New Manager, Zone History, and Emotional Resilience Class

President Nelson in the Auditorium in Nov. 2022

Construction has moved to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. As a consequence we have been booted out of the Chapel for our Mission Devotionals. We still get to have Church in the Chapel as the construction workers don't work on Sunday. We had a wonderful Mission Devotional Monday morning in the Auditorium on the main floor in the east wing of the COB. We have our Publishing Services Department (PSD) meetings there once a quarter. It is a very nice auditorium. Many of the events that we support are also held in that auditorium. President Nelson has spoken at the pulpit in that auditorium. Before they announced the first speaker for our devotional, they pointed out that many of the General Authorities have spoken at that podium.  Then he said; "No Pressure." All the talks at the Devotional were very good.

After the devotional I headed to the Wellness Center to exercise. As soon as I walked into the gym, I got a Team message inviting our team to a video conference call. I clicked to join the call and saw our supervisors. As soon as they saw me, Curtis jumped in and said, "Oh Sister Wilcox, we are not ready for you yet." So, I quickly jumped off the call and went to exercise, expecting them to call me back. I finished my exercise and went to my office. When I got there I could tell that the Linfords and Elder Wilcox were all on the call and I was told to join. When I did, Curtis was still on the call. All the others had left. Two of the MLCs and all the Missionaries had joined Curtis. He proceed to tell me the news that he had already shared with the others. Daniel, our manager, was appointed to a new position called Global Interpretation Trainer. He would report to a completely different Section. 

Baptiste Prevot 
Our New Manager

Our new manager is our very own Baptiste Prevot. Baptiste was one of the Supervisors when we started on our mission. He was the one who called us the day after we received our call to tell us all about what we were going to do. He was our mentor and above all our very good friend. We LOVE Baptiste. A little over a year ago he was abruptly moved to the Translation team and we were given a member of that team in a trade. No real explanation, only they wanted to broaden their experiences. Now, Baptiste is back and our Manager. We are very happy. The change took effect immediately. The rest of the week was filled with lots of talk. We will miss Daniel, but we couldn't be happier that we have Baptiste back. When we first started our mission, Baptiste ran the team much of the time so we know he will do a GREAT job.  

We had a wonderful Family Home Evening. Elder and Sister Farnsworth were in charge and we played a fun game to help stimulate ideas for writing down our family history. It brought a lot of laughs and interesting stories.

Tuesday started with a Happy Birthday text to Season. Then I went to the Wellness Center to workout. Near the end of my workout I joined our Zone Devotional on my cell phone as I headed upstairs to join the Zoom call on my computer. I was interrupted several times by Baptiste as he was trying to get his temporary desk set up and needed my help. He has a temporary desk because Daniel is on vacation this week in Texas running the Memorial Hermann Ironman and won't be back until sometime next week. He has been working so hard for months. He took a total of time of 15:35:43 to finish the race that consisted of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run. He started at 7:13:10 AM and finished at 10:48:53 PM. I can't imagine how hard that was.

I made a Thank You card for Daniel for his service as our manager and a Birthday Card for Baptiste as his birthday was on the 19th. Everyone but Ljiljana came into the office so they were all able to sign the cards in person. I had Ljiljana send me her written note for both cards. I found a program that would strip out the background so only the writing would show and I pasted it into both cards. It worked pretty slick. Then I printed the cards for the others to sign. A little later, Eunlan stopped by Elder Wilcox's desk and asked if he could get dinner for the second part of our HRD event from the week before. Last week, the Samoan team was supposed to do tieline while we had the other four languages in the COB. They had problems so we didn't get them recorded. So the Salt Lake City Samoan team was going to do the recording on Tuesday night, but Ljiljana couldn't get any SLC members to work it. We needed two brothers. It was turned back to the tieline team so we didn't think we had anything to do. Eunlan was coming in for the tieline team to try again and asked for dinner for her and Eric, the engineer. Then she said she wanted us to be there too, to support her. lol So Elder Wilcox got everyone's order for Crown Burger for dinner.

We had our Team meeting at 2:00. We had a lot to talk about so our meeting went over. I don't think that will be the norm with Baptiste, but there was much to discuss on Tuesday. After the meeting, Elder Wilcox walked home to pick up the car so he could pick up dinner later. We got to hang out with Eunlan and Eric all evening. It was fun. After we got home we called Season so we could sing Happy Birthday to him. We had a very nice call. I love my family so much.

Wednesday morning, while I was studying my scriptures at home before heading into the office, Baptiste saw I was active in Teams and asked if I was already in the office. I told him I was home and he asked if I could see him when I got in. He needed me to finish setting up his laptop with all the programs he will need in his new position. He had to leave at 9:30 AM so he only came in so I could help set up his laptop. 

We had a fairly low key day with no other events and not much in the works. I worked on a few things like gearing up for my Emotional Resilience Class that was happening on Friday. I also worked a bit on my PowerApp for my list. And I started work on the Zone History I have been asked to compile. That one is a little more challenging. We have 13 Zones in our Mission. 12 of the 13 Zones are made up of only one team. There is the Church History Library Zone and the Discovery Zone and the Church History Museum Zone and Special Projects Zone, several different Family Search Zones (European, Canadian, etc.), and other Zones that I don't know anything about. There are many people in each of those Zones. We are the Headquarters Support Services Zone and we are actually made up of 12 different departments. Each department has only a few people it it. Our departments include:

• Ensign College
  
• Missionary Department
• ICS Temple
• Welfare/Self-Reliance
  
• Specialist Operations
• Temple
• Farmland Reserve
• Global Interpretation
• Military Relations
• Office of General Council
• Prison Ministry
• Service Mission Office

It is impossible for me to know what goes on in each department so I have been trying to get someone from each department to send me a little write up. It has taken forever, but now that I have begged and told them I have to turn it in soon (I thought it was last Friday, but found out it is NEXT Friday) they are sending it in. I only have a few missing at this point. I'm hoping to get the rest of them filled in by next Tuesday as I will be joining a little tour with our Zone Leaders to visit all the different departments in our Zone for a Missionary Couple who is tasked with promoting Senior Missions and is trying to learn what all the areas of service are. (Sorry, that was a long sentence.)

Near the end of the day, Elder Wilcox had to go to the Post Office about 10 miles away from where we live. It appears we have not been getting any mail for the last three weeks. Somehow the key to the mail room door was either lost or the previous mailman took it with him. Nothing has been done to get it replaced. It is supposedly being worked on now, but in the meantime, we have to pick our mail up at a post office that is 10 miles away. It was mostly junk mail. I left the office at 4:00.

Thursday was a short day. We got to have a one-on-one meeting with Baptiste in the morning. He wants to meet with everyone regularly. Daniel only met with the employees (Supervisors and MLCs). In the nearly two years we have been here he only met with us twice and that was shortly after all the changes occurred when we were put into the new Section. It was supposed to be monthly but after the second month it didn't happen again. Baptiste wants to meet every other week for a while until he gets a handle on things and then monthly after that. I know he will follow through. We had a wonderful meeting. We also had a duck and cover earthquake drill that morning where we had to get under our desks. I worked on the same things I worked on the day before and we left around 2:30 for a Temple appointment at the Jordan River Temple. The Bountiful Temple is closed for two weeks. We had a very nice session.

Friday was very slow. I updated our video display screen with several quotes from General Conference. It is a PowerPoint display that shows our upcoming events. We hadn't even turned it on for a week because we haven't had any events, then all of a sudden Curtis dumped about eight new events on us that are happening soon. So our screen is full. I added quotes so we have a nice little display to see. I got comments on the quotes I picked. We had an early lunch because at 1:00 I had the new Emotional Resilience class. We have 9 people. I'm hoping to get one more so everyone has a partner. Right now I partnered with one of the members of the class. I think the class will be great. Everyone seems eager and willing to share. That is what makes a great class. Several members are in our apartment building, so that make it fun. They are also in our FHE group.

Two from our Spanish Team

We were all set to go home shortly after the class was over when I got a call from Sister Nichols. She works at Ensign College. She had some friends she wanted to bring up to see where we work and learn what we do. I think she goes out and finds people to go on my tours. This is about the 5th one I have done for her. 😁Anyway, we waited around for a while until she brought her friends up. It wasn't  really a tour, but we did share what we do and had a wonderful time visiting with them. It was a lot of fun. We left shortly after that, but it was closer to 6 then we originally intended. 

Saturday was time to get haircuts and run a few errands. We spent the afternoon visiting with Vicki and her daughter Holly. We had such a good time and talked for a couple of hours. They are planning on a visit to Salt Lake City when the weather is consistently nicer so we can show them where we work and give them a tour of the Top of the World. Vicki used to work in the cafeteria in the COB. She also worked banquets during the holidays. It will be fun for her to go to lunch in the COB and relive some memories.

Elder Evan A. Schmutz

Sunday was a little more relaxing day. Church was good. In Relief Society and Priesthood we talked about General Conference talks that impacted us the most. Sister Holmes led our discussion. It was GREAT. I have only studied Saturday morning and afternoon so far. I can say that each talk has impacted me as I am learning something from each one that I can apply in my life. On Saturday, I studied the talk by Elder Evan A. Schmutz of the Seventy. He titled his talk, "Trusting the Doctrine of Christ." He summarized it by mentioning the five key elements of the Doctrine of Christ found in 2 Nephi 31-32. They are:

1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his Atonement
2. Repentance
3. Baptism
4. Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost
5. Enduring to the end

He mentioned that President Nelson invited us to have the Doctrine of Christ rooted in the marrow of our bones. My first thought is, “I have done all of the first 4 things and I’m working on enduring to the end. I’ve got this.”  But then I thought, "That does not sound like the Doctrine of Christ is rooted in the marrow of my bones. So, what does that mean?"

I spent the next hour pondering and studying his words and realized I need to do my own study of 2 Nephi 31-32 to see what the Spirit is teaching me. So far, this is a talk that has impacted me a lot. 

Sierra around 2

I was also able to actually hear President Nelson's talk on Sunday morning of General Conference, "Peacemakers Needed." That was a wonderful talk too. I couldn't help but think about Sierra as he was talking about Peacemakers. She was always the peacemaker in our family. I remember so many times when things were a bit stressful when the kids were driving me crazy and she would grab my hand and drag me to the rocking chair and say, "rocky time mommy." I would sit in the rocking chair and pull her up into my lap and we would rock. It would calm me down and help me to be a better mom. She helped her siblings to not be contentious too. She brought peace and calm to our home, even at the tender age of 2.

I love General Conference and the wonderful messages we receive twice a year to help us become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

All Our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox