A Life of Streiff

May 2, 2009
The weather is so different here, we have a warm morning and by afternoon it’s cold and rainy. We have a 15 minute walk everyday to work from the Church where we have to park, so we enjoy the walk unless it’s raining. They do have a shuttle that goes back and forth to the Area Office and this cutest guy name Alan drives people to and from work if they desire. On the rare days that we take the shuttle, he and Paul are always exchanging funny comments. His accent is so darling and he has the cutest personality. I wish I could get this accent down but we have lots of Auzzies, South African and New Zealanders working in the office so it’s hard to tell the difference. They think we are nuts not to figure it out but then they think we have a Scottish accent. Go figure.
It was a busy work week and we are making some progress in our contacts in the islands but I think that after we go there next week we may build a better bridge of communication.
Our little office cubicles are like a hallway and everyone stops and chit chats with us. We usually have candy or cookies at our desks so everyone loves to stop by. You know how unfriendly we are. Sometimes it’s hard to get things done but we enjoy the senior couples they are such choice people.

I guess some people don't like the Utes

We had planned to go to Cathedral Cove and the warm water beach this weekend, (That’s where the Narnia Arch was filmed), but it poured down rain all night and just kept going after we got up. It was cold and rainy all day so we just stayed home and sat by the gas log fireplace and read.

On a more spiritual note we had a wonderful time with Elder Scott this week. As mentioned before we had a family night with just him and the senior couples and then on Thursday he was the main speaker at our zone conference.
We didn’t think we would make that one because we had made an appointment two weeks ago to go get our finger prints taken at the police station and it turned out to be at the same time. We didn’t want to reschedule because we would have to wait two more weeks and that would just delay our getting a visa to Samoa that much longer.
We decided to take a chance and go early to the police station and low and behold, the person prior to us didn’t show up so he was able to do us right then and even though the meeting was way out by the airport, we were able to make it just a few minutes after Elder Scott started speaking. Needless to say it was a most up lifting and instructional meeting. Four straight hours of listening to an apostle, Area presidents and the mission president was amazing. We were truly well fed, spiritually that is. Temporally we were starved.
We had eaten just a small bowl of cereal for breakfast at 7am and it was now 5pm. We jumped in our car and headed back for Auckland, the traffic was horrible and seemed to take us forever, finally we could take the hunger pains no longer and with our last bit of energy, took the next exit off the freeway, and there right before our eyes was the most beautiful thing you could ever see. Kentucky fried chicken never tasted so good. That could be our staple from now on.
Now back to the spiritual part. Paul was having really bad neck and upper back pains for the past week or so and our land lady had mentioned that a new Thai massage had opened up just across the street from where we live.
He decided to give it a try and as you might suspect, it was wonderful and did the trick. It seems that during the massage, he struck up a conversation with the Thai lady about our mission and she mentioned that she remembered as a little girl, missionaries from U.S.A and the state of Utah had visited her home. She says she had always loved reading the book that they left but that her father would not allow them to join. She had become Christian when she met and married a man from New Zealand some time later.
So when Elder Paul-e-wog went for a follow up visit this week he took her a Thai language Book of Mormon. That is now the first and only Book of Mormon placed by us. “Woo Who” She was so grateful and said she would read it every night with her younger daughter. She then started singing a church song in Thai that the missionaries had taught them, I believe it was “I am a child of God” but couldn’t be positive. She is a real sweetheart and I hope maybe this could lead her to the Church. Only time will tell. One thing’s for certain, it gives Paul a reason for more massages.
We thought that you would enjoy some of our finds at the beach.

In Taiwan we saw the most beautiful mirror with its frame made out of seashells so every time we walk on the beaches we pick up the interesting ones. As you can see we already have a great start. The make great necklace's too.