Zone Christmas Dinner, Team Offsite (sort of), Christmas Concert, and Oregon!!!

The James Family Singers

Monday morning we had a wonderful Mission Devotion. Sorry, so much has happened this week, I can't remember what the devotion was about. Work was pretty slow and the Church Office Building was pretty empty all week. We had LOTS of snow this week. It was so cold and snowing all week long. 

President and Sister Holmes at our 
Zone Dinner and Elder Linford

Later that morning I had a Teams meeting with the Director of the Temple Division. This is one of the new divisions that was created when our department went through some structure changes. It used to be the Sacred Materials Project in our Interpretation Team. Jeanpierre and several others were in that group. They were all moved to the new Temple Division. We don't get to see them very often anymore. Most of them were "temporary" full time employees with an end date of April 1st. Jeanpierre is so excited as he was one they offered a permanent full time position to. He has been praying for that to happen ever since they created to original project. Anyway, his new boss wanted to talk to me about PLUNET invoicing. He wanted to know what we could do with the current invoicing process and I told him were we stand. Everything is in place just waiting to be turned on, but the email process is NOT 100% reliable yet. Unfortunately we don't have the resources to figure out what the problem is so I'm not sure anything will be done about it at this time. He informed me that he heard they have picked a replacement for PLUNET so maybe they will wait and see if that will have a better invoicing process.

In the Atrium at the
Bountiful Temple

After work on Monday we headed straight to the 26th floor for our Zone Christmas Dinner and Program. We had a very nice buffet with yummy food. It was so fun to see our whole zone together that didn't include a Zoom meeting. Because our Zone is so spread out we don't ever meet together in person. Sister Nicholls works at Ensign College. She arranged the entertainment for our dinner. Her husband served as Bishop to Steve James when he was a young man. He later became a producer and entertainer and has performed with his family to millions of people around the world. Three of their four children with them Monday night to entertain us with Christmas fun and beautiful music. It was a FANTASTIC program that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

Grandpa and Elle at Lunch

We found out on Sunday that there would be a limited supply of tickets to the Tabernacle Christmas Concert available for pick up in the Mission office on Tuesday Morning at 7:45 AM. We headed into work bright and early on Tuesday morning. Well it was not really so bright. It had snowed all night and was still snowing when we went to work. The sidewalks were pretty slippery because they hadn't shoveled them yet. And it was very cold. But, we made it to the Mission Office and secured two tickets for Thursday evening. Then we headed into the office for our Zone Devotional. The Merrells were doing the devotional and Elder Merrell was having sound problems. So, I grabbed the Christmas card I had for them and headed down to the 3rd floor West Wing as quick as I could to see if I could help. When I got to their office I was told they went to the 2nd floor so I headed there. I found them in Sister Matson's office and Elder Merrell was proceeding with his devotional. I dropped the Christmas card off, and went back to my office to hear the rest of his devotional.

This cute house on the way to the Temple

I continued work on my List clean up and started on creating an app that would automatically create a spreadsheet that we could copy and paste into existing workbooks that would update the list of Interpreters with current expiration dates and statuses. All they would have to do is copy and paste the new list into their existing spreadsheet. The app was a little tricky. I could get the basics done and I set it up to automatically run every Saturday morning so they can have a fresh list weekly if they want. The tricky part was to split out the interpreters and multi-language coordinators into a new line for every language they have. It took me until Friday with a little help from my Techy friend, Jeff to finally get it working. My goal for our remaining year is to be able to automate some of the tasks I have been doing that may not continue unless I can make them easy to do. 

The Tongan Team plus Aaron and Ljiljana

In the afternoon, we had our Section meeting. We were missing about 5 people who were on Teams, mainly because of the weather. I was pleasantly surprised to see Baptiste. I was able to give him a little treat and wish him a Merry Christmas! Our meeting went well. I think we actually went home at a decent hour Tuesday evening. 

Wednesday was interesting. Daniel cancelled our Team meeting because we were doing a Team Offsite on Thursday. So we scheduled a Temple Trip for around 4:00PM. In the morning I got an email from someone in the PSD department wanting to know if we still wanted tickets for the Christmas Concert. They had told me earlier that they weren't going to have any tickets. Since the PSD tickets are sometimes better seats I said yes. The seats we got from the mission were in Balcony 3. The tickets we got from PSD were in Plaza A. MUCH better seats. So, I gave the tickets to the Linfords because they weren't able to get tickets from the Mission. Come to find out they received tickets they weren't expecting later from a friend of theirs that were also better seats than Balcony 3. They were going to try and give the tickets away. It was still snowing all day so Sister Linford suggested we change our Temple time to earlier in the day while it was still light. Nothing much was going on so we rescheduled to right after lunch. 

About 10:00AM I created a Zoom meeting with Sister Matson. She was scheduled for the Zone Devotional on Thursday morning and wanted some help to make sure she knew how to share her screen and do her PowerPoint presentation. We got it all setup and her sound wouldn't work. It didn't make sense because Elder Merrell had used HER computer on Tuesday for his devotional and everything worked. So I ran downstairs again, to see if I could help. We played around with several settings and finally figured out it was her earbuds that were causing the problem. When we unplugged the earbuds and the sound worked perfectly. We figured out Elder Merrell didn't use earbuds when he gave his devotional. Now I'm wondering if he was trying to use earbuds on his computer when his sound wouldn't work. 

Curtis, Elder Wilcox, Sister Wilcox, Jarod

Then, just before we were going to lunch we get a text from Ljiljana asking if we were all set for the Tongan training meeting that night. WHAT??? We remembered talking about having a meeting, but all of us thought it was on Thursday night after our Team Offsite. She was checking to see if we had scheduled the 26th floor for their potluck dinner. We told her, we had already told her should couldn't have the 26th floor and besides they don't allow you do do a potluck dinner on that floor. You have to use catering. She then remembered that we told her she could use the 27th floor especially since there were only about 10 people. We said we would have it all set up and would probably be back from the Temple in time to help out.

The timing worked out perfectly. We dropped the Linfords off at the apartment and headed to the COB. We were there to help support the potluck and training meeting. Patrick, the area coordinator flew in from Tonga to run the meeting. It was nice to meet him since I had only ever emailed him. We had about 5 or 6 interpreters show up. The meeting was fun. We stayed and cleaned up and made it home by 8.

Thursday morning Sister Matson's devotional went perfectly. She was so happy. We received a chat from Elder Linford that morning saying they didn't want to travel in adverse weather conditions. We were supposed to go to Thanksgiving Point for our Offsite meeting at 11:00 AM. I had just talked to Elder and Sister Johnson who drove to the MTC that very morning and had no problems. They said to go a little slow get on the lane that is plowed the best. Well, Eunlan then said she didn't want to go. She was going with the Linfords. Daniel chimed in and said we should reschedule to next Tuesday. Of course we weren't going to be in town next Tuesday. Jarod jumped in and said he was going to go that morning because he was going to be on a cruise next week and wouldn't be able to go next Tuesday. So I chatted Jarod and said we would meet him since we weren't going to be there the following Tuesday either. Long story short, Jarod, Curtis, and the Wilcoxes met at the Museum of Natural History (the Dinosaur Museum) at 11 for our Offsite meeting. We had a GREAT time. Jarod is an awesome tour guide. After we saw lots of dinosaurs we went to lunch and then went home. Actually I went back to work. Everyone else will go next Tuesday.

After dinner we headed over to the Conference Center to attend the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with Broadway singer and actress Lea Salonga and renowned British actor David Suchet. It was so AWESOME!!! If you haven't seen the 2022 concert yet, please look it up on YouTube. You won't regret it. David Suchet told a true story that was so touching. At the end of the story they had the entire audience hold up their phone flashlights and they dimmed all the conference center lights. It was so beautiful.

Friday, we worked from home. We had so much to do to get ready for our trip and everything thing we needed to do for work we could do from home. We got all our laundry done, presents wrapped, everything packed, in addition to finished up that Power App project for my list as well as a couple hours of HawkSoft. It ended up being a much longer day than I planned. We finally got to bed by 11.

Saturday we got up at 7 to finish the last minute packing, and then headed to the airport. I had a "fun" adventure at the airport. I currently only have a "temporary" drivers license because my license expired. They NEVER sent me my new license and it has been well over 6 months. Anyway, when you fly they want a government issued picture ID. Without my drivers license I no longer have a government issued picture ID. I was afraid they weren't going to let me fly. They sent me through super intense security screening before they decided I could fly. We are going to go the the DMV while we are here in Oregon and see if I can get a new VALID picture drivers license. Wish me luck! 

After I got through security, everything else went just fine. Our flight was very smooth. I got to watch a Christmas movie during the flight. Sean, MyLiege, Alyx and Elle picked us up at the airport and took us to lunch on the way home. The rest of the day was chill. We enjoyed visiting and stayed up too late. lol

Enrique, Alyson, and Virginia

Sunday was SOOOOOOOO good. It was wonderful to see so many friends. It was exciting when Alyson came in. I have to admit, I hoped for a more surprised expression. Haha. She said she saw a random text or something about us coming for Christmas so it wasn't a complete surprise that we were there. She was the concluding speaker and gave such an amazing talk about her mission. It was everything I could have hoped for. One of the things that she learned was that she was meant to be there. At first she felt she didn't fit the mold of a "perfect" missionary. But then she had several experiences where her unique personality was exactly what was needed to reach a particular investigator. She said people came up to her after and thanked her for being her and reaching their friends on their level and where they were at. At that point she knew she was where she was supposed to be. She learned that she needed to put it all on the alter and let the Lord use her unique talents to do His will. It was AWESOME.

Elder Wilcox, Curtis, and Jarod

After Church we went over to Douhet and Kylee's for a nice lunch to welcome Alyson home. It was so nice to see almost the whole family. Sierra and Shonee were in Idaho attending the wedding for Shonee's niece. We missed them, but they will be back in time for Christmas Eve so we will see them then. 

Sunday evening we went to the Holiday Singers' Christmas Concert. It isn't Christmas without the Holiday Singers. Douhet and Kylee sing in the choir. This is the 29th year they have been in existence and Douhet has been in the choir since the very beginning. Their daughter, Audrey, sang a solo and did such an AMAZING job. Her voice was so sweet and beautiful. She didn't sound or look nervous at all even though she said she was terrified. It was such a beautiful concert. As usual they made me cry. I was so touched. 

We hope you have a wonderful week before Christmas!

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