Pre-Spring, Walks, Mission Office, Temple, and Service Project

On Monday we got to touch base with Douhet's family. Griffyn even joined us for a while. YAY!!! We also got to see Audrey, Kinzley, and Kylee. Alyson wasn't around. Laila, even popped in for a little while. She is getting so close to delivering her baby. We can hardly wait! I sent text messages to Brooklyn and Anna since they are both in Provo to start college. Brooklyn responded, but I never heard from Anna. 😢 Madison texted me about a testimony she heard in Church that morning. I love being able to chat with family.

I found out on Monday that our mentors sent my PowerPoint presentation for the New Convert Initiative training to Salt Lake. With only one minor correction, they approved it. It has now been sent to all the other Missionary Couples who are helping with the initiative. The first High Councilor that I've been working with, took my PowerPoint presentation and turned it into a self-help document that he is using to train his Bishops. He added more detail to each step for the training. My presentation was just an overview for the High Councilors. He happens to be an employee of the Church and even works in the Publishing Services Department. That is the department we served our last mission in. He made the self-help document generic enough that I can use it to send to all the Stakes I am working with. I'm hoping this will really kick off the initiative in our mission. The other Missionary Couples have started using the spreadsheet I created and so far, so good.

Tuesday started with early morning Seminary class on Zoom. After Seminary, we went for a walk. The weather was beautiful. We are hoping to get walks every day, but at least a few every week. After the walk, we took some pictures at the Kreutzkamp's old flat for the new Senior Missionary couple that arrived this week. That flat is not easy to find. The address is not visible on the street. You have to turn down, and road/driveway where there are several other houses before you can find the house. The road/driveway does not have a different street name. Anyway, we took pictures of where they needed to turn to get to the house and sent them to Sister Geisler. She is the one who picked them up at the airport and got them on their way up north. They officially moved in on Thursday.

Steve met a couple of Elders at the Sisters' flat so they could exchange their dryer for the one at the flat we will be closing. He spent the rest of the day putting together a proposal for replacing the walkway. I submitted several things that needed to be fixed at the Sisters' flat to the landlord. They decided they would replace the drapes and fix the fence and gate. However, they would not touch the walkway or steps. We got permission from Elder Garner to fix it. We organized a service project for Saturday.

On Wednesday we had an amazing DCM meeting. They just seem to get better and better each week. Next week, we will have Elder and Sister Carlisle in our district. They are awesome. They will be working in the branch where the Kreutzkamps worked. The Zone Leaders work there too. sister Carlisle plays the piano, so she will be able to resume the piano lessons that Sister Kreutzkamp started. I know the branch will love that. After our DCM, we had a little birthday party for Elder Fernandez. The Central District finished up after that. Our Zone was nominated to do a little video presentation for the mission. We chose Christlike attributes. Each missionary stated an attribute they liked and why, then passed the phone off to the next person, usually with a little joke. When it was my turn, I said my favorite attribute was patience, but really it was the one I needed the most work on. Then I said I was passing it to someone who could try my patience every day. Lol. Then it was Elder Wilcox's turn. 

Elder Fernandez

After DCM and lunch, Elder Wilcox went to pick up supplies for the Service Project, and I went to work on my Seminary Lesson. Sister Paratene stopped by so I could help her with a Zoom issue she was having. She stayed for over an hour while we talked about Seminary and how we can engage our students more.

On Thursday we did our Zoom Seminary lesson. I created an online jigsaw puzzle for the Doctrinal Mastery scripture today. We studied Ether 12:27. The puzzle was fun. We then had our SPF meeting. Elder Bailey put together a great presentation on the My Covenant Path program. He wasn't feeling well, so Elder Hutchison did the presentation. They both did a fantastic job. Elder Sanders and Elder Shupe came over for Comp Study. After they left, we ate a quick lunch and then headed to Auckland. We no sooner got on the road than we got a call from Sister Carlisle. They had just arrived at their new flat and had some questions. Since we were hoping to meet them before we left, we turned around and headed over. We visited for almost an hour. We answered questions and gave them some information. I also gave them the spare key we had so they could each have a key to the flat. We invited them over for dinner on Saturday. Then we headed to Auckland and then to the Temple.

Elder Bailey and Elder Dixon

We walked into the Mission Office and spotted Elder Dixon. He jumped up and gave us hugs. Then Sister Lilloux and Elder Bailey came over and gave us hugs. It was so WONDERFUL seeing each of them again. Oh, how we love our missionaries, and we never want to let them go. After we finished taking care of our business, we headed to Hamilton to attend the Temple on Friday morning. 

We awoke early Friday morning to do an 8:00 session. The Spirit was very strong in our session. Right after our Endowment Session, we headed over to do our Sealing assignment. We had a few children to seal to their parents. We were unable to get them done last month. We were a little late, but they let us in, and we are able to get all of them done. 

We stopped at the distribution center on our way home. Elder Moyes wanted us to pick up a leather bound large Triple Combination. They were out and told us we could order them online and get free shipping. When we went to order it at home, they were out of the leather bound. We called Elder Moyes, and he said we could do simulated leather. We got that ordered for him. Not sure how long it will take to get here.

We stopped at Costco a couple hours later. We needed a few things, but Elder Sanders wanted us to buy him so new pants and Elder Shupe wanted some chocolate protein powder. We found their stuff and video called them, but no answer. We knew we got the right pants, so we headed to checkout. Elder Shupe wasn't 100% sure he wanted us to get anything, so I sent text pictures but did not put it in our cart. Just as we got in line, they called us back. I headed back to the protein powder and started showing them pictures from our video call. They finally settled on a container, and I headed back to checkout. Elder Wilcox had already finished, so I bought it separately. Then we headed home. 

Elder Christensen

We stopped at several flats on our way home to drop things off. Luckily, we had keys. We contacted our Hikurangi Elders to come and pick their stuff up as they are NOT on the way home. Not long after we got home, Elder Moyes and Elder Shupe showed up and took the remaining stuff. We were tired.

We got up early Saturday morning to get started on our service project. First, I made a double batch of brownies. That's how I bribed the Elders to come and help. Hahahaha They would have come anyway, but who doesn't love brownies. Brother Davis texted us at 8:15 saying he was on his way over there to get started. We had set the time at 10. Lol. So, as soon as the brownies came out of the oven, we headed over and got there a few minutes after nine. I chatted the Elders on the way over saying they could come earlier if they wanted. The Zone Leaders showed up a little while after we got there. The other four Elders showed up at 10. Brother Davis was our project manager. He had the expertise, tools, and other materials that we needed. He was so good to teach our missionaries new skills. Everyone worked hard but no one was overworked because we had many hands helping. After a job well done, everyone enjoyed brownies before heading out for the rest of their day. 

Brother Bo Davis

We ran some errands on the way home, like grocery shopping, and picking up a prescription. Once home we took showers and finished the laundry we had started earlier. I did a little bit of work on HawkSoft, before helping Steve with dinner. We fixed a nice dinner for Elder and Sister Carlisle. We had a lovely visit with them. They are getting settled in. They still need quite a few things. Some things Elder Garner will be able to bring up here on Friday for Zone Conference. Other things they will need to buy. Some of the things they buy, they may be able to get reimbursed. One problem they were having was with their heat pump. They couldn't get it to work because they didn't have the remote. They couldn't find any manual buttons on the heat pump. Anyway, we suggested they take our remote home and see if it would work on their heat pump. We also sent home a couple of portable heaters that we had. They were very grateful. As soon as they got home, they tried the remote and it worked!!! They have heat now. 

Our Sabbath day was great. We had a little flurry of activity as we scrambled to fix all the last-minute changes in the program. Let's just say, the Elders saved us and it all worked out, but it was a little crazy for a while. The speakers were wonderful. Our little Relief Society group was very intimate. We had a beautiful discussion on Elder Gong’s General Conference Talk called All Things for Our Good. We discussed how even seemingly bad things can be for our good. We can draw closer to Heavenly Father when we face trials and afflictions when we turn to Him instead of blaming Him. Many of us shared experiences where the blessings we received far outweighed the trial we endured.

After Church, we met with Brother Shepherd. He was the Ward Clerk before Elder Wilcox. He is now the Stake Clerk. Anyway, apparently, we were running some reports that we needed to do, so he showed us all the things we need to be doing…at least in the finance area. We are a bit behind since many of the reports are supposed to be done monthly. Elder Wilcox will be working on catching up this week. 😇

I hope you have a wonderful week. You can enjoy the cooler weather you are getting, while we enjoy the warmer weather we are getting. Life is good, and Heavenly Father blesses us with what we need. 

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox