Events, Offsite Team Meeting, More New Employees

Curtis and Venky

Monday was a little crazy. We went to our Monday morning Mission Devotional. About half way through the devotional my phone started buzzing. I have it on Do Not Disturb so it won't make noise. I swiped the to NOT answer and went back to listening to our speakers. We have several missionaries getting ready to go home, including our Zone leaders. A few minutes later my phone buzzed again. Again I swiped it to not answer. The phone buzzed several more times and each time I didn't answer. The devotional ended at nine so as we were leaving I checked my phone and called the number. It was my manager.  Apparently two more new employees showed up a day early and were waiting in the lobby to be picked up. He finally got a hold of our other new guy from last week and he went and picked them up. Daniel was in a meeting and couldn't meet them.

David

So, we headed over to the COB and met up with Russell and the two other new guys, David and Venka. Russell had started the tour with them and I picked it up from there. We got their access badges and parking passes and finally headed to the 28th floor. I got them situated on their computers and then started showing them some of our programs. It was a good thing I didn't have anything on my plate. I'm pretty much caught up my projects so now is a good time to do training.

Monday we had our Family Home Evening group back together again. We were in charge so I had everyone bring an object that describes them. They were also to share a quote or talk about General Conference that affected or meant something to them. We had about 13 people there and had a great time. It was fun and inspirational. 

Tuesday was more training. That evening we had the MTC Devotional. It was awesome. Elder Holland and his wife spoke. His main theme was about how to give your mission everything. He said he doesn't think there is a day that has gone by that he hasn't thought of his mission. He wanted all the missionaries to feel that same way after their mission. He shared some things he has learned and applied from Preach my Gospel. He is very funny, too. I really enjoyed his talk.

Wednesday was a very fun day. We had planned our offsite team meeting several weeks ago and then postponed it to this week so our newbies could come. We had three out of four newbies as the 4th one hasn't started yet. We went over to the Conference Center and had some refreshments and played some games. For our first game we had to guess who belonged to the objects on the table. Then we got to share about what we brought. It was so funny. We laughed a lot. We played a few more games including werewolves which is similar to mafia. I was the werewolf for the last round and NO one guessed me so that was fun. After games we headed to Tucanos, a Brazilian restaurant. The food was delicious.

Russell

Thursday we had two more events. Our morning event was "May 2022 Leadership Enrichment". The Linfords covered that event. After the event Sister Linford brought up the fact that the PRJ (project number) was STILL invalid. We can't pay our interpreters without a valid PRJ number. So she started sending out emails again and finally someone told her someone higher up to contact. So she sent the email and that started some wheels turning. I got some calls from the higher up person and Sister Linford got some more emails and even a call or two. By Friday morning, the PRJ was valid and it sounds like some changes will be happening so we can avoid having anymore invalid PRJ numbers.

Thursday night we did the @Work Expo Manager + Employee Session. It was all about a new employee system that is rolling out next month. We got home by 9 that night.

Friday was another interesting day. I started the morning with that call from the higher up with PRJ numbers. I worked on some SQL stuff. Later in the afternoon Curtis called me about finding the answer to a big problem we have been having with our ITI program. About two months ago we were finally forced to migrate ITI to SharePoint because the mapped drive was causing so many problems. We have felt everything was looking great. It was faster and seemed to be doing great. Recently, we have been noticing some issues. We were not seeing some changes that Supervisors were making. Finally, Curtis made a change and got an error message. He investigated the message and found that it wrote a "backup" copy of his file because it "couldn't update the actual file". As he searched some more he found lots of other copies of files to the point that we don't know what we have or what to trust. So Curtis called me and we talked for over an hour about what to do. We are trying to connect with Sean to see if he can advise us on a course to take. I'll keep you posted. 

Saturday, I spent some time in the Family Search library hoping to make some connections on my German line. After two hours and the help of a sweet missionary, I still didn't make any progress on that line. I may have to wait until the Millennium before I can move forward on that line. 

Sunday we went to Church early so I could practice for a song some of the Sisters were singing. We got to practice on the 10th Floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The song turned out pretty good. We are singing again if a few weeks for Father's Day. That song is a bit harder so I'm glad we have several weeks to practice. We stayed after Church to start practicing that song. 

After Church we headed to the COB for the Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults with President Nelson. It was awesome. To get as many Young Adults to come as possible, they had a lot of different mingling type events going on throughout the day. They opened up the Family Search library and the Church History library. I think the Church History Museum was also opened. They had tours of Temple Square and the Conference Center. As it started getting closer to evening when the event would start, people came from all over. They roads were backed up. The freeways were backed up. We had nearly half of our Interpreters come very late because there were several accidents on the freeway. It was crazy. They put road blocks on the street in front of the COB and the Conference Center to restrict the flow of traffic. That caused a major problem for us as they weren't letting people turn into the COB parking lot. Elder Wilcox and Elder Linford went to get the food at 3:45 expecting to be back no later than 4:15. Sister Linford and I had everything set up for the meal in the downstairs cafeteria seating. 

At 4:40 they still were here so I called to see what was going on. They were stuck in traffic going around the block because they couldn't get into the COB. I called security and got conferenced into the parking manager to see what was going on. Also, one of the Security guards happened to be around when I started calling. So we explained to him and he had me follow him to get it taken care of. First we found out they had to approach the COB parking lot from the street we live on so it could be a direct shot into the parking lot. They were letting anyone TURN into the parking lot. So once inside they got a little hassle and they weren't going to let them park by the cafeteria so we could get the food. The Security Guard asked me what kind of car they were driving. He spotted them as they came in and asked if they had the food. They said they did so he jumped into the car. Whenever they got to a blockage he told the parking people to let them through. The final person kept trying to make them go down to level 3 and he jumped out of the car, told them he was security and to let them through. The person said they would have to call their boss, which they did and they finally let them through. What a hassle. 

Dinner was nearly 30 minutes late, we had only about half our Interpreters, and we were getting worried. All the Interpreters made it except one and she would have made it but another sister who lived much closer called her and said she would cover for her so she turned around and went home.  We paid her anyway. 

The event was AWESOME. Sister Wendy Nelson spoke first. I didn't hear much of her talk as we were still dealing with issues. President Nelson gave a wonderful talk. He can be very funny. They both gave wonderful advice to the Young Adults. It was all very uplifting. There were SOOOO MANY PEOPLE. I posted a few pictures taken about 1/2 hour after the event was over and you can still see a lot of people at the Conference Center. Earlier, just before it started, the whole top of the Conference Center was populated with people. They looked like a swarm of ants. 

We did 27 languages tonight and another 12 will be done on Tuesday morning because it would have been at 2 AM for them tonight. Out of the 27 languages we had 11 language in the COB for a total of about 40 people counting support personal. It was a fun but a lot of work.

The weather was perfect today. I am so ready for some sunshine and spring weather.  I hope you have a wonderful week.

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox