Blessed, Honored Pioneer!

Things are beginning to pick up again. We had a lot of new events get entered into the system and a couple of them were RUSH events. Last Sunday evening we able to help with the Single Adult Conference Devotional. It was a live event that was interpreted into Spanish. I love working with our wonderful interpreters. We do a lot of Spanish so we are getting to know the regulars very well.

Then on Tuesday afternoon we got a RUSH order for a Setting Apart for an Area Authority Seventy who didn't speak English. It was to take place on Wednesday morning in Elder Renlund's office in the Church Administration Building. We didn't get to help other than getting the order in the system. I will get to see the Interpreter this coming Wednesday for another event and I can't wait to talk to him about his experience.

I got a new assignment this week. They asked me to maintain the Zone's SharePoint sight as the person doing it before went home on Thursday. I'm kind of excited to do as it will help me to get to know our fellow missionaries better. 

I also got to teach Relief Society/Priesthood today. We do our lessons via Zoom and Sacrament meeting in person. We are hoping to start doing our lessons in person soon. I love the lessons because we have such great discussions. The missionaries are all eager to share and have wonderful and pertinent stories. It is easy to lead the discussion with a few thoughtful questions. Our lessons was based on Elder Rasband's April 2021 Conference talk entitled "Behold!, I Am a God of Miracles." It seemed to go pretty well.

This weekend Utah celebrated Pioneer Day. Friday was a State Holiday and they had a big parade down State street which is right in front of the Church Office Building. We decided to watch the parade from the 28th floor where we could be cool and out of the sun and have a birds eye view. I took pictures from the 28th floor and they turned out pretty good from that high up. I am; however, posting some pictures from the Internet so you can get a closer look as some of the incredible floats.

The opening float was a steamboat. The smoke stacks went up and down. It was pretty cool.

One of the more cleaver floats was the "remodel" of the Salt Lake Temple. Here is the shot I took from the 28th floor.

This is a close up from Deseret News.

The Community Award was really good too. It had a spinning globe with flags where all the Temples are. It was titled from Nauvoo to Rome.

On Saturday we went with the Hansen's (our trainers) to visit one of our Interpreters who happens to be an artist. He has his own art studio in the basement of his house. He taught art school for his career and has won many awards and had a lot of his work published. His name is Leo Platero. He is a Native American from the Navajo tribe. He is one of our Navajo Interpreters. 

One of the things that amazed me the most was the different mediums he worked in. Most artists tend to favor one medium. Leo does it all. I suppose that comes from being an art teacher. He and his wife recently served a mission to South Africa so several of his paintings reflect the African influence. He also paints a lot about Native American culture. He did some cool geometrics and line drawings as well. Here are a few pictures of some of his work. 

July is coming to an end. The Hansen's last day is on Thursday. We are having a pot luck lunch for them on Tuesday after our department meeting. Then we will be completely on our own. I think we are in pretty good shape. We are praying for a new missionary couple to show up in the next month or so before General Conference. We have several major projects coming up that we will probably need the extra help with. General Conference is the biggest project. We also do World Report and apparently that is interpreted into about 30 different languages. We will do that the month before General Conference. And I am involved in an ongoing project will take about two years to finish.

We love our Mission and are so grateful to be serving in the Headquarters of the Church. We have already experienced many incredible things and I know there are many more to come.

Dad is really getting into his computer work. We have spent much of the last two weekends getting systems in place for him to do all his work.

 When We're Helping We're Happy!

And we sing as we go;                    
And we like to help others,

For we all love them so.

Many, many years ago I received my Patriarchal Blessing. I have read and studied it many times over the years as I have used it help guide my life. Several places in my blessing it talks about "an important mission", but never really tells me what that mission is. I have pondered that many times and tried to figure out what my mission in life is.

As I have served now for a little over 6 weeks I think I know what my "important mission" is. I am to give service in whatever way is needed. I had an epiphany last week that helped me realize this. Since we got here we have been extremely busy and consequently we have been extremely happy. We have loved every minute of our service.

July, things started to slow down and that was OK; because, we had plenty of learning to catch up on. Last week was the slowest we've had and according to our trainers it was the slowest they've had in the 1 1/2 years they've been here. We were pretty much caught up and trying to find some busy work to do. I started getting a little depressed and I didn't know why. I was still happy to be here and I still love my mission; but, something was missing. I prayed to know what was missing and why I was feeling the way I was feeling.

About that same time Steve (Dad, Grandpa, Elder Wilcox) started asking questions about ways to make his tasks easier for him to remember and easier to do. He has a lot more different things that he does than I do and having it all thrown at him at once was a bit overwhelming. So, we started looking at some of the tasks he does and seeing if there were ways to group some of the spreadsheets together. Low and behold I started getting happy again. 

For example he had about 3 to 5 different spreadsheets to track meals that we are responsible for providing for the interpreters before events. As we opened each one and realized that it pertained to the food in some way we added it to an existing spreadsheet we had that tracked the actual meals by date. We added the "rotating menus" as a separate sheet to the workbook. Then we added the outside restaurants that we sometimes use so we have all the places we get meals from in one place. I then asked Steve what he has to do to choose a meal from the catering services at the Church Office Building (COB) where we work. Our rotating menus were just the main course and he said he has to choose a salad and some side dishes and desserts and drinks from a list of offerings. SOOOOOO, I decided to see if I could add the options to the spreadsheet and make it so he could just choose the main dish from a drop down menu and then some of the available offerings would automatically show under the main dish. He could then choose which ones he wanted by putting a number of servings next to it. ALL zeros would then be eliminated and his complete menu would be available to copy and send to the catering service.

He used it for the first time last week for a meal we are having next week. It worked pretty slick.

Next we tackled his event and interpreter tracking. He needs to know who is coming in order to provide a list to the parking personnel so interpreters can get into the COB parking. That also gives him a head count for the meals.  The training had him tracking all these things in different spreadsheets so he was copying the same people multiple times and pasting them into a different spreadsheet for parking, meals, access badges, and reminder emails, etc. He also tracks the events in a master spreadsheet and then copies and pastes some of that information into several of those different spreadsheets. As we opened each spreadsheet and determined what it was used for we again realized we could consolidate the information into one master workbook. With several lookup functions he is now able to enter the event information in one place and have it populate in several other worksheets. He can also select his interpreters from a drop down list and have it bring in all the information he needs for parking, access badges, expired contracts, and much more. So with those two things we went from about 10 different spreadsheets down to 2.

Yesterday, I took it a step further and created an email merge so from that Master Spreadsheet he can now connect to a Word template that will automatically fill in event name, date, time, etc. and send out email reminders to the interpreters with all the information they need to know for the event, meal, and parking. He will get to try that out this week for our Wednesday event.

And finally, to finish my thoughts about my "important mission", I'll tie it back to this past week. We had the first leg of the Temple President Leadership Seminar on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening. Next month we will finish the seminar. I was really looking forward to listening to the talks in these sessions; however, I found myself spending a lot of time working with different interpreters and supervisors with different computer issues. Interpreters needed help with submitting invoices. Supervisors needed help with a program we use that is not particularly user friendly. I was very happy to help and found myself filled with joy. I heard a few talks, but the joy I felt from helping was even better.

So, I believe my "important mission" is to help wherever and whenever I can. That is what I was called here to do. And I will do the very best I can to help everyone I can in everyway I can and whenever I can. Because....

When We're Helping We're Happy!!!

 A Well Deserved Breather

This was the first week we have had no events. That doesn't happen very often. That doesn't mean we weren't busy. We found out this week that are trainers are going home the end of THIS month instead of the end of next month.  They said they were both prompted at the same time and were afraid to tell each other because they don't quit early on anything. They said they feel comfortable that we have a handle on everything and that the time has come for them to go home. As it turns out the people who were renting their home just bought a home and are moving out the end of the month so it was another sign for them that it is time to go home. It is a little scary, but I think we are both up to the task. The mission is actively recruiting to bring in another couple as soon as they can and it really does work best with two missionary couples. We will definitely need another couple before General Conference so please pray they will find one for us. Apparently this particular call has to go through a little different vetting process because of the sensitive work we do. Who knew?

We have a fairly busy week ahead. We will do the next training for Temple Presidents 3 nights this week and then finish up the process with 3 more nights next month. This particular training is interpreting pre-recorded messages. Because of some of the languages we are doing (10 in all) we will actually have 5 different session. Our German team in Germany is down a sister so a sister from Salt Lake City will fill in. Consequently we have an early morning session on Thursday to accommodate the time difference in Germany. For one sister we will have to include 2 engineers, 1 supervisor, 1 interpreter (of course) and 2 missionaries. And we will provide breakfast. Then later that same night we will have 15 interpreters for three languages, plus 2 engineers, 2 supervisors, and 2 (or maybe 4) missionaries. So that will be a long day for us. 

Tuesday we also have two different sessions only the single sister this time will come at 4 PM. She is also staying for the evening session so it is only 1 meal we are doing. I think that night we have anywhere from 4 to 7 interpreters for four different languages plus 2 engineers, 2 supervisors, and 4 missionaries.  Wednesday is just the one evening session but again we have four different languages and 6 to 8 interpreters per language. We have Japanese for Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday the team in Japan will do that which is why we drop down to only three languages. Of course this could all change before Tuesday night. Last minute changes are not unheard of. It can get a little crazy.

The rest of the month is pretty slow with only Language coaching events happening. They don't really involve us other than getting it in the computer and tracking it through invoicing. We are already starting to get events for August. We have the final Temple Presidents Seminary and a new area conference scheduled. We are getting geared up because we will be completely on our own for those.  Hopefully we will be able to start training someone soon.

Since things were slower this week we decided to take advantage of our time off and go visit Steve's brother Roy and his wife Vicky. About a year and a half ago Roy got very sick and almost lost his life. He is making a slow recovery and is still pretty much home bound. We visited them last summer when we went on our vacation. He has vastly improved since we last saw him. The doctors say it may take another six months before he is back to normal.  Here are a couple of pictures of our visit.

God Bless America

I've had the occasion to ponder on this wonderful country we live in. When I was younger I took for granted the freedoms we enjoy so much. As I have gotten older and opened my eyes to events around me I have come to realize what a blessing this gift truly is. 

We are currently reading a book called Seven Miracles that Saved America by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart. It is an incredible book that shows the hand of the Lord in this country for hundreds of years. There have been so many miracles that can only be explained by the hand of the Lord watching over America. I highly recommend this book to you.

Because of the holiday our week was very slow. Also, a lot of the Brethren take the month of July off so we won't have very many events this month. It has been nice to have a little breather. We were able to take off a little early one day and go to the movies to see Witnesses about the Three Witnesses. Excellent movie. The next day we worked later so our trainers could go see the movie too. We actually got a "long" weekend with no events on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday and we were able to take our PDay off today. We went with our trainers back to Ashton Gardens today. Such fun.

We did have three short events last week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening. Our trainers worked Tuesday so we could go to the movies. We worked Wednesday so they could go to the movies and we both worked Thursday. Most of the events we have scheduled for July thus far are for language coaching. Basically all we have to do is get them in the computer so they can get paid. We have an interpreter assigned as a language coach and they work with a third party professional language person to record things like the next Saints book in different languages or the three different magazines in various languages for the Gospel Library app. They do this in a professional studio so we don't have to do our normal things for events like provide a meal. I stay busy with the computer, but Steve gets a break on his end because he doesn't have to worry about a meal or parking passes, or access badges, or picture credentials. Things will pick up again in August.

So if anyone is interested in visiting us, July is a good month. lol

We have been adopted by the Lofts family (Katie Call Lofts) for the duration of our mission. Katie said since we can't gather with our family for holidays and such we can gather with theirs. We spent the Forth of July with them and the extended family that are in Utah. And we already have been invited to Thanksgiving! It was so fun to see Katie Sue, Helen, Brent, little Brent, Brian, Carrie, and Cassie, and of course all the spouses and kids. Plus there was some additional extended family on Brent's side. We felt right at home and enjoyed the crazy chaos that large families have when they all get together. 

Below are a few pictures from our Forth of July celebration. No fireworks because of the heat wave, but we had fun anyway. AND Brent and Helen did Dough Boys so that was a blast from the past.

Steve wanted to share his "Lucky Red Shirt for his Away Missions".

Glorious Meetings and More Meetings

We had  many marvelous meetings this past week, Last Monday I received a call from Security downstairs telling me I had a visitor here to see me. He gave me a name that sounded familiar; but since I wasn't expecting anyone I couldn't quite place the name. As I rode down the elevator to escort the person up to our floor I thought about the name. I finally remembered who it was. She had given her married name so it took a little while to place her. When I walked out of the elevator I was pleasantly surprised to see Jodi Bean Clark waiting to visit me. She made my day. As it turned out she just started working at the Church Office Building part time and that was her first day. We hope to have lunch together sometime in the future. I took her upstairs and gave her the grand tour. Steve was surprised to see her too. Such fun.

On Tuesday we had our weekly department meeting. At the end of the meeting, one of our missionaries informed everybody that I had a birthday the previous Friday so they all sang to me. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir they were NOT. lol. I was so surprised. Then we had a "floor" meeting for lunch for just our missionaries. Steve and I went down to the cafeteria to pick up lunch. On our way back upstairs to our surprise we met Elder Cook and Elder Gong. We got to ride up in the elevator with them and had a pleasant conversation. That same day we also saw Elder Soares from a short distance but did not have a conversation with him. We had a nice lunch but I was surprised we didn't talk anything about our work. Then, Sister Petty disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a pan of cupcakes and a bouquet of flowers. They all sang Happy Birthday to me again. I was so surprised.

On Wednesday as we got into the elevator in the morning a young man came up to us and said, "you're from Oregon aren't you?" He then proceeded to tell us he knew us and told us he is Craig and Linnell Mikkelsen's son. He works on the 25th floor and was just coming back to the office since Covid over a year ago. We had a pleasant visit with him on the ride up. Steve saw him again on Friday while he as changing elevators on the 25th floor. We have to take two different elevators to get to our floor. We take the express to the 25th floor and then go down a different hall to get to another elevator that just goes from the 25th floor to the 28th floor.

Thursday started our "normal" meetings. I was very excited to participate in the Mission Leadership Seminar where new Mission Presidents get trained. It was a massive Zoom meeting that we provided in 8 different languages. A couple languages were done in country but on Saturday we had all eight in Salt Lake City. Our meetings went from early morning until the end of the day on Thursday, Friday, and almost all of Saturday. We got to hear a few of the talks; but we were quite busy through most of the seminar. We provided two meals a day for up to 56 people. We also provided a wide variety of snacks for three breaks each day. It was a lot of setup and clean up and boxing up left over food so the interpreters could take it home with them.

Each day a different member of the First Presidency spoke. Their talks were powerful and sometimes I felt very personal to me. The Spirit was strong and I heard the messages Heavenly Father had just for me. For example President Nelson spoke on Thursday morning about the Prophet Joseph Smith. He shared many facts I did not know and instilled in me an even greater love for the Prophet of the Restoration. President Oaks spoke on Friday morning. I didn't get to hear all of his talk as I was very busy, but what I heard I enjoyed very much. On Saturday morning President Eyring gave the opening talk. He shared how the Mission Presidents were called, but it is not just Mission Presidents it is ALL missionaries. During his talk I again received an overwhelming confirmation from the Spirit that we are where we are supposed to be and we are here at this exact time because we have a work to do. We are not just another body filling a spot, but we are here for a reason that is unique to us.

We also heard from Apostles and other members of the Missionary Executive Council. Elder Holland's message particularly touched me. I needed to hear what he had to say. But then again, I could say that about every single talk I heard. Like I said, I didn't hear a lot of them, but the ones I was able to here were so powerful.

Thursday after we finished lunch, Steve had to run over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We get there through the underground parking. While he was walking he saw Elder Bednar going to his car. With all the construction going on, the General Authorities parking has been moved to just outside the Church Office Building, which is why we have been able to see so many General Authorities lately.

We finished up around 2:30 on Saturday after Elder Uchtdorf's closing remarks. We cleaned all the interpretation booths that were used, restocked water, pencils, paper, and anything else that may be needed in the booths. And since it was the weekend we also had to empty all the trash. We left about 3:00.

One the things that amazes me the most is the incredible work our interpreters do. All of the speakers had to post their talk in advance to be translated into the 8 different languages. Every time they make a change it had to be uploaded again and the changes needed to be translated. Some of the speakers went through 12 and even 20 different revisions. As long as it is early enough it goes through the translation department and the interpreters can just read the new translation. HOWEVER, when the changes are given the night before or even the morning of, as was the case every single day of this conference, the interpreter is responsible to make those changes in their copies. Minor changes are no big deal. HOWEVER we had at least one speaker (but it think it was two speakers) who ended up changing their entire talk the night before. The only thing they kept was the title. In that case the interpreter can either try and translate the new talk before they are to give it or, sometimes it is just easier, to interpret the talk on the fly as they speak. I am in awe with all that our interpreters do.

We had the privilege of  sitting with different interpreters during several of our meals together. It was so nice to visit with them and learn about them. We had Saturday lunch with the Fung family. They interpret Cantonese. Their whole family is part of the team. they have two boys so usually it is the father, mother, and one of the boys. But when it is just brethren then it will be the father and both boys. They have lived in the United States for 18 years. They are AWESOME.

This is a picture of the 26th floor ballroom where we had our meals on Saturday.

This is a picture of the Fung family. Father: Man Yiu Richard Fung, Mother: Man Han Berinda Tsang, and Son: Deric Fung.

They are a delight!!!!

 Blessings, Blessings, and More Blessings

We had another very full week and also a little more relaxed weekend. After working  nearly seven straight days, including a long Saturday and Sunday, we finally had a day off last Monday. I kept my slippers on the whole day! I didn't know what to do with myself so I worked on HawkSoft stuff for part of the day, hahaha.

Tuesday started with a bang. It started with us finally getting our computers. We still didn't have all the authority we needed to do our work; but, at least we had computers. We attended our department meeting via Teams. We had lots of last minute changes (we seemed to have lots of last minute changes all week!). And we ended the day by participating in an event that evening. An event is usually a video that requires interpretations into other languages. We help the interpreters get setup up and if they need anything during the meeting. If all goes well, we get to watch the event while it is occurring (sometimes we even get it in English if the Engineer sends the right feed. lol). Tuesday night we got to watch the Hill Cumorah Pageant that will be broadcast publicly in July. There were a few other events going on at the same time; but we watched the Hill Cumorah. It can get a little crazy.

Wednesday was another busy day followed by another couple events at the same time. We usually facilitate meals for these events so that is both fun and a little stressful. It is fun because we get to mingle with the Interpreters. We meet people from all over the world. Lucky for us they all speak English but some have very strong accents. (In the picture the Sister in the front speaks Cantonese, the Brother in the middle speaks Spanish, and the Sister at the end speaks Tongan. The Brother in the mask also speaks Cantonese. The couple behind him are Elder and Sister Hansen. They are our trainers. They are talking to Curtis who is the Supervisor for the night and I'm also in the group. (The picture is actually of our Thursday evening event.)

Wednesday night we didn't actually hear the event. It was in Spanish with an English interpretation; however, they had trouble sending us the English interpretation. Soooooo, we spent the evening talking with Curtis. He is fascinating and knows a lot about a lot of things, including some of the software we are using. Needless to say I asked a lot of questions and thoroughly enjoyed myself and felt well fed!

Thursday was just insane! We had cancelations from some of our Interpreters so Supervisors were scrambling to get replacements. We were scrambling to make all the changes in the software so they can get paid. Steve and Sister Hansen were scrambling to make adjustments so the meals were still going to be OK. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and great company before we headed up for the events. We had 6 different events going on at the same time with 17 languages. Some of the languages were repeated but we needed separate interpreters because they were different events. Also, some of the languages were done in country and not at Salt Lake so that made things a "little" less crazy. To make matters worse, that particular night the Engineers had trouble getting the sound right. The interpreters for the same language couldn't hear each other so they didn't know when they could speak. We try to match the interpreters with the gender of the speaker. There is always a slight delay as they interpret so the next speaker needs to here when the first interpreter stops speaking before they start interpreting. They finally got it all straightened out, however, they never did get us any sound so we didn't get to hear any of the events. That was OK because Curtis was there again and kept us entertained. Actually with that many events we had all but one of our supervisors there that night.

Friday was a more relaxed day. We only worked until 1:30. We didn't have any evening events. WOW. And we didn't have any local events scheduled for the weekend because of Father's Day. We did have a couple oversees events, but all we have to do for those is enter them in the computer.

So Friday started our holiday. We had a relaxing afternoon before going to Thomas Bever's wedding reception. It was so fun to see people from home. We enjoyed a nice visit with the whole family at different times throughout the evening. And I got to see and hold Emily's baby. She is so cute!!!

After the reception we met up with Laila and Tyus for some frozen yogurt. We had a wonderful visit with them. It sure made my birthday special! I can't believe we didn't take any pictures with them. I'm not sure we will get to see them again before they move back to Oregon. They are leaving next weekend and we have the biggest event of the month next weekend from Thursday through Saturday all day long. It is the Mission Presidents Training Seminar. I'm excited to be able to watch that.

Last Sunday evening was the Face to Face with Elder Andersen for the Single Adults. It was a wonderful broadcast. They filmed part of it in Ashton Gardens in Lehi, Utah in the Light of the World Garden. They have some incredible bronze statues of the life of the Savior. Well, it is only about 30 minutes from us so we decided to go see it on Saturday. There are lots of other things to see at the whole facility so we spent several hours enjoying the park. I can't possibly post all the pictures we took so I will post a few of them for you. This particular day they had three events going on. One was the Fairy Tale Festival. There were LOTS of kids dressed up in costume with so many adorable little princesses and dudes roaming around. They also had a Nature Connects Made with LEGO bricks exhibit all around the gardens. And of course the Light of the World exhibit. We took pictures of all the bronze statues and all the LEGO creations (in honor of Djeryd). We did get one of Elsa and Anna for Elle. Enjoy  the pictures!

Here are some of the LEGO exhibits.

These are the fantastic bronze statues. The attention to detail is incredible.