Zone Breakfast, Seminary, DCM, Comp Studies, and Ward Directory

We started the week off with a bang. Since transfers were last week, we had a Zone Breakfast to welcome all our new missionaries. More than half of our missionaries are new to our area. The Carlisles arrived early to help with breakfast. We had waffles, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and fruit for twelve missionaries. They straggled in over the course of 30 minutes. I think they all enjoyed it. We played some getting-to-know-you games after breakfast. Everyone left around 10:45. After cleaning up, we collapsed on the couch to watch Follow Him. I think we both took a short nap. LOL

The rest of the day we took care of the normal things we worked on. I organized the Zone Lunch for Zone Conference coming up in a couple of weeks. We are doing a Soup and Salad bar. 

Tuesday morning was stormy, actually the whole day was stormy. We had pouring rain as we went to early morning Seminary. The Elders taught the lesson on section 84 about the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. 

The rest of the day was working on my Seminary lesson for Thursday. We also had our weekly call with Sierra. Monday didn't work this week, so we did it on Tuesday. We got caught up on what all the kids are up to. One fun thing they are doing is taking a sibling trip to Disneyland at the end of September. That should be a lot of fun for them. We made treats for our DCM meeting on Wednesday and prepared our Family Home Evening lesson for Wednesday night.

Wednesday was beautiful. The storm was over. We did get a few showers later in the day. We had a fun DCM meeting. Since it was the first DCM meeting for this transfer, we played another getting-to-know-you ice breaker game. We played two truths and a lie. It was fun to learn about each of the missionaries. Since the South District was also at the Stake Center, we invited them to join us for snacks. It was nice to have all the missionaries together. We don't get together as a zone very often.

After DCM, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to Ben's mom's house to help her pack. She sold her house and had to be out by 18 August. Her health is not good, so she needs some help packing and cleaning. We helped Wednesday afternoon. She has some family coming next weekend to help finish it up. Our Family Home Evening got cancelled because they had visitors from out of town. It was their only time to visit with the kids.   

Thursday started with my early morning Seminary class. We didn't have as many students as normal, so it made the group activity I had planned not happen. I modified it on the fly, and I think it worked out OK. Later we had our Mission SPF Zoom meeting. After that I worked on the Ward Council Agenda and the Sacrament Program. Then it was time for the Zone Leaders to come for Comp Study. It was the first time either of them had Comp Study with Seniors. I think they enjoy it. Elder Wilcox made them grilled ham and cheese sandwiches after we were done with our studies. We enjoyed visiting with them very much.

The afternoon was a little crazy after that. Sister Garner called me to see if I could track down a Senior couple, she had been trying to get a hold of. They are kind of far away from everyone. She was worried about them because we had received a tsunami warning because of a big earthquake in Russia. This couple lives right on the beach. We thought we were going to drive out to their place as we are probably the closest to them at 1 hour away. After trying several times to reach them in different ways, we were getting ready to go, when I noticed a green dot appeared next to her name in Messenger. I quickly called her on Messenger, and she answered. Apparently, they were having trouble with their phone not having any service when they were away from their house. We verified they were all right and I let Sister Garner know. 

Friday morning started with a trip to the Bream Bay flat. The Sisters that were living there were ALL transferred and we didn't get any replacements. The Garners are finishing up their mission in a few weeks and are trying to tie up loose ends for the new couple that will be taking over housing. One thing they are checking on is all the empty flats we have. Sometimes when missionaries leave, they don't always take everything they are supposed to take. Also, they may not remove food if they are both leaving the flat. So, she asked if we would check out the flat. 

I was pretty sure our Sisters left the flat in good shape but told her would be happy to check it out. As expected, it looked great. There is talk that their flat may go to a Senior Couple in the future. With that in mind, the few things they left behind I felt were just fine. It was things that helped to make the flat a home. When we finally got our flat, we are happy the previous Senior Couple left some decorative things for us. That is what the Bream Bay Sisters left as well.

After we got home, I worked on some Family Name Assist invitations for training. I think we have trained about half our Stakes at this point. Later, the Hikurangi Elders showed up for Comp Study. We ended up spending our time talking about the Ward rather than actual scripture study. Elder Ihaka wanted to know all he could about the people and what they could do to help. It was a very good visit.

So, on Saturday I spent most of the day working on putting together a Ward Directory for them that will aid them in visiting the members. Usually, the Ward Directory is in alphabetical order. That is not helpful for visiting. So, I dumped the directory into SQL and then Excel so I could add some information and sort it by city, neighborhood, and address. I also had comments from our previous visits that I included. Lastly, I made every other household either shaded or no shade to make it easier to distinguish the households in the list. I think it should make it much easier to visit streets and neighborhoods as they visit the Ward.

On Sunday, we went from one meeting to another. In between the various meetings I worked on the Ward Council minutes and my blog recap. Somehow, I managed to get it all done. We had a great Personal Finances meeting. I love our group. We have about 8 in the group which is just about right. 

We had a wonderful Fast and Testimony meeting. At first, I didn’t think we would have enough people to get up and share, but I was wrong. We had lots of testimonies about how the Savior has blessed their lives. Some shared how they heard the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Others shared about how the Lord hears and answers prayers. I felt the Spirit strong, and I felt the love in the Ward. 

I didn’t get to hear much of Sunday School, because Bishop had me take care of some other business. I managed to poke my head in class for a little while. Sister Toi is doing a great job. 

Later that evening, we headed to the Stake Center for a video devotional with the Area Presidency. It was for those over 50 and talked about the wonderful opportunities of serving a mission. I have to admit, serving senior missions is AWESOME. 

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox

 

Leaving Missionaries and Lots of Family Name Assist Trainings

Monday started with Early Morning Seminary. Leona had to work the night shift, so we covered her class. It worked out for the good. We had to go to Auckland Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening. Since we couldn't be at Seminary for the Elders on Tuesday morning, we had them teach on Monday morning. Everything worked out great. We talked about the gifts and talents we each have received from a loving Heavenly Father. We talked about ways we could find out what our gifts and talents are. One of the ways is from our Patriarchal Blessing. Neither of our students received their Patriarchal Blessing, so I invited them to talk to Bishop and get a recommend for them to get one. I would follow up with them next week to see if they did that. 

After Seminary, we installed a printer for the Clerk's office. On Sunday, our normal printer ran out of toner. We were unable to order new toner through the Church's website, so we put in an issue ticket. We talked to the Stake Clerk before we did that, and he told us to put in a new ticket and ask for  a new printer since ours is so old. He said to ask for a new computer while we were at it. Our current computer is so old, it takes 10 minutes to boot up. We usually don't turn it off anymore because of the time. So, in the meantime, we were able to get a nice color printer that was in the Sisters' flat. The Carlisles picked it up and was going to give it to the office since we already had one at home. I called them back to see if they still had it and could we have it for our ward? They dropped it off on Sunday afternoon, and we installed it on Monday morning. It should serve us well while we wait.

We enjoyed a nice long video call with MyLiege's family. They had the whole family over for dinner, so we got to see Djeryd, Eva, and of course, Ruthie. She is getting so big. She loves to jabber. I'm sure she knows what she is saying. She likes to wave too. We even blew kisses at each other. Such fun.

The Nelsons showed up with the Kaikohe Sisters that we transported to the mission office in Auckland. One of the Sisters was going home. Her companion was picking up a new companion but had to wait until Thursday to get a new companion and stay until Friday for leadership training.

We made great time getting to the Mission Office. After some brief visits, Elder Warwood took us to his apartment, where we were spending the night. The Warwoods were having 6 missionaries over for dinner, (8 counting us, 10 counting them.) They have one of the largest apartments in the complex. Since several of the missionaries were going home or being transferred, they wanted to say goodbye. It was so fun to see several missionaries we have served with. We watched a movie after the Mission call. Our goal for baptisms for this transfer was 77. We made 78. Woo-hoo!!!

Elder Olson

Tuesday was a very busy day. We got up early to go to the Temple because we weren't sure about traffic at that time of morning. As it turned out, we made good time and were about an hour early. 

We had a lovely session in the Temple. The spirit was very strong. I felt many emotions. After our session, we stayed in the Celestial Room until the next session started coming in. It was our leaving Missionaries session, and we wanted to see several of those leaving. In particular we wanted to see Elder Bailey. There were close to a half dozen missionaries that we knew. Elder Hassell was the first to come through. He was surprised to see us. It was that way with all the ones we knew. So fun. 

After the Temple we took pictures and then everyone went to Denny's for lunch. There were 19 missionaries leaving that time. That is a huge group. We also had three other Senior Missionary Couples plus, of course, President and Sister Allen at lunch. It took a really long time, but it was very fun.  

After Lunch we went to Costco to pick up a few things and then headed back to the Mission Office. I needed to charge my laptop for my presentation tonight, plus I wanted to work on my Seminary Lesson for Thursday. While preparing the lesson, I decided that my “Lost in the Forest” adventure would work great into my lesson on making right choices by listening to the Spirit. Fingers crossed 🫰that it all works out.

Then it was time to head further South for the presentation at Papatoetoe Stake. Traffic reminded me of Los Angeles. It was TERRIBLE. We managed to make it 15 minutes early! The Stake is mostly Tongan. They were all so sweet. One of the Bishops gave a beautiful spiritual thought before I did my presentation. It really set the tone. Everyone seemed engaged and even asked a few questions.  

Elder Wilcox, Elder Olson, and Sister Wilcox

We had to make one stop on the way home in Wellsford to drop some medication off to one of the Elders. We stayed overnight with the Mission Nurse, so she sent several things that are needed up north. We also picked up a mirror to take to the Sisters flat. We tend to always either drop off or pick up stuff for Northland. 

Wednesday was bitter and sweet. We had to say goodbye to over half our missionaries that were getting transferred. We lost all but 1 Sister in our Zone. And we lost 5 Elders. It was hard to say goodbye.

After snacks and signing bye-bye books, we headed to The Warehouse to pick up a new paper shredder for the Hikurangi Ward. We also picked up some ink for the printer, as well as some parchment paper for certificates. 

Elder Wilcox, Sister Douglass,
Sister Jones, and Sister Wilcox

After we got home, the Hikurangi Elders showed up for one last comp study. We did more visiting than studying this time. Elder Na Nongkai will be our new District Leader. Elder Olson is staying in a leadership position, but in a new area. We wish him all the best. 

I think my Seminary lesson went well on Thursday morning. We had 8 students. I shared my “Lost in the Forest” story with them and related it to what happens when you DON’T follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost and make good decisions. Hopefully the point sunk in. LOL

We met two of our new missionaries. Elder Phipps contacted me that morning to see if I could hem his pants. We arranged it so he and Elder Na Nongkai could come to our house around 1:30 and have their new companions meet at our flat at 2:00. Well, they made good time and actually met us about 10 minutes after Elder Phipps and Na Nongkai arrived. We gave them some cookies and visited for a little while. Then Elder Na Nongkai and Elder Ihaka left to get settled in and to go meet some of our members. Elder Phipps and Elder Tumanuvao (TooManyVowels) waited while I worked on hemming the pants. The thread kept breaking, so I finally sent them on their way. Elder Wilcox worked on the machine and rethreaded it and oiled it, and it still broke the thread. We gave up for the day.

On Friday, we visited a sweet member from our Ward who was in the hospital. She is hoping to come on early next week.

After fighting with the sewing machine yesterday and still not getting it to work, I asked Peggy if I could use her machine. Elder Na Nongkai dropped two pairs of pants off this morning, so we took all three pairs over to Peggy’s and fixed them right up. We even found a few rips they didn’t tell us about. Hopefully, they will last for a while longer.

We visited Steve and Peggy for a while before heading home. I worked for a couple of hours on HawkSoft. We also started making plans for our last trip on our mission. We are going to go to the South Island in October for a few days.

On Saturday, we took care of a lot of little things that needed to be done before our trip to Auckland on Sunday. After getting things printed and ready for the Bishop, we headed to Charlotta's house so Elder Wilcox good give her a blessing. She has been sick for a while now and it just wasn't going away. She is still working, but just now feeling well. We had a nice visit with her.

Next, we visited a few people on our member list. We found out the first one we visited still lives there. We are not sure about the second one. No one answered the door. We will try again next week. Next, we went to the Bishop's house to drop off the Ward Council Agenda and the Sacrament Program for him. We had a short little visit with him before we headed home.

The last thing we did was to shop and clean and prepare for our Zone Breakfast on Mo
nday morning. I'm looking forward to it. We will be able to meet I think 6 new missionaries. We will play some getting-to-know-you games after breakfast before letting them get on with their p-day activities.

We headed for Auckland at 8:00 Sunday morning. We made good time. Not a lot of Sunday traffic. We met with the Mt. Roskill 2nd Ward in their Ward Council. It is a Tongan Ward, and I hoped they were all able to understand me. I don’t speak Tongan. I think it went well. Several asked questions or offered comments. They invited us to stay for their Sacrament meeting, but we opted to attend an English-speaking Ward instead.

The only other ward that met at 1:00pm that would work for us was the YSA Ward. It wasn’t too far from where we did our training. We had some time to wait, so I was able to go inside and plug my laptop in to recharge it. The battery doesn’t last much more than an hour. I worked on my Scripture Study before Sacrament meeting.

When the meeting started, we saw Sister Julia Jones who used to serve in our District. It was so fun to meet up with her after Sacrament meeting. We also had two Senior Couple assigned to the Ward that we knew. So that was nice too. Then when the Priesthood was passing the Sacrament, we noticed two of the men were Young Adults from our Hikurangi Ward who are now in Auckland going to school. We met up with them after Sacrament meeting as well. They were both pleasantly surprised to see us. It was a day filled with Tender Mercies.

After Sacrament meeting, we headed to the Penrose Stake Center. It was only about 10 minutes away. We were early enough that I could go in and find a room to work on my weekly recap. That will make my evening go much better when we go home tonight.

At 5:00 we had another training meeting. This time with the Penrose Stake. It went very well. Our trip home was nice. Again, there was no traffic. We got home around 8:00pm.

All Our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Lots of Busy Work, Seminary, Flat Inspections, Family Name Assist, and Baptism

I feel like I have been playing catchup all week. I have also been organizing. I organized a chat group for our Personal Finances group. I had to organize our calendar to keep all the training meetings straight. I organized several other things that I can't think of right now. LOL.

On Monday, we had a nice long video chat with Season. We were hoping the boys would have joined the call as we wanted to hear everything about Young Men’s camp they went on last week. We tried to follow the Facebook page about YM Camp when we could. There were so many exciting things they did. I am so impressed with the youth programs in Oregon City. They are amazing.

Later the Bream Bay Sisters came over to use our Wi-Fi for their calls home. I’m so glad we can provide that for them.  It gives us a brief chance to visit with them. I spent the rest of the day working on ACORD forms for HawkSoft. 

Tuesday started with Early Morning Seminary. When we passed the Elder’s flat on the way to the Church, we noticed the lights were off. So, as soon as we got to Church, I gave them a call. They thanked me for waking them. They were down there with two minutes to spare!  It is a good thing they only live down the street from the Chapel. We had a good lesson on sharing the Gospel. It was a perfect lesson for the Missionaries to give.

The rest of the day was filled with Flat Inspections (Steve got excited because he saw a train cross the road near our home), Seminary Lesson preparation, FHE lesson prep for Wednesday night, and an English Connect Lesson with Sister Vili. After her lesson, we involved her companions and did a group conversation practice. Then we had to kick them out so we could do a Zoom meeting with a Branch up North for the Family Name Assist tool training. It turned out better than I thought, so I am now open to doing some Zoom training if we can't do them in person.

Sister Carlisle, Elder Hassell, and Elder Carlisle

We had a wonderful DCM on Wednesday morning. We got to be part of the TWEEING (talk to everyone) role play in our training section. It was fun. It was Elder Hassel’s last DCM. He leaves for home next week. We will miss him. He has been a GREAT Zone Leader. 

After we got home, I did a little work on the Family Name Assist training schedule. I also sent out the tentative Ward Agenda. We were able to watch Follow Him with John Bytheway and Hank Smith after lunch. 

Later, we headed over to the Snow’s house for Family Home Evening. We had a really good time tonight. Our lesson was about how the Church set up the program to care for the poor and needy. We watched a short video and then did a maze by choosing Christlike qualities to get to our Eternal Rewards. After that we played a couple of games and then had ice cream cones.

Thursday started with Early Morning Seminary again. We had 9 students, and I think the class went pretty well. We talked about our divine nature and the fact that they are sons and daughters of God.

Later we had our mission SFP Zoom meeting. We talked about the miracles that have happened in our mission over the last few transfers. As we all do our part and live the missionary standards and work hard, we can expect miracles, as President Nelson told us a few General Conferences ago. The is hastening His work and we are reaping the harvest.

At 5:30, we visited Ben and his mom for a while. Ben gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting on Sunday. He wanted to let us know what he was planning on saying to make sure he was on the right track.  It is so wonderful to see how he has turned his life completely around. Those who know him have seen the changes in him. 

We actually took a walk on Friday! We drove to the Whangarei and walked around for our morning walk. It was so nice. On the way home we got a call from one of our members who ran out of gas on the highway. He was going to walk to the gas station, but it was way too far. We ran down there and took him to the gas station and then back to his vehicle.  

We no sooner got home, than we got a call from the Elders. They were at the Chapel filling the font for the baptism we were going to have later in the day. Their key would not unlock the door to the font so they could fill it. So, Elder Wilcox headed down to the Church to help them out.  

Elder Olson, Paige,
and Elder Na Nongkai

Later we headed to the baptism. We didn’t have a pianist, but the songs we picked were pre-programed into our organ. I worked the organ and one of the brothers directed the music. It worked very well. Both of our talks were so good. Winnie gave the talk about Baptism. She shared about the three bears. It wasn’t the story we all know and love. Instead, it was about bearing the name of Christ, bearing one another burdens, and bearing testimony. It was really good. Paige used to live in Punaruku so she wanted the Bishop of that ward to baptize her. After the baptism, AJ sang the most beautiful song about prayer and the Holy Ghost. It was so sweet. Then Kea gave a talk about the Holy Ghost. She had her children come up and sing a song in Māori that was so beautiful. It was about the Holy Ghost. One of her young daughters did beautiful hand movements to the song. Everything was so very nice for her baptism.  

I spent much of the day on Friday, organizing our Ward Directory in my SQL database. I haven't used it in a while, so I had to delete records who had moved out and add the records of those who have moved into the ward. After that was done, I ran some reports of the remaining people who we either never visited, or they were not home when we did try to visit. We are hoping to finish the cleanup of our Ward Directory before our mission ends. We will get the Elders to help visit the remaining members. The list really isn't too long. We should be able to start visiting again in a week or so. We have a busy week coming up, so it probably won't happen this coming week.

Elder Na Nongkai, Elder Olson, Paige,
and Bishop Randell

We also moved the desks around in our office space. Instead of having our desks right next to each other, we are now back-to-back. This is to help Steve work on his laptop without me seeing everything he does and then try to jump in and help too quickly. I think it will be better for both of us. LOL He will be able to work at his pace, and I won’t get so frustrated when he takes too long. Hahaha. 

On Sunday morning before Ward Council, I was able to help a sweet Sister in our Ward print out her Patriarchal Blessing. She was very happy. I love helping people in any way I can. 

Elder Olson

After that we had our Ward Council meeting. Our Young Women President gave a wonderful training about the focus of her presidency on the Young Women. We then had a good discussion about being prepared for every needful thing. This includes ways we can help our members be prepared for unexpected life events. We are afraid that Elder Olson will be transferred this week. So, Bishop Henare presented him with a shirt "All Blacks" game sure with his name on the back. 

For Sacrament meeting, we had three young men give brief testimonies, and then a talk by our new member, Ben. He was nervous, but he did a GREAT job. You could feel his sweet spirit and he bore a beautiful testimony of how many blessings he has received since he joined the Church. Life is still hard sometimes, but the blessings far outweigh the difficulties.  We also confirmed Paige, who was baptized on Friday. Our last speaker was a High Councilor. He talked about the General Conference talk by Elder Dale G. Renlund entitled “Personal Preparation to Meet the Savior.” We talked about section 76 in Sunday School.

We took care of a few more things after Church, before heading home for lunch. I worked on the recap and then we got ready for our Personal Finances class.  It had been a very full day.

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox

Independence Breakfast, Ward FHE, Walk, Heat Again, Temple Trip, and Training

 Auntie Sandra held her "transfer" breakfast on Monday. In honor of so many USA Missionaries, she called it Independence Breakfast and decorated everything in Red, White, and Blue balloons and hung small US flags all over. It was a wonderful treat for us. The entire Zone showed up and we had a great time.

After that, we stopped by to help out a member, before picking up some vitamins. After we got home, we had our video call with Douhet's family. We got to visit with all the girls, except Audrey who is at BYU Idaho. We even got to see Roman. He is getting so big already. I can hardly wait to hold him for the first time. 

Elder Wilcox made some apple crisp for our Ward Family Home Evening. I was busy on the computer as usual. LOL. Family Home Evening was fun.

On Tuesday, we were able to take a nice walk around the lake in our neighborhood. We have every intention of doing that every day, but alas, it only happened once this week. 😢What was supposed to be a day of just catching up, turned out to be a very busy day as one thing after another popped up. I received a few requests for training for the Family Name Assist tool. We also were involved with helping out with the Temple Baptism trip for the youth and our new members. I worked on some financial reports for the Bishop. I worked on ordering new whiteboards for the missionaries in the Northland. And I helped Steve prepare his Personal Finance Class that he will be facilitating over the next 12 weeks. 

On Wednesday, we missed most of DCM because we had to hang out at the Hikurangi Elders' flat while they had a heat pump installed. Since Elder Olson is our District leader, he had to be at DCM. I took my laptop and used the couple of hours we were there to work on some HawkSoft ACORD forms work. We got to DCM in time for the last part of the training. We were able to participate. Each companionship was supposed to act out one of the Christlike Attributes discussed in Preach My Gospel in Chapter Six. Our assigned attribute was “Faith.” We acted worried and then decided to Pray. The group guessed it right away. The Carlisles had a fun one. They were to act out patience. Sister Carlisle stood up there while Elder Carlisle poked her and pulled her hair and did other annoying things. She just took it. We all guessed patience really quickly too. The others all did a great job, and we were able to guess theirs as well. It was a fun activity. Elder Wilcox made Apple Crisp for our main dessert and Sister Carlisle brought cucumber slices and cinnamon apples. It was all yummy. In the afternoon, we had Comp Study with the Hika Elders. Then we went with them to visit a member, but she didn't answer the door.

Thursday was similar to Tuesday. Lots of things just popped up. We had our Mission SPF Zoom meeting in the morning. The Sisters came over after that for an English Connect lesson with Sister Vili. It was a learning experience for all of us. We have been trying to have these lessons for weeks, but the Sisters kept scheduling other things. I think they know we need to make this a priority now for Sister Vili.  

We had lunch with the Sisters after our lesson, before they headed off to work again. It was pouring rain, so they really didn’t want to leave the comfort of our home. LOL I was glad I didn’t have to go out in the rain. We got another invitation to do training. This time it will be done via Messenger. I'm not sure how well that is going to work. It will be for this coming Tuesday evening. I finalized the Ward Council Agenda and the Sacrament Program. We won't be at Church Sunday morning for Ward Council because we will be in Auckland doing a Stake Bishops Training. We will be back in time for Church and our Personal Finance Class. We managed to watch an episode of Follow Him with John Bytheway and Hank Smith. 

We got up fairly early on Friday to acclimate ourselves to going to bed earlier for Friday night and Saturday night. I took care of everything that needed to be done for the weekend since we won't be here for much of the weekend. I spent the rest of the so-called p-day working on HawkSoft. I am trying to finish up the new ACORD forms mapping. We had to stay home because we finally got our heat pump back. They worked on it for a few hours in the morning. Then they had to go away for a couple of hours to let the lines get reinitialized again. They came back to check everything out and make sure there were no more issues. Everything worked perfectly. We have heat again. I poured all day, so it was cold. 

The Bishop stopped by around 5:00 to pick up the reports I made for him for Sunday. At 6:00pm the other set of Sisters came by for Comp Study. I was glad they could come in out of the rain. We had a wonderful comp study about Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants. There is so much in that section. We had a good discussion. 

After dinner and showers, we headed to bed. 3:00am comes awfully early!

We were up at 3:00am to drive to the Auckland Temple for the 8:00am Baptism appointment. Of course, we were basing our travel time on all the other trips we have done. Guess what? There is NO traffic at 4 in the morning. We were over an hour early. With no traffic, it only takes 2 ½ hours, not 3 ½ hours. Hahaha.

Jared and Ben

We took Ben and Jared for their first time at the Temple. They had an awesome experience. We had lots of adult leaders to help, so we went on an Endowment session instead. We were not scheduled to help, and we didn’t want to be in the way. We didn’t have an appointment so we weren’t sure we could get in. However, it pays to know the right people. It appears that the Whangarei Stake provided most of the Temple Workers for this morning. Bishop McQueen was the supervisor on the shift, and he said there would be no problem letting us in. So, he added a chair for me, and Elder Wilcox was able to find a seat on one of the benches. It was so nice to be in the Temple today.

When we got outside, we took several pictures. One young Sister came over and offered to take the group pictures. Low and behold, it was Sister Ngawaka who used to serve in our District. She went home many months ago. She lives in Australia. We keep in touch on Facebook. We were so surprised to see her back in New Zealand. She is here to attend the Temple Wedding of her friend at the Hamilton Temple. She had time and decided to check out the Auckland Temple before heading down to Hamilton. Tender Mercy that she was there at that exact time for us. Such a delightful blessing. 

On the way home, we swung by the Mission office to pick up a few things for some missionaries up north. Somehow, they found out we were coming and asked if we could pick them up. Once home, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed out to pick up the whiteboards we ordered to replace the old ones with metal sides. We will pass them out at DCM this coming week. We ran down to Bream Bay to drop off two whiteboards and one of the packages that go to the South District. We still need to coordinate with Kaikohe to drop off a package for an Elder up there. 

Sister Ngawaka

We slept in until 3:30am on Sunday morning. Hahaha. We headed to the Harbour Stake to do a Family Name Assist training. We thought about staying overnight but thought we would prefer to sleep in our own bed and just drive up in the morning. We were right. The roads were good. I wanted to be early enough to get set up to use the big screen. That doesn’t work if no one else is early. Hahaha. People started showing up a little before our 7:00am meeting. Luckily it didn’t take long to get set up. We had most of the Bishops and the Stake Presidency. I think the meeting went very well. They seemed eager to learn, and the Stake President is definitely behind the program. 

We headed home at 7:30 and made it to Hikurangi at about 9:40. On the way back home it started to rain again. We sat in the car for a while before going in. We were hoping the rain would slow down at least a bit. When we got there, Ward Council was just ending. As I was getting the songs ready and starting the Organ, I noticed that our organist was missing. Our regular organist is out of the country for this week, but we had an organist who said she would play. I suppose I should have sent out a reminder. She ended up helping another Ward in another Stake and didn’t make our meeting. We did the best we could. Sister Paratene directed the music, while I tried the pre-programed organ again. It worked until one of the songs we were singing wasn’t on the pre-programmed list. Sister Paratene pitched the song, and we sang it acapella. We didn’t sound too bad. LOL.

We heard from three teenagers who went to the Temple on Saturday. We also heard from our two Elders. All the talks were good. Relief Society was good too. After Church, I took care of a few things the Bishop asked for. Then it was time to go home. 

We were starving and ate lunch. Getting up at 3:30 made us very hungry at 12:30. Hahaha. Once lunch was over, we got all set up for our Personal Finance Class. We didn’t have as many show up as had signed up. I will send out reminders for next week’s lesson. We are also going to change our time to an hour later. It was really tight at 2:00 and everyone that did come was about 20 minutes late. We had a wonderful class and discussion. I think this will be a great experience.

All our Love,
Elder and Sister Wilcox

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