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