Seminary, Meetings, Flats, and Zone Conference

Monday was spent updating lots of New Convert Initiative stuff. I sent out spreadsheet to Bishops with new converts, follow-up emails to Stakes and Wards, scheduled trainings, and started planning my New Convert Initiative presentation to the mission that I will give at our next SPF this coming week.

I also helped Steve with several Ward Clerk things too. We also started organizing all the stuff we needed for Zone Conference. On top of that, I dealt with several interactions with different people dealing with multiple projects we are juggling right now. Lastly, I worked on my Seminary lesson for Tuesday, and even managed to put in a couple of hours for HawkSoft. 

Elder Tuaina and Sister Allen at Zone Conference

Tuesday was similar to Monday. Our Seminary lesson went well. I worked more on the New Convert Initiative and even more on HawkSoft. I received an email on what I needed to do to prepare for new Pathway students. I set up an in-person High Council training for the next week in Auckland. Lastly on that day we headed to the Stake Center to do our Ward Audit with our auditor. I enjoyed visiting with several people in the foyer while Steve was in another room for the audit. One of the people I visited with was one of the Bishops in our Stake who had a new convert. He told me all he had done, and I told him all he needed to do was put those dates in the spreadsheet I sent him. He pulled out his phone, keyed in the dates, put "yes" in a few cells and told me he was done!  He was my FIRST Bishop to fill out the spreadsheet. I think we are going to have to start calling Bishops. 

Wednesday was very busy. I woke up early so I could get several things done before our DCM meeting. I had to get my Seminary lesson done for Thursday because I knew I wouldn't have time to work on it the rest of the day.

DCM was great. Since our Zone Conference is on Friday, we had President and Sister Allen visiting us. We also had all three Districts in our building for our respective DCMs. Sister Allen attended our meeting for most of the time. I think President Allen sat in on the Central District. And then they both spent some time near the end of DCM to attend the South District. After that, they spent the afternoon interviewing all the young missionaries. 

We touched base with Elder and Sister Carlisle a bit before heading to the McClintock flat. We passed by the South District and saw President and Sister Allen in there with them. Just as we were getting into the car, President Allen rushed out to talk to us for a while. He wanted to know how the New Convert Initiative was going. He also reassured me that we are doing the work Heavenly Father needs even if we aren’t meeting with people all the time. He said any time we can meet with members is frosting on the cake. We have different work to do. It made me feel good, as I was feeling guilty because we weren’t out meeting the members like we did when we first got here. 

We met Elder Garner and another missionary at the McClintock flat so we could empty everything out of it. We are going to close the flat in the next week or so. The Carlisles showed up to help as well. It only took an hour or so to clean everything out. We will go back this week and clean before we turn the keys back to the landlord. We were home for a bit before we headed back to the Chapel to finish the audit from the day before. We should be good for a year now. 

Once we got back home, I started on the updates to the Pathway laptops. I had 4 to update. Then it was time to head out for our midweek Family Home Evening with the family we see every other week. He has 4 very active little kids that he gets every other week. It takes a while to get them to settle down. Then we can do a short lesson with them. We usually have a picture to color and a song to sing too. 

Once home again, I was back to updating the laptop and managed to finish a little after 9.

Thursday started with our Seminary lesson. It was a slow start, but eventually gained momentum. After the lesson, we quickly cleaned our house in preparation for our inspection. All landlords inspect every property ever three months. When they came much later in the day, they were only at our house for about 5 minutes. I guess we passed. 😇After that we had our mission Zoom SPF meeting. Sister Ward did the presentation. She happens to be President Allen’s sister. They entered the Mission a few weeks ago. Her presentation was about how the missionaries can help new members start on their Family History. This leads right into my New Convert Initiative project that I will be presenting next week. 

Steve ran some errands to get stuff we needed for Zone Conference. I was able to work the rest of the day on HawkSoft. Darrin had been gone the week before, so the certifications that I do pile up. I was able to finish them and get all caught up.

Sister Ali

Friday was Zone Conference! It was wonderful and exhausting all at the same time. We helped in the kitchen to get our meal out. I should have worn more comfortable shoes. Hahaha. The Elders got all the tables and chairs setup so that helped a lot. Steve cooked hamburgers and I helped prepare the different sides that went with it. Everyone enjoyed the Hamburgers and chips (French Fries). In addition to that we had fresh fruit, salad, soup, and of course, a plethora of desserts.  

When lunch was over, the missionaries quickly put all the tables away and moved the left-over food to the kitchen. They put out some chairs so we could take our group pictures. After the pictures we headed to the Chapel. Normally we would stay in the Cultural Hall to sing and say our farewells to the missionaries that are leaving. This time we did it in the Chapel. It somehow made it more spiritual. The songs were sung in Māori. It was so beautiful. I especially love "God Be With You 'Till We Meet Again" in Māori.

Sister Ngawaka

We were able to go to our afternoon meetings as the rest of the lunch staff took care of packing up the food and doing the remaining dishes. I tried to get all the dishes done before we ate so there wasn't too much to do after. I especially wanted to hear Elder Moyes and Sister Lilloux do a musical number. Elder Moyes sang such a beautiful song. It was very powerful and very spiritual. It was so wonderful to have Sister Lilloux at our conference. She currently works in Auckland with the media team. She doesn't always get to go to the different Zone Conferences. I'm so glad she was able to come to ours. She plays the piano so beautifully. When the two of them perform together, I always end up crying. Later we had a meeting with meeting with all the Senior Couples. After that we had our testimony meeting before ending our conference. Normally, most of the missionaries take off right after the conference. This time, they ALL stayed and lingered longer. They were still hanging out talking 45 minutes after our conference. We still had a little clean up to do, so I grabbed the vacuum and started in the Cultural Hall. I was ready to go home. When I was almost done, and Elder came along to see if he could help. I asked him to put the small table back in a classroom. By the time he was back, I was done. Finally, they started leaving. It was probably another 15 minutes before we headed home.

Sister Szott

Saturday is normally a fairly quiet day. Not this time. We started with six Sisters showing up for the Pathway orientation meeting. I connected my laptop to the big screen and put my camera on top of the big screen so they could watch and participate in the Zoom meeting. It was far better than all hanging round a laptop screen. When the Zoom call was over, I gave them each their Pathway laptop. We went over how to get on the BYU Pathway site and then explored different areas they will be using during their course. We made extra brownies when we made them for Zone Conference, so we pulled out the brownies for the Sisters. Everyone loves brownies. 😉We had an enjoyable and productive morning. They left a little before noon.

We had around an hour and a half before we needed to meet someone at the Sisters' flat to measure for new drapes. During that time, I was able to get my scripture study done. We also work on the laundry. After the gal measured for the drapes, we headed over to the Zone Leaders to drop something off for them. While there, we got a message that Elder Garner wanted to talk with us. We called, but he was busy. We checked with Sister Ali to get an address for someone they wanted us to go visit with them. 

Sister Lilloux and Elder Tuaina

We finally went home because neither contacted us. We were only home for a short time when we received the address from Sister Ali. In the meantime, we received a dinner invite from the Carlisles. 

We headed over to the Sisters’ friend’s house to help them with Family History. They had actually done quite a bit of work. We set them up with a FamilySearch account. It took a little while to find the key person that would add his family tree, but we finally found her. We are going back next week to help them fill in more of their tree.

Again, we headed home for a little while before heading over to the Carlisles for dinner. We had a wonderful dinner and an enjoyable time. The time just passed by so quickly, and before long it was later than we thought and time to go. We helped them get connected with the shared drive that they will need for future house inspections. Finally, we headed home for the night.

Sister Chapman, Sister Ali, Sister Szott, Sister Ngawaka,
Sister Tua'one, Sister Enosa, and Sister Wilcox

We started our Sunday very early to set things up for Sacrament before heading into Ward Council. I feel it was very productive. We then headed into Sacrament meeting. Elder Wilcox had sent out reminder text messages for all the participants in our meeting, however, when Sacrament meeting started not a single speaker was there. Amazingly, we were not worried. As I was leading the opening song, in walked all three speakers. I’m sure the Bishop was relieved. 

Each speaker did a fabulous job. I was very impressed with each message. They used humor as well as spiritual experiences. It was a very uplifting meeting. We headed to the Cultural Hall for Sunday School. Normally we have Sunday School in the Chapel, but next week is the Primary Program so they wanted to practice in the Chapel. I liked having Sunday School in the Cultural Hall. Everyone was close because the chairs were set up in a couple of semi-circles. It was easy to hear everyone, and our discussion was great. 

After Church we found out that it was the Bishop’s birthday. We visited briefly and eventually we all headed home. 

When evening came, we picked up the Carlisles and went to the Stake Devotional at the Stake Center. Our speakers were Elder and Sister Jaggi the 2nd Counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency and Brother and Sister Webb the 1st Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency. It was a very nice devotional.

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox