Yigo Guam Temple Dedication, Amberlee Moore, and a Fire!

Beautiful Sunset

The last few weeks have been a little different for me. I haven't had a lot of specific work to do which was unusual. However, it was exactly what was needed because I was able to help our new employees get oriented and set up. This week was more "back to normal" with lots of projects and reports I needed to work on. On top of that we had our last New Employee start on Tuesday. So I have tried to help him as well, but there has been a lot more meetings that I needed to attend so I didn't have as much time to help him. We picked up all the laptops for the new employees so I had all those to set up. We also got the languages assigned to our new MLCs (Multi Language Coordinators) so I had lots of reports to prepare for them so they can start contacting their languages. We have had some events happen so they could attend and see how they work. It has been very busy and a little crazy.

Error Message trying to setup
Jarod's Laptop

On Monday, we tried to prepare for Jarod, our new employee. Daniel ordered the new laptops two weeks before, however, for some reason they didn't have a record of his requests. I had called a couple of times and they still didn't have the requests. On Monday morning Daniel called to let us know his mother had a heart attack that morning and he wouldn't be in for a few days. He asked me to take care of Jarod. So I called Tech Services to ask if there was anyway we could get the laptops as we had been trying for two weeks to get them. When I explained what happened and why Daniel couldn't put in a new request, Josh, the tech guy, bent over backwards for me and not only put in the request for me, but also rushed it and we got all four laptops within two hours. It was a miracle! I actually had two miracles that day. Late in the afternoon I got a call from the SQL guy I had been working with to be able to get my batch import script to work. He asked me why I wanted to be on the SQL Enterprise server. I told him it was because somebody told me the SQL Express wasn't secure enough and so I had to go on the SQL Enterprise. He then said he didn't see any reason why I couldn't stay on the SQL Express and do what I was doing before. So I'm back on SQL Express and everything is working GREAT!

Johan August Anderson

Monday night we had our Family Home Evening group. Elder Rohrbach was in charge. Sister Rohrbach wasn't feeling well so she didn't come. We missed her. Elder Rohrbach did a great job. They had asked us to come prepared with a story about one of our Ancestors and be prepared to share. We had a small group, but it was perfect since we all had time to share our stories. I thought I was going to have a hard time as I didn't have any stories of ancestors. On Saturday I went to the Family History library to look for some information and I found a third cousin 3 times removed that served a mission for the Church in the 1880's in Sweden. There was a wonderful biography about Johan August Anderson. I learned about his early life in Sweden, and his immigration to the United States when he was about 18. I learned about his early years in the US, how he fell in love and married, how he had 5 children and then was called on a mission to Sweden. He shared about his mission experiences and what happened in his life after his mission until he died in 1920. it was very cool.

Tuesday, we met our newest employee, Jarod Jensen. We spent much of the day getting the laptops up and running. We also had three events going on during the day. The Linfords covered two in the morning (May 2022 S&I Area Director Council Meeting, and Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults with President Nelson - May 2022) and we covered one in the afternoon (New Mission Leader Orientation for Mexico Area with Elder Gong). Before the end of our event I had to go help the new employees so I left Elder Wilcox to finish up the event and clean the booths. Since it was only one language he didn't have much to do. 

Wednesday morning, bright and early, we went to the Temple with the Linfords. I think I prefer going after work.. It was hard getting up so early. It was also very crazy when we finally got to the office so I felt I was playing catch up most of the morning. Our afternoon was spent in meetings. Our team meeting went two hours so I missed my PLUNET meeting. It was a good meeting, but it went really long. 

Thursday was spent trying to create reports for the new employees in between all the interruptions from the new employees. I was also getting interruptions from Curtis as we were having syncing problems with is program called ITI. We discovered why one of our Supervisors wasn't syncing so he added some code to try and fix that. He called me to talk about how we can fix this once and for all. He finally realized that we need to move to a SQL database backend for ITI. YEA!!!!  But how do we do it? I asked if he was ready to talk to Sean and he said he was ready right now. Of course this was toward the end of the day and we were ready to go home and now I was trying to get ahold of Sean for a conference call. We decided to connect in about 5 minutes. Sean sent out a video meeting invite. So we started walking home and Curtis was on his way home in the car. Just about the time we were headed down the elevator, Sean texted me and said they were online and could I join. So I joined on my phone and we walked home. When I got home I switched over to my computer to join the call. We talked for about an hour and Curtis got very excited. Sean was a great help to get us in the going in the right direction.

Yigo Guam Temple

Friday, was more of the same.  I was still trying to finish reports for the new employees. Curtis called several times and wanted me to try different things to get our switch to SQL to work. I had sent a message to my SQL guy to get some help, but he never answered me back on Friday. About the third time Curtis called and asked me to do something I told him I was still trying to get the first thing he asked me to do done and he asked, "what do you do all day?" I told him I had newbies to take care of. He then asked which one of the newbies was taking up all my time and I told him HE was taking up all my time. He then told me he wasn't a newbie.  I half expected him to call me again Friday night, but he didn't. I finally got the reports done, and his requests done, but it took me most of the day.

Friday night was awesome. We supported the Yigo Guam Temple Youth Devotional. (Pronounced Gee-go.) Elder Bednar is the presiding authority. It was an awesome devotional. He and his wife both gave very short talks and then spent about an hour or so with a panel discussion with 5 youth and then opened it up to questions from the congregation and those who were watching online. it was AWESOME. I was so impressed with many of the questions from the youth. They asked everything from what it was like to be an apostle to what to do if they feel scared to go on a mission. We supported 5 of our more obscure languages: Chuukese, Kosraean, Palauan, Pohnpeian, and Yapese. It was very cool.

Saturday was an amazing day. We didn't get home until after midnight from our event the night before. So we slept in a bit. When we woke up we decided to go to the movies and see the new Fantastic Beast - The Secrets of Dumbledore. It was AWESOME! It was fun to just go do something fun. We had to go in the morning because we had to be at the COB by 3:00 PM for the Yigo Guam Temple Dedication. We had three different dedication sessions. One at 5, 8, and 11 PM. It was another long night but an amazing experience. Elder Bednar was the presiding authority. They had the cornerstone ceremony where several children got to participate in applying some mud to the cornerstone. That was very nice to watch. Not long after it started, Amberlee Moore and her family arrived. They are visiting Utah for a week and Katie Sue said we give tours! So we missed most of the first session to give them a nice tour. Elder Wilcox had picked them up at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and showed them around there and then took them to the 28th floor of the COB. Then they showed up on the 27th floor and I joined them for the tour of that floor. It was nice because we had the event going on so they could see the interpreters in action through the windows. After sharing all we know (lol) I took them back to the JSMB so they could head to Katie's house where they were staying. It took almost the entire time of the first session.

We had an hour and a half between the different sessions. Luckily we had lots of food and snacks for everyone. While we were waiting for the next session to begin we received a call for Elder Stevens. He is an Assistant Zone Leader now and will take the place of Elder Drasso next month when they leave. Anyway, he called to find out where we were and to make sure we were safe as there was a fire in our apartment building. We looked out the window and what did we see? Several fire trucks in front of our apartment building! It was all over by the time we went home after midnight. It turned out to be one of the Sister Missionaries put some potatoes in a pan to cook and then they left the apartment to go do some work. Apparently lots of smoke filled the entire building. The fire department came with a total of 5 trucks; 2 ladder trucks and 3 pumpers.  Poor Elder Burgoyne had to walk down three flights of stairs because when the fire alarm went off it automatically sealed the elevator shut. He has MS and it was very, very hard on him. President Larsen and Elder Stevens helped him down the stairs. His wife was at the store. Anyway, he was still doing poorly on Sunday and didn't go to Church. He got a blessing from our Branch President and a member of the Mission Presidency.

The second and third sessions of the Temple Dedication were great. I loved the talks and the Dedicatory Prayer was beautiful. We had a video message from President Nelson as well as talks from some local leaders including a couple of youth speakers. Of course we also heard  from Elder and Sister Bednar. It was a wonderful experience to be able to attend.

Sunday was a day of rest. With 1 o'clock Church we got to sleep in so our late night wasn't so bad. I had to stay after Church for choir practice again since we are singing on Father's Day. We had a very relaxing afternoon. 

We hope you have a Wonderful Week.

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox