Walks, Bishopric Dinner, DCM Party, Seminary, Transfer News, and REST!

This week was definitely less busy than the last couple of weeks. It was a good thing because we were a little sick for several days, so it was nice to just be able to stay home and rest.

Monday started out normal. I prepared my Seminary lesson and Steve prepared a Family Home Evening lesson. We ran over to the McClintock flat to meet the owners and close the flat. They were very nice and it wall went smoothly. They were pleased with how clean we left the flat and sorry to see us go.

I thought I was supposed to have an Area Conference call, but it never happened. Later I got an email saying it would be next week. We are going to be gone so I will miss it. We did have a very nice video call with Sierra. It was nice to catch up on things going on. Montana and Lauren are looking into buying a house, so that is exciting. 

After the call I worked on the new Convert Initiative project. We are making some progress. I am hoping it will pick up soon. I am still not getting responses from the Bishops. I think we may have to start phoning the Bishops. 

We did manage to get a walk in before we headed off to our Family Home Evening lesson. We met the Elders there and had a good meeting with the Wihongis. Steve gave a great lesson, and we had a lot of fun with the game. 

Tuesday morning started with our Seminary lesson. I think it turned out really well. We talked about 3 Nephi 11 which talks about Jesus Christ appearing to the Nephites after the great destruction and three days of darkness. I hope the students felt the Spirit as much as I did. The topic was very powerful.

I prepared a Family Home Evening lesson for our visit with the single father and his 4 little kids on Wednesday. We then took a long walk and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Later we had an inspection by the guy that has to check out our smoke and fire alarms. We managed to watch an episode of Follow Him with John Bytheway and Hank Smith. Even though we try to watch that each week as it goes along with our Come Follow Me study, we have not been very successful lately. 

Around noon we started having missionaries show up for mentoring and their Pathway classes. We always enjoy having them over. While that was going on, we went to our bedroom and had a Zoom call with Montana and Laruen. It had been ages since we last talked to them. They told us all about their plans and their house hunting experiences. We had a wonderful visit.

After Pathway, the Sisters all hung out for a while. I was able to help them both get some apps installed on their laptops. Not long after that they left. We were able to watch the second half of Follow Him before getting ready for our Dinner Party. We had the Bishopric over for dinner. We supplied the main dish of slow cooked pork, and they supplied the side dishes. We had a delicious dinner and some very fun visiting. I'm so glad we decided to do it at our house instead of a restaurant. We never could have visited as long as we did. It was fun to get to know each other better and we laughed a LOT.

By Wednesday we were feeling a bit under the weather. Actually, it started on Tuesday, but we just pushed through it. The only thing we did on Wednesday was attend DCM, run a few errands, and latter our Family Home Evening lesson. When we got to DCM the missionaries had the hall all decorated with streamers and balloons. It looked very festive. We were celebrating Elder Sanders' birthday, Sister Chapman's first 100 days, and Sister Ngawaka's last DCM. She is going home to Australia. We are going to miss her a lot. She gave us a little koala bear as a souvenir. 🐻 

We needed to pick up a prescription for Steve, so we decided to check on the progress of the fence repair for the Clark Road flat. It looked great. Steve still needs to do a little tweaking. He needs to install the rest of the lock hardware so they can actually lock the gate. 

Once home, I worked on my Seminary Lesson for Thursday and reviewed the Family Home Evening lesson for that night. We had a GREAT Family Home Evening. The kids were a little more settled and we engaged all of them in the lesson and the game. I think everyone had a good time. I finished my Seminary lesson prep after I got home. 

Thursday started early with Seminary. The lesson was different than any other I have done, and I hope they got out of it what I hoped they would. I gave them an assignment to teach the Doctrine of Christ for a Family Home Evening lesson next week. They are to report back on how it goes. We won't have Seminary for two weeks due to the term break. I'll have to check back with them through our chat. 🤞

After class I went for a walk. Steve just wasn't feeling up to it. I did the long route, and it felt good. It was a little brisk and was just what I needed. After I got home, I visited Steve for a while. We were both coughing and very tired. We definitely had a bug. We watched the Mission Zoom SPF meeting. President Allen gave a great training about encouraging everyone to continue working hard even though we were coming to the end of the transfer.  

After SPF the Elders confirmed they were coming over for comp study and bringing the other Elders in their flat. I baked some cookies for them but got distracted when they arrived, and they got a little overdone. They still tasted good, and the Elders ate them. Elders Moyes and Derrick went to another room to do a mentoring session while we did comp study with Elders Sanders and Shupe. Once they all joined us together, we had a wonderful discussion. We talked about life after their mission. They had lots of questions. I remember having those conversations with the Sisters several months ago when we had a couple getting ready to go home. 

Sister Chapman, Sister Ngawaka, and Elder Wilcox

Not long after they left, I checked my phone. I had a Facebook comment from Elder Shupe’s mothers. She stumbled across one of my blogs and saw her son in some of my pictures. We are now Facebook friends. Lol I’m so glad we can make parents feel better knowing there are grandmas and grandpas looking out for their kids. 😊

After everyone left, we sort of collapsed on the couch for the afternoon and watched a couple of movies. About nine o’clock we had a group Zone call where they announced who was being transferred. It looks like we are losing an Elder in Dargaville, Sister Enosa in Bream Bay, Sister Ngawaka because she is going home, and Sister Chapman is being transferred. We get to keep everyone else. YAY!!!🎉🎉🎉

Our SPF Zoom Meeting

We slept in on Friday. We needed the rest. We stayed home all day and tried to take it easy. We took care of a few things that have been on the back burner, like paying some bills. I also gave Steve a much-needed haircut. I had a video call with Elder and Sister Sorensen who are the leaders of our Area New Convert Initiative project. Since I won't be on the Monday call, Elder Sorensen wanted to touch bases with me to see how things were going and also ask a few questions about the spreadsheet. He works closely with Salt Lake and has sent them all the things we as a team have come up with to help. Salt Lake is creating training videos for the priesthood leaders that will be using the Name Assist Tool and has used some of our material. Things are moving forward. 

After the call I sent out text messages to all the Stake Presidents who have not suppled us the name of a High Councilor that we can work with. I also sent a text message to all the Bishops or Branch Presidents who have not yet filled out their spreadsheets with the dates we need. Steve sent out reminder emails to our speakers and prayers for Sacrament meeting.

After lunch we went for a long walk. I was completely exhausted after that. We should have done a shorter route. We showered, did a little more work on the New Convert Initiative project and finally called it a day around 4:30. 

We felt much better on Saturday. We still took it pretty easy. I worked on some HawkSoft work for much of the day. I didn't have any work to do all week, and then Darrin sent me a bunch Saturday morning. (NOTE: That is his Friday.) Halfway through the HawkSoft work, we took a break to go to the Stake Center Open House. We had a nice time looking at all the beautiful work that had been done. They added a completely new side to the building that is for all the Stake offices as well as the three Bishop’s offices and clerk’s offices. The rest of the building was remodeled and updated. The kitchen is beautiful and big. All new chairs, tables, and accessories. Everything looks beautiful.

Our Front Door

All our missionaries were there giving tours. I think they were pretty busy in the first hour of the Open House. We went there near the end, and it wasn’t too busy. I especially enjoyed the beautiful Family History Center. I may have to go sometime and see if I can get any help with my couple of roadblocks. I know they have lots of new help, but I’m not familiar with them so I can’t use them myself yet. Plus, they are adding millions of names all the time. It is amazing all the changes that are taking place. 

After picking up a prescription, we headed home. I worked on the second half of my HawkSoft assignment and completed it a little after 5. 

On Sunday, we got to Church early so Steve could attend a Bishopric meeting. I worked on my blog for a little while. We had a nice turn out even though we had to set our clocks 🕝 ahead one-hour the night before. Pretty soon we will only be 3 hours different from Oregon. 😊

Our talks were wonderful. Brother Lawrence was our High Councilor speaker. He went first because he also had to go speak at the Denby Ward. Next, we heard from his youngest son who also did an amazing job. After the intermediate hymn, we heard from the Young Women’s President who happens to be his wife. Lol She gave a great talk too. We had a 5th Sunday forum for our second hour. Each of the Bishopric presented some training from the General Handbook. Steve went first and did a GREAT job. The rest of the Bishopric also did great. All our meetings were very uplifting and spiritual today. 

After our meetings, most of us met in the Cultural for a Linger Longer. The Young Women were in charge. They provided ice cream sundaes with all the trimmings and some chop suey for those who wanted some lunch too. It was delicious. We had no extra meetings that night, so we enjoyed a nice relaxing evening. 

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Hear is a beautiful song by two of my favorite Missionaries, Sister Lilloux and Elder Dixon. Elder Dixon sings the first verse in Māori and Sister Lilloux sings the second verse in French. They sing the third verse in English together. 

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