Movies, Snow Storm, Canceled Events,  and Another New Assignment

Monday was a Holiday. We actually had a day off! A friend of ours recommended a movie that she said was really good. It is called, A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. So, we decided to go to the Movies on Monday. We went out to eat after the movie. And we managed to get home in plenty of time for our Family Home Evening night.

The Chew Toys we made for
the Animal Shelter

The Burgoyne's were in charge and they chose to do a service project or our evening. They brought over bags of cut up t-shirts and some tennis balls. We were given instructions on how to create several different chew toys for an animal shelter in Salt Lake City. They got the tennis balls from a tennis court that gave them "flat" balls. They aren't really flat, but after several games by really good tennis players, the balls are no longer good enough for really good tennis players. They work perfectly for chew toys for pets.

Elder Wilcox and Elder Durrant

We made a small knot chew toy for cats. We made a foot long braid for dogs. We also made an "octopus" toy with a tennis ball for the head and eight braided tentacles. We had a lot of fun. As we ate our treat, we played a Hangman type game. We guessed correctly the scripture, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." (Mosiah 2:17) and we all acknowledged that animals are our fellow beings too.

Elder Ipson's shoulder, Sister Ipson,
Sister Durrant, Sister Wilcox, and 
Sister Burgoyne in the front right corner

Tuesday we started the day with our Zone Devotional and then I headed to the Wellness Center to work on the elliptical for 25 minutes. I have been enjoying my morning workout every weekday. The rest of the day was spent in meetings and work on Rosters for our SLC teams. The first meeting was General Conference Preparation. We spent most of the time talking about the GC training meeting we have coming up on March 4th and again on March 18th. In the past Ljiljana sent out all the invitations and tracked the RSVPs so we could make sure everyone that participates gets paid. This time Daniel decided he wanted the Team Leads to extend the invitation and track the RSVPs and send those to us. We pointed out that the Team Leads don't necessairly know everyone on their team. 

The Scene from our Window
the night of the storm

So, I was tasked with creating a list of team members for each of the SLC teams AND they needed to go out on Wednesday. So, as soon as the meeting was over I used my Microsoft list to put together a list of all active team members. We have some interpreters that interpret for more than one language. Long story short, I needed help it adding a delimiter to the list of languages so I could separate each language into a separate record. Since my time was very short, I reached out to two of my Excel wizards (Season Wilcox, and Eric Andresen from HawkSoft). Season's answer was one I was working on, but running into some difficulty. Eric played with it a bit and then sent me a formula that was AMAZING. It worked perfectly. By the end of the day, I had the separate spreadsheets for each language.

On Tuesday night we had a big snow storm so we worked from home on Wednesday. I spent the bulk of the day working on tweaking my Power App that sends out mass emails and attaches files to the email. I used it for the Areas a couple of weeks ago. I just needed to duplicate it and tweak it to go to our Salt Lake City Team Leads. I ran into several problems, but finally finished sending them out before 5:00. Now we just have to see if the Team Leads actually send out the invitation and how many RSVPs we get back. I'm nervous that we won't necessairly get the RSVPs ahead of time and that I will be entering people as they just show up to the training meeting.

A scene from our other window

Thursday we went into the office. There was still a lot of snow, but the sidewalks were still a bit icy so I walked very slowly. I actually went to the Wellness Center before our Zone Devotional. We were supposed to have an event later that morning and I wanted to make sure I got my exercise done. As it turned out, the interpreters that were supposed to come that afternoon said they couldn't make it because of the weather so our event was cancelled. Instead, Aaron got a more local interpreter to come in that morning. The Linfords were already covering another event that morning so they covered that one for us. So I actually watched our devotional while I worked on the elliptical. It was kind of cool. After scripture study, I had a Zoom meeting with one of our Interpreters. She was on vacation and only had her iPad. It was a little difficult to help her as she couldn't figure out how to share her screen so I could only guess what she was seeing. We managed to get it all worked out and she was able to submit her invoice. 

In front of the Atrium at the
Bountiful Temple. You can't 
see all the snow.

I received the OK to start using an very cool Year at a Glance app that is available in TEAMS. It has been in the works for nearly 3 months. When I found out it was a third party app and was $900 per year, I figured we wouldn't be getting the app. But, Daniel wanted it and said we had the budget so I submitted the request back in December. It got approved after a few weeks, but for some reason IT couldn't figure out how to activate it. I would get an email every once in a while to "try it now" only to tell them it was still asking for Admin approval. Well, on Thursday, just before lunch, I was asked to "try it now" and it WORKED. So, I created a "test" calendar and added all the events we have planned out for the year. These are mostly reoccurring events we do every year. We then went to the Temple. I really needed that as I had a fairly stressful week. 

Friday, I started my day at the Wellness Center again. Only this time, I forgot to put my Fitbit in my sock so I get credit for all the work on the elliptical. I was not happy. To make up for it I went back to the Wellness Center just before lunch and worked another 25 minutes WITH my Fitbit in my sock. 🤣

Year at a Glance

I worked more on the Year at a Glance calendar and showed Aaron. He is excited. We want to share it with the Areas so they can put their local events in. Each area can be a different color. We can then see their capacity to know if they would be available for a specific interpreting event. Too often we don't find out until the last minute that they are too busy to do the event. We are hoping this may help. I reached out to one of the IT guys to see if it would be possible to get a link from Event Central to my Microsoft list so we wouldn't have to double enter the events we do here at Headquarters. Long story short, apparently I didn't get the RIGHT manager's approval to move forward. Daniel is my manager and he OK'd it and said he wanted it. He was supposed to get his manager's approval and that didn't happen so now they are probably going to cancel it, get our money back and reevaluate the need, if there is any need, sometime in the future. I'm sure I will be long gone before, or if ever, that happens. I'll know more on Monday. If they can't get their money back we will use it for a year....maybe. Needless to say, I was not particularly happy.

Elder Wilcox at the Temple
You can see a little more snow.

Just before we were ready to go home, I got a call from Daniel's boss wanting to give me another assignment. Our Vendor department is way behind on renewing contracts and with General conference just around the corner, that is NOT good. They would like me to help with that until after conference. I am to start on Monday. That means everything else I have been working on is put on hold. But, of course that is not possible for the several things I am doing FOR General Conference. So it looks like I will be working evenings and weekends for a while to make sure I stay on top of everything.

Saturday our Internet company was "upgrading" our Internet. I wasn't sure if I would have any Internet at all; but, I did (off and on), but it was enough for me to get my HawkSoft work done for an hour. After that, we went to Bountiful to get haircuts. Our wait time was extra long (even though I checked in online) so we went to lunch. It was a nice afternoon. We stopped at a park to eat and took a few pictures of the snow. After we got home I spent some time working on my Leadership Pattern lesson and the Emotional Resilience lesson for Sunday and Monday classes. Then we had a very nice evening of relaxing.

The park where we enjoyed our lunch.

We had a really good Sunday. My Emotional Resilience class went very well. I love how we are all getting to know each other better. I enjoy hearing each other's contributions to the lesson. We have some very spiritual times. We also have some fun too. Sister Faerber is our facilitator for the class. Her husband helps her with the class. He is the 2nd counselor in the Mission Presidency. She made a delicious gluten free Apple Crisp for us this morning. She took it out of the oven just before our class. It was so good. I told her she didn't have to bribe us to come. We all LOVE the class. She said it was a reward for our contributions. 

Another angle from the park.

The talks in Sacrament were very good. We also heard a beautiful solo from an Elder in the Branch. He sang "Jesus Was No Ordinary Man". I'm not sure there was a dry eye in the Chapel. He spoke for a couple of minutes before he sang and talked about his special needs son who is 45 and on the mission with them. He said how his son has always wanted to serve a mission. It reminded me of Michael Bean who also always wanted to serve a mission and was so happy when he could serve with his parents. The pianist had to jump up and grab a Kleenex from the pulpit before she could play for him. It brought a little laughter. We are all so very touched by that.

Relief Society was wonderful too. We talked about President Nelson's last General Conference talk called, "Overcome the World and Find Rest". Everyone had so many wonderful comments about what touched them about the talk and how it has changed them or helped them or touched them in some way. I LOVE CHURCH. It rejuvenates me each week. It strengthens me to face the trials that may come during the week. I LOVE MY MISSION, but that doesn't mean I don't face trials. The last couple of weeks have been a little harder than most. Church and being surrounded by our fellow missionaries and hearing their testimonies all help me when I feel down. Sometimes life is hard but turning to the Lord for that "peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (Philippians 4:7) sustains me, lifts me, and brings me joy beyond measure.

One last thing. A BIG SHOUT OUT to Paul Hawkins who created these beautiful business card holders for our team. Occasionally we do events that are more in the public eye. For example, this coming week Roots Tech 2023 starts. We have already done some Interpretation pre-recordings that will be broadcast sometime during the end of next week. We will also be supplying some interpreters at the Salt Palace for the in-person live portion of the event. When in public like that, people sometimes come up and want contact information. Plus, people are always confusing Translation verses Interpretation. Aaron asked if we could get something to hold some business cards and perhaps have Global Interpretation on it to help them distinguish the difference. Voila, we now have these beautiful Business Card Holders!!! Thank you PAUL!

May you have a blessed week and stay warm!

All our Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox