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