite a while now, so Tuesday was it. I had so many different reports I was running for Elder Linford to help with entering data into PLUNET. I tried to show him how to manipulate the spreadsheet and all the manual things I was doing and he finally agreed that I should keep doing it. Haha That was when I realized I needed to so something that would be easier for them to maintain. (I had already been thinking about it, but now it was necessary.) So, for the next several nights I worked on SQL because I did not have that program at work. I knew I would have to jump through some hoops to get it and there wasn’t time before General Conference. So now I just have to import the data that changes (the data that shows the new people coming to General Conference), and then run a script to get the results. No more manipulating spreadsheets. The script does it all!

Wednesday started the events that we were involved in. We had our monthly GA Wives Luncheon, only this time the interpreters were doing it from the COB instead of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. That meant we provided them lunch and supported the event. It was fun.

On Thursday and Friday we had General Conference Leadership Meetings ALL day BOTH days. There were a total of 13 meetings, most of which happened on Thursday and Friday. We finish up on April 5^th. We had a total of 6 languages: French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish. The meetings consisted of general  meetings for everyone, quorum meetings for the different areas, another wives luncheon, a tour, Area Organizational Advisors Meetings, and a Seventies and wives evening social. We split the events with the Linfords and we were all very busy. Poor Curtis was responsible for all the meetings. Thankfully, we have a team that helps each other and both, Aaron and Sara stepped in to help cover some times for Curtis. Curtis and I had many late night Teams (like Zoom) video calls going over schedules, ITI, reports, and anything else that needed to be done. I also talked with Eunlan and Sara most nights as well. I found my days were filled with helping people, giving several tours for our missionaries, Teams meetings and who knows what else to get anything done on the SQL reports I was trying to do. I even took my laptop to work to see if I could work on it during the day. Hahahahahahahahaha That didn’t work.

More from the Portuguese Team

After our Friday evening event, we had to prepare for General Conference. At the beginning of the week we (the Linfords and us) cleaned and restocked all the booths for conference. Friday night we had to hang up signs, help onboard last minute people, print tons of paper and pin those to the bulletin boards in each booth (these included the agendas for every session and notes the interpreters needed to be able to submit retakes), restock our mints, hard candy, and cough drops for the Interpreters (we probably refilled it at least 5 times over the weekend), and other things that needed to be done. Elder Linford and Elder Wilcox went with Eunlan to the hotel that all the out of town Interpreters and most of the Supervisors were staying at to give out per-diem envelops to our travelers. Sister Linford and I organized all the Conference tickets that we were giving to the interpreters who won our drawing. We got so many tickets this time that nearly everyone got tickets that wanted them. Curtis and I were setting up the 5 loaner laptops we got to help with check-in. We had to map our ITI program as that is what we were using for check-in. When Eunlan and the Elders got back they brought dinner so that was fun. Daniel had shown up, too.  

The other side of the table.

We went home about 10:00 pm and were back the next morning at 6:30 am. First on the agenda was finishing our setup process. For example, I had to get the check-in tables setup. We weren’t going to leave all our computers and access badges on the lower level all night, even if we didn’t expect anyone to be there. We did leave a couple of big signs that told what each table was and who was to report there. When we came back the next morning, one of the big signs was gone, including the tri-pod it was on. I think someone must have moved it, but we never found it. So, I’m glad we didn’t leave our others things down there. Our missionary helpers started showing up at 7:00. I sent them up to our prayer meeting while I was still setting things up. I think we had our first Interpreter check in about 7:00 am as well, maybe even before. They didn’t have to come until 8:00 am for breakfast or if they didn’t want breakfast, then call time was 9:00 am. I was able to get the 4 missionaries trained, as well as the staff that was helping out at our two tables. We had the first table for actual check-in. We also looked at their record to see if they need things like a picture taken, parking pass, access badge, or picture credentials. Some were also there to pick up conference tickets. If they needed anything they were sent to the second table to pick that up. We had 3 to 4 people to cover each table during the rush time. Elder Linford and I have some ideas to make it run much smoother for next conference. Let’s just say we had some bottlenecks.

Saturday and Sunday were a blur. It was so much fun to see so many of our interpreters. Many have not been in the COB for two years. I got to meet so many that I have talked to, emailed, and zoomed over the last several weeks. It was nice to finally meet in person. Those that worked the morning shifts were the busiest. We checked in over 100 people each morning and then added another 20 to 40 on the afternoon and evening sessions. Of course, about that many went home after the previous shift too. We were limited to about 138 interpreters for each session plus support staff for a total of 160 people. Everything went smoothly in spite of the bottlenecks during the rush time.

Some of the jobs we had our missionary helpers do were: check in, handing out all the stuff on the second table (we called it the B. Desk), boxing up meals and delivering them to those who were at stations they couldn’t leave (such as check-in), running revisions to all the different booths, traffic control on the 26^th floor where they were supposed to stay until it was their turn to interpret, and cleaning booths after the session was over. They did have some down time after the session started where they could watch some of the conference.

Elder Wilcox and I didn’t see much of each other. We both had our different stations, and we did a lot of roaming to check on how everything was going. We each had other stations we didn’t necessairly assign to our missionary helpers. The one I liked the best was working the window on the 27^th floor. I got to work right next to Eunlan and help her with lots of different things. I was also right there near the Interpreters so I got to help them a lot as well. I love that. I was needed more on the first level with check in so I was there probably the most for both days. I’m not sure where Elder Wilcox spent most of his time. I know he also roamed and help put out little fires if needed.

I think we finally left at 10 Saturday night and were back even earlier on Sunday. Everything started ½ hour earlier because of Music and the Spoken Word. I’d like to say that Sunday went as smoothly as Saturday, but that isn’t the case. For some reason we had more revisions and more people going off script. When they go off script that usually means we have more retakes. There was one speaker, I think two before President Nelson’s closing remarks, who looked away for a moment (a telltale sign they are going off script) and then added a whole paragraph that wasn’t in his talk. The interpreters who don’t normally do simultaneous interpretation usually stumble, which translates to a retake or two. Aaron, one of our Supervisors, started listening to that portion of the talk over and over so he could write down exactly what was said. We then had to print the page it was added to (we show the paragraph before and after for continuity) and have the runners take it to all the language booths so they can translate it into their language for the retake. Needless to say, we had a bunch of retakes after that one. The languages who had a good simultaneous interpreter for that talk were just fine and did not need to do a retake. We had to wait to finish cleaning those booths before we were done for the day. Actually, we stayed even longer. After the booths were done, I had some things to do with the Russian/Ukrainian coordinator to help with her Ukrainian team. While I was helping her, we were asked to come back to Floor 27 for a prayer meeting with the team. The Linfords and Sister Petty had already gone home. I’m so glad we were there. I wish they would have stayed too. Eunlan and Daniel both said a few remarks and gave thanks to everyone. Others joined in and expressed their thanks for them, too. I love those “pat everyone on the back” moments. They are the best meetings of all. We all visited for a while and laughed a lot. Finally, we had a closing prayer. Still, no one wanted to leave just yet. Someone mentioned a group picture. Eventually we all left and went home.

I figured out that it takes 16 hours to put on 6 hours of Saturday General Conference. And it takes 12 hours to put on 4 hours of Sunday General Conference. One our sweet helper missionaries who lives on our floor left a foot massager at our door Saturday night. It was HEAVENLY.  She let us keep it for a few days. I want one. It was so great. We were exhausted at the end of the weekend, but it was oh, so worth it! Now that General Conference is over we can actually listen to the talks. I hope you enjoyed conference, too.

All our love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox