Zone Conference Zoom Meetings, Flat Inspections, Sunday School, and Temple

With our change in Relief Society Presidents, our Gospel Doctrine class was without a teacher. I volunteered until they could call a new teacher. That is one thing I have missed since serving missions. I don't get to teach on a regular basis. I'm excited that we are studying Doctrine and Covenants this year. I LOVE Church History. So, I spent several days this week studying and preparing for my lesson.

On Monday, we had our video call with Season. Garren popped in for a bit too. We talked for almost 2 hours about lots of things. It is so nice to catch up each week with one of the kids. I'm not sure what we would do without modern technology. I also gave Steve a haircut in the afternoon. I sure wish he could return the favor. LOL 

Tuesday was supposed to start with our third Mission Wide Zone Conference session, but just before it was supposed to start, we got a chat message stating would be delayed until 12:30. Unfortunately, that did not leave enough time to go do some flat inspections, so I busied myself with preparing for inspections by printing our inspection sheets. Sister Carlisle called to see if I could help print their sheets. For some reason they couldn't get it to format correctly so that the inspection was only 1 page wide. I volunteered to print their sheets off at the same time I did mine. With the delay in our meeting, they came by to pick them up in hopes of doing 1 or more inspections before the meetings started. All their flats in Whangarei fairly close to each other. We took the three furthest away flats because we don't do as much driving as they do. They drive into Pipiwai every day and that is about a 30-to-40-minute drive one way. We tend to be home more often than they are so we can drive further for inspections. 

I took care of several more things on the computer and then we had lunch. Finally, it was time to join our zoom meeting. We focused our attention on a talk by Elder Uchtdorf gave at the Mission Leaders Seminary in 2023 entitled "Fellow Servants": Uniting with Leaders and Members to Establish the Church. I loved the talks our leaders gave that went along with Elder Uchtdorf's message. 

Right after conference, we headed out to start our inspections. Because of distance, we decided we would do it over two days. We went to Bream Bay on Tuesday and then to Punaruku and Hikurangi on Wednesday after the Zoom Conference meeting. Bream Bay is always in great shape and the Sisters always keep it clean. After we got home, I worked on New Convert Initiative for a couple of hours. I couldn't finish because I was waiting on some information I needed from some Sister Missionaries.

Wednesday started with our Mission Wide Zoom Zone Conference Session on time. It was our last Mission Wide session of the Mission Tour. Elder Jaggi missed the first part of the session because he was called into a meeting with Elder Soares. When an apostle asks for you, you drop what you are doing and join that meeting. Anyway, President Allen carried on and our session went very well. We focused Preach My Gospel Chapter 1, first lesson as well as a talk by President Nelson in the October 2017 General Conference entitled "The Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be like without it?" In the talk President Nelson asks us to reflect on three powerful questions:

1. What would your life be like without the Book of Mormon?
2. What would you not know?
3. What would you not have?

I reflected on those questions in my personal study that morning and felt such deep gratitude for the blessings I have received because of the Book of Mormon in my life. I would not be the person I am today, nor would I have the life I have today if it were not for the Book of Mormon and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am eternally grateful to my loving Heavenly Father for not giving up on me and continuing to place opportunities into my life to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon.

Again, we had a wonderful discussion, including several talks by President and Sister Allen, and Sister Jaggi. In the middle of Sister Jaggi's talk, Elder Jaggi joined us and finished up our Mission Wide Zone Conference Session.

After lunch, we finished our Flat Inspections. Unfortunately, those flats needed a bit of work. They still looked pretty good but slacked off in a few areas. We tried to find bonus points, but didn't quite get them as high as we would have liked. We have decided to start doing training after each Transfer so we can make sure all the missionaries know what is expected in an inspection. I don't think the expectations are being passed down from one missionary to another.

We returned Sister Hester's sewing machine to her before we went home. They are moving on 4 February. I can't believe it is that close already. We are going to miss them so much. One good thing about their move is we will be able to stay with them when we go to the Temple in Auckland. 😊

Thursday ended up being a bit busier than expected. I got up early first to bake brownies for the missionaries and second, so I could join the "All Hands-On Deck" video meeting for HawkSoft. It is a quarterly meeting that twice a year is only three hours different and the other two times it is five hours different. 😲I loving participating in the meeting for a couple of reasons. One is to see all my friends that I have worked with for years. Some are all over the country. I'm the furthest one away right now. Hahaha. I also love hearing about all the wonderful things HawkSoft is doing as a company. Sean, Paul, and Jason have built such a fantastic company to work for. They have won the Top 100 Companies to work for award for 10 years in a row. I think they could easily with the Top 10 Companies to work for if there was an award for that. The last fun thing for this quarterly meeting was singing Happy Birthday to Sean for his milestone 50th birthday that was that very day. Such fun.

As soon as that was over, we grabbed our treats and headed to the Stake Center so we could catch our Weekly SPF Zoom meeting. We needed to be at the Stake Center, because immediately after that meeting was our DCM meeting. We didn't think we were going to have a DCM meeting because it is usually on Wednesday, and we had our final Mission Wide Zone Conference meeting. But, at 10:00 PM Wednesday, we got a chat with our agenda for our DCM meeting at the Stake Center.

However, when we got there, the doors were locked, so we sat on the steps to the door watching the Zoom meeting on the phone. I think there were 10 of us waiting for the Zone Leaders to get there with the key to open the Chapel. Both SPF and DCM were great. After DCM, we picked up a prescription and quickly headed home to meet the Sisters for Comp Study.

They were running a little late, so we were able to catch our breath a bit. We were supposed to have a couple of Elders earlier that morning, but because of DCM theirs got postponed until next week. Since the Sisters went directly to a service project from the DCM meeting and then to our house they didn't get any lunch. So, Elder Wilcox made them a grilled ham and cheese sandwich while we did our comp study. They were happy! 😊

Just as the Sisters finished, our second set of Elders came for their comp study. We talked about what Elder Sanders could use with a lesson they were having later that day. We came up with several ideas that he thought would work well. The rest of the time we discussed Doctrine and Covenants Section 1. I sure love our Comp Studies.

Friday started with us packing for our Temple trip. We picked up the Carlisles around 10:00 and headed to the Ward's house in Wellsford to pick up a booklet for one of our Elders. They weren't home but left the book on the porch for us. We had packed lunches, so we ate our lunches

Next stop was the Mission Office where we turned in an extra key to Sister Garner. Sister Carlisle picked up some supplies she needed for her branch and for some of her Elders. I waited for Sister Geisler to return from lunch so I could take care of ordering a badge for Sister Koi. She had sent money for us to order her badge. Just about the time we wanted to leave, the Geislers showed up, so we were able to take care of all our business. While we waited, we were able to see Sister Lilloux and Sister Enosa as well as their companions. It is so fun to see our missionaries that we love so much after they have left our area.

From there we headed to Hamilton to the Temple. We were there in plenty of time for our session. We had a nice session. We stayed in the Celestial room quite a while. We don't usually get to just sit there and bask in the beautiful room and wonderful feeling. It was so nice.

After a while, we left to meet up with the Carters for dinner and this great burger place called "Burger, Burger." Best burger ever! We visited for a couple of hours before heading to our B&B for the night.

After a delicious breakfast and nice little visit with Colleen and Clive it was time to leave. They had a full house that weekend. They like to say, you arrive as guests but leave as friends. That is so true. Everyone loved them and had a great time. Colleen had left to take some guests out to feed the horses when we were packing up to go. We wanted to say goodbye before we left, so we headed out to the animals after we loaded the car. They have a few horses in the field near our car. Everyone had moved on to the alpaca, sheep, and cows by the time we got out there. We wandered over to the cows and Colleen gave me some feed to give the cows. Across to the other side were the sheep and alpaca. It was fun to feed the animals. We finally gave our hugs and headed out to pick up the Carlisles from the Carters house where they stayed.

We stopped at the distribution center next to the Temple so we could pick up a leather-bound triple combination for Sister Koi and also to pick up a few new garments. The Carlisles picked up a few more supplies they wanted, including some kids' books in Mauri. Then it was off to Costco.

There is only one Costco store in the entire country, so you can imagine how crowded it is...ALWAYS. We only needed a few things this time, but it still took forever to get in and out. Finally, we were on our way home. We made one more stop at the Chemist Warehouse in Whangarei because I received a text message that Steve's other prescription was ready to pick up. Carlisles were fine with that because they had some things they needed too. We dropped the Carlisles off at their house and made it home by 4:00pm. I took care of a few items of business that came in via email and text on our way home. Finally, it was time for showers and some time to relax.

We headed out to Church early on Sunday to get set up before Ward Council, when we had to return home because Steve forgot his phone and tablet. Luckily, we left real early. Lol We still managed to get everything done we wanted to before Ward Council.

We had a good discussion about our one-on-one ministering. We also talked about a few things upcoming, like the start of Seminary. I think we are moving in the right direction.

Just before Church was to start, the chapel looked sparsely populated. I left greeting people at the door, so I could go sit up front to be ready to lead the music. I think a swarm of people must have followed me in, because when Brother Walker got up to welcome everyone, we had a full Chapel. It was one of our biggest attended weeks. Our talks were really good, and we went over time about 5 minutes. I think the Spirit was very strong today.

After Sacrament meeting, I taught Sunday School. I think it turned out pretty well. Our lesson covered Joseph Smith History 1:1-26. I focused the lesson on what we learned from how Joseph Smith prepared himself to receive personal revelation. We had a great discussion of what that looks like for each of us. We can follow the same pattern Joseph did to receive our own personal revelation. We know that Heavenly Father uses many different ways to talk to His children and we talked about how we can recognize how He speaks to us.

We hope you will enjoy your week!

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox