New Employee and the Spring Concert

This has been a slower week. We didn't have any events other than one on Saturday. The Linfords handled that event. Monday evening we had a Mission Devotional with a special speaker. Elder Walter F. Gonzales and his wife were are speakers. He gave a wonderful talk about the powerful and wonderful benefits of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. There have been so many testimonies from our prophets and leaders over the years that have given us marvelous promises. He shared his own conversion story with the Book of Mormon. It reminded me of my own experience with the Book of Mormon. And my continued experiences of the Book of Mormon. It truly has changed my life in remarkable ways.

We had a nice Zone Devotional on Tuesday morning. I spent most of my day trying to convert (or translate) my email that I sent out several months ago to all the areas into Spanish. I had the initial documents translated by one of our Spanish Interpreters. Then as I formatted the translations into the format that matched the original documents, I sent them again to two of our employees who also speak Spanish to review my documents and email. It took all week of back and forth to finally be comfortable that I got it right. I finally sent them out on Friday. Most of all our area coordinators speak and read English, there were a couple in the remote areas of South America that don't. They can read Spanish so I was asked to provide my documents in Spanish. It only took we three months to get it done. hahaha

We also had a new employee start on Tuesday so I spent part of the day getting him settled in. I picked him up in the lobby and helped him pick up his access badge and parking pass. We got him signed onto his computer (that we set up for him last week) so we could get him access to all the other software he will need to access. I gave him a tour of the 26th, 27th, and 28th floor. Finally Daniel showed up so he could take over orienting Russell. I have been working with him for a bit everyday this week. Next week we get another new employee so I guess I will repeat the process.

We had a wonderful surprise at lunch. We normally eat with the Linfords and a young women who works in the kitchen. She has some disabilities and used to eat all alone everyday. The Linfords befriended her and we started eating lunch with her as often as we can. She is always so very thankful that we all sit with her. That day the Linfords were sitting with her, but we felt we should sit with Russell, our new employee on his first day. We were running very late and the cafeteria was nearly empty. After a bit, Russell finished and left while we finished up our lunch. Just then we saw the Beeches walk in and right next to them came President and Sister Lundgreen. What a Surprise! We got up and gave them a big hug. It was so fun to see them. Later in the day we left a little early so we could go to the Temple with the Linfords. The weather was so beautiful and enjoyable.

On Wednesday much of the day was spent in preparation and attending our weekly team meeting. I also continued work in SQL. I'm still hoping to get help with being able to programmatically import my data in a timely fashion. I talked to a new guy on Friday, so fingers crossed that he will be able to help me. I have to do it at least weekly and sometimes more often. We have added several other reports that I now need to run monthly. I'm glad I can provide information that helps other people do their jobs easier.

Sister Rodgers lives directly across from us in our apartment building. She showed us a bible that she found at a thrift store and wanted to know what language it was. I told her I have a friend that could probably tell us. I took a picture of the book cover. On Wednesday I showed the picture to Eunlan to see if she knew what language. She made a couple of guesses and then went to her Gospel Library app. She changed the language of her app to Japanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. She finally pronounced that it is a Mandarin Bible. That is so cool. I emailed Sister Rodgers to let her know.

Douhet, this is for you. 😊

Later I helped get Eunlan's laptop set up so it would sync correctly so she could upload her events for us. It took most of the day to delete and reload the information. By afternoon it was working perfectly. At 4:00, I had another meeting with Sara and Russell. It ended around 5 and Russell left for home. Sara wanted to talk some more. She shared information from a meeting she had earlier that day with Sister Petty and a guy from Translation. As I listened to her, I was appalled as I listened to the long list of new tasks that they wanted Sister Petty to do. Since we have interpreters who also do translations, Sister Petty is now tasked to identify those who are also translators. As I listened to the list of tasks I kept shaking my head. Finally I said she should not have to do all of that. The translation guy, Matt, doesn't want Sister Petty to do any renewals for translators, so she needs to know who they are. At this point there is no central place that gives us a list of translators, interpreters, and those that do both. Well, I figured out a way to get the information they wanted her to check and dumped it into SQL. Then, I can compare it with our list of Interpreters so we can identify those that are also translators. We have added a check box in our system that we have all our interpreters in that we can check if they also do translations. Now Sister Petty just needs to look at that checkbox and not have to go through all the tasks that translations wanted her to do. It will be a monthly report for her.

Thursday and Friday were similar. Fairly quiet and yet still filled with lots of things to do all day long. We did get to go home at a NORMAL time which was nice for a change. Also, I did not have to continue to work when we got home. We actually got to read our Come Follow Me lesson and even watch a movie or two. It was a nice week.

On Friday morning our prayers were with one of our dear friends we have known for 30 years, Carrie Call Anderson, had a very delicate surgery to remove a tumor. The problem was whenever they touched the tumor, Carrie's blood pressure would skyrocket. So during the surgery the anesthesiologist had to carefully monitor her blood pressure, because when they touched it to take it out the blood pressure would skyrocket and when it was removed it would plummet, both of which were life threatening. We kept tabs with Katie all morning and were thrilled when she sent that the surgery was successful and all is well.

On Saturday morning, the Linfords supported the MEA Worldwide Arabic-speaking Member Devotional. I worked on some HawkSoft certifications I needed to do. I also worked on our blog to get a head start. We thought we were going to do an event on Sunday for the Caribbean, but on Friday they cancelled it. Since it is Mother's day that is probably a good thing. I know we were having trouble getting interpreters. On Saturday evening we attended the Chorale & Orchestra Spring Concert. It was amazing. The Chorale is the Farm Team to the Tabernacle Choir. Several will be joining the Choir soon.

Mother's Day was very nice. Steve had put a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the dining room table with a card sometime during the night so it was there when I got up. Our meetings were great. There was a men's choir that sang "O My Father". Steve was a part of that choir too so that was nice. After Relief Society we had an Ice Cream Social. Husbands were invited. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing.