2022 Seminar for New Mission Leaders

What a week! Monday started as a day off because it was a holiday. Around 10:00 AM we got a call from one of our favorite Portuguese interpreters asking if we would be willing to give a tour for their brother and sister-in-law from Brazil. We met them at 11 and had a GREAT time showing all four of them around the COB for about an hour. Later we picked up some Kentucky Fried Chicken for our Branch Picnic over that the Garden Apartments. We had a great turnout and a lot of fun.

Tuesday was a day filled with finishing up the rest of the Area Videos for the Mission Leaders Seminar. The Linfords covered the morning group and we took the evening shift. It was crazy but a lot of fun. We got home pretty late and went straight to bed.

Wednesday we packed and headed to the MTC in Provo for the 2022 Seminar for New Mission Leaders. It started with a wonderful welcome session for all the new Mission Leaders. We had 5 days with 42 sessions. We only got to listen to a few of them. Most of the time we were behind the scenes tracking interpreters, printing talks, visiting with them and helping in anyway we could. I think our favorite times were getting to eat all our meals with all the wonderful people we work with.

Our first night we had dinner in the main dining room with all the Mission Leaders. We met our new Mission President and his wife. They are just great. The food was delicious. It was funny because we felt like we needed to get "go boxes" and pack up the leftovers for our interpreters. It felt odd to be the ones being waited on. It also felt very nice.  Our Supervisor was Aaron. He put us up in a hotel since we were going to be there for the week. Our room was very nice.

Thursday started at 07:30. We were busy all day, but for the most part things ran very smoothly. We caught part of the opening session with President Ballard and President oaks. We would take turns letting support staff go to the overflow session room to watch on the big screen. At least one of us would man the tables where we were set up. That way we all got to see some of the seminar. I tracked attendance and adjusted times if we went over schedule. I managed to keep up with the never ending changes that seemed to occur every day. I had to adjust rush rates for those that were brought in last minute when someone couldn't make it. They fed us so well for all three meals, plus a ton of snacks between every session. We saw so many General Officers and General Authorities everyday. On a few occasions we even got to talk to a few. We were in line for dinner when Elder and Sister Uchtdorf arrived. We gave them plates and let them cut in line. I had a short little conversation with Sister Uchtdorf. I think we finished around 6 or 6:30. 

Friday, started off with one of our interpreters calling in sick after testing positive for Covid. He was scheduled for several sessions that day so we had to scramble to find people to cover for him. We discovered on Thursday that we actually had too many interpreters because the little booths they gave us only had two  headsets and it was too hard to pass it between all the interpreters for some of the sessions. We needed others for the breakout sessions so it was only a couple of sessions we had to cut a few interpreters. As it turned out our sick interpreter was doing a couple of sessions that had too many so we didn't have to get a replacement. It still took a while to figure everything out. After that everything else went fine for the day. We got to hear the opening session with President Eyring. We had a double set of breakout sessions. After dinner we had an MTC devotional with the young missionaries. Elder Bednar was our speaker. We didn't get to hear him, but I was able to read his talk. It was really good. His opening remarks talked about how he recently turned 70 and how the young missionaries must think he is ancient. He told several most jokes about his age before he finally got into his talk. It really was quite funny.

After the MTC devotional we started packing up to go home when Aaron wanted to review everything for Saturday. We discovered that we had two breakout sessions for Spanish that were NOT on our agenda. We needed two interpreters for each session. We also had a couple that couldn't make it so we needed to replace them as well. Emma, one of our Spanish Team Leads had interpreted for the MTC that night. So she and I reviewed who we had and who was available that could come. She first contacted people who were already going to be there; but, would have normally been done for the day to see if they could stay. Then she called on a couple of others who lived close by to see if they would be willing to come in and help. In the end we got all the interpreters we needed. Of course all of those were going to be paid the rush rate. Aaron also talked to some of the engineers about the breakout sessions and found out they had some new plans on how they wanted to handle it. They were going to be more of a question and answer style with our interpreters in the room doing side by side interpretations. There were a few little bumps along the way but overall it went very well.

After our very long day on Friday, Saturday seemed very short. We had no more last minute changes and everything ran smoothly. We were able to listen to the first session with President Oaks. I also snuck into the third session with Elder Gong. He had put together a cute little play with some of the MTC return missionaries helping out. It was a really good job showing how to use social media to contact and teach. Each of the opening sessions included a beautiful musical number by small choirs made up of missionaries. They all did a great job. We managed to run into our new Mission President and wife everyday and on Saturday they asked us to join them for lunch in the main dining room. That was a very nice visit with them. There was another new mission couple that joined us and we all had a very nice discussion. We were mistaken for new mission leaders multiple times and asked where we were assigned to. They were always surprised when we told them we were already serving and were there supporting the interpreters for the seminar.  All the breakout meetings after lunch went very well and we managed to get back to the hotel around 6:30.

Sunday morning we got to sleep in a little longer. We checked out of the hotel and got to the MTC a little before 10. We had an 11:00 AM Sacrament meeting with President Nelson. Thankfully they showed it in the overflow room so we got to be part of it. They stopped the broadcast when they passed the sacrament. We had missionaries in our room who also blessed and passed the sacrament. It was very nice. After the sacrament the broadcast started up again and President Nelson gave a wonderful talk about entering into our closet. Meaning we should all have a private place where we can go each morning to commune with Heavenly Father and plan our day and ask for the help we need. I feel that message was just for me. I struggle finding my "closet". Sometimes it is hard to find a private place to be alone in prayer. 

We thought we were done after the meeting, but were told lunch would be served before we left. So we headed out for one last time to eat. We sat with our two Korean interpreters and had a wonderful discussion with them about so many different things. I think it was probably one of the longest meals we had. Oh, maybe Saturday night was the longest one. They had a special dinner Saturday night with members of the Twelve and other General Authorities. They set this up in a different building than where we normally ate. We knew we wouldn't be included in that so we figured we were not going to get dinner that night. Then we found out we were being served dinner at that same building, just on a different floor. So we headed over, and again had a wonderful meal. We were the last ones to leave the room that night. So many of our other meals we had to hurry because we had to get ready for the next session. Those two meals were very relaxing.

After that we headed home. But WAIT, our weekend wasn't over yet. We had been planning for over a month to hold the 1st Annual Interpretation Fireside. Of course when we picked this date no one was thinking it would be the last day of the seminar. This was totally an optional fireside that we put out to all the interpreters. We wanted a nice social event that we could mingle and be spiritually instructed. So we asked Curtis, one of our Supervisors, to be our presenter. He is an avid Joseph Smith researcher. I shared with you months ago about how he did a very scientific research for 2 years to prove Joseph and Hyrum were buried where they were after someone came out and claimed they weren't. He has tons of information and stories about all things Joseph Smith. Well the Fireside was Sunday evening just a few hours after we got home. So, even though we were exhausted we went to support Curtis and the team. Aaron was there too. I think we were the only ones that had finished the Seminar that day. Curtis did a FANTASTIC job. We had a pretty good turn out. Most of the team brought cookies and other treats. We supplied water, plates, and napkins since there was no way I was going to bake or even buy cookies on Sunday. And we needed those things anyway.  We also streamed it online and had another 15 or 20 watch that.

So now I'm looking forward to a slower week. Our new Mission President starts on Tuesday. President Randall is done on Monday after our final Mission Conference. He and Sister Randall have been great and we will miss them. President and Sister Holmes will be awesome too. I know the transition will go smoothly. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa,

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Happy Father's Day, Last Minute Area Videos, and Temple Groundbreaking

I posted this for Flag Day!

We had a very busy week in preparation for the Seminar for New Mission Leaders 2022 that will take place this coming week at the MTC in Provo, Utah. Next Saturday there will be breakout sessions that will be about 14 different videos from 13 different areas around the world and 1 from Headquarters. We have been scrambling like crazy to get the videos done. We have known about it for a couple of weeks; however, we have been waiting on the videos and translations of the videos from each of the areas. The previous week we did the first part of the Headquarters videos. We still have the second half to do.  The area videos have been very slow coming. More about that later.

On Monday I spent much of the day working on the spreadsheet and PLUNET orders for both the Area Videos and the New Mission Leaders seminar. Aaron and Curtis went to Provo to check out where the interpretations will take place and get a handle on all that is needed to support this event. Baptiste had done this event in years past, but he is in the Translation department now, so Aaron is doing it this year. Curtis is helping him as he is the most senior Supervisor now. 

We had a wonderful Family Home Evening given by the Burgoynes. We discussed different ways about how we have learned about Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ. It was a great discussion. I love our FHE group. Shortly after everyone went home, we received a call from Aaron. He was able to convince the MTC personnel that he needed additional people to help support the event because of the complexity of the event and new programs that we are using. He informed us that Elder Wilcox and I will be able to go to the MTC for the entire event. One additional person will be there each day so nearly everyone will get an opportunity to help. We are so excited. I was hoping for one day, but this is AWESOME!

On Tuesday we received an email announcing some changes in the leadership of our PSD department. We were told more restructuring would come by the end of the week or the following week.  Later the Linfords supported the Tokyo Rededication - President Nelson Temple Message. Most of the event was taking place in Tokyo. We only had one Interpreter do the message from President Nelson. Shortly after we got home we got a call from Curtis. Our first Area Videos had come through and we were going to do the event on Wednesday with a RUSH rate. The MLCs scrambled to get people to come, and I scrambled to get people in PLUNET. By 10 we had everything pretty much covered.

Tokyo Temple

Wednesday started early with the Tieline languages. Since one of the Tieline languages also had SLC interpreters helping, we went in to support the event. Elder Wilcox managed to get names on a list for breakfast in the cafeteria. Curtis arrived and we were all beginning to wonder where the engineer was. Our interpreters had started to show up and still no engineer. Curtis got on the phone with the producer and found out that the producer thought Curtis would get the engineer so we didn't have one scheduled. After a few minutes of phone calls be got an engineer. Then Curtis found out that since this was mainly Tieline and because of the tightened security since the security breach we had a month or so ago, we didn't have the Tielines unlocked AND the guy in charge of that was on vacation. Curtis made some more calls and found someone who could help and we got the Tielines unlocked. We only started 15 minutes late. The rest of the event went well. 

All the Presenters at the Screening event.
Joelma, Sara, Emma, Eunlan
Sister Wilcox, and Ljiljana

We stayed busy the rest of the day. We had our Team meeting in the afternoon. Daniel was absent since he was meeting with Marshall who now has a new position because of the reorganization. We did learn in the original email that a new Temple Division was created that was going to probably take 4 of our people (Jeanpierre, Joelma, David, and Russell). We all speculated for a few minutes and then started our meeting. Those 4 all received a meeting invite for 9:00 am the next morning. After our Spiritual Thought by Elder Wilcox, Daniel showed up. He gave lots of vague hints but was careful not to tell us anything. He was vague if he was staying or going. No matter how much we pleaded, he wouldn't divulge anything. The rest of the meeting proceeded as normal with only occasional comments from Curtis about how our 4 friends would be gone by 9:00 am the next day. Thankfully everyone took it in good fun. That night we supported the second half of the Sharing the Gospel 2022 - Area Videos

The check-in desk for our Screening event. 
This is Ljiljana and Sister Wilcox

. We had no problems like we had that morning. It went well.

On Thursday we all received a meeting invite for 2:00 pm on Friday. We spent much of the day preparing for our Prospective Interpreter Screening event that night. During the event Curtis called with new area videos for Friday. So besides working the screening event, which is totally different than working any other event, we also scrambled to get people and things set up for Friday. Most of the coordinators who were to assign people to do the videos were involved in the screening, so it was quite interesting. He also said we might have more videos on Saturday. After the event Ljiljana stayed late to call the Tongan and Samoan teams to see if they could come on Saturday morning. We stayed with her so she wouldn't be all alone in the building.

Elder Wilcox at the Screening event.

Friday morning Curtis called to say the Tongan, Samoan, and French videos were canceled for Saturday morning so Ljiljana had to call the people she called the night before to cancel. We were barely over the 24 hour notification deadline, so we didn't have to pay them for cancelling their languages. We still had our Friday evening area videos that the Linfords were covering. And our Saturday early morning area videos for Cantonese and Mandarin were still on. When I got to the office Sara had left me a birthday present of homemade soap that she and her kids had made for me. There was also a beautiful homemade sewn envelope that her daughter's teacher had made. I was so surprised.

Sara at the Screening Event

At 2:00 we all joined the team meeting to learn more about our department reorganization. We are still not exactly sure how this is all going to work. Effective immediately, we are an Area Centered - Headquartered Supported department. Global Interpretations has been moved into the new Language Coordination team along with a few more people from two other teams (Sacred Materials and Regional Ops Translators). At this point, Daniel is still our manager and other then losing those 4 who were doing a Sacred Materials project, the rest of the team has remained intact. One good news thing with the new restructuring, is Baptiste will be back in our NEW team. I hope they will be moving the teams together physically soon. 

From Sara

Saturday was a fun day. We started with the early morning Area Video event for Mandarin and Cantonese; however, we couldn't get anyone to do Cantonese on such short notice. We only got one brother to do Mandarin. The Cantonese may have to be rescheduled, hopefully before the Seminar starts next Wednesday. I did find out there will be a website where all the training and recordings will be made available so even if they don't get the videos done before the Seminar, they will still be available. Our ASL videos will be recorded after the Seminar because they have been unable to schedule a studio until June 27th. The Seminar ends on June 26th. Right after the Area Video we had the Yorba Linda CA Temple Groundbreaking event. That was so fun to watch. Here's a fact I didn't know. The Yorba Linda Temple will put two Temples in Orange County. That is the FIRST county besides those in Utah to have more than one Temple. Pretty cool!

Birthday and Father's Day Presents

Sometime during the event Sara posted in Teams a Happy Birthday to me. Eunlan was our Supervisor for the Yorba Linda CA Temple Groundbreaking event and got very excited that it was my birthday. She is always so very sweet. She left almost immediately after the event, while we were still taking care of a few things. We were planning on going to the movies as a birthday/father's day treat since we didn't have any other events going on. Pretty soon Eunlan called me to see if we were home yet or if we had left for the movies. I told her we were still at the COB getting ready to go to the movies. She asked if we could be home by a little after 1:00. We said we could do that. There was another showing nearby that was about 30 minutes later than the one we were going to. We went home and a few minutes after that Eunlan called and said she was going to be out front in 3 minutes. I headed downstairs and met her just about the time she pulled up, got out of the car, and handed me a dozen red roses and a birthday cake!!! The movie was great and we had a nice relaxing evening at home.

From Eunlan

Sunday was a nice Father's Day. We had a relaxing morning before we had to go to Church. I had the final choir practice for our Father's Day song. It sounded really good. We were a smallish women's choir so we stood in a semi circle around the piano in the Chapel. It worked really well because we could all hear each other. We were told it sounded really good. If you interested in the song, it is called "I Knew My Father Knew" by Sally DeFord.  All the men got Father's Day treats and we had a good meeting and Sunday School class. Sunday afternoon was nice and relaxing. 

From Sister Beech

I hope all the Dads out there had a GREAT Father's Day!

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 

Team Temple Trip, Mission Leader Videos, and Training Meetings 

Elder and Sister LeGrand R. Curtis Jr.

This has bee a very busy week. On Monday I had another eye appointment. I seem to be stable so that is good. The new prescription is working well...as long as I continue the regimen the doctor gave me. Drops twice a day and gel twice a day. I was doing so good I started forgetting the drops and gel during the day. My eyes declined again, so I have to do the full regimen everyday.  Monday evening we had an awesome Mission devotional with Guest Speaker Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. he and his wife both gave great talks.

My Zone Devotional

Tuesday morning started with our Zone Devotional where I shared my Lost in the Forest experience. I think it turned out OK. Right after that we did a global training for our Team Leads explaining the change our new MLCs (multi-language coordinators). I presented a small part about invoicing. 

The Team at the Jordan River Temple

Tuesday evening was AWESOME. Sister Linford organized a Temple Sealing trip for our team. There were twelve of us that went to the Jordan River Temple. We had to break into two different groups. We had a wonderful time and I got all of my names done. I was able to share my names with several members of our team who didn't have their own names. The last sealing we did was very special. We were able to seal two daughters to their parents at the same time. I have never experienced that before. It was very cool.

The Social Hall

On Wednesday we had an early morning event for Sharing the Gospel Broadcast - HQ Videos. The morning event was the tieline teams; however, the French team did it from SLC. We ran into a few glitches. The first thing was the producer didn't realize we had a morning session and he forgot to get an engineer. So Curtis called the producer and he got an engineer over right away. The second problem was since our security breach a couple of months ago, they locked down the tielines for security purposes. That took a little more work but Curtis got that taken care of and we only started about 15 minutes late. The evening event was the SLC teams with a couple more tielines. That one went much more smoothly. We only had one little glitch with that one. Curtis told everyone at dinner they would watch the video once through where they could take notes. Then we would do the first pass and record the interpretations. If needed, we would do a second pass. Well, unfortunately the Mandarin team that was doing tieline and didn't hear Curtis's little speech. So, while the we showed the video the first time, the Mandarin team did their interpretation, felt good about it and left without telling anyone they were done. We didn't record that pass. So when we were ready to record the first pass we realized the Mandarin team was no longer online. So Curtis called them and they came back in to record the second pass. It all worked out in the end.

The Terrace

After the first session Wednesday, a group of us went on a field trip to a brand new "Social Hall" a few blocks from the COB (see above picture). There are about 6 or 8 wards that meet in that building as well as commercial offices in the top 20 floors (the blue section). We are having a Fireside for our Interpreters on June 26th in one of the Chapels. Venky goes to Church there so he arranged for us to use the Chapel and the terrace for our Fireside. Curtis is going to do a presentation on Joseph Smith. It is only fitting as June 27th is the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith. The chapel and terrace are beautiful. Curtis has so much knowledge and pictures on Joseph Smith. It will be an AWESOME presentation. He has shared with us many times some of the things he is going to present. I'm very excited for that Fireside.

Global Training 

Thursday evening we had two events back to back. The first one was the J. Reuben Clark Law School Devotional and the other one was our second Global Training. This time we did the training in person as well as on Zoom. Both events were good, but I really wish we had more in attendance at both of our training events.

Friday was slow. I mainly worked on the Global Training PLUNET order. We gave a tour to one our missionary couples in our apartment complex. They live just down the hall from us. I finished up some work on the MAJOR new project for the week of June 22 through 26. It is the Seminar for New Mission Leaders 2022. It will be held at the Provo MTC center. We are hoping to be able to go to help out with the event. Aaron is in charge and he is going to Provo next week to check it out and see if we can be part of the support team. That would be so AWESOME.

All the presenters for the Training

Saturday was a very light day. We had no events and I didn't have any HawkSoft work to do either. So, we decided to go to the movies for the afternoon. It was a lot of fun. It was very hot so we decided to stay indoors. After the movie we went home and just enjoyed the rest of the day together. It was nice to have a whole day free.

Sunday was pretty laid back as well. We had a lazy morning before Church. I worked on the blog. I also had a video call with Curtis and Aaron. Curtis loves to talk and wanted to share some things he is doing to ITI. He also shared the invitation he made for the fireside and then couldn't help himself and shared some of what he is considering to use in his presentation. He is awesome!

Our Sunday meetings were great. We had two wonderful speakers for Sacrament meeting and our RS class was really good as well. After Church I had choir practice for our Father's Day song. I think it is coming along pretty good now. I was worried the first time we sang it, but I'm fairly comfortable now. It's a song I never heard before called "I Knew My Father Knew" by Sally DeFord. It is quite pretty. 

Have a GREAT week!

All our Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Last Minute Event and Temple Groundbreaking in Burly Idaho

This has been a very slow week. Monday was Memorial Day and we had the day off. I think it is the first time we didn't get any emails or requests for help that day. Because of the holiday we didn't have our weekly Mission Devotional. All I wanted to do was stay home all day. I worked on a few different projects I haven't had time to work on during the week. Elder Wilcox went shopping, but I stayed home. I actually watched movies in the afternoon, while I worked on some reports. I may have even dozed a bit. We ended up canceling our FHE group as well since several others had holiday plans. It was a nice relaxing day that we needed very much.

It was hard to go back to work on Tuesday and we were both thinking retirement looked pretty good. HAHAHAHA Once we got to the COB, everything felt normal again. We started our day with our Zoon Devotional.  We didn't have any events this week until Saturday and Sunday. Our days were pretty low key. Tuesday, we left early so we could go to the Temple. Sister Linford got back from her trip and wanted to go to the Temple. We had a very nice session.

Wednesday was our 1-year anniversary. It is so hard to believe we have been here for a whole year. The day was busy in the afternoon with our weekly Team Meeting. It went overtime again so I missed my PLUNET meeting once again. I think we are making some progress with several things that need Finance and Legal approval; however, they are still on hold for a bit longer. The head of our Finance team is retiring and doesn't want to make major decisions since he is leaving in a couple of weeks. I don't know if the new person will also want to wait for a while until he gets more time on the job. I am especially anxious about changing the process for our Interpreters to submit invoices. We have everything in place. We just need to get approval to proceed.

Curtis met with the Linfords, Venky, and us about a very big event that will take place over the next two plus weeks. The frustrating part is Curtis doesn’t have all the information yet. He gave us what he had and what he THINKS will come. I tried to come up with a way to produce a query that will help us populate the PLUNET order; however, because of the way this particular event will be set up my proposed solution will not work. So, I came up with another process that will be a bit more manual but should still work well. I didn’t actually finish creating the spreadsheet until Friday. The event should start next week.

The Linfords left around 4 and we were on our way to follow as soon as I finished up with a report that Daniel had asked for. Just as we were packing up, Daniel came up asking about the GA Wives Luncheon for the next day. I informed him we didn't know anything about the event other than it happens every month. We had not received anything about it. He told us he had got a call from Marshall (his boss) about it and asked if we were on top of it. So, we went into scramble mode to find the event someplace so we could get it set up and populated. It turns out an email was sent to Curtis a month ago about an upcoming event. From there it should have been setup in the Workfront program which is where Daniel receives events that need to be assigned to one of the Supervisors. It was NEVER entered into Workfront. Marshall forwarded Daniel the "reminder" email he had received about the event so that is all we had to work with. 

Eunlan handled the event last month, but she was on vacation. Curtis had done it before which is why he received the original email. He had already left to go home and was on the train. So, Daniel called Curtis and the wheels began to turn. Aaron was still in the COB, so he was giving us information. Curtis was setting up the event in ITI and Event Central while on the train. And since there is Internet service, we saw it as soon as he posted it. It was only French and Spanish, so I started the process of getting interpreters. We had just stated at our Team Meeting that the new MLCs (Multi-Language Coordinators) would start populating their languages, so I called Jarod. He had also left after the meeting and was on the train. I explained what was going on and asked him to call the French IC and Spanish IC for help to choose 2 people for each team to work. We got cut off in the middle of our call. I went back to Aaron to see if Curtis had sent out the email notifications for the event. He did. That meant that the email notifications went to the French IC and Spanish IC for THEM to populate the event. I quickly notified Jarod to wait because both French and Spanish were asked to populate. Jarod said he had already taken care of it. He had talked to Alexis (French) and Maritza (Spanish) and they were good with him making the assignments. So, I told him to populate Event Central and I would take care of the PLUNET order. Everything was finally done by 8:30 that night and the event went off without a hitch the next morning.

Thursday morning, we had another Zone Devotional. The Drassos shared a video by Lawrence Corbridge. I worked on my monthly reports for the Supervisors and Daniel. I tried, unsuccessfully, to create the report that would work for the big event that Curtis told us about. Just as we were getting ready to go home around 5, Elder Wilcox received a call from one of our Interpreters wondering if she and some of her family and friends could come for a quick tour. She and her sister (who is also one of our interpreters) and their children, along with 2 friends and their children had just come from the Conference Center where the children recorded a song for the Friend 2 Friend language coaching event we had. Sabrina was the Language Coach. The sisters at the front desk at the COB had already left for the day as it was now after 5. Elder Wilcox went down to talk to Security to see if we could let them for a tour. The security guards were nice and allowed us to let them in on the condition that we stay with them the whole time. There was about 8 or 10 kids from about 4 to 10. We got to the 27^th floor and everyone was talking and having a good time. We rounded the corner and saw Genesis sitting down the hallway with earphone on and his finger to his lips. He was doing a Zoom call. Sometimes our interpreters come to the COB for their other jobs so they can do recordings in the quiet. Anyway, Sabrina turned to the children and shushed them and put her figure to her lips. Those kids all quieted right down and didn’t make a sound while we walked around and showed them some booths on the other side of the floor. They were all so quiet and well behaved, I had to take them to the snack closet and let them each choose a snack. We spent about an hour and everyone had a good time.

Friday was similar to Thursday except no Zone Devotional. We reviewed what we needed for the two events over the weekend. The Linfords left around 3 because their son and family were coming for a short visit. We didn’t have much to do so that worked out fine. We actually managed to leave about 10 minutes before 5 that night. We got our jammies on and were ready for dinner when we got a text from the Linfords inviting us to come and meet their children. So we dressed again and headed down the hall. We had a nice visit for a little while and headed back home. It was nice to have a little longer evening at home that night.

Saturday we got to support the Burley Idaho Temple Groundbreaking event. It was very windy there and everyone looked very windblown. They had two primary children give talks as well as two youths. All did very well. The closing speakers were a sister and brother before Elder Brent H. Nielson of the Presidency of the Seventy — who was born and raised in Burley gave the closing remarks and read the dedicatory prayer on the grounds. Then they did the shovel ceremony. After the event I helped Lluvia submit her invoice and then we headed home. 

We quickly changed and then met up with the Woodstocks to go for lunch in Emigration Canyon at Ruth's Diner. It is an old train car converted into a small diner.  The food was very good and we had an enjoyable time. The Woodstocks work at Ensign college. They will be going home in September. We will miss them.

 

After we got home from that we called Audrey again. (She didn’t answer earlier when we called as she was in the middle of her graduation.) We sang Happy Birthday to her and visited with her for a few minutes. It was fun to talk to her.

We had another event on Sunday after Church. The Utah Area Latino Youth Devotional on Education was held from 7 to 8 pm. President M. Russell Ballard presided and was the concluding speaker. Most of the event was in Spanish so we didn't understand it. However, President Ballard gave a great talk. One of our interpreters, Alex, did a side by side interpretation from English to Spanish so the audience could understand the talk. President Ballard basically gave advice for living. We will all make mistakes, but through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can get back on the covenant path. He shared a story of a time when he and his chemistry companion were putting ingredients together to produce a gas that would produce a flame. However, their test-tube exploded. To this day he doesn't know what he did wrong. He encouraged the youth to continue their education. Whatever they are to study they should be the best they can be. 

Curtis was our Supervisor for the Sunday event. He gave us a preview of the devotional he is going to present to our team and any interpreters that want to come on June 26th. He is our resident expert on Joseph Smith and has done so much research it is amazing. He shared with us a few new photos he is going to share in the devotional. This photo is the top of a cane that has some of the Prophet Joseph Smith's hair in it. It is a pretty cool story. 

It looks like we have several busy weeks coming before the Brethren go on vacation in July and things slow down again. I hope you have a GREAT week.

All our Love,Mom and Dad
Grandma and Grandpa
Steve and Leslee
Elder and Sister Wilcox