Spreadsheets on my, DCM, Transfers, and Stake Center Re-Dedication

MyLiege's Girls

We spent most of our Monday P-day on the phone. We waited for Sean to initiate the Teams call as he is the one who normally initiates the call, but it didn’t happen. So, I initiated it. Sean answered, but he was NOT at home. Then I remembered he was on a cruise for HawkSoft. The team is checking out the cruise for the National HUG meeting in 2025. We had a brief chat then I told him we had to go so I could talk to the rest of the family and see baby Ruth. He understood there were higher priorities for a great grandma. 😂

After that I called the family on Zoom. Their connection was not so hot. Anna said Sean got a new FASTER internet connection and he was raving all about it. The only problem is it is ONLY fast in his office upstairs. The rest of the house is horrible. They kept freezing on us. We could hear them, but their picture was frozen. Ruth didn’t get there until AFTER the screen froze. MyLiege sent a picture so we could see her. Later she sent a video so we could hear her too. I sure hope they get it fixed before our NEXT video call. 

Elder Tuaina, Elder and Sister Wilcox
Elder Moyes, and Elder Lea'ana

After that call we had our weekly Area call. The spreadsheet changed again. We hope this will be the last time. The only good thing is we can copy and paste what we input on the other spreadsheet, so we don’t have to completely redo it every time. Hahaha. Our mentors had a meeting with the Area Presidency last week and it looks like we don’t have to capture quite as much information as we thought. It should make it easier to manage going forward. I tweaked my PowerPoint presentation for our training, so I think we are good to go. 

The rest of the day included calls about catering, speakers and prayers for Sacrament meeting, and scheduling appointments for the Bishop. That was pretty much Monday.

Tuesday morning started with our Zoom Seminary lesson. From there I spent the rest of the day working on a new version of the "new" spreadsheet we got from our mentors about the New Convert Initiative. After I had spent all day filling in the new spreadsheet, I was checking the formulas to see what my numbers were not showing up. After some research and playing around, I decided to try my hand at a different approach. After I came up with a solution, I contacted our mentors to see if I could show it to them the following day.

Our District with a Māori Face

Steve spent most of that day on the phone, calling the remainder of the Lost Members list to see if we could get a few more addresses. I think he got three or four. We are now ready to show the Bishop what we have done and get his permission to send the rest to Salt Lake since we have no other way to track them down. There are probably some Senior Missionaries at Headquarters who have better tools than we have for looking up lost people. 😇 I also created a catering spreadsheet for our Zone Conferences and sent that off to the Mission Office as they asked us to gather information. And we did some work on gathering additional information about the flats that we inspect and sent that off to the housing coordinator.

Wednesday morning started with a video conference call with our New Convert Initiative mentors. I shared my spreadsheet with them, and they liked it. Elder Sorenson made a few suggestions and asked to see it again by the end of the week.

Elder Lea'ana and Elder Tuaina

Then we went to DCM. it was one of those bittersweet meetings. It was our last DCM with this particular group. Our two Samoan missionaries are both headed south to Auckland, probably to serve in one or two of the Samoan wards. Elder Moyes is also being transferred, but he is staying up north. He could go further up north or just get transferred to one of the other wards in our Zone. We do know that he will be a trainer as well as Elder Sanders. That will leave us without a District Leader or any Zone Leaders. We are expecting at least 4 or 5 missionaries to join our District. All our Sisters got to stay; however, they are changed flats. 

After we got home, we called Erik for his birthday and had a nice chat with him. I had another meeting scheduled with the mission office about catering, but they were ready yet. So, I spent several hours working on my Seminary lesson for Thursday morning. Just about the time we started eating dinner, my other meeting was ready to happen. Sister Dayton was happy with what we came up with. We will be doing something very similar to what Elder Wilcox did in our last mission for feeding Interpreters. I think it will work out just fine.

As soon as that meeting was over and we scarfed down a quick dinner, we headed back to the Church for an audit. We met Brother Haika from the Stake to perform the audit. The Bishop was supposed to meet us there too. I called and left a message for the Bishop while Elder Wilcox and Brother Haika started the audit. Or I should stay TRIED to start the audit. Steve couldn’t get into it, so Brother Haika signed in to see if he could start the audit. He didn’t have authority either. He called someone on the Stake level and found out that since he is on the Audit Committee, he can’t actually perform the audit. About that time the Bishop called back, and we let him know he didn’t need to come down after all. He was at the hospital with his auntie.  After the call, Brother Haika was talking about his connection to our Bishop. They are cousins. Steve mentioned that he is a 13th cousin to our Bishop, so we all checked to see if we were related. It turns out Brother Haika and Steve are 10th cousins through the Brough line. Of course, I’m not related to anyone. 😢

Just about the time we got home, I got a call from Sister Ferrell about the laptops for Pathway. She let me know she would send up two or three laptops for new students starting in our area. She also sent me instructions to install the Parental Control on Elder Moyes's laptop. Since the program is going to go worldwide soon, they want to make sure they have all temptations locked down. The laptops are only used for Pathway. And the last call came from the Sisters. They had another leak under the laundry room sink. It wasn't too bad, so Elder Wilcox said he would take care of it the next day.

Thursday turned out to be a lot busier than we thought. We started with our Zoom Seminary lesson. It went pretty well. Then we went to the Sisters' flat so Elder Wilcox could fix the leak under the sink. The Sisters were not home, but their flat was in the process of being moved to a different flat. Elder Wilcox decided to get something from our flat that he thought might fix the leak. I stayed at the Sisters' flat. They came home so I helped them load more stuff into their two cars. I called Elder Wilcox to bring some extra boxes over so they could pack up the fridge and a few other things in the kitchen. They also started cleaning the flat for the Elders that were moving in. When Elder Wilcox got there, two of the Sisters mentioned they didn't have box springs for the beds. They were the two Sisters who had to vacate their flat one night after they came home and found a scary drunk man sitting on their porch. They quickly went to the other Sisters' flat and had been there ever since. There were already extra mattresses there. 

So, we went to the store to buy a part since we didn't have what we needed at our flat. We also called Brother Hester to see if we could borrow his trailer to pick up the box springs from the Sisters' vacated flat. Long story short, we took the box springs to the new flat, went back and fixed the leak at the old flat and then went home. We found out about all the transfers taking place. Elder Moyes stayed in our Zone and got transferred to OUR Ward! We are very happy about that. His new companion is Elder Derrick. Elder Sanders is staying where he is at. He stays our District Leader and is a training Elder. We got new Zone Leaders assigned to the Te Horo Branch. That is the Branch the Kreutzkamps used to be assigned. I think they are going to be moving closer to their area in the future, but for now they will be in Whangarei. They are making 3 districts instead of two. The Sisters will be in the new District along with the new Elders that will be in Riverside.

Friday morning started with our very first Stake Training for the New Convert Initiative. I had been working with a High Councilor in the Harbor Stake named Jeremy. It turns out, Jeremy is related by marriage to Steve Stebbings. We worked with Brother Stebbings when we worked in the Interpretation Department at Headquarters. It is a Small World. Anyway, we kept trying to schedule a time to train all the Bishops and leaders. We were shooting for the Leadership Meeting for Stake Conference, but it was already fully scheduled. We tried a few other options, with Jeremy asking if I could just train him and he could train everyone else. So, we had our training meeting Friday morning. I think it went well. He had a few questions that I have now addressed int he PowerPoint presentation. I added full notes to the presentation and sent it off to him Saturday night. He will let me know how it goes. 

I worked more on the Google Sheets I created for the Bishops and lost track of time. I missed my meeting with Elder Sorensen by 15 minutes. Luckily, he was still around so we were still able to meet. He asked me to add an Area Summary page that would link to the other Mission pages in the workbook. He asked me to be ready to train on our Zoom call on Monday and made some suggestions on specific things to train on. I spent the rest of the day working on the master Spreadsheet until it was time to go to the Stake Center Re-Dedication.

We left around 5:00 to go to the re-dedication. They didn't let anyone in until 5:30. Lucky for us, Elder Moyes and his companion were supposed to usher, so they were there early and were told to save seats for the Missionaries. We were 5 rows back. Nice Seats! We got to meet almost all the new missionaries, including a new Senior Couple in our Zone. Sister Ward just happens to be President Allen's sister! They will be serving at the southern end of our Zone, so they are not in our District. The meeting was wonderful. A sister shared the history of the Whangarei chapel from when it was built about 66 years ago. She was 13 years old at that time, so she had lots of memories. The music was beautiful, and the Spirit was strong. President Reti gave a wonderful Dedicatory Prayer. After the re-dedication, we got to wander around the building. They added an entirely new wing to the building. They used the original pews in the Chapel but had them refinished. They look BEAUTIFUL. We were invited to attend a reception in the new High Council room. Lots of yummy food. It was a wonderful evening.

Saturday was spent almost entirely on the computer finishing all the final touches for the master spreadsheet. I had to check all 16 mission pages to make sure all the formulas were correct and not accidentally pointing to a different mission. (I had to fix quite a few. Hahaha) I also added an instruction page to help the Senior Missionaries that will be using the spreadsheet. Finally, I finished the Pacific Area Summary page that summarizes all the mission pages into a single area summary. It also allows the user to click on the mission's name and go directly to that page.

The NEW Zone having fun without us.

While I was working on all of that, Steve ran over to the Sisters' new flat. He had to make sure they weren't home since I didn't go with him. He fixed their shower door. One of the rollers came off the bottom of one of the doors so the door could swing freely. It sort of still worked if you carefully closed the door, but it really needed to be fixed. The parts we ordered came on Friday. I think that was the last issue we had with any of the flats. Hopefully, we can keep them all fully functional this transfer. Lol.

It was nice to not get up at 5:30 on Sunday morning. We arrived at Church about 8:45. Elder Wilcox went into a Bishopric Meeting, and I printed out the program as well as a full ward list with addresses for the new Elders to our ward. Next, I put the hymn number up on the hymn board. 

Sister Chapman and Sister Ali

A few people came early, and I greeted them. Elder Moyes and Elder Derrick were among the early ones. I was able to introduce them to almost everyone that came early. Normally, we have about 10 or 20 people before our meeting actually starts. Today, we had almost the whole congregation. There were just a few that straggled in. It was so nice to see a nearly full chapel. 

We did have one glitch. Our organist didn’t show up. We have three organists that play for us, and none of them were there on Sunday. No one else said they could play. We sang the first song completely acapella. I actually thought it sounded pretty good. The Sacrament song, I had Elder Wilcox play the starting note on the organ to pitch us. That one sounded good too. For the last two songs, I played the music for the song on my phone through the microphone at the pulpit. We sang those songs just fine. The only problem with that was both of those songs started playing extra verses before I could shut them off. Oh well, live and learn. 

Elder Fernandez and Elder Christensen

We had a lovely dinner at Sister Paratene’s house with the new Elders. She is a single sister and can’t have the Elders over unless there is another adult there. It works out great for both of us. 

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox