Happy Easter and Life After General Conference

A beautiful "Spring" morning 
After General Conference

There was no Mission Devotional on Monday because of General Conference. We will have our evening devotional next Monday evening. It will be our Elijah Choir Easter Concert. I'm looking forward to that.

We had another big snow storm so we decided to work from home. It had snowed all night long. We slept in a bit because we were still so exhausted from General Conference. I started working on the hours report for GC, but ran into some issues. For some reason our check-in program didn't check in everyone it should have. When I ran the report, I knew I had checked in several people who were not on the report. I also know I helped the missionaries that helped with check-in with certain people who were also not on the report. Not only was that a problem, but we had a number of people who simply didn't bother to check in. They were supposed to check in on the main floor, but they decided to go up the freight elevator from the parking level and bypass the main floor. In the end I figured out we had 16% who did not check in on Saturday and 43% percent that did not check in on Sunday. We heard that someone told the Interpreters that if they checked in on Saturday, they did not need to check in on Sunday. 

Our walk home on Tuesday

What all that meant was I had to have our three Multi-language Coordinators verify who was at Conference for each of their languages. By three in the afternoon, they all gave me their preliminary report. With that, I ran the hours report. We had a few other corrections and by end of day. I sent the report to Elder Linford so he could input all the hours for Conference. 

I remember my first General Conference in October 2021. It took me three weeks to get all the hours calculated and updated. With each Conference we got quicker. It took Elder Linford two days to update all the hours. That meant we were done three days after General Conference. The BEST time ever. We had a couple of additions and corrections over the next two days, but the people hadn't invoiced yet so the correction was easily taken care of.

I also worked on my blog on Monday as there just wasn't time over the weekend. Monday night, we had a wonderful Family Home Evening. Elder and Sister Ure were in charge. Our evening was centered on General Conference and we had a wonderful discussion. I love our FHE group so much. We always have a fantastic time.

Waiting for the Award Ceremony to begin

Tuesday morning and afternoon we had two events that Elder Wilcox and I support and a third event that evening that the Linfords did. It was still snowing very hard in the morning, but since Elder Wilcox had to go pick up breakfast (the timing didn't work for the interpreters to use the cafeteria), he dropped me off so I didn't have to walk in the snow. I was able to go to the Wellness Center before the event, so that was good. The first one was for Music and The Spoken word. Normally that is always done at the Conference Center so we were surprised when it was in the COB and we were supposed to do breakfast. It was the Easter Special, so that kind of explained why it might be done in the COB. The weather was still pretty bad and most of our interpreters were very late. It was a good thing we do an hour call time, meaning the interpreters report an hour before the event starts. As it turned out while we were eating breakfast, we were concerned because we didn't have any Spanish interpreters yet. Eunlan called to see where they were at. Also, our Engineer hadn't shown up either. What we found out was the engineer and Spanish team were at the Conference Center wondering where the French and Portuguese teams were. Apparently there was a misunderstanding and the whole thing was supposed to take place at the Conference Center like usual. Eunlan was supervising the event because Curtis was on vacation. She got the  signals mixed up.

Venky's Leadership Award
for Business Intelligence

So, the interpreters headed to the Conference Center and we went back to our cubicles until the second event started two hours later. That one went off without a hitch. Several of the interpreters that were for the morning one, stayed for the afternoon event. That event was a General Conference Leadership Meeting (GCLM): Luncheon with General Authorities and Area Organization Advisors. It involved training for the Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society. It ended around 3:00. We went home right after that as the snow was still coming down and had been all day. When we looked out the window on the 28th floor it looked like a terrible storm. It was very windy and we could hardly see out the window. When we got to the ground floor to walk home it was actually quite beautiful. There was no wind. It was even a little sunny and only lightly snowing on our walk home. 

After Venky received his award

Wednesday, we worked from home again. Part of it was snow and part of it was still just being tired. We didn't have any events to support so I was able to send out nearly 500 thank you emails around the world. I included all of our SLC Interpreters, all the missionaries who helped out with General Conference, all our staff who helped, all the engineers and others not in our department who helped, and all the area language supervisors. I used a power app but was having a problem with it sending out to email addresses outside of our Church network...which was MOST of the emails I was sending. I have a "white list" authority that allows me to send out emails outside of our Church network using a Power App as long as I use "General Conference Preparation" in the subject line. I got this because I send them out to the areas a couple of months before each General Conference so they know who they need to make sure is activated in PLUNET. Anyway, it wasn't working. I contacted a guy to see if I was deactivated since it hadn't been used for a couple of months. It was. He reactivated it and everything worked great. It was very sweet to receive "thank you's" back from so many people.

Venky with his award

Thursday we went in. The weather was better. It was cold, but the snow had stopped. The sidewalks were clear. I went in early to go to the Wellness Center and then listened to our Zone Devotional. We missed it on Tuesday because of our events. I created a "congratulations" card for Venky. He graduated from Ensign College. I spent much of the day working on numbers for General Conference. We wanted to know how many Interpreters we had for each session as we felt we were ordering too many meals. Even though we can do 55 languages in Salt Lake City, we don't do all 55 for each session. We were at least 50 less than we figured for each session. I was also able to use my numbers as a comparison with the hours report I gave Elder Linford and found a couple errors as mentioned above. We left work around 3 to attend an awards ceremony for Venky.  He received a Leadership Award for Business Intelligence. Since he is from India, he doesn't have any family here so we, the Linfords, and Eunlan got to be his family. It was a very nice ceremony.

Venky's Graduation

Friday morning was the Graduation Ceremony, which was held at the Tabernacle. The Linfords went to the graduation, and we supported the event in the COB. It worked out perfect for all of us. They are a little closer to Venky so it was nice they could be there for him. After the event, I attended a pizza party for the "Contracts" team that worked so hard before General Conference. We all tried to work in the afternoon, but all of us were just brain dead. I think we were all falling asleep at our desk. Just before the end of the day, Sister Faerber asked me if I would be willing facilitate the next Emotional Resilience class that will be starting soon. Since we are heading into a slower period, I said yes. We all left around 4:00.

I managed to do my HawkSoft work throughout the week so come Saturday, I didn't have anymore to do. So we took a nice little drive to Duchesne, Utah. We had to take a picture of a sign in honor of Season. Lol. The weather was beautiful. The sun was shining and the temperature was around 60 degrees. I think it was actually Spring! Duchesne is kind of a hole in the wall. We had lunch in a unusual little place. It looked like a warehouse with an area set aside to eat. Very expensive. But not "expensive type" food. We each had a grilled ham and cheese and it was $20 bucks. Not much to see in Duchesne. On our way home we stopped in Heber to get some ice cream. The cashier took our order, asked us about our mission and then told us we got a missionary discount. Our bill was 0 dollars. What nice treat that was. 

A nice war memorial in Duchesne

Easter Sunday was BEAUTIFUL. The sun was shining, the snow was almost all melted. Our Sacrament service was wonderful and spiritual. President Holmes spoke to us about the last week of the Savior's life. He then invited 4 Sisters to come up and bear their testimonies of the Savior. All were very touching. We had a wonderful musical number by a men's ensemble. They really blended well together. After that, President Holmes invited 2 Elders and 2 more Sisters to bear testimony. He shared a few more closing remarks and said he was inspired to invite 1 more Elder and Sister Faerber to bear testimony. We concluded by singing "I Believe in Christ". I LOVE that song. I'm not sure there was a dry eye in the congregation.  

I love this quote by Elder David A. Bednar. “The Resurrection is the ultimate triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, and life over death. It is a reminder that we can overcome anything through the power of Jesus Christ.” It reminds me of the scripture found in Proverbs 3:5-6 that says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Because of Him, we can overcome all our trials and even the world. May you have a Wonderful Easter because of Him!

We only had Sacrament meeting but didn't get home until almost three. We talked a lot after Church.  We invited one of our apartment couples over for Easter dinner. If we couldn't be with family, it was great to be with our Missionary family. 

We hope you had a wonderful Easter and that Spring is finally here for you too! (At least this next week is going to be Spring like! 😊)

All our Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox