Seminary, Family, Walks, Meetings, Inspections, and so forth...

Emma in Réunion

I think we are officially integrated into the Ward! We were asked to help with Seminary because the 2nd adult was sick. She was supposed to come back on Wednesday morning, but her mother is sick, and she has gone to take care of her. So, now we are the second (and third) adult until they can find someone else to be a second. It is OK; however, we need to adjust our going to bed time. Lol. It is a small class that is held at the home of the Seminary teacher. By the end of the week, she asked if I would be willing to start teaching on Mondays to give her a little break.

Since it was P-Day we did our Zoom call with Sierra's family. We were supposed to do it a little earlier so we could have Alena on the call. She is currently working in Newport, but Sierra and Shonee when home a little early because of the weather. So, we called Alena and talked to her until Sierra and Shonee got home. We had a lovely visit with Alena learning all about her job and what is going on in her life. We had a great Zoom call with the rest of the family. I love catching up each week with one of our children and their families. After a nice and fun call with Sierra, we sent Emma a message to see if she would like a video call. She is currently living in a place called Réunion, which is near Madagascar.  It was the middle of the night for her. She texted us back a couple of hours later and we had a wonderful video call with her. I love modern technology that allows us to see and talk to everyone in real time.

Tuesday started nice and early again with Seminary. When we got home, we did our Scriptures Study and then went for a nice long walk. We had a little break from the rain that had been going on since the middle of the night. It started to drizzle on the last little bit, but for the most part we were rain free.

We visited several people and invited them to our Family Home Evening group and a Musical Devotional that is on May 5th. We had to rush back to get home in time for Sister Budge to do her Pathway class. Luckily the class got postponed for 30 minutes, which gave us enough time to get home and her settled before her class started. The last person we visited to a lot longer than expected AND they lived a lot further away than the other. Everything turned out all right. We will make sure we are home before 2:30 next week.

Wednesday, again started with Seminary. We did our walk when we got back and then headed for our DCM meeting. The South District is also meeting at our building, so we were able to connect with Sister Buchanan. Elder and Sister Buchanan have an electronic picture frame exactly like we do, so they let us borrow their remote control. We were able to connect our picture frame to our Internet. Now we have our New Zealand pictures added AND it shows the correct date and time. I have also programed the sleep schedule and the motion sensor, so we don't even turn it off now. It goes to sleep when no one is in the room, or it is nighttime. Pretty cool.

Cool face on a tree in our forest.

We held another Missionary Choir Practice after our meetings in preparation for the Musical. I think we are sounding pretty good. We visited five more people on our way home. We met with four out of the five people so that was good. We had some really good visits. We invited all of them to the Devotional. We also invited several of them to our Family Home Evening group.

When we got home, we connected the picture frame to the Internet. Then it was time to go to the Hesters for dinner. It had been a while since we had been together. We had a wonderful visit with them.

Thursday was a little different for us. After Seminary and our walk, we had our SPF Zoom call with the mission. Then we did Flat Inspections. We have our Denby Sisters as well as the Elders from our ward. The Elders share their flat with another set of missionaries. We did the Sisters' flat first. They did a great job. We found a couple minor things that we had to dock a point for, but they made up for it by doing some extra create stuff, so they got full marks. We left them some candy for a job well done. I told the missionaries we would be coming sometime that week, but I didn't tell them when. So good job to the Sisters.

The Elders were pretty good. We did have to start in a different room so they could quickly do the dishes. They had a few more things that we docked points for and ended up 10 points below the max. It was still good enough to give them candy. Lol.

We stopped at four more houses on our way home. No one was home so we left Devotional Invites. We did find out one person moved. The Elders showed up for Comp Study not long after we got home. We had a good discussion about Preach My Gospel and then about the people we are both working with. I am so glad we meet each week. After they left, I worked on HawkSoft for about 1 1/2 hours before we headed to Choir Practice. We had such a good turnout. We sounded so good. I actually think we can pull this off.

Sister Lawrence at the Whangarei Quarry Gardens

On Friday, we slept in a bit. No Seminary. I ended up staying home all day as I had a lot of things to catch up on. We had several people drop by for various reasons. We had a sister show up to pick up some large pieces of cardboard what we had from our furniture boxes. Then, because several of the boxes had a bunch of Styrofoam in them, we had to pile that up to go out in the rubbish. Of course, that ended up leaving lots of little Styrofoam beads all over the garage. So, we spent the next half hour cleaning up the garage and vacuuming it. Did I tell you we have carpet in our garage? We have a tarp on the floor so we can park in the garage. We no sooner finished that, than Elder and Sister Garner dropped by. They had a big checklist and keys for closing out our house in Bream Bay. Elder Garner asked us if we would be willing to do the walk through with the leasing company. We said yes, before we read the list of everything that needs to be done. I checked with Elder Garner, and we can hire out a lot of the stuff like shampooing the carpets, washing the windows inside and out, maybe touching up the walls, etc. We left the house clean when we moved out, but we didn't wash windows. Lol.

We did our walk before Steve took off to take care of the Elders' flat. They had a leaky toilet, and Elder Wilcox knows how to fix it. He talked to Elder Garner, and he told Steve to go ahead and take care of it. So, Steve bought the part and a new toilet seat (the other one was disgusting) and headed over to fix it. I didn't need to stand around while he worked on that, so I stayed home and worked on other things like HawkSoft. Later, the Bishop stopped by to see if I could help him with his Tools app on his phone. I first had him sign in on Steve's computer. Everything looked good, so I knew he knew what his credentials were. Next, he tried signing into his phone. Big error message. He told me how old his phone was, and how the app used to work but suddenly stopped working. I decided to have him sign in on my phone. He did and was able to get to the Tools app. Now I knew it was his phone that was too old for the app. I explained how programmers want to take advantage of new hardware in their apps so they can do better and better things. Sometimes that means the apps no longer work on older devices. Mystery solved. We didn't get everything done, but it was still a very productive day.

I started Saturday out by planning all the things that have come up for next week. I needed to get it recorded in something, so I wouldn't have to continue to think about it. I added everything to the Todo app by Microsoft. It has become my life saver. I like it, because I have a repeatable task that contains all the things we do every day. I then add all the other things we do that day. But what I really like is adding all the other things that we don't do for a day or two or a week or whatever. Once they are in my task list, I don't have to think about them until they reach my daily list. I usually review all my upcoming tasks every day so I can be prepared, and nothing sneaks up on me. Steve and I went over the master plan list. 

We had three lessons to prepare for the next two days. We had our Temple Prep class on Sunday. I had the Seminary class on Monday. And Steve had Family Home Evening for Monday also. I had a lunch activity with a Sister from our Ward. We had a Relief Society Service Auction several weeks ago and I bid on the lunch she was offering. We had a wonderful time at the Quail Cafe located at the Whangarei Quarry Gardens. What could be better. Delicious lunch, stimulating and friendly conversation, and a delightful walk around the beautiful tropical gardens. We managed to stay busy and got all our lessons prepared. I think we finished around 7:30 that night.

The Quail Cafe

The Sabbath was long and beautiful. We got to Church early so we could greet people as they came in. Bishop grabbed us to see if we could cover for his wife in Primary. She injured her eye, and he wasn't sure if she was going to come. I got with the Primary President to see where the class was and the age group. We can't do the very young classes, because if a young one needs to go to the restroom, we can't take them. That would require us to separate, and we can't do that as missionaries. This class was for older kids. We went to Sacrament meeting, and I glanced through the Come Follow Me manual for the past week to see what I could teach on. I picked a couple of principles. There was a short video, too. I felt pretty comfortable with coming up with a lesson for them.

After Sacrament meeting, I went to set up the room. Just then the Primary President came by and said the teacher was there, so I headed toward Sunday School. When I got to the end of the hall, Elder Wilcox was there waiting for me. The Bishop had just asked him if we could cover the Youth Sunday School class instead. There were about 10 or so kids already in the room. Since I already had something in mind, I said we could do it. Just as we were going to start with a prayer, the Sister Missionaries came by looking for the class. They said the teachers from their ward were in a different room waiting for the kids to show up. Since it was their month to teach, and I hadn't really prepared a lesson, I sent the kids down to the other room and headed to Sunday School once more. After a couple of minutes, the Bishop came and sat next to Elder Wilcox and said they needed us back in Primary. His wife's eye started weeping again and the Primary President sent her home. So, we headed back to the first class. We had about 9 or 10 kids. They were all so good. They participated well in the discussion. I enjoyed teaching VERY much. I have missed that so much.

Last rehearsal before we sang.

After our meetings, we hung around for an hour or so before our Temple Prep class started. Brother Horsford came into our class and had a wonderful talk with Steve. He is a counselor in the Bishopric. His wife came in later and talked with us about Family History and another Devotional we will have next week. She is the piano player for our choir. They left just before our class started. We had a good class and I think the discussion went well. I made a PowerPoint presentation today. It made it easier to display the scriptures they were to read, as well as the different quotes we had them read. I also added pictures that help make it a little more interesting. For example, one of the quotes was from President James E. Faust. He mentioned seeing a Temple all lit up at night and how it is a beacon to all who see it. I displayed a picture Elder Wilcox just took of the Hamilton Temple at night, all lit up. It worked perfectly.

Once home, we had a fun Zoom call with Douhet and Kylee. Normally, we would do that on our Monday P-Day, but we are having a Senior Missionary activity on Monday, so it just was not going to work. Thankfully, they were able to meet with us today. After the call, I worked on my recap and Elder Wilcox worked on dinner until it was time to go to the Devotional. It was a really beautiful devotional of music and testimony. I teared up a few times. The music was so beautiful. The missionaries in our Stake were the closing number. I think it went very well. Elder Kreutzkamp didn't sing, but he did take a video. Enjoy!

All Our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox 

Sister Lilloux at the Piano.