New Convert Initiative, New District, and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day

With this new transfer, the mission realigned our districts by making 3 districts from the previous 2. We are none in the Whangarei Central District.  Since we have new missionaries, we decided to have a District P-day at our home. Everyone came over for pizza and treats.  Then we played several games to get to know one another.  I think everyone had a good time. 

I spent much of the rest of the day involved with the New Convert Initiative program between the area call and working on the spreadsheet.  I worked on it a lot throughout the week. It was all worth it. 

Sister Jones and Sister Koi for Comp Study

At 5:30 we met up with a few other members to help move a single sister into our ward. It only took around 2 hours to load her stuff and unload it in the new apartment.

On Tuesday, we started with our Com Study with Sister Jones and Sister Koi. Each transfer they give us a different companionship to study with. We decided to read the Book of Mormon one chapter at a time and discuss as we read. We had a great discussion, asking questions and pondering on things we hadn't thought about before. I can't wait until next week.

I also worked on some New Convert Initiative things. After lunch we made 46 goodie bags for Thanksgiving Dinner With the missionaries on Thursday. Then it was time for the video call we missed on Monday with Sierra. We also talked with Joey and Shonee. When we finished our call, we quickly ate dinner and headed to the Stake Center for the Stake Auxiliary Meeting. The training was very good. I’m anxious to implement it in our Ward Council. It goes right along with the training I did in our last Ward Council. One of the speakers shared that a Branch had done similar training in that previous Branch Council meeting as well. The speaker said it was a testimony to them that they were on the right track for the Stake Training. They had all prayed and fasted about it and felt it was what the Stake needed at this time. It strengthened my testimony too, as I felt it was the training our Ward needed on the 17th. Obviously, this is what Heavenly Father wants us as a Stake to work on at this time.

Wednesday was our first Whangarei Central District meeting. I got up early to make brownies and cut up some fruits and vegetables for our meeting. Normally, I didn't make snacks for every meeting, but then Sister Carlisle and Sister Ward showed up. They do treats for every DCM. They are both in different districts now, so I feel obligated to provide treats to our district each week. I'll have to buy more brownie mix at Costco. That always goes over well. We had a great meeting, and I know we will enjoy our new district as much as our previous one. 

After DCM, we picked up the Sister we helped move on Monday so she would get a few things for her apartment. She doesn't drive. We went to Bunnings (similar to Home Depot) and bought the things she needed. We found out that her birthday was that day. We purchased a few things for her birthday. We went back to her apartment so Elder Wilcox could take a look at her washing machine. He hooked it up on Monday, but apparently didn’t turn the water on. He thought it was taken care of since the sink worked but found the place to turn on the water for the washer. I think she is all set at least for a while. 

We then went back to Whangarei to do our shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. We wanted the freshest fruits and vegies. We stopped at a few other stores before we headed home. 

Once home, Steve took off again. Our Hikurangi Elders were out of kilometers for the month because they had to go to Auckland for transfers. We told them if they needed a ride to give us a call. Elder Wilcox picked them up and dropped them off at Charlotta’s house for their dinner appointment. After dinner, they walked to a few other members and friends for visits before walking to our house for a ride home. 

In the meantime, I started preparing some food for the Thanksgiving Dinner. I didn’t want to have to do everything on Thursday. I worried we wouldn't have enough food for all our missionaries. 🤞 

Thanksgiving Day was busy, fun, and tiring. I started by putting the potatoes I cooked on Wednesday into the slow cooker so I could warm them up and then make mashed potatoes. We then had our SPF meeting with the Mission President and Sister Allen. Immediately after that, we had a financial planning meeting via Zoom with our financial planner. Paul Carlson has been our financial planner for years and has done a marvelous job of managing our money. I have been very impressed with him.

We had a quick Zoom meeting with MyLiege as she shared some special news she just received. For several years she has been taking beautiful pictures for family and then friends. It has expanded to friends of friends and now word of mouth. She recently decided to start a business and actually start charging for her pictures. Most people tried to pay her anyway. She launched her website called: https://blossomwoodstudios.com/ It is Awesome. She wanted to share that she is photographing the launching of the Light The World Ceremony in Portland, Oregon.  I’m so excited for her. If you live in the Portland area, check out her work. You won’t regret it.

After all our calls were done, we went to work finishing up our preparations for our Big Missionary Thanksgiving Feast. We baked brownies, and made big fruit platters, not to mention mashing a big crock pot full of potatoes. Then we headed to the Hikurangi Chapel to get set up. Several of the Seniors from Kaikohe showed up before us. We got everything loaded into the kitchen and began to set up tables. We decided to make it a little homier by setting the tables up separately instead of in a couple of big lines. We cut some greenery, had some orange and yellow crape paper that we twisted and some beautiful blue flowers that Elder Wilcox cut, oh, and some Bird of Paradise. The Senior Sisters did a beautiful job of weaving the greenery and the crape paper togethers. It all looked magical. We gathered the extra flowers, and Sister Ward made a beautiful centerpiece for the food table. We ran the food tables down the center of the room instead of on the end. Everything looked magical. 

The missionaries all showed up and filled the room. Some came from over two hours away. There were two wishes I had. One was that everyone would have a GREAT time and feel like family. And two, that we would not run out of food. I prayed for the miracle of Loaves and Fishes. We experienced the miracles we desired. I think we may have taken home more food than we brought. Hahaha. Everyone ate and were filled. They came back for seconds and even thirds. There was even enough for them to take some home.  They enjoyed each other’s company as they visited while they ate. They expressed things they were thankful for.  After dinner we played several “Thanksgiving” games that were a lot of fun. My goal was it would help them feel loved and with “family” because that is what we are. 

Steve and Kathy Stebbings

I am so very grateful for all the help the Senior Couples put forth to bring an abundance of food and help in so many ways. I also am so very grateful for Brother and Sister Hester who came to monitor the food so the Seniors could sit and eat with the missionaries. They went above and beyond. They came early and helped with the setup. And they did all the dishes, helped pack up food, and cleaned the kitchen. They were so AWESOME!!!!  I am truly blessed this Thanksgiving Day!!!

Friday was intended to be a stay at home and rest day, but that was not meant to be. Instead, we made final updates to the Ward Council agenda and sent that out to the council members. Then we headed out to do Flat Inspections. The first flat we went to was by far the cleanest flat we have seen since we started doing inspections. And what made it even better was they didn't know we were coming and there was no running around to clean while we were there. It was just perfect. The other two flats still got their full points, but they both had some cleaning they were doing while we were inspecting other areas of the flat. 

The view from the Beach House

After lunch, Elder Wilcox picked up and delivered the Hikurangi Elders again since they were out of miles. They got refilled on 1 December. 😊While he was gone, I did some work on the New Convert Initiative spreadsheet so I could "eliminate" Children from our calculations. We only want to count converts who are eligible to go to the Temple to do baptisms. I managed to get the Auckland Mission sheet done by the end of the day. I did all the other missions on Saturday.

Us with Aniva

I worked on that until it was time to go to our dinner appointment. We received an invitation to have dinner with Aniva, our Young Women President and her aunt and uncle. It turns out her uncle is Steve Stebbings. I worked with Steve when we were on our previous mission. Steve worked in the Pacific Area Publishing Services Department. That department handles translation and interpretation, so we had several opportunities to work together. Normally I had only talked “face to face” via Teams meetings. Then, Steve came to the US for the last October General Conference we were able to work in Salt Lake City. We not only got to meet him in person, but we also were invited to a luncheon with him and the others that were with him. When we arrived in New Zealand, he was one person I wanted to see. So, on the day we left Auckland to head up north, we stopped at the Area Offices to visit Steve. He wasn’t there but was working from home. He forgot to tell us that. Lol We called and he gave us his address and we stopped by to visit before we arrived at our area of service. I didn’t think I would get to see him again, so it was a pleasant surprise to get the invite. He was spending a week at Aniva’s beach house for a little vacation. Somehow Aniva made the connection that we knew Steve and extended the invite. We had such a fun evening. We hope to have another opportunity in the future. We met his wife, Kathy. Kathy is the blood relative of Aniva. She is Aniva’s mother’s sister. They looked enough alike; I could see it immediately. I think we became fast friends. 

Douhet, MyLiege, and Season

Saturday morning, I awoke to a beautiful text message from our daughter, MyLiege. She sent a picture of her and her brothers, and another picture of most of the family in front of the Portland Temple for White Friday. In the past several years it has only been a few family members for White Friday. This year they had the whole crew. It really touched my heart. 

After that, we headed to the Stake Center to help out with the Stake Primary Activity. The primary kis made Christmas ornaments. They actually made two. One to hang on a tree at the church next door who was having a festival of Christmas Trees celebration, and the other one to take home for their own trees. 

Once home, I spent the rest of the day working on the New Convert Initiative spreadsheet to get all the Mission tabs updated with the new formulas. Just as I was wrapping up the spreadsheet, I got a call from Sister Carlisle. It appears we both forgot about a play we were going to see. Luckily, she called in plenty of time for us to make the play, but our dinner plans went out the window. We all grabbed a protein bar and headed to the theater to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was a wonderful play. The actors were amazing and had beautiful voices. The orchestra was also fabulous. I thought the music was prerecorded, until I realized they had a live band below the stage. It was put on by the Whangarei Theatre Company. The actor who played Joseph was AMAZING. He is quite young and still in high school. The whole cast did an incredible job. We had a great time.

Sunday was a wonderful day. We started with Ward Council. Elder Moyes did our "training" segment and did a great job. He talked about the Ward, and in particular the Ward Leaders can help move the Missionary work forward. We had a good discussion on several topics. We had several follow-up reports on the different visits that were made to people. We are trying to do a better job of assigning people to do things and then get follow-up reports on what happened. Sacrament and Sunday School were both good meetings.

We took care of some Ward Clerk stuff when we got home. Then around 3:00 our time we had a Zoom call with Douhet. He set the iPad up in a corner in the living room so we could see most of the living room, dining room, and part of the kitchen. The whole family (minus a couple grandkids) were there celebrating our annual Thanksgivagain. Since all our kids married within our Stake, they all get together with their in-laws on the actual holiday, (Christmas day, Thanksgiving Day, etc.) We get them ALL on Christmas Eve and the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It was a little noisy for them to hear us, but we managed to visit briefly with everyone there. They had to listen very closely to hear us. We could hear them just fine. I think Season will add some speakers for Christmas Eve so it will be easier for everyone to hear us. It was very fun to talk with everyone. I think we got to talk to little Ruthie the most. She kept wandering near the iPad and someone would pick her up so we could see and talk to her. By the end she was waving and smiling at us. We got to see Roman for a few minutes too, but he got a little fussy so that ended our visit with him. He will be another month older for Christmas Eve so that may work out a little longer. Lol It was so nice to talk with everyone, even if it was very brief. We even got to sing Happy Birthday to Kinsley! Douhet was one of the last ones to talk with us and he took the iPad into the walk-in pantry where it was quieter. When he finished, he got Joey and Audrey so we could finish with everyone. They were actually able to hear us without leaning into the speaker. Hahaha After our video call, we had a nice dinner and watched a couple of Christmas movies.

This has been a very busy and blessed week. I feel so very thankful for so many things. I am thankful for family and friends, close and far away. We love you all so very much. I am especially thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and what He has done for me. I find myself pondering more and more often on His sacrifices for me. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed, I can't hold back the tears of joy. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I also love the gift and blessing of having the Holy Ghost as my constant companion. I am so very blessed.

All our Love,
Elder and Sister Wilcox