Worldwide Missionary Devotional, Roots Tech 2022, and lots of Meetings

This has been one CRAZY week with last minute changes, lots and lots of food, and plenty of meetings. Poor Elder Linford and Elder Wilcox spent a frustrating week juggling Interpreters for Roots Tech pre-recordings. I found out later that the teams for the different languages were playing a tug of war between SLC and IN COUNTRY on who was going to do which session of Roots Tech. This was the "main event" as they are calling it. It consists of 4 different nearly hour long videos that have been put together kind of like they do the World News Report with short little segments all put together. It started on Friday, Feb 4th where they dubbed all the little videos that were originally done in native languages into English.

These are the languages we did for Roots Tech.
NOTE: Chinese is only for the written word. The
Interpreted languages are Cantonese and Mandarin. 

On the 9th and 10th, we had thirteen different languages interpreted for two 1 hour videos each day. They were divided into two sessions, morning and evening. Generally it was for the countries who are 8 plus hours different than us in the morning and the others in the evening. However, some languages couldn't decide who would do the interpretation, so we were constantly switching back and forth between SLC and IN COUNTRY people. Some ended up with the interpreters being made up with some from each team. On occasion we found out at the event itself that there were different people doing interpreting, than was on the list that morning. CRAZY. I'll come back to the actual events in a little while.

On Monday evening we had a wonderful Mission Devotional with Elder and Sister Kevin Hamilton. He is a General Authority Seventy primarily over Family History. He shared several insights on how Roots Tech is working in this COVID world environment. He said he asked Elder Bednar last year if he thought the Virtual Roots Tech was a good idea and Elder Bednar said something like, "I don't know. If you can tell me we can reach Greenland, then I'll embrace it." Elder Hamilton proceed to tell us how many people participated in the Virtual Roots Tech last year and mentioned they even had two from Greenland sign up. And there isn't even a Family History Center in Greenland!

On Tuesday morning, we gave our Zone Devotional. We chose a talk that Sister Wendy Nelson recently gave in the Europe Area Tour with President Nelson just a week or so ago. One of the things she talked about was Following the Prophet. She ended her remarks by highlighting 5 examples from President Nelson's life. She shared little stories with each example. That is what we based our devotional on. They are:

• He is attentive and alert.
• He is in awe of the laws of God.
• President Nelson finds joy in serving others.
• President Nelson knows that the Lord loves effort.
• President Nelson never delays. His moto is "why not now?"

Later that day we had our first April 2022 General Conference meeting to kick off all the tasks we need to do before April 2nd, 2022. We later went over all the missionary responsibilities with our team so we can divide it up. We don't have that much to do, but we we do have to do is timely and needs to be done in order. It is looking like things are opening up a bit more. I'm hoping we can have more Interpreters this year. I'm not expecting a full complement, but it would be nice if we could double what we had on October.

After that meeting Elder Wilcox and I had our Leadership Pattern meeting. It is such an incredible program. We are learning so much, not just how to be a better leader, but so much about ourselves and how to be a better follower and servant of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I know I am growing by leaps and bounds. Our Zone got permission to offer the classes to our missionaries. The Zone leaders asked if they could hijack our Family Home Evening group to be one of the classes. So starting February 14th, we will be starting all over in the program. I have already learned so much I'm ready to jump right back in and see how much I've progressed. It should be GREAT!

Tuesday evening we had a Worldwide Missionary Devotional with Elder D. Todd Christofferson.  We had 9 languages with 8 of them in SLC and one tieline. I love getting to mingle with the Interpreters. Since the latest tightening of COVID restrictions we have been serving the meals. I think we will probably be able to stop doing that soon. It has been fun. The devotional was really good. Aaron was the Supervisor over the Devotional. We took him home with us because he had to get up early for the Roots Tech event in the morning.

Wednesday morning started with the 3rd session of Roots Tech (the first 2 sessions were the previous week dubbing into English.) The Linfords were supporting that group. This is one of the sessions we planned for more people than we actually had. It worked out because for breakfast they just went to the cafeteria and got what they wanted. They gave their name to a particular cashier and all was good. We didn't pay for more meals than we needed. They were supposed to end at 1, but not only did we have trouble with who the interpreters were; but, the interpreters had trouble with the recordings. There were lots of retakes and they went over about 1 1/2 hours. SOOOO Aaron, the Supervisor, quickly chatted Elder Wilcox and me to see if there was something we could do to provide lunch. So we pulled out the menu and I created a spreadsheet with all the people we THOUGHT were there so they could pick what meal they wanted. They had a break coming up so they selected it then. That was when we found out nearly half of the original list were now tieline and not SLC people. So we added all the food requests into the spreadsheet, removed all the extra people, added the engineers and supervisor, added the PRJ (billing) number and event title to the spreadsheet and printed 6 copies. Each of us 4 missionaries took a copy and the other two were given to the 2 cashiers that we needed to use. We went down and picked up all the meals and took them back upstairs so they could each lunch. They finally finished about 2:30.

We had our Team meeting at 2:00. It went over and I had to leave at 3:00 to attend my PLUNET meeting. I'm making SLOW progress on getting things fixed but at least they are getting addressed. About an hour after that meeting it was time to get set up for our Roots Tech evening event. We had about 32 Interpreters for dinner that night and it took all four of us to serve and clean up again. Apparently they learned a lot from the morning experience because the evening people only went over 1/2 an hour.  We sent the Linfords home early because they were there early that morning. I think we left around 10 that night. We took Aaron home with us again as he had to be back for the morning session of Roots Tech.

Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday. We did the sessions 5 and 6 which were the second two videos. This time Elder Wilcox and I covered the morning because the Linfords were giving our Thursday morning Zone Devotional. We were able to watch from the office. The Interpreters were doing mic checks during that time. Then everyone had breakfast. I would love to tell you all about the Roots Tech videos, but we didn't get to see anything. So I guess you (and I) will have to sign up and watch it for ourselves. We only had 2 Italian interpreters with us in SLC that morning. Everyone else was tieline. They did go over just a bit so we provided lunch again but Elder Wilcox and I handled it all. Elder Linford was busy trying to get all the people straight in PLUNET so we could approve the jobs so they could create invoices. I won't say anything other than it was a bit of a mess!

That evening we did the last Roots Tech session for this "main event".  We had the most people of all in SLC that night with over 40. We even ran out of some of the food, but that was because Elder Wilcox and Elder Linford were scooping REALLY BIG servings. lol Luckily there was plenty of other food so no one went hungry. It was our turn to go home early so we left shortly after cleaning up everything. I helped Elder Linford with the PLUNET from the night before and then we left.

Friday started the NEXT major event for Roots Tech. This one should be much easier than the last one. It is entitled Family Discovery Day featuring Elder Soares and Family. The Soares family was in Brazil walking around and reminiscing about living their. It was recorded in Portuguese. So, on Friday, we had a delightful husband and wife couple on our Portuguese team dub it into English. Next week the same 13 languages will interpret from English back into their native languages. Some of the things that were learned from the last event. Aaron is NOT going to let the language teams dictate who is going to do the recordings. He is going to tell them who is doing what. That should eliminate the massive changes in people. There were other things they learned so hopefully we won't go over like we did last week either. And thankfully it is only 1 day. We will do 2 session on the 16th and that is all. We ACTUALLY went home at 3:30 on Friday!!!!

We also started a new event on Friday, called "Feb 2022 Caribbean Area Meetings" which the Linfords took care of. Friday afternoon was the Member Devotional. EARLY Saturday morning we did the Missionary Devotional that started at 5:00 AM for us so we could set up. The interpreters arrived at 5:30 for breakfast. That was a very fun devotional. Most of it was in Spanish, although we interpreted it into French and Haitian (also in Dutch on Friday night). That ended at 8:30 AM. It was so fun to hear our interpreters interpret into English. We normally don't get to hear them do that. I love being able to say, "that's Nikolaj" or "that's Maritza".  

At 8:00 AM the people for the next event showed up for Breakfast. This was the Utah Pleasant Grove (South) PLC/CLC. PLC stands for Priesthood Leadership Council and CLC stands for Combined Leadership Council. Elder Wilcox and I covered Saturday, since the Linfords covered the Friday events. Have I mentioned how much we love and appreciate the Linfords? The only problem with our Utah Pleasant Grove event was for some reason they were unable to broadcast it to our screen. I guess that makes it easier to concentrate on the work I was doing for HawkSoft, lol.  It also made it easier for Eunlan, our Supervisor for both events that day, to say, "Sister Wilcox, can you help me with this?" or "Sister Wilcox, will you make this RUSH Plunet order for me?" I LOVE Eunlan...especially they way she pronounces my name! She always makes it into a question. lol  We invited the Beechs to come for a tour so they showed up around noon on Saturday. The timing worked out well and we could show them around so they could see what we do. They really enjoyed that.

That about wraps up our week. It looks like next week is a little lighter. Wednesday and Thursday only...at least that is all we have right now.  hahahaha

I hope you have a Wonderful Valentine's Day. Enjoy your LOVED ones. Oh, I almost forgot some VERY IMPORTANT news. Our grandson, Montana just got engaged to a delightful young woman, Lauren, whom we love very much. We couldn't be happier!

Love to you all💖

Mom and Dad,

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Global Training, Screening, the Beechs, and Trains

This has been a fairly busy week. We started the week with another Zoom Family Home Evening. Sister Bartell was in charge and led a wonderful discussion on the National Geographic documentary entitled "The Rescue". It is about the 12 young boys from Thailand and their soccer coach being caught in a cave for over 12 days. They went in for a day hike one day in the spring before the normal rains came that would fill the caves with water. Apparently the rains came early and furiously and before they could turn around and get out they found themselves trapped. The documentary was about the monumental efforts of people around the world to help recue the boys. Our discussion centered around the many ways the Hand of the Lord was shown in the rescue of those boys. So many received promptings and impressions that led to their recovery. Many of the things they were inspired to do had never been done before. Some were against every rule of safety and they did their best to choose some other way; but finally realized it was their only choice. They risked their own lives to save these boys. On top of that they found 4 other men who were trapped that no one even knew were missing. They saved them too, and learned valuable things in that shorter rescue that probably saved lives when they finally found the boys. The biggest miracle from God was everyone one of the boys and their coach were all rescued. One of the rescuers lost his life and they almost stopped any further rescue attempts after that, but thankfully those who were doing the diving knew they couldn't quit. It is an amazing story.

On Tuesday morning we did our first Global Area Training meeting for Europe, Africa, Central, and South America. Wednesday evening we did the second meeting with those in the Asia Pacific. There were four of us who did a presentation and everyone did a great job. After our Tuesday presentation we decided to put all the separate PowerPoint presentations into a single presentation and then just pass control to the speaker. That went much smoother on Wednesday. I had several responsibilities for these meetings. I created the Agenda, got the prayers from four different countries, created one of the PowerPoint presentations, and later putting all the presentations into one presentation, recording the meetings, and finally making sure the videos and the presentation were uploaded to our knowledge base called Wisdom. Prior to the meeting I had spent a couple of months putting together the information to send to the Area Language Coordinators which consisted of a spreadsheet of the individual language team and their status in our various systems, instructions on how to onboard those there were inactive or missing from Plunet, instructions on how to create and send invoices, the Candidate Information form, and finally the Election for volunteered language service form. I also worked on an automated process to be able to send these out to all the area coordinators with all the necessary attachments. I sent those out on Saturday evening. The most fun part about both Global Training Meetings was getting to talk to so many people around the world before the meeting started. I started both meetings about 15 minutes before the start time so it was very fun to visit and get to know people who, to that point, I only knew their names, and now I have faces and actually talked to them. It was very fun.

On Wednesday we had a wonderful potluck luncheon for Baptiste since he is moving to the Translation team next week. We are going to miss him so much. As we were visiting and eating, we all realized it is probably the first time our entire team has been together since before COVID. I don't think we had everyone there when we first arrived. It was so nice to have everyone there. The picture with no masks was our complete team, We took another one with Joelma added and for some crazy reason, Aaron decided to put his mask back on. He actually spent the night at our apartment that night because we had an event that night and he had another one first thing the next morning. Needless to say I chastised him about his mask. He said he was messing around and thought he took it off before the last picture. hahaha

On Thursday we held a Screening event for interviewing prospective interpreters to bring onboard. With General Conference in just a couple of months we are always trying to grow our teams...especially the more obscure languages like Hiligaynon. It went very well and everyone that came, except one, was selected to complete the onboarding process. We had 4 young men that we chose for our Lingala team last November. They are already in the process of being onboarded. We invited them back to be screened for French and each one passed with flying colors. So we will increase two teams by 4. We do French a lot more than some of the other languages, so it was a good thing they are already in the system to be onboarded.

On Friday we intended to leave a little early to help the Beechs move in. They are new missionaries from our very own Oregon City Stake and we are so happy to have them here, and they are in our building. Not only are they in our building, but they are our next door neighbors. We made a welcome sign for their door and intended to meet them in the afternoon, but of course one thing led to another and we didn't leave until 5:30. We did stop by to welcome them and invited them to our apartment for a little while so we could visit. I am hoping they will join our FHE group as well. They will be doing training next week and will find out where they are assigned on Friday. We are so happy to have them here.

Part of the reason we didn't leave as early as we wanted was because of a couple of meetings I had in the morning and afternoon. I spent the morning helping Sister Petty, who handles all the new and renewal onboarding requests. Through all the preparation for the Global Area Training, Sara and I were tasked to simplify the paperwork to onboard new people. They also wanted it to be consistent with all the different departments that do onboarding, Translations, Sacred Materials, and Interpretations. Sara did a tremendous amount of work, and because she has been involved in the special Sacred Materials project, she had an inside scoop on how they were doing things. We evaluated all the different information gathering forms and made decisions on what forms to use for everyone. These turned out to be different than what Sister Petty had been using, so I spent Friday morning creating email templates for her to use that already have the wording and the attachments for her. All she has to do is key in the email address and click send. It will be far easier for her in the future.

After lunch I had two other meetings. One with our Turkish team lead and one with our Plunet expert who just got hired last month. We talked for quite a while going over the issue we have with invoicing for our interpreters, and all the changes the Linfords and I have to make every single time we add interpreters to Plunet orders. The prices should come in with the correct amount, but they don't so we have to change the prices every time. Caleb agreed that both my concerns are valid and he thinks he can help get them fixed. I hope we can see some progress BEFORE General Conference gets going in full swing.

On Saturday we did something we will probably never do again.  Hahahaha February is FREE transportation month and all the public transportation systems are free. So Elder Wilcox decided we should ride the commuter train from one end of the line to the other. We walked about a mile to get to the train station and just barely made the next run. We rode all the way to Provo and then all the way to Ogden and finally back to Salt Lake where we got off and walked a mile back home. It took us almost 6 hours to do every thing counting the walks and the 1/2 layover in Provo. It was fun and I'm glad we did it. But we both realized there is a reason we don't particularly care for public transportation. Some of you understand! There was free Wifi so I took my laptop and was able to still work on the things I normally work on for my Saturdays, including connecting to HawkSoft and doing some download certifications. Hahaha

Sunday we had our monthly Break the Fast. It is always fun, especially as we are getting to know more and more people who live in our building. For most of them our only interaction is with Break the Fast to it takes a while to get to know everyone. We love it and are enjoying our mission so much.

Through the "Lead Like the Savior" course we are taking I am learning so many things about myself and what I need to do to be more like my Savior. One thing I learned this week was how much my Patriarchal Blessing is about my whole life. There have always been some things that I just kind of wondered about what they really meant. As the years have gone by, I have seen more and more the fulfillment of the blessings and warnings in my blessing. This past week it was like everything was finally put into perspective. I saw why things in my past had to be, even though I could never understand why they had to be that way when I was living it. I especially learned why there was a particular warning in my blessing. When I was younger, I used to think the warning was in there about 40 different times. It seemed like every paragraph I would get the same warning. Needless to say it is only mentioned about three times. Anyway, I have always taken that warning very seriously and strived diligently to heed it in my life. Because of this past week I finally know why it is there and why I needed to think that it is in my blessing 40 times. I needed to take it seriously or I could have easily succumbed to the very thing I was being warned against. I still need to heed the warning and guard against it, but now I know why. 

I am so grateful for the blessing of my Patriarchal Blessing in my life. It truly is my own personal revelation and my guide throughout my life. I have read and studied it often and it has directed me throughout my life. And now, looking back, I can see the Hand of the Lord in ALL of my life and how He is guiding me back to HIM. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my Savior and all He has done for me and all of God's children. I want to be like Him and I try everyday to do what He would have me do.

Love Always,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Elder Renlund, PowerPoint,  and a Crazy Saturday

This is Baptiste's Cubicle

This week was pretty slow as far as events go.  We input quite a few for the rest of the month so we were busy.  We have a very large event that will cover three days for Roots Tech.  The biggest problem we had was it is still in flux.  Oh,  and the Supervisor in charge was on a cruise ship all week so he could only work on it when he had internet connections.  I wanted to wait until he got back before we created the PLUNET order, but he kept asking for updates on our progress with PLUNET.  After several major changes to the project I had Elder Linford delete the PLUNET order and start over.  Our supervisor is back on Monday so things should be easier.  

These are boxes Elder Wilcox
decorated for Baptiste so he could
pack up his stuff on Friday.

On Monday, after my eye doctor appointment we went home to finish working.  We received an email from our department manager telling us he has made some changes between branches within our department.  Interpretations is one and translations is another and so forth.  The manager decided to swap a supervisor from each of those two branches. I was really shocked to read our beloved Baptiste is moving to translations on February 7th.  We will get a new supervisor named Joelma. I immediately chatted Baptiste and cried.  He did too. We will all miss him so much.  My good friend, Sara, will be taking over much of what Baptiste was over so I will be working more closely with her now.  All week Baptiste has been the main topic of discussion everyday. We are ALL going to miss him so much.

I spent most of the week preparing for our Global Area Training meetings that will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I have to create the agenda,  get the prayers from 4 different countries,  and give a PowerPoint presentation on PLUNET.  I think I'm almost done.  Wish me luck. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with meetings,  more preparation,  and helping others. On Tuesdays, we are taking a Leadership Pattern class called "Lead Like the Savior."
It is so powerful. After only two weeks of the 11 week course it has changed my life. I eagerly look forward to each week's studies. Our Zone has been given permission to teach the classes to our missionaries. Our Zone leader asked me if we wanted to turn our FHE group into a class for the next couple of months. I took a poll from our group and the majority says YES. Little did I know that he also wants me to teach the class. I'm actually very excited about it because our group is so good at discussions and I know "teaching" this class will be easy. Besides I'll have just gone through the material a few weeks before. haha  

Throughout the week we had many new events come in.  At the beginning of the week a Stake  Conference for Portland Oregon came in so we claimed the event.  It was scheduled for Saturday Morning.  By Wednesday two more Stake Conferences were added to Saturday.  Then on Thursday we got another one that also included a Friday evening event.  So we spent Thursday and Friday coordinating 2 meals and snacks for everyone.  All events were for Spanish so Sara was going a little crazy getting interpreters to cover everything since each event had at least two sessions with two having three. Many sessions overlapped others so we needed different Interpreters.  Sara created an awesome spreadsheet to help us keep everything straight. One of the events (2 sessions) also had Portuguese. The Linfords covered Friday night and we covered all day Saturday. 

In the spreadsheet shown in the picture, Friday is the cream colored line at the top. Everything from the blue line near the top clear down to the line before the Purple line was our Saturday.  The spreadsheet below the first one is the one Sara did just for Saturday. It includes all the people for each of the 4 events for both Friday and Saturday. Eunlan is pointing to that chart. I added some color coding for the meals so we knew who was getting dinner (easy, one event on Friday7 night), who was getting breakfast (also easy, two events that started the same time), who was getting lunch (a lot trickier because we had three different events at staggered times), and lastly, who was getting snacks (mostly easy because we brought out snacks between each session for everyone, plus they came in and got leftovers from lunch for the afternoon snacks.)

Friday was AWESOME.  We had a very special Mission Devotional with Elder Renlund and two other Elders and all their wives. For two hours we were spiritually fed by an Apostle of the Lord and His fellow servants.  All the talks were great. They also had a Question and Answer time that was very interesting. Elder Renlund shared personal experiences that touched me deeply.  I wish I could share my thoughts and feelings with you,  but there are no words to express it. 

With that I will close.  I really cannot say more. 

All our Love and Prayers, 

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee 

Elder and Sister Wilcox ❤ 

Changes, Changes, and More Changes

It feels like every event we have had lately has some sort of change. It makes it kind of hard to make plans and then have to change them at the last minute. This is especially true when ordering our meals. We had at least two events this past week where we placed our order for X amount of meals and found out (sometimes the same day) that one of the languages in country can't do it because they are not allowed to gather due to COVID and can we cover it? So, not only are we scrambling to get Interpreters, but we have to ask the cafeteria to add more meals and we have to pay those interpreters at a RUSH rate. What I learned from working in the Temple is that this is the Lord's work and EVERYTHING always works out. It is the same here!

Monday was Martin Luther King day and the office building was closed. We actually stayed home and worked on a number of different things. I had another eye doctor appointment and I'm happy to report that my eyes are reacting well to the new prescription and actually doing much better now. We had our first Virtual FHE on Zoom. It turned out OK, but we didn't have very many attend. I think it was because I forgot to send out a reminder. We still had a good discussion with those who attended.  We'll see what happens this coming week.

Tuesday was busy with work but no events so we were all able to go home by 5.  I had been working on the last piece of my big project. I was trying to automate sending out emails with unique attachments to each area language coordinator. There is an app called Power Automate that comes with the new Office 365. I found a YouTube to show me exactly what I needed to do. The last piece was an add-on that I needed in Excel. To get the add-on I needed Admin authorization to download it. It was after hours so I knew I could get it that night.

I went in early Wednesday so I could tackle getting permission. After at least an hour of very frustrating and unproductive results, I was finally given a name of someone who could help me. At that time we had a BIG division virtual meeting so I knew I wouldn't get any help until after the meeting. No sooner had we signed in when the power went out all over downtown Salt Lake.  Apparently a transformer blew out. We had a Tieline event going on the 27th floor so I ran downstairs to see if they had crashed. The Church has put beaucoup (bookoo) bucks into our engineering systems. They were running on a backup system and never even saw a glitch. Power was out everywhere else on the floor, but engineering was running fine and all the "in country" languages were working smoothly. Baptiste then mentioned that we could still watch our meeting on our phones so upstairs I went to let everyone know. We used phones and tablets and it all worked out fine. It was a wonderful meeting that talked out future direction for the division and some cool new technology that is in the works for translations.

I had two more meetings throughout the day but the others were VERY short. I managed to get in touch with the guy that could help and he showed me a way I could use Power Automate without the Excel app. It took us about an hour to get it working but I'm so excited now. They only problem I have now is auto emails like that will not allow you to email outside the organization. MOST of the area people are Church employees so that is good; however, there are a handful that are not. So now they are working on getting me "white listed" to allow me to send mass emails outside the organization.  "Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty-bitty [work] space."

That evening we had a wonderful event with President and Sister Nelson and Elder and Sister Bednar. It was President Nelson's European tour. This was one of the events we had a last minute language addition to our SLC group. We ended up with about 30 for dinner that night. It was awesome hearing talks from all four leaders.

Thursday was a unique day. We held an all day off-site meeting at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on the 10th floor. It was kind of funny leading up to the meeting that there was no way we were going to have enough to talk about for 7 hours. Well, we were so wrong. We did end a little early, but that was because everyone was zoning out so Daniel said we should go home. We actually cut out several topics on the agenda so it could have gone another hour or more. Several of us had presentations to give on different topics. I shared all about PLUNET and how it affects everyone and why it is important to have everyone that does interpretations active in PLUNET. There were several other presentations given. We spent a lot of time working on our Global Interpretations Vision and Emphasis statement. The last part of our meeting was working on the agenda for our Global Area Training meetings we are having the first couple of days in February. One meeting will be with the Asia Pacific teams and the other will be with the European teams. Those of us who presented in our off-site meeting will also be presenting in the Global Are Training meetings. Obviously these will be done remotely.

On Friday we had two more events; one in the morning and one in the evening. We took the morning event. We realized the night before after we got home from the off-site meeting that we didn't order breakfast for our event...so we quickly put something together and placed an online order for breakfast with Denny's. So Friday morning Steve dropped me off at the COB so I could get things set up and he went to pick up breakfast. Then I met him in the parking garage to pick up the food so he could take our car home since we are not allowed to park in the parking garage during the week until after 3:00. So I took 16 meals to the cafeteria to set up breakfast. People showed up and meals disappeared. I began to notice there weren't going to be enough meals for everyone. Then I realized we only ordered 16 meals for our Interpreters. We forgot to order meals for the Supervisor, Engineer and the missionaries (us). The Supervisor took a meal which meant we were short one for one of the Interpreters. Well, we had saved a lasagna dinner with salad and dessert from Wednesday night for Jeanpierre, but we forgot to give it to him at the off-site. I had just texted him about how sorry I was for not remembering and he told me it was OK and to give it to someone else. So, I told our interpreter that we messed up on the order and that I had a lasagna dinner and would she like it. She said she had already eaten breakfast and would love the lasagna dinner so everything all worked out in the end. Later that evening, the Linfords did the other event. I love having the Linfords with us.

Saturday morning we had another event and the Linfords took that one as well because we had done the last two Saturdays in a row. Besides we were going to do a Sunday event. So on Saturday I updated the SharePoint site, took care of a few PLUNET issues and then got ready to start on a Leadership Journey class that we are taking. Elder Wilcox was still finishing up with his emails, or meal orders, so I decided to look for some Temple appointments. I scheduled some Initiatory for Feb 16 in the late afternoon and started looking for baptisms. I tried three different Temples and couldn't get in for 4 months. I tried one last Temple in hopes there were some cancelations. Ogden is a little far so we don't go there very often. Anyway as soon as I said Baptisms two appointments were available for the SAME DAY!!! So we did some Baptisms on Saturday afternoon. It was AWESOME!

Sunday we went to the COB for our event at 9:15 call time. Our three interpreters arrived and so did Curtis, our supervisor. We were only doing snacks that morning. (A BLESSING IN DISGUISE!) Pretty soon Curtis got a little excited and said the event wasn't supposed to start until 6:00 PM. He double checked just to be sure. Apparently it was setup with the wrong time in our programs. Curtis checked with the Supervisor software and with the Producer and confirmed that it was indeed 6:00 PM. So we asked which interpreters could come back. Only 1 of the three could. We paid them a minimum 2 hours for coming anyway. We called Sara and got two more interpreters and I set it all up again, this time for a RUSH job. The Supervisor said we were to do dinner, too. (Hence the blessing we didn't buy breakfast.)  So we got their orders for McDonalds and picked that up on our way back to the COB after Church. 

Like I said.  LOTS of changes all week.

Have a great week and stay safe and warm.

All our love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 CIVID Strikes Again

With COVID cases increasing and mandates back in place our job is busier than ever. Much of the travel for the brethren has been put on hold so  Zoom meetings have increased again. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that "...no unhallowed hand [or COVID virus] can stop the work from progressing; ... but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." ~ Joseph Smith  

Monday we had a good day. We started it with our annual visit to the doctor. Our doctor is pleased with the health of both of us. She basically said to keep up the good work. Of course she encouraged us to both loose some weight, but other than that all is good. We went back to work  and were busy adding and updating lots of events that were upcoming. One major problem we are having is getting valid PRJ (project) numbers for our events. They must be valid before we can pay our Interpreters or order our food.  I am still waiting on two mission PRJs from two events in December. NOT GOOD. Apparently there is a new system to generate the PRJs and there are some problems. Some have squeaked in at the very last minute. We are hoping this get taken care of very, very soon.

We had a special Mission Devotional on Monday evening. Keith Erekson has written several books including one about Rumors and Truth. He is a Director for the Church History Department. He shared several fun examples of things that have been believed to be true, but when researched they were found to just be rumors. He is a really good speaker and was entertaining as well has inspirational. We enjoyed it vey much.

Tuesday brought more of the same during the day and the Worldwide Missionary Devotional with Elder Soares in the evening. We had 8 languages here and 1 remote. It was fun to be with everyone again after several weeks of virtually no events. We did do things a bit different this time. Because of the COVID restrictions, we were asked to serve the meal rather than let them serve themselves. It was kind of fun. We had about 30 people to feed. I'm not sure how long we will need to do this, but I guess we can live with it.

Wednesday was a day of meetings. We started with a Division meeting. It was supposed to be in person, but was moved to online. It was pretty informative and it is nice to get the perspective of some of the other departments within PSD, which is our global umbrellas. Later in the day we had our team meeting. Sara and I gave a presentation about our project to help all the area language coordinators, as well as our Salt lake teams, help get those who are not active in PLUNET changed to active! The presentation went so well, that we were asked to make it part of the global training to the Areas we are going to be involved in at the end of the month or the beginning of February. Daniel (our manager) also asked me to prepare a short training  for the Areas on how to use PLUNET with their jobs. After our Team meeting, I had the PLUNET Governance meeting. That one is very SLOW moving. Most of the meeting is spent talking about the Translation team and doesn't pertain to Interpretations very much, but I am trying to get a few things pushed through. One thing that did come out of the meeting is another meeting for early next week to work on our invoicing problem. My fingers are crossed!

Now that the Linford's are pretty much up to speed we are splitting events to it is not so hard on any of us when things get so busy. It makes it nice. So on Wednesday night the Linfords did their first big solo event. They finished up the last session of the S&I Training with Elder Ballard. They did a very small event the Saturday before, but Wednesday was a little bigger. They had to get the food from the cafeteria and serve it to the Interpreters as well as all the other things we do. They said it went well.

Thursday was Elder Linford's birthday. It was pretty low key but we still tried to make it fun for him. We continued to enter or populate new events. We got word that we needed to move our FHE group to virtual for the next couple of weeks due to the COVID restrictions. We also were told that our special meeting with Elder Renlund has been moved from in person to virtual. It is disappointing but it will still be nice to have our own meeting with an Apostle of the Lord.  We were able to leave around 3:30 so the we and the Linfords could go to the Bountiful Temple for Elder Linford's birthday. We went out for ice cream cones after. 

Friday was a little crazy.  Baptiste was in charge of three events that were all taking place around the same time. He was over the Music and the Spoken Word at 9 AM. Not only was he in charge of it, but he was also the Interpreter for French.  This is one that is done at the Conference Center and we don't usually get to go; but, Baptiste invited the Linfords to come and watch since they haven't seen the process before. They enjoyed it very much. At the same time he was also in charge of a Mission Training Meeting that we were at. Since he couldn't be in both places at the same time he had Aaron cover for him so we got to work with Aaron. It was also a very good meeting. After both of those Baptiste went to his third assignment. He got to Interpret for President Eyring in issuing a new calling to a couple in France. It was very special for him.

Baptiste always working

Saturday the Linfords went to be with a son and his family so they could be there for the ordination of their grandson to the office of a Priest. They will be back on Monday. That left us the opportunity to be involved in two different area conferences in Utah. Both were supervised by Baptiste. Poor guy had so much to do in the last few days. It was nice to be with him as we always enjoy events with Baptiste. The first one was for Ogden and the second was in Orem.  Elder Rasband shared several off script stories and bore a very powerful testimony. We are so blessed to be here and have the opportunity to hear these special stories from time to time.

This past week we have been studying the Fall of Adam and Eve. I am so grateful for the additional information we receive from additional scripture to help add to our understanding of that story in Genesis. For example, in Genesis we think Eve made  mistake to partake of the forbidden fruit; however, from additional scripture we know that it wasn't a mistake but it was part of Heavenly Father's plan. If she would not have partaken of the fruit and if Adam would not have followed her lead, they would have remained in the Garden of Eden forever and we would never have been born. So, I for one, am so grateful for Eve's choice to partake of that fruit to make her wise and distinguish good from evil. She knew she would have to leave the Garden of Eden, but she could now fulfill the higher law to multiply and replenish the earth. Eve is truly the Mother of All Living!

We hope you will have a GREAT week. Stay safe and well. Take time to tell those you love what they mean to you. Put your trust in the Lord and He will direct your paths. May you find Peace in Christ!

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Back to "Normal"

Well, the Holidays are over and the slow weeks are a thing of the past. We jumped right in with both feet this week. 

On Monday we had a fairly relaxing day. It was the scheduled Holiday for the

Church so the offices were closed. Of course that didn't mean we didn't do any work. We took care of a few things on the computer in the morning. We had a few changes for the upcoming events for the week so we wanted to make sure we had everything set up right. We had one language that was supposed to be in country, but, last minute got changed to SLC. That meant we had to increase our meals. It wasn't too bad because the event was first thing Tuesday morning and we just give the cafeteria the names of the people coming and they just go through the cafeteria and get that they want so adding names wasn't a big deal. Later that afternoon I had an eye doctor appointment. I've been having some problems with blurriness, so we are working on finding the treatment that will work. Part of the problem is the very dry climate here. It seems to aggravate my very dry eyes.  After running a few errands we got ready for our weekly Family Home Evening. We were few that night, but we had a lot of fun.

On Tuesday we had four events. Three of them involved us and one was ASL in the Conference Center. The two took place in the morning and one in the evening. The Linfords took care of the morning events. And we took the evening event. That morning we did several languages all of which were overseas in the first session of the 2022 S&I Annual Training Broadcast with President Ballard. We only had the engineer and the supervisor so there was not much for us to do. We did put them on the list so they could eat. The other event that morning was the January 2022 S&I Area Director Council Meeting. It was for Spanish only. 

Later that day we had the second session of the meeting with President Ballard. We had four languages, including Spanish again. It was fun to be at an event again. When the event was over we were talking to Aaron, the supervisor. He was the supervisor that morning for the overseas languages. He lives over an hour away so he was planning on sleeping in the COB. We told him that we had a spare bedroom with a nice bed that he was welcome to use. After he thought about it for a minute he decided to take us up on the offer. We walked to our apartment, which I think is actually closer then if he would have walked to his car in the conference center parking lot.  hahaha. Once we got him settled and then visited for a while, we read our Come Follow Me together. We had a nice discussion before we all went to bed.  

Wednesday morning he headed back to the COB for the 3rd session of the Ballard event with several more languages overseas. We only had two events that day. The morning Ballard event and the Evening Ballard event. Since we had four languages we decided all four of us missionaries would do this event. As it turned out that was a good thing. We were there to help with the food, especially boxing everything up after we ate. Elder Wilcox and I had to leave early that evening as Elder Wilcox was asked to give a blessing to one of our neighbors who was scheduled for surgery the next day. We were glad we could do both the event and the blessing. We love the Linfords!!! I also had several meetings that day. One I hope will prove beneficial as I am trying to get some things done so I can do a mass update to one of the databases. I have one of the leaders of the group looking into an API solution for me. Please keep your fingers crossed. An API allows one program or source talk to another one and that is how I can do a mass update.

On Thursday we didn't think we had any events. Oh, there were two on the schedule, but one was a language coaching and the other was the monthly GA Wives meeting. 
I thought something was wrong with the GA Wives meeting when I entered it into the computer. Normally it says GA Wives Luncheon. We supply Interpreters for Spanish and French and they always go to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for the event and they eat there so we don't do anything. Well, about 9:45 a brand new engineer came in looking for Curtis, who was the supervisor for that event. We met the new engineer on Tuesday when he was in training at our other event. I think this may have been his first solo event. Anyway, I told him Curtis wasn't here but would probably be at the JSMB soon if he was not already there. Sam (the engineer) then told us that the Interpreters were interpreting in the booths and that the meeting was in the COB and not the JSMB. I went back and looked at the original setup and sure enough it said the COB. So I scrambled down to the 27th floor to get ready for the Interpreters. I also contacted Curtis to see if he knew they were going to be in the booths. He said he just found out and was waiting to see if any interpreters showed up downstairs. Long story short -- everything turned out great. The change in the title was on purpose. It was a meeting and not a luncheon.

It was the first time we got to see one of these events and it was great. They had two speakers who were professors from BYU and then Elder Nash spoke. The second speaker spoke about women and the Priesthood. She was very intelligent (has to be because she is a professor.) She said some things that triggered the "professor" mode in Curtis. He is the supervisor who loves anything Joseph Smith. He listened intently and he shared with us several quotes and stories that Joseph said that related to the Priesthood. It was all very fascinating. When the event was over we went to lunch and Curtis joined us and shared even more information. There is no stopping him once he gets started. We loved it!

That evening we and the Linfords went to the Bountiful Temple. It was a very nice session. We stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home for some ice cream. Very fun.

Friday was low key. We didn't have any events; however, we did get several new events to put in the system. January if filling up fast. It is nice to share the load with the Linfords so no one has to put in 12 and 15 hour days anymore. We all went home a little early.  

On Saturday we had three (well technically five) more events. One event (2 sessions) started at 7  and 8:30 AM. The next event (2 sessions) started at 9 and 10:30 AM. The last session for the second event started at 6 PM. Curtis had the first event and Aaron had the next one; however, since Aaron's morning events overlapped Curtis's event, he took it for Aaron so Aaron wouldn't have to be there all day long again. So we were with Curtis in the morning from 5:30 (we have to be there 1/2 hour before their call time which is 1 hour before the event starts) until after 1 PM. Curtis picked up where he left off on Thursday and proceeded to give us another wonderful lesson on the Priesthood. We have learned so much. The Linfords did the evening event.

After our event we went to Steve's brother, Roy and his wife Vicki's house. We had a wonderful visit with them for a couple of hours. We had planned on visiting over the holidays but between the bad weather, icy roads, and Steve hurting his knee, we just stayed home as much as we could. Saturday was perfect for a visit. The weather was beautiful and the company was great!

Next week is starting to look busy. We already have three events that we need to be involved in. The first is the Worldwide Missionary Devotional. I just love those.

Have a GREAT week!

Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad,

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2022 already. It seems like we just got here on our mission and yet, so much has happened.

On Sunday we had a wonderful day with Sean and MyLiege and the girls. They went to Church with us and it was so nice to introduce them to our friends. It was bitter cold outside and the wind was blowing. I told Elle that Jack Frost was nipping at my nose and she replied that "he is nipping at my ears!" The walk back to the apartment wasn't quite as bad, but still very cold. We had dinner and visited for a while. We were watching the weather report closely. Originally, they were going to leave on Monday, but the report said Monday would be a bad day to travel so they were thinking of leaving on Tuesday. We had arranged to borrow blankets and pillows again so they could stay with us. As it turned out, the bad weather day was actually Sunday, and Monday was the opportune day after all. They woke up at 3:30 AM and decided they needed to leave now. So they loaded the car and got the girls and left by 4:30. They called us to drop all their remaining food off. So, we met Sean and Anna in the lobby, got a box and bag of food, gave them one last hug and sent them on their way. We went back to bed. lol They managed to stay ahead of the bad weather and made it home by 5:30 PM that night to a blanket of snow at their house. I guess we all got a White AFTER Christmas.

MyLiege decided our apartment needed some help, so she purchased a few things to brighten this up. We also had a missionary couple going home so they left things they no longer wanted out for people to take. We picked up a nice area rug that matches our living room perfectly. I didn't think it mattered that much, but I was wrong. I absolutely love our apartment. It is so cozy and inviting. I can't wait for Family Home Evening this week to show everything off.

This week was the slowest week we have had since arriving here. There were only three events on the calendar and all three had nothing to do with us other then setting them up in the computer. So we went into the office late and sometimes left early. It was really good in one way because it gave all of us plenty of time to finish up a project I have been working on since before General Conference. I was on the final stage and unfortunately it required a lot of intensive labor from all four of us. I'm trying to identify all the Interpreters that are not in our PLUNET software so we can make sure

they get onboarded before April Conference. Unfortunately the majority of volunteers in the PLUNET system don't have their LDS Account name on their record and that is what I use to match them with the other software we use to make assignments. So, we selected all the blank account names and looked them up one by one by name to see if they were in the PLUNET software. If they were, we added the information we needed. If not, we left them blank. We divided the list into 4 and we each worked on it for several days. We finished on Friday. I selected the remaining blank ones and thought of another way to check if they existed in the PLUNET system. So I spent Friday and Saturday checking email addresses one by one for the remaining blanks and found quite a few more. The remaining blanks now are truly NOT in PLUNET so if they are to be used for Interpreting, they must be onboarded. We will be presenting our research in an Area Training Meeting later this month. Each area will receive instructions on what to do as well as a list of all their people and their status in PLUNET so they know which ones need to be added and which need to be reactivated. We are trying to avoid the headache we had last conference with people not active in PLUNET, and yet needed for General Conference.

We had another very cold and snowy week. It looks so beautiful and I love that we can look out our windows and see it, but don't have to be in it. Walking to and from the office hasn't been too bad. We bundle up and it is a fairly short walk. They do a good job of keeping the sidewalks clear so we aren't trudging through the snow.

We did manage to get to the Temple on Tuesday with the Linfords. We have another appointment scheduled for this coming Thursday. It has been so nice to be in the Temple more often. It is pushing me to work on Family History so I have names to take. The Linfords are a good influence on us. They served two Temple Missions before this one so they love going to the Temple a lot. They were used to being in the Temple everyday and try to go as often as they can get an appointment. We are happy with once a week and hope we will be able to continue that once things start getting busier.

Today we get to enjoy a delightful Break the Fast with all the Missionaries on our floor. We do it every month with a delicious Potluck dinner. It is so fun. We have several events this week and next week so things are getting back to normal. We also have an offsite training meeting coming up which we expect to be fun. We love it when our whole department gets together. Everyone is so great to work with and we all have a lot of fun together.

So, what are some of my New Year's Resolutions?

1. Go to the Temple as often as possible.
2. Spend more time in Gospel Study.
3. Look for more opportunities to help others and to serve the Lord.
4. Not get so frustrated with PLUNET because it doesn't work the way it should.

I hope you all strive to keep the Spirit of Christmas with you throughout the year. Of course that really means to keep the Spirit of Christ with you. As we strive to emulate Him and try to be like Jesus, we will naturally be kinder to others and more loving to those around us.

I wish you all a very Prosperous and Happy New Year! Let 2022 be AWESOME!!!

All our Love and Prayers,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandpa

Steve and Leslee

Elder and Sister Wilcox