SNOW, December Already, PLUNET Crash, and First Presidency Christmas Devotional!!!

We had a nice Mission Devotional Monday morning. The Discovery Zone shared about what they do and the "Elijah" moments they have. Later that night we had a fun Family Home Evening. The Ipsons were in charge and we had a wonderful discussion/game about invitations we have received since President Nelson became the President of the Church. Our team won.🤣 

I'm a little sad as that will be our last FHE for 2022. December is packed with other Monday night activities. On the 5th we have the beautiful Elijah Choir Christmas Concert. Our Elijah Choir rivals the Tabernacle Choir. 😇 They do such a wonderful job. On the 12th we will have our Zone Christmas Dinner and Program at the COB on the 26th floor. That is always very nice. The following week on the 19th The Mission will have a Dinner and Program. We will be in Oregon and miss that event. And the last Monday in December is the day after Christmas, and we will still be in Oregon, so we are canceling that FHE. We've already got people signed up for the new year.

Tuesday was AWESOME. We had a great Zone Devotional to start the day. After we got to work, it started snowing and snowed ALL day long. The sidewalks were pretty treacherous on our way home. Around noon, we had the PSD Christmas Devotional and Luncheon. Last year it was just a Teams Devotional. This year it was in person. Bishop Budge spoke to us. Then we had a nice Luncheon at the top of the Conference Center. After lunch we went back to the Little Theater in the Conference Center and got a preview of the new Book of Mormon Videos Season 4 on the big screen. They are awesome. We have just finished with the interpretation of the videos in several, so it is all ready for the world.

Wednesday we had lots of snow. I actually got to wear my snow boots. Other than normal work and making preparations for the Christmas Devotional, we had a pretty slow day. We had our team meeting at 2, and of course it went over - as usual. It was so nice to see nearly everyone in the office. Aaron and Curtis were home, but they came Tuesday for the PSD meeting so we saw them then.

Thursday was the first day of December. I can't believe it is already here. We had a Zone Devotional to start our day. Elder Wilcox stayed home as he was a bit under the weather and didn't really have anything that needed to be done. I thought about staying home with him, but it is so much easier to do what I do on my three big monitors. It was a good thing I went in. Daniel and Sara both came into the office and I helped them. Daniel and I are trying to get some software we can use with Teams. At first I thought it was just a free add-on app for calendaring. After researching and trying to get approval, we found out it had a cost. I was ready to abandon the idea when Daniel said, "We have the budget and it will do what we need it to do, so let's pursue it." So that is what we are doing. Hopefully we will get it approved next week as we want to implement it before the first of the year. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my master list. I found out this week I can use ACCESS to work on my lists. It is SO MUCH NICER and I can use SQL in ACCESS to I get the best of both worlds. My goal is to get the master list completely up to date by syncing it with Event Central and PLUNET. Once that is done, we only need to keep it up to date with PLUNET, which can be manually done for those that come after me. I think that will work in the long run.

Friday, Elder Wilcox was back to normal and feeling great. We had a good day at work and planned on leaving early, but didn't quite make it. We left about 5:15. The Linfords stayed for an event called North America Central Hispanic Devotional with Elder Soares. 

On Saturday I worked on HawkSoft. Darrin had lots of certifications for me to do so it kept me busy all day. Steve went shopping. It is so nice that he doesn't mind shopping since I really don't like shopping. In the evening we worked on some Christmas presents and watched a little TV. 

Sunday was a busier day than usual. It started with some Scripture Study then working on my blog. I got an email from work about a rush job for a gal that does Portuguese Subtitles who was assigned to do the Christmas Devotional tonight. So I jumped in PLUNET to set up the order. I normally clone a previous order for her so everything comes in the way I need it, but no job came in. At first I thought I forgot to click on the copy job box. No matter, I set it up, but I wanted to check the price. I opened the order I had cloned but there was no job in the order. That was strange because I knew I had created it. I checked another one for her and it was also missing the job. I then ran a report for all the jobs for this interpreter and it was blank. Something was very, very wrong. I then got a call from Elder Linford. He was checking PLUNET for our Christmas Devotional tonight and it was COMPLETELY Empty. He was panicked as he knew he had set it up. I told him I was contacting our Tech guys as I remembered having a similar problem many months ago, and I was sure nothing was lost. I called Tim and Caleb in hopes one of them would pick up, since it was highly possible they were both in Church. Tim finally answered. I explained the situation and he said the system needed to be rebooted. A few minutes later, Caleb chatted in Teams wanting to know the problem so we told him, too. He was the one who knew who to call to reboot the system so he took care of that. Long story short, it is all fixed now!!!

Church was good. I so love meeting with our fellow Missionaries. We have so many friends and it is great to see them each week. Occasionally we run into some in the cafeteria and visit with them for awhile. It is always such a pleasure. Right after Church we headed over to the COB to get ready for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. We had lots of Interpreters for this event. It is almost as big as General Conference. Lucky for us, that meant that Events covered the meal. They had a nice spread in the Cafeteria and we didn't have to do a thing other than enjoy and visit with the Interpreters. It was an awesome devotional and I hope you were able to watch it.

As Always, We Love You!!! May you have a Wonderful Holiday Season. And please remember that Christ is at the center of Christmas! You will enjoy this beautiful video to get you in the Spirit of Christmas!  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2019-09-0050-the-christ-child?lang=eng 

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox