Christmas Parade, Flat Repairs, Kawakawa Flat, and Sight Seeing

Monday was filled mostly with video calls. We got to talk with Season and Garren. Garren showed us his fancy new computer that has 16 LED lights in the tower than he can control the various colors. It looks really cool. We also talked about plans for Christmas Eve with the family from halfway across the world. I am so grateful for modern technology that allows us to still participate in family celebrations.

Next, we talked to Brooklyn to wish her a happy birthday. She is attending school at BYU Provo. It was good to visit with her and we look forward to seeing her home for Christmas break. At least we will get to see her on Christmas Eve.

Then I had a video call with Elder Sorenson about the New Convert Initiative spreadsheet. He found a problem with one of the formulas in the spreadsheet. After a few minutes, we tracked it down and got it fixed. After the call, I updated all the mission tabs with the new formulas.

Not long after that, I had a video call with Sister Ward. She is creating a book of about 100 pages for the missionaries with tools that can help them with the New Convert Initiative and My Covenant Path. As a mission we are also focusing on getting our new members to the Temple within 30 days of their baptism. She has lots of helpful information they can use to achieve that goal. Anyway, I helped her with some formatting things as she prepares the book for print in January. I showed her how to use styles to make the formatting more consistent. I will take a look at what she has done since our training sometime this coming week. Hopefully it will be ready very soon.

I managed to work on HawkSoft for a few hours, before having one more surprise video call. This time with MyLiege. She missed her mommy. 😇Oh, how I miss my family. I love being here and I love working with all the wonderful people we get to work with. But I miss my family…especially at this time of year. I am so grateful that Families can be Together Forever!!!

Tuesday was as follows: We had a wonderful Comp Study with our Sister Missionaries. We enjoyed it so much. Today we talked about chapters 3 and 4 in 1st Nephi. We had a great discussion. We worked on the Ward Council Agenda and got that sent out. We went to The Warehouse to pick up some much-needed supplies for the Ward Clerks office. After we got home, I spent the rest of the day on the New Convert Initiative.

Wednesday was a little busier. I woke up early thinking about the Christmas Award Certificate I needed to create for our after-parade activities on Saturday. I wanted to go back to sleep, but that was not going to happen. So, I got up and created the certificate. I think they turned out pretty cute.

Then we headed to DCM. Elder Swenson runs a very nice meeting. We had great discussion and sharing. After the meeting they pretty much ate all the snacks I brought, which, of course, is the intention. I enjoy watching them enjoy the snacks so much. After that was over, we headed to the Hikurangi Chapel so we could put away all the supplies we bought. While we were there, we started cleaning out filing cabinet drawers and paper trays that were on the counter in the Clerk's office. Most of the stuff we cleaned out were documents that were from 2010 to about 2014. NONE of which needed to be saved anymore. We put everything in the empty paper box we had just cleaned out. We put the box under the counter for the Bishop to take a quick peak before we get rid of it. We did find a few treasures like certificates, pictures, and even money. The pictures we found actually belonged to our Bishop. They were pictures of his son who had passed away several years ago. Neither he nor his wife knew about those pictures, so they were very happy to get them. When I opened the big envelop, they were in, I knew immediately they were pictures of their son. He as the most beautiful and angelic eyes I have ever seen. When I saw the Bishop a couple of days later and showed him the pictures, he was a bit overwhelmed. I'm so glad we were able to give them that special blessing.

On Thursday, right after our SPF meeting, we got a call from Sister Garner, who had just got a call from one of our Sisters. Apparently, their CO2 alarm went off. It didn't stay on very long, but they left the flat and waited outside. Sister Garner called us since we are in the area. We went right over to check it out. The alarm was no longer going off and only went off for a very short time. We tested the alarm and found it working correctly, so we started looking around. We asked them to tell us the circumstances of what was happening when the alarm went off. They were running the dryer when the alarm went off. Their dryer is in the spare bedroom right next to the alarm. It was very humid in the room. It didn't look like they had emptied the water container in several dryer loads. Also, the lint filter was nearly overflowing. We were pretty sure that is what caused the alarm to go off. 

We told them to crack a window, but we were confident that was the problem. We went out to call Elder Garner and tell him about the situation and the Sisters went back to crack a window. Before we could leave, they were back saying the alarm with off again. It was only a couple of beeps. My guess is it was probably still the humidity, but since it is better to be safe than sorry, we changed out the alarm. We had a spare one in our car. 

Friday took us to Kawakawa, which is further up north. We met with the Elders in the Kawakawa flat to install their CO2/Fire alarm. The one we had in the car was originally for them because they couldn't find theirs. When we texted to schedule the appointment, they said they found the original alarm but didn't know what to do with it. It worked out well, since we had given their new one to the Sisters. Hahaha. We moved the base to another room, so it wasn't in the kitchen anymore. Apparently before the current Elders were living there, the alarm would go off every time the previous Elders cooked anything. So, they took it down and the current Elders couldn't find it. We moved the base to another room closer to the bedrooms and installed the alarm. 

Before we left, Elder Wilcox noticed a lose floorboard was sticking up that could cause a stubbed toe or bad trip. He didn't have a long enough screw to fix it, so we went to the hardware store around the corner and fixed the floorboard. We asked them if there was anything else they needed, and they mentioned they didn't have an instant hot water dispenser. I texted Elder Garner to tell him what we did and that we were on our way to get them an instant hot water dispenser. He didn't respond right away, so we went ahead and bought it, hoping it would be OK. Later that day he said, "Great." 

After we left, Elder Wilcox decided to take the long way home. We don't get to sightsee up there very often. It is even more rural than where we live. We took a ride on the car ferry from Kirikiri to Russell. And then took Russell road all the way back to our area. It was beautiful. And because Russell road is probably the windiest road in Northland, I couldn't do anything else but enjoy the beautiful scenery.

We awoke on Saturday to a very bright and sunny day. It turned out to be the hottest day we have had since last summer. We got to the Chapel early so we could help set up the activities for after the Christmas Parade. We set up a volleyball net on the side yard and still left room for some touch rugby. In the front of the Chapel, we set up for the food. Brother and Sister Hester were doing the bulk of the set up. We had to leave so we could walk down to the school field where they were lining up for the parade route. By the time we got to the school, my hip was killing me, and I worried if I was going to make it through the whole parade. We gathered with the missionaries who were already there. We ended up with three sets of Elders and one set of Sisters. Elder and Sister Carlisle also joined us. We had lollies (candy) to pass out to the kids and flyers to pass out to the adults inviting them to the after-parade activity at the Church with free food and games, plus an invite to celebrate Christmas with our Sunday Service on 22 December at 10:00AM. 

The parade route went around a long block two times. It got to the Church and then turned to go around and start over. We passed out the all the lollies by the time we got to the Church. They finished passing out all the flyers by the time the parade was over. It was so hot in the heat of the sun. I managed to make it all the way for the first round and then dropped off to go to the Church to finish setting up. Sister Carlisle quit with me, but Elder Carlisle was a trooper and went the whole way both times. Elder Wilcox took a short cut to the Church so he could take pictures of the parade. We walked right behind the Rugby Team and in front of the Police cars. It wouldn't have been so bad, except the police turned their siren on without much of a break. It was LOUD!

After the parade we had lots of people stop by for sausage sizzles and strawberries and cream. So many tried to pay us and couldn't believe it when we told them it was free. We smiled and said to them "Merry Christmas!" Sister Carlisle and I manned the sausage sizzle table. Sister Hester ran the games for the kids. They did sack races, three legged races, and the egg race, although they used a tennis ball instead of an egg. There might have been a few more races too. She filled out the certificates for the first-place winners. Because of the heat, I don't think anyone played volleyball or rugby. Several of the Elders did pass the football around out front. The Kreutzkamps sent our Bishop two American footballs for an early Christmas present. LOL Bishop called them to show them our party and have a nice little chat with them. It was fun to talk to Caroline again.

We had a few ward members show up, but mostly it was the community. And that is JUST fine. We are hoping the community will also show up for our Christmas Sunday Service next week. Elder Wilcox will be reading the Christmas story, and we will have lots of singing to go with it.

We were at the Church bright and early Sunday morning to get set up for Church before our Ward Council meeting. It wasn’t quite as bright as Saturday. As a matter of fact, it was a bit cloudy, but still a very nice temperature. When we opened the door to the Ward Clerk’s office the odor just about made me sick. I think something died in there. We never did find it. We kept the door open most of the time we were in the office. It didn’t smell bad Saturday when we were there for the parade. We kept our things in the office, and it was just fine. 

Other than that, we took care of putting up the hymn numbers on the board and making copies of the rest hymn from the new hymnbook. We also got the big TV out for our Ward Council meeting. We showed a video from the Area Presidency that they wanted shown to all the Ward Councils. For the rest of the meeting, we had a great discussion about the video and the people we will work with to help come back to Church. I think it was one of our best meetings. 

We had three great talks for Sacrament meeting. Our Primary President spoke about what she enjoys most about Christmas. Our Relief Society President spoke about creating and making lasting Christmas memories. And Elder Wilcox spoke about putting Christ back as the central focus of Christmas. All three talks were excellent. Our Sunday School class was great too.

After our meetings, we went back to the Clerk’s office to take care of some business. The smell wasn’t quite as bad, but I could still smell it. We will check again sometime in the coming week.

Once home, I sent a report to the Stake Clerk and our High Councilor representative about the families we are working with that we talked about in our Ward Council meeting. I also sent our reminders to the different groups that will be doing songs for next week’s meeting. I then sent a list of the songs to our organist. Finally, I was able to work on the blog recap, but I didn’t finish it. I was tired. I finished it the next day.

All our Love,
Elder and Sister Wilcox