Devotionals, Classes, Team Off-site, Meetings, and Temple

We had a busy week, but not very many events. From my Emotional Resilience class last Sunday, we talked about how our bodies are a gift from God. We talked about things like exercise, rest, proper eating, etc. We each made individual commitments that we would strive to keep in the coming week. I made two commitments. The first was to go to the Wellness Center everyday during the work week. The second was to really watch what I was eating and stick to what I know I should eat.

Monday started with our weekly Mission Devotional. Since it was the last Monday of the month we heard from two of our Zones. The DQ and the SRP. We all like the DQ Zone because it reminds us of Dairy Queen. lol  DQ stands for Data Quality Assurance.  SRP is the Church History Special Projects Zone. Both of these Zones work hand in hand in providing the best possible records to be used in Family Search. They have state of the art software that can now cut the time it takes to verify and validate the work from weeks and months to only minutes. For example, they have missionaries throughout the world that take pictures of church and government records to digitize them and protect them from destruction. Many countries still have all of their vital records on paper. We have over 10 couples in war torn Ukraine with a request of up to 40 more couples to help with the work. Those pictures would be sent back to the DQ team to make sure the images were not blurry, or distorted in any way. If they were they would have to send a message to have the pictures retaken. The whole process took at least 3 days turn around. They have new cameras that now do the quality assurance right on the spot. It will immediately tell them if the picture is unreadable, blurry, or distorted so they can retake it immediately. Consequently, the DQ team is actually now behind time because they are receiving so many documents that they don't have time to process all of them. They no longer have to check the quality, but they have to get them processed and loaded into Family Search. Such fantastic work being done. It doesn't just help us with Family Search, but it is a tremendous blessings to countries all over the world because we offer to digitize all their records for free. It preserves the records for them.

After the Devotional, I went to the Wellness Center for my first day of exercise. It felt good! I also stuck to my good eating for the day. I even skipped the refreshments for Family Home Evening. Monday evening, Steve was in charge of our Family Home Evening. He did a great job talking about the various proclamations the Church has issued over the years. They have only been 6. He focused on the last one given in April of 2020 about the Restoration of the Church. We listened to that General Conference talk by President Nelson and then had a brief discussion. After that we played LDS Taboo. It was loads of fun and of course we laughed A LOT. It was the Beeches last night so of course we had to get pictures. They left the next day. We will miss them. Our little hallway is looking empty with so many signs taken down. We just found out we have three new missionary couples moving in soon so Elder Wilcox will be busy with new signs.

Tuesday morning started with our Zone Devotional. Our new Zone leaders were in charge. They gave a beautiful devotional on Temples. It was a great way to start the day. From there I went to the Wellness Center to get my second day of exercise in. Then we got ready for our Team Off-site meeting. Originally it was supposed to be a potluck luncheon, but with the weather so cold and icy conditions on sidewalks, they decided to have food brought in. Most everyone was walking from the COB to the new big blue building that houses 4 wards and many business offices a few blocks away. Venky, one of our MLCs, goes to one of the wards there so he secured the building for us. Elder Wilcox didn't think his heel would handle that long of a walk, plus even though we were no longer taking potluck, we still needed to take supplies such as plates, water, drinks, snacks, laptops, etc. so we decided to take the car and transport everything to the meeting. It was a good decision. 

Since the food was changed to "restaurant" and Elder Wilcox was responsible to order it and we had our car, he decided that he would just pick it up and save the delivery fee. They opted for Pizza. Well, that didn't go with my "diet" so I made a nice chicken salad and took that. I stuck to my good eating for the day and didn't have any of the snacks or candy or pizza. It was hard, but I did it. Our meeting went from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. We accomplished quite a bit. We went home after taking the supplies back to the COB, so, that was nice to get off a little early.

Nothing special happened on Wednesday. I went to the Wellness Center first thing. The Linfords covered our one and only event for the week, which was the GA Wives Luncheon. I worked on my list to get ready to send out the emails of the status of our Interpreters to all of the Areas. I still have a few things to work out. I think we left around 5. I stuck to my good eating all day.

On Thursday morning, Sister Linford gave the devotional. She did a beautiful job. She said she was originally going to talk about what we do, but I had briefly touched on that the week before when I did the devotional. They she was going to talk about Temples, but the Johnsons talked about that two days before. So, she talked about Testimonies since Fast and Testimony Sunday was coming up. Her story was so sweet and personal and touching. She really blessed my life.

After the Devotional I went to the Wellness Center. The rest of my day was pretty much the same as Wednesday. We left early so we could to to the Temple. It seemed like such a long time since we had gone to the Temple. We saw our old Mission President and his wife at the Temple. They work there every Thursday afternoon. We had a very nice time. After we got home our dinner was well within my eating guidelines.

On Friday I started the day at the Wellness Center. YAY!!! I made it 5 days in a row. I rushed upstairs before my 9:00 AM meeting. I reviewed with Matt what I've been working on with my list. We talked about the direction we want to pursue. I think I have a better direction about what they want. While working on my list for the day I ran into three different major roadblocks. When I hit the first one I posted the problem on the Team chat we have for such problems and I went onto a different path. I worked on that one for a while and ran into another problem. This one required help from Sean, so I texted him. While waiting for him to get back to me I started on a third direction I am taking with my list. Once again, I hit another roadblock. After researching again, I realized I needed outside help so I posted another chat to Jeff, my techy support guy. By that time, Sean and I were able to connect so one problem was solved. I worked on that solution for awhile. By then, I realized I was not going to get any answers that day so we went home. We stuck with my good eating for the day.

Saturday, I stayed home all day. Elder Wilcox went shopping. I did not do any exercise. I did, however, stick to my diet for the day. I spent time working on HawkSoft, Scripture Study, and preparing for both of my upcoming classes. It was nice to be home and work on things I wanted to do, rather than things I have to do. lol. 

Sunday was SO great. I went to my Emotional Resilience class. I am really loving this class each week. I have a wonderful Action partner and we talk with each other almost every day. It really helps to keep commitments when I am reporting to Sister Winder each day. She feels the same. 

After class we went into our Sunday meetings. I got to give the opening prayer today. Since it was the first Sunday of the month it was Fast and Testimony Meeting. We had beautiful meetings. The first two people that got up to bear Testimony were a husband and wife from Korea. They are the sweetest people. Each one wrote their Testimony out ahead of time so they could read what they wanted to say in English. Sister Bae went first. She shared how happy they were to live here where there are so many Temples nearby. She talked about how they used to drive seven hours each month to attend the Temple back home in Korea. She then said how very happy and excited they were when they heard the announcement of a new Temple in their home town of Busan, Korea. I don't think there was a dry eye in the entire Chapel. Then her husband bore his Testimony. He talked about how we are all family. They both invited the Spirit into the meeting. We all felt it so strong. 

The next Elder that got up, looked first at the Baes and bore his Testimony to them in Korean. Sister Bae cried. I think most everyone else did too. It was so touching. Later another Sister got up and also spoke directly to the Baes in Korean. Her words were very few and she commented that it was about all she could remember. Elder Bae laughed. She then shared that she had a Korean bookmarker that for some reason she decided to take to Church that day. She held up the bookmarker and said that now she knew why she brought it to Church. When she finished, she want and gave the Baes the bookmarker. 

The last Sister that shared her Testimony talked about what was shared at our last Mission Devotional. In particular she mentioned the Missionaries that were taking photos of all the records in the Ukraine. She said she shared that information with a friend of hers that she had sent a Christmas Card to. Apparently the return address she put on the card had an extra 1 in the address so her friend couldn't send a card in return. The friend contacted the Mission Office to connect with her friend. This occurred right before our Mission Devotional. After reconnecting with her friend, she decided to share the information about the Ukrainian records. The friend texted back how grateful she was for the information. It turns out much of her family still lives in or near Ukraine. Her ancestors are from there. She had been doing all she could to gather her family history information for those ancestors before she was sure the records would be destroyed and she would never get the information again. The information her friend sent was an answer to prayer and a true miracle in her life. Our meeting was so uplifting.

After a great Sunday School class we went home to get ready for our Break the Fast dinner at our Apartment. We thought we were going to be few in number since so many have left our ranks. We were surprised to find out that we had three new couples move in this weekend. We met two of them at our Break the Fast. The third couple is finishing up with a bout of COVID so they didn't join us. We had a wonderful time with great food and wonderful company getting to know our fellow missionaries. We love it!!!

I hope you have a WONDERFUL week!

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox