Mission Devotional, Zone Tour, TIPS Devotional, Welfare Square, Bountiful Temple, and Old Testament Tabernacle

Looking at the title, I guess it was a good thing we didn't have many events this week. It was very busy with other things. 

Monday morning started with our Mission Zone Devotional in the COB Auditorium. Our Zone was featured. Our Zone Leader, Elder Johnson started with a short slide show presentation with pictures of several of of the departments in our Zone and the missionaries who serve there. We have 13 different departments or sections. He selected 4 to be represented. Some of our sections are so sacred, the missionaries have to sign a non-disclosure document that says they will not talk to anyone about what they do. They did not give a presentation in our devotional. 

Elder Johnson also shared a brief bit about where he and Sister Johnson work in the Self-Reliance section. In addition to Elder Johnson, Elder Ure talked about what they do at Ensign College. He shared a few stories from some students there. Elder Ricks talked about his work in the Prison Ministry. He shared some excepts of the many letters they receive from the prisoners and how the Gospel is changing their lives. I especially loved the ones that said they started to pray again and they could feel the love of the Savior and Heavenly Father for them. They know they are not forgotten. Sister Matson works in the Missionary Department. She helps couples and senior Sisters get through the process of actually getting on their missions. There can be delays for numerous reasons and she helps them deal with that. Sometimes they request the delay, other times a health issue may delay it for them. In our case it was COVID. She started her talk with how she was delayed due to a medical issue that needed to be taken care of before she could serve. She said she wondered "why me" when all she wanted to do was serve her mission. She had already sold her house and had no where to live for the 6 to 8 weeks it took to resolve her issue. When she got out of the hospital a friend let her stay with them while she recovered and she finally got on her mission. When she found out where she would be working, she realized, at least in part, why she had to go through what she did before she came. She understands very well what the people she works with are feeling and how best to serve them.

I was the concluding speaker, giving a brief description of what we do. I started by "correcting" President Faerber when he called us the Headquarters Support Services (HSS) Zone and said we think of ourselves as the Headquarters SECRET Services Zone because no one know what we do. As I said above, there are some departments that can't even SAY what they do. I went on to share some statistics of our section such as how many events we do, how many interpreters we have, and how many languages we interpret. I shared some of the responsibilities we do such as, obtaining access badges, parking passes, and feeding them. I mentioned the Linfords do the work to get them paid. I mentioned the best part of our job is visiting with the Interpreters and learning their stories. I concluded by sharing a spiritual experience one of our Interpreter's had when he was STRONGLY prompted to turn into the Church Office Building one day instead of going home to do his Zoom call. The result of following that prompting was he was asked to go to Elder Renlund's office to assist in a Setting Apart of a new Mission Leader Couple. That was cool enough, but in the middle of the Setting Apart, they all experienced a very profound feeling that brought tears to everyone's eyes. After the the Amen had been said, Elder Renlund asked if they all felt that. No one could speak, so they just nodded. He then told them that they felt the presence of the Savior in the room. Hearing stories like that is priceless. I love our Mission.

After the Devotional and the Wellness Center, I spent much of the day working with Elder Linford on Invoices that had been created but not paid yet. 

We had a wonderful Family Home Evening with the Ipsons in charge. We talked about how Jesus taught the people and how we receive His word today. We briefly talked about General Conference as evidence of receiving His word. We were then tasked to write our own Parable. They presented a tray of items as ideas to get us started. Of course we could pick any topic we wanted. Our parable was about "the mouse caught in the trap". There were some funny parables, but all had a good message and we had a lot of fun.

Tuesday I went to the Wellness Center and watched our Zone Devotional at the same time. Around 10 AM Elder Wilcox and I joined Elder and Sister Johnson and Elder and Sister Allen on a Zone Tour. The Johnsons were showing the Allens around as their assignment is to promote the Headquarters Mission. It is one of the best kept secrets in the Church. There are so many wonderful opportunities to serve here and most people don't know anything about it. So they are visiting each of the Zones to learn a bit about what they do, so they can update the Church's Website with information about the different places to serve. Since I was writing the Zone History, I asked if I could tag along and hopefully see some of the sections that had not sent anything to me yet. Elder Wilcox decided to tag along too. We didn't see all 13 sections, but we did see a bunch. It was nice to see where people work and hear a bit about what they do. There were a couple we could only see the closed door where they work because they work in a locked room. But all in all it was a fun experience. I was able to complete my Zone History and get it sent in by Thursday.

I spent much of the day reviewing the General Conference Preparation Meeting PLUNET order as a few things came up when I was working on Invoices with Elder Linford the day before. At 2:00 we had our Team Meeting. 

At the end of the day, we had a TIPS Devotional on the 26th Floor. TIPS stands for "Tuesday In-Person Social" that our mission (mostly our Zone) started just after COVID was opening up again. Most missionaries had been working in their apartments and never saw anyone so finally getting to have in-person get togethers was wonderful. Anyway, we had several missionaries who wanted to hear more about Curtis's research on the Joseph Smith Daguerreotype, so we set up a Devotional for them. We had around 50ish people show up. Curtis did a great job. There were lots of questions after, and once again I learned something new. Every time I hear his presentation I get something new out of it. He ended his presentation by sharing his comparison of Elder Wilcox and Joseph Smith and he showed his "aged" Joseph with Elder Wilcox's features. Everyone got a kick out of that.

Wednesday was the only event we had and the Linfords did that one. It was the GA Wives Luncheon and Social. At 1:30 our Section meeting was a tour of Welfare Square. Several of us rode in a van with Aaron. Two Sister Missionaries gave us a great tour for all the different buildings on Welfare Square. We saw the Bishop's Storehouse, Employment Center, Dairy, Warehouse, Deseret Industries, and more. It was very interesting.

Thursday, after the Zone Devotional, I worked on my Power Apps for my Microsoft Lists. I am just about done with the complete rework that I have been working on. This will make it more flexible for using the same master list for all our teams, Interpretation, Translation, and Sacred Materials. The only MAJOR problem with the whole thing is I can't automate the update of any of the fields from PLUNET. It still has to be done manually. They (IT) will not give me an API that will allow me to access the data I need to automate the field updates. With my years of doing computer programming, that does not make sense to me and is very frustrating. After work we went to the Bountiful Temple to do Sealings and an Endowment. I'm glad it is open again.

Friday was more of the same. I worked on Power Apps. At 12:30 I headed to the 27th floor to prepare for my Emotional Resilience class. We have such wonderful people in the class. Everyone participates in the discussion. I haven't seen anyone hold back and not contribute. It is great as the more the individuals participate, the more they will get out of the class. I highly recommend taking this class to anyone and everyone. Even if you feel you don't really need it, the benefits will be GREAT!

Friday evening we headed toward the University to tour the traveling replica of the Tabernacle of Moses. We saw it last year in Bountiful and decided it was worth seeing again. We really enjoyed it again. The weather was gorgeous. The presenters were great. We will attend the fireside next Tuesday to finish up the experience.

Saturday was the "chillest" day ever! I don't think we did anything except hang out at home. Elder Wilcox did grocery shopping  and I did work on some Scripture Study. We called Montana up to sing Happy Birthday to him. I can't believe he is 24. My grandkids are supposed to stay "KIDS". lol They are all growing up so fast. 

The weather has been so nice this week. We even hit 80 degrees one day. I'm not ready for Summer yet. We haven't even had Spring! The flowers are blooming and everything is so beautiful. I love it.

Sunday, was a beautiful day and Church was very nice. The talks were great and we had a combined meeting for the second hour. President Holmes presented an important announcement that effects everyone in our mission. About five months ago, the mission joined a program called HomeTown. Basically, it encouraged any missionaries that wanted to be assigned to various wards in need throughout the Salt Lake Valley to assist the ward in anyway they can. Today, President Holmes announced that the entire mission was going to be assigned to 15 or more different wards in the Salt Lake Valley. At least 15 missionaries will be assigned to each ward. Our assignments are simple as they don't want to overwhelm us when we all have very busy and taxing work to do throughout the week. So, we will attend the Sunday Meetings and assist in whatever they ask us to do during the 2 hour block, such as, teach Sunday School, Young Women, Priesthood, or Relief Society. We may give talks and help out in many other ways that may arise. There are also 8 to 10 Service Missionaries that are assigned to each ward as well, and they are assigned to work up to 20 hours a week helping to reactivate and minister to the members. Their only assignment is to help the Wards.

It was kind of a shock at first. We LOVE our branch and meeting together each week. We feel it is our own little Zion. However, we were told this has been in the works for over a year now. Elder Christofferson is the Apostle in charge. They even talked to President and Sister Holmes about it last June when they were at the New Mission Leader Training at the MTC in Provo. The Lord's hand is in this and the timing for it is just as it should be. I'm actually pretty excited by the change as it will give us an opportunity to meet more people and have more "missionary" type activities. They figure they will have everyone assigned by May 21st...or the 28th at the latest.

Have a Wonderful Week and enjoy the GREAT weather (hopefully you have great weather where you are too!😇).

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox