A small taste of spring!

After making it through our first winter in Utah, we were so excited for spring to arrive. Then...we left for New Zealand and jumped right back into winter! The winter here has been very wet and cold....nothing like the cold and snow in Utah, but we are now finally starting to see some spring-like weather and flowers.

Along with the cold and rain we have had our fair share of sickness. Many of the people we have been around lately have been extremely sick. Lisa is finally starting to feel better after fighting with chest congestion and a terrible cough for 2 weeks. Our community choir practice was cancelled last week due to both of the directors being ill as well.

We spent a day doing flat inspections up in the Northland. Elder Vakaudekoro  told us awhile back about a fish and chips store across the street from the Sister's flat in Hikurangi, that had what he considered to be the best fish and chips around.  He was right....they were great, and comparable to what we had in Port Albert. We have learned that an order of fish and chips is more than plenty for two to eat!  We caught up on our paperwork while we ate and then finished up the inspections.

We visited with Brother Midgley, a long-time member in Dargaville, who was a previous Branch President and also a Stake President. He was able to give us some vital information on the members and less active members in the area.  He prepared a meal of vegetables and lamb for us. Lisa has never been a lamb eater....so she tried a little piece to be polite and found out that it was not as strong  as the lamb she had eaten in the US years ago.  We asked him about the flowering plants on the hillsides, and he explained to us that it was pink heather that was brought over from England 150 years ago.

We spent a day in Warkworth and Snells Beach looking for less active members. We found several and invited them to come back to church.  One lady had 8 children, but had to work on the weekends, and her husband who was off on the weekends did not drive, so there was no way for them to come to church, which is in Wellsford about 30 miles away. We visited with Brother Main, who has been struggling for years with his testimony of the Gospel. He was illiterate for most of his life and tried to hide the fact that he had never learned to read or write. He can now read and has also written 6 novels! We were able to answer a few of the questions that he has been struggling with and look forward to helping him rekindle his testimony in the Savior.

We went to the Mangawhai farmers market to get some honey for Lisa in the hope that  the herbal tea and local honey will help her sore throat and congestion. On the way back we stopped by the Pere's home and dropped off some homemade snickerdoodles in the pouring rain. 

We were able to have Sister Pratt over again for dinner and do some reading in the Book of Mormon.

Maori class is back on again, so we are trying to pick up where we left off several weeks ago. 

 

Another zone conference in Whangarei.  The Pacific Area Family History Consultants taught the missionaries about Family Search and how to help investigators with genealogy.

Elders Pack, Leatiagaga, Poulson and Tautu

Elder Raramo and Bryant

Elders Mai, Leatigaga,and Pack

Elder Tauto and Poulson

Lunch time!

Northland Zone

Elder and Sister Lewis are in charge of all of the flats and doing repair work on them for the mission.They are located in Takapuna and spend most of their time down around Auckland due to the number of missionary flats in the South. I have been able to assist Elder Lewis by doing some of the repairs up in the Northland. Lisa and I traveled to Opononi to do some "hole patching" in the walls of the Elders flat. It's wasn't a very big home, but the view was just amazing!

On the way home we traveled through the Waipoua Forest and stopped to see Tane Mahuta, the largest Kaori tree in New Zealand.

Just a short walk down a wooded gangway into the rainforest of Waipoua, near Dargaville on New Zealand’s north island, is a living giant. Its name is Tāne Mahuta and it’s a kauri tree – one of the largest types (by girth rather than height) in the world. Tāne is named after the Maori forest god and, in the myth, is the fruit of the primordial parents: his growth having broken apart the embrace of Ranginui, the “sky father” and Papatūānuku, the “Earth mother,” allowing the space and light for life to flourish.

Walk beneath Tāne, which is 51.5 metres tall and has a trunk girth of 18.8 metres (a challenge for the most ardent tree-hugger), and you can’t help but feel moved – and incredibly small. It isn’t just physical majesty that brings tourists flocking to Waipoua to visit “the lord of the forest,” it is the atmosphere around the tree.

Every town has at least one "4 Square" market. A very small supermarket with all of the essentials

A tattoo artist practicing his art on the side of a  building in Whangarei

Lisa and I met with four 80 year old ladies in Wellsford who run the local food bank. We have volunteered to assist them in filling and delivering food boxes to the local community center. They were so happy to have some "younger help"!

Sunday we spent the day in the Dargaville Branch and helped by teaching Priesthood and Primary lessons. The Stake President was there and asked if he could meet with Lisa and I. We assumed it would be about receive callings in Dargaville, but it wasn't.....

I have been asked to be a Counselor in the Wellsford Branch Presidency and  Lisa will be the Primary President in Wellsford.  We will continue splitting our time between the two Branches, but with emphasis on helping train up the leadership in Wellsford.

Life has it's ups and downs but luckily Christ has given us the map of the seas!

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father [in heaven]. (Quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, "Tragedy or Destiny," Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year, Dec. 6, 1955, 6.)