Mom and Sierra

Spring...Sierra and Shonee...Snow...Spring Again and a Service Project

Brigham City Temple

We have had such a gorgeous week, with the exception of snow on Thursday! We even got to 82 degrees on Tuesday. It has been slow on one hand and busy on the other hand. I spent most of the week working on my Microsoft list again. 

When we started the week we didn't think we had any events. On Monday we added four events for that week. Monday I worked all day on my list. It was somewhat frustrating and a lot of trial and error. Just before the end of the day I made some progress. At the end of the day we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for our Elijah Choir Easter Concert. It was a beautiful program.

Jarod behind the hood and Curtis

Tuesday morning started with the Wellness Center and our Zone Devotional. I went back to work on my list until about 11:00 AM. Our team headed to Ombu Grill, a Korean BBQ for our Post General Conference Team Luncheon. We had a wonderful time. In the center of each table was a round grill. We ordered up to 39 different foods from meats, to vegies, to rice, egg rolls, squid, and numerous other things. We got 10 food items at a time which we put on the grill and cooked them. I was surprised at how good everything was. I did NOT eat the squid but others said it was good. It was fun and busy as we tried this and that and shared food with one another.

Eunlan and Ljiljana cooking our food

Our team meeting was cancelled so I went back to working on my lists. Near the end of the day, Eunlan asked me to research the list Elder Linford put together of invoices that had not been paid yet from October 2022 General Conference. So I worked on that for the next couple of hours. When I finished it was time to get ready for the MTC Devotional with Elder Andersen. It was a good evening.

On Wednesday Daniel asked Elder Linford to submit all the outstanding invoices. Elder Linford asked me to help and we quickly took care of the list. I suggested Elder Linford ask Daniel about all the other unpaid invoices over the past year. Supposedly in the next few months the invoicing system will be fully automated, making it easier for our interpreters to get paid. That is the ONE thing I wanted to get fixed before the end of our mission. I was beginning to think it would never happen. I'm hopeful, but not holding my breath.

Curtis, Aaron, and Daniel

We left around 4 so we could get our showers out of the way early. Sierra and Shonee arrived around 6:15 or so to spend the night. They were headed to the Saint George area for a half marathon that Shonee is running in. Since they were early enough we took them over to the Church Office Building (COB) to give them a short tour of interpretation. We had the building pretty much to ourselves with the exception of a few custodial personnel. My bad, I didn't take any pictures. My excuse is I was doing the talking. Lol.

Mom, Dad, and Sierra!

After we got back to the apartment, we visited until 11. Shonee stepped out for a bit to meet up with his cousin. It was so nice to visit with them. We talked about where they wanted to have breakfast the next morning. They needed to get on the road. We mentioned a few different places Elder Wilcox goes when we need to supply breakfast for a weekend event. They asked where we usually go and we told them the COB cafeteria. We checked the menu online and they said they would like to go there. This time we walked to the COB. It was a little drizzly but not too bad. We had a nice breakfast and lots more visiting before it was time for them to pack their things and get on the road. We gave them a key so they could get their stuff. As they left the COB the drizzle had turned to light snow. Will winter ever end? After they packed their stuff, we met them in front of the COB so they could give the key back and we could exchange hugs again before they headed south. We went back to work.

Helpers filling bags

Helpers making a condiments pack

After breakfast I headed to the Wellness Center for my elliptical workout. I worked on debugging my problem from the program I created the day before. I fixed one problem only to come up with another one. At the end of the day we got ready for another evening event. The Linfords did events Tuesday and Wednesday morning and we covered Tuesday and Thursday evening. Our event was actually three different sessions for the same event. The first one involved two sisters for 4 languages in a discussion and started at 5:00 call time with the event running from 6 to 7. The next session had a call time at 6:00 with one brother in the 4 languages and went from 7 to 8. The single speaker they were interpreting for was from Australia with a heavy accent. And he was some kind of physical therapist. He was also the Tennis coach for BYU when they won some championships. He talked about motivating and lots of stuff about the brain. Our poor brothers had a really hard time with their interpretations. The final session was another single brother in the 4 languages. Their call time was 7 and their session went from 8 to 9. Their speaker was a rugby coach for BYU. His name is Larry Gelwix and the movie "Forever Strong" was made about him. He also spoke about motivating his team, but it was much easier to understand him. These video clips are to help our work force move to the next level. They will see them on April 19th then it gets released to the Church workforce. 

Brigham City Temple

Friday we slept in a bit. After working out I started work about 9:30. Things were pretty slow so I didn't feel bad about going in a little later. The Linfords left at noon to go visit their sister-in-law who is in the hospital. I solved a few more of my program problems and felt pretty good about the day. We left around 2 or so to go to the Brigham City Temple. My Emotional Resilience class was going as a group. It is a little over an hour away and Steve was worried about traffic so we went early and had dinner in the city. It was nice to be in the Temple with friends. That Temple is "President Packer's Temple". There is a little office next to the Bride's room that some say was his office. There are a couple of his bird paintings in the room. He has several other paintings hanging in the Temple. We only saw the ones in the little office.

Brigham City Temple

Saturday I pretty much stayed home all day until about 5:30. I worked on cleaning up my lists and on my blog. Steve went shopping. At 5:30 we went to the first half of a service project. We prepared 200 sack lunches for the homeless. We will meet again tomorrow right after Church to put the sandwiches together and put them in the sacks before we hand them out. It was fun.  

Filling bags with dry goods
like water, oranges, chips,
granola bars, and cookies.

Sunday was a BEAUTIFUL spring day. The sun was shining and the temperature was mild. We drove to Church because after Church we were heading to the meeting house in downtown Salt Lake City where we were preparing the lunches for the homeless. It was a good day to mingle with the people and provide a much needed service. We try to do service projects whenever we can. We had a ton of people show up to help. We made over 200 sandwiches in about 30 minutes. We had three different assembly lines set up so it went quite fast. It was amazing. Then many of us boxed up the bags and dropped them off at different homeless shelters. We kept about 50 bags at the meeting house for those that were coming by to pick them up. It was a very nice afternoon. This particular center was originally founded to help the refugees that were coming to Salt Lake City. They provide computers to teach the children, sewing machines to teach the mothers a skill, English lessons for the parents, and so many other things. It has been so successful, they are opening another one in Ogden.

President and Sister Holmes in the front
Missionaries making sandwiches in the back

I hope you have a Beautiful week.

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

More missionaries making sandwiches

Sister Steel and others folding the tops
down on the bags to make it easier to handle.