Mission Christmas Concert, Team Christmas Party, Two Long Events, and Two Temple Trips

Work wise I spent much of the week cleaning up my list and adding all the area interpreters to my list. It started with only our Salt Lake City teams as that was what came over from our ITI program. We have always talked about adding the area interpreters so I spent a lot of time getting that set up to add. It took a lot of comparing and clean up to get them ready to add. By end of day Thursday and part of Friday, I was finally able to add them to the list. I'm excited by that as I believe it will make getting ready for General Conference easier in the long run.

Monday evening, we headed to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for our Mission Christmas Concert with our very own Elijah Choir. They did a marvelous job. They used a PowerPoint presentation to add to the program so we had stories, video clips, as well as beautiful music. And refreshments were served afterwards, although we didn't stay for that. We did visit with several friends before heading home.

Tuesday started with our Zone devotional. Sister Bentley presented a wonderful devotional about Family Search. She shared some great stories of her ancestors. I have been having a little more time lately to actually work on my Family History too. I love it. Since we had worked in the Temple for the previous 8 years prior to our mission we didn't get a lot of our own family names done. It has been nice since being on our mission to be able to do so many names. I still can't seem to get past my great grandpa Herman Locken, but I am finding lots of other family members. Tuesday evening we were able to go to the Bountiful Temple.

Venky

Wednesday was a fun day. It was also a vary long day. We knew we had an event that night, so we didn't go into work until a little after 9. After a little work we got ready for our Team Christmas Potluck. EVERYONE was there. It was the first time in a very long time that we were all together in person. Such fun. The food was delicious. The company great. The little presents everyone gave were thoughtful and loving. After visiting for a while we held a very "brief" team meeting. It only went 45 minutes LONGER than normal. Hahaha. After the meeting the Linfords headed home and we got ready for our evening event.

The event was actually two events. The first event actually had 5 sessions covering 3 days. The 7th and 8th mornings were all Tieline and didn't involve us to support. The evenings, however, were SLC teams and Elder Wilcox and I supported both of those. Normally we would have split it with the Linfords but they are covering two events while we will be in Oregon. The first event was called "2023 S&I Annual Training Broadcast Prerecording". It had a total of 38 languages. We had 8 languages in SLC on the 8th with up to 4 interpreters per language. We ordered Lasagna for dinner. Everyone loved it. It was supposed to end at 8:30, but we had a few retakes so it went to 9.

The back to back event was called "2023 S&I Annual Training New Curriculum Videos (5 languages)" and included only French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Since the same people were doing this event it was easier to just have those 5 languages stay and get it done in one night. It was expected to just be 45 minutes or less. There were several very short videos they needed to record. HOWEVER, the translation of the videos we received was not the best. A couple of the languages were ok and they were done around 10. French went clear to 11 as they had to retranslate the whole thing. Lots and lots of retakes. Aaron was the Supervisor for both events. And since he needed to be back early for the next morning Tieline recordings, he spent the night at our place. He has had several back to back late night and early morning events so we get to be his home away from home. When he talked to his daughter Emily that night, and told her he wouldn't be home, she wanted to know why. He explained it was late and he had to be back early the next day and he wouldn't even be able to see her. So she asked him where he was going to sleep. He told her he was staying at the Wilcoxen's (that is what he always calls us) apartment and she said, "I want to come!" We really like it when Aaron brings Emily. She is always very fun.

Lucky for us, Elder Wilcox decided to go get the car earlier so we wouldn't have to walk home after dark. It has really been cold lately. Well, it snowed all afternoon and throughout the evening. The sidewalks would have been horrible. It was nice to ride home.

On Thursday morning Aaron got up and left around 7:30. Since we were so late the night before we decided to do our showers Thursday morning. So after our Zone devotional, we showered and got ready. The Stevens gave our devotional and it was so nice. Sister Stevens shared a beautiful Christmas story by President Eyring. It is one of my favorites. 

At noon we (the missionaries) had a meeting with Xenia and Daniel about additional duties for the missionaries. We were a little apprehensive as Xenia is our Section Leader and there have been lots of changes going on. We feel they are trying to make us like Translation, not recognizing that Interpretation is completely different in our needs and duties. Well, as it turned out, they have got wind of the clean up I have been doing with my list, because a lot of the clean up has to do with making changes to PLUNET or Event Central. 

Back: Elder Wilcox, Daniel, Aaron, 
Elder Linford, Curtis, Jarod, and Venky
Front: Sister Wilcox, Sara, 
Sister Linford, Eunlan, and Ljiljana

Of course much of the clean up is within my own list. Anyway, they want me to go through their global list and do the same clean up as I have done with my list. They also want me to create a bunch of apps to make their list do more things easier. So because they want me to spend almost all my time doing that, they wanted to make sure the other missionaries were covering the "interpretation" things I was doing. As we listened we said, "we are already doing that". There are very little changes we have to make. Daniel wants to make sure we are sharing the events "every other one." So he is now going to be the one to assign which missionary couple is doing a particular event. I told him we were already switching every other one except for the big ones and we share those. He still wants it to go through him. So, now we have an extra step to do. No biggie.

That evening we got ready for our second event. This was a continuation of "2023 S&I Annual Training Broadcast Prerecording". We wouldn't have had to do this one, but the Ukrainians couldn't all make it on Wednesday night so they bumped to Thursday night with the last of the Tieline languages. Since it was last minute we decided to go off campus for dinner, meaning we ordered from a restaurant and Elder Wilcox picked it up. That night we decided to do Applebee's. 

Back: Elder Wilcox, Daniel, Aaron, 
Elder Linford, Curtis, Jarod, and Venky
Front: Sister Wilcox, Sara, 
Sister Linford, Eunlan, and Ljiljana

Since the weather was still bad and there were accidents all over, the whole Ukrainian team was late. Ganna was just a little late and we had a wonderful visit with her. Two of the brothers showed up about 45 minutes late and the last one arrived just as they were headed to the booth. He was the last speaker so we knew we still had time. The brothers took their dinners home as there wasn't time to eat before they had to start. Normally the Ukrainians go to their booth on the 28th floor. I asked if it would be possible for them to use one of the booths on the 27th floor so they could be near the engineer and we could be there to help if they needed anything. I had to print several talks for them. The engineer put them in the Portuguese booth which is right next to the engineer's control room. It worked out great as Aaron was able to visit between videos and we even wandered down to chat on occasion. We had a wonderful evening with them. We finished a little before 9. I helped one of the Ukrainians do his invoice before he left. 

Sister Linford

Friday was pretty laid back. I finished getting the area interpreters added to my list. I had to walk over to the North Office Building (NOB) across the street to get added as a user to one of the MacBook laptops we have. Daniel wants me to use that as our laptop to run our big screen. We have a cool spreadsheet that shows our "live" events and who is working them and what languages etc. but the laptop I have connected to it was updated several months ago and not won't stay on. It is constantly timing out so we don't really use it anymore. Daniel remembered the MacBooks we have on 27 for the interpretation booths have not been updated and therefore should not time out. The problem was, I wasn't an admin user on the laptop so I couldn't change the settings to set to never shut off. So, I went to the NOB and they set me right up. I also needed a USB to USB cable to connect to the big screen, but they didn't have one. So they ordered it for me and hopefully I'll get it early next week. Then we will be back in business.

Elder Linford

Saturday was pretty laid back as well. I didn't have any HawkSoft work to do. We had set up an Initiatory appointment at the Bountiful Temple so we headed there for a 1 o'clock appointment. I was hoping we could do more than just 5 names, but they are pretty strict. I did manage to get 6 names done because I was a little early. After the Temple we got some ice cream at DQ and then headed home.

Sunday we had a special treat. Elder and Sister Pearson were our Sacrament speakers. Elder Pearson also ran the second hour of questions and answers. He gave the most powerful testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith that I have ever heard. He pointed out how he was raised up from before the foundations of the world to usher in the last dispensation of the fullness of the Gospel. He was taught by all the prophets of old as well as the Savior Himself. He may not have had much of a formal education, but the tutelage he received at the hands of the ancients was more than any person who has ever lived or will ever live on the face of the earth. The Holy Ghost bore witness to me that every word he said was true. 

After he spoke about Joseph Smith, he proceeded to talk of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He bore testimony of the reality of His divine Sonship, His Atoning sacrifice, the life He lived on earth, and of His great love for each of His children. He shared a very personal story of how he came to know the Savior's love for him personally and how it changed his life forever. I could relate to parts of his story as the time I, too, learned for myself of the Savior's love for me. I know that He lives and loves each and every one of us. I know that He volunteered to be the Savior of the world so that all may live again. He overcame death and hell and He paved the way for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again someday. He gives all glory to His Father. He is our mediator with the Father and paid the price for sin that we cannot pay ourselves so that justice might be satisfied and mercy also. There are no words to express my love for Him. May we all remember who we celebrate this Christmas Season. Without Christ, there is NO Christmas.

Merry Christmas and All Our Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox