Funeral, Trainings, Zone Conference, and Baptism

On Monday, I worked on the New Convert Initiative and hung around for the heater repairman to come by. Steve represented us at the Funeral of our dear friend, Joe. It was a beautiful day, and he got some great pictures. The funeral was very nice. Brother Ah Mu came up from Auckland. He and his wife used to live in our ward. Steve was able to hang out with them. The Marae was full to capacity, so they actually had to stand just outside the door and listen. I'm so glad that it was such a nice turnout for Joe. 

I spent most of the day on the Computer. The repairman couldn't fix our heater. He said he may have to order parts, but his recommendation was to replace it. Of course, that decision rests with the owner. He did come back on Friday and took the old unit out of the ceiling and took it back to the shop. I guess they are going to try and fix it first. We now have some plywood covering our whole in the ceiling. Luckily, the weather hasn't been too bad. We have a heater in the master bedroom that helps. We also have a space heater in the office. 

Around midnight, we heard a loud knock on our doon. All five Sisters were at our door with blankets wrapped around them, looking for a place to sleep. They had a scary incident at their flat and did not feel safe staying there. We found space for all of them between the spare bedroom and the couches in the living room. They fell asleep feeling safe.

Tuesday morning, I worked with the Sisters to fill out a police report so hopefully they will patrol their neighborhood for a while. They have been ok'd for the rest of the week to staying their flat. After they left, I started scheduling appointments for training for the Family Name Assist tool that the Bishops can use to easily help new members take a family name to the Temple. We need to try and train the whole mission. I received several requests already. I'm hoping to get permission to train in Cook Islands. I've already had two requests. 

We had a nice video call with Sierra. We missed Monday because Steve was gone pretty much all day for the funeral. Sierra told us about her new job. We also learned that Alyson is engaged. We are so excited for her and look forward to hearing all about it on our monthly call with them on our Monday.

Wednesday was long and kind of busy. We had DCM in the morning. We started a little late because our DL had a flat tire on the way to DCM. While we waited, I shared with the missionaries the new Love, Share, and Invited feature with the Church created Ward Website pages. 

After DCM, we headed to south Auckland to Papatoetoe to do a training meeting with the Papatoetoe 2nd Ward. We were to meet them at 6:30. It was a good thing that we left in plenty of time, because we hit bad traffic for the last hour or so before we got there. We made it 10 minutes before it was supposed to start.  There was one person in the parking lot who told us that one of the two Bishops we were hoping to meet should be there soon. So, we waited in the car. Almost 20 minutes went by before several other people came in the parking lot. We drove around back and went into the building, only to find out we were at the wrong Chapel. The 2nd Ward meets in a different Chapel about 15 minutes away. It is posted wrong on the Church meeting house locator. 

We rushed over there, now very late and arrived about 7:00. When we got there, several brethren were in a meeting by the back door we came in. We found the Bishop’s office and knocked, but no one answered. The Bishop and several other brethren were all in that meeting. They invited us in, and I was able to do the Family Name Assist presentation. There were about 8 or 9 brethren there and we were able to do a hands-on demonstration with them. Their meeting was all about helping their long-time members learn about and use Ordinance Ready, and to help their new members with the Family Name Assist so they can help all their members to get to the Temple more often. I think it went well. We weren’t there very long before we headed back home. It took us 3 ½ hours to get there and only 2 ½ hours go get home. That is how bad the traffic was.

On Thursday, we had SPF followed by shopping for Zone Conference food. We were also asked by Sister Garner to find some replacement whiteboards for the missionaries. They are being asked to turn in all the whiteboards that have metal frames because of the damage in black marks they make on the walls in the flats. We went to The Warehouse, but their boards were pretty spendy. We called and were told they were out of our budget, so we didn't buy any. After finding out that the boards another senior bought had metal frames so we couldn't use those, we decided to look online. We think we have found a plastic frame for a really good price that we think will get approved. 

Once all that was done, we went home and started cooking for Zone Conference. Well, actually Elder Wilcox started cooking. I prepared a PowerPoint presentation for my next Family Name Assist training that we were doing that same night in our Stake. The Elders dropped by to get a baptism program created for a baptism on Saturday. And will all of that was done, it was time to go to the training. 

We were able to train all the Bishops (well, all that were there LOL) as well as Stake leaders. I think it went pretty well. The training went a little longer than I was allotted but that was because people had questions. They seemed pretty excited by the new tool. 

After we got home, we finished our cooking. I doctored the baked beans we bought to make them really good baked beans. They were so yummy!

Friday was Zone Conference! Our training was about how to be a Consecrated Missionary. Several missionaries gave short talks. Then the APs took two different surveys to 1) see how the missionaries thought they were doing as a Consecrated Missionary and 2) how the Mission was doing a Consecrated Missionaries. Then they showed the results of the questions in the form of graphs and pie charts. It was quite interesting to see the comparisons between the two surveys. The individual missionaries thought they were all doing GREAT. However, they all felt the mission was not doing as well. The APs said that was the same results for all the Zone Conferences they had. We then had a nice discussion why the discrepancy in the results. The conclusion was that there has been some gossip about when someone breaks a rule. However, they do not talk about how often missionaries are going above and beyond by working hard to be great missionaries. The bottom line was to stop the gossip and concentrate on keeping the standards.

Lunch was a huge success. Since today was the 4th of July, we did what we could to celebrate. We had a traditional Hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, delicious salads, chips, and of course desserts. Everyone loved it. I overheard someone say, “this make me feel like I’m in America.” All the leaders from Auckland were happy too. The other three Zone Conferences we have in Auckland are all catered. Apparently, it is the same caterer, and she uses the same menu for each of the conferences. I think she does a different one for each transfer. Anyway, they were excited to get something different and loved our 4th of July theme. 

After cleaning up we were able to catch a little of the afternoon training and then the Testimony meeting for the missionaries who are leaving. We are losing Elder and Sister Bennion and Elder Hassell. There are a few others leaving but they don’t directly impact us. The Bennions came out a few weeks before us. They served 18 months up in Kaikohe. Elder Hassell has been our Zone leader for the last three transfers. We are really going to miss him. 

We managed to give away all the remaining food before we went home.

Saturday was our Baptism. Jared is Golden.  A couple of months ago, he walked into Church. He looked like he belonged. Then we found out it was his first time. The missionaries connected with him and started teaching. He kept coming to Church. Several weeks ago, the Elders were ready to ask Jared if he wanted to be baptized. It was the goal for the week to put him on date. Before they could even get the words out, Jared asked them what he needed to do to be baptized. Today, Jared was baptized. It was a wonderful service. He was very excited. 

Elder Na Nongkai, Elder Olson,
Jared, and Brother Walker

On Sunday morning, I received a message that our organist was not going to make Church today. She was our last hope. The normal organist is out of the country for two weeks. Our first backup is in Hamilton for the weekend with grandchildren. And our last backup wasn’t going to make it. We had to scramble Saturday at the baptism with the same issue. 

We thought about seeing if Elder Olson and Sister Paratene could help us out again. We also thought we could just play the songs on our phone near the mic. However, when we got to the Church we decided to see if we could figure out our Fancy Dancy Organ. After pushing several buttons and trying a few different things, I was able to figure out how to pick pre-programmed songs and then to play the intro and more than one verse. The intro and verse had to be selected separately. And you had to play the song again for each verse we wanted. So, today, Elder Wilcox was the chorister, and I was the organist. LOL It actually worked pretty well. I won’t worry about missing a pianist again. 

Our Ward Council meeting went pretty well, as did our Fast and Testimony meeting. Jared was confirmed. He looked so happy. During the second hour, the Bishop did his interview with him and took care of ordaining Jared to the Aaronic Priesthood and interviewing him for a limited use Temple Recommend. While he was doing that, Elder Wilcox and I were creating Jared’s membership record and printed his baptismal certificate. After the Bishop was finished, we also gave him his Priesthood Ordination certificate, and his new limited use recommend. We are having a Temple trip next Saturday and Jared and Ben both want to go. Our two Elders will get to go as well.  We are very excited for them.

We hope you have a Wonderful Week!

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox