A Life of Streiff

August 1,
What a horrible start for the month. The girls were up to Bear Lake for the “Girl’s Week” and on Sunday Beth was dropped and hurt her leg. She wouldn’t bear any weight on it so Natalie knew something was wrong. Jodi and Natalie decided to take her to Montpelier to the small hospital. On the way there they had a blow out and the tire was destroyed. Some kind man pulled over and helped change the tire.
The doctor at Montpelier hospital checked out her leg and at first said that it didn’t look like it was broken. He looked at the x-ray again and decided that it was broken and decided to put a cast on. Meanwhile Jodi called an orthopedic specialist (Drew Van Boren) to ask his opinion. He told her not to put a cast on because it was too soon for child that young due to swelling. Jodi had to tell the doctor to cut the cast off.
He only cut one side to loosen it up and poor Beth was screaming the whole time. They went back to the cabin and Beth slept fine that night.
They decided to take her over to the clinic in Garden City which turned out to be the best decision and a blessing. The doctor cut the other side of the cast to remove it and discovered that Beth’s leg was cut and burned from the blade, all the way down. Poor Natalie and Jodi were sobbing at the site of the blood and the doctor was horrified. They took pictures to document the injury and put a removable splint on her so that they could watch for infection. It’s been a few days now and the cut is not infected so they were able to put a cast on her. She is doing really well and has started to walk with her new cast.
August 8
We have been really busy getting ready for the Prime Minister (John Key) visit to the MTC. We just got another assignment to provide the food. They love dropping these little assignments on the missionaries at the last moment. Paul and I thought about using a caterer but then decided to do it ourselves. We weren’t sure how many people there would be until the day before so it was pretty easy to do for only 5 people.
There are so many places here to get sandwiches and desserts that all we did was pick them up at a local deli and cut them into finger foods size pieces. I made a vegetable plate at 5:30 in the morning because I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know why I worry about such an easy assignment. After all it was just for the Prime Minster of New Zealand.
We got to the MTC an hour early so that we could set out the food in a fabulous manner and after he came and left, we discovered that the food had not been touched, Oh well, it looked nice and the missionaries wolfed it down in no time.

There was a choir of missionaries who sang the New Zealand National Anthem as he entered the building first in Maori then in English. It was beautiful and I got all teary eyed while listening to them. They have such a wonderful spirit surrounding them. After they finished singing the Prime Minister took the time to shake everyone’s hand. He asked them where they were from and how long they have been serving here. He even shook our hands.
After the meeting the Area President gave us a brief summary of their meeting with him. The P.M. was so impressed by the humanitarian, welfare and the job placements centers. Our goal was met!!! It was a perfect end to a perfect meeting.
We had two different reporters there and they were taking pictures, getting quotes and making sure they had the names correct.


The next day we were very busy placing the news releases with several different countries with our pictures of the individual missionaries and quotes from them. .
President Callister wants the area flooded with positive stories about the Church and this should be a good one for each of our countries. We have already surpassed the area goal for news stories for the year and its only August!
This kind of Public Affair work is fun when you have a successful meeting with a great outcome.

Paul likes hanging out with the women. Rosey Nance, PA Gae Pearce PA, Kathy Callister(Area Presidents wife) and Sister Porter( Mission Presidents wife.)
This month has been almost totally consumed with the MTC open house. We were involved in 6 days of tours, taking people through the new building. All of the senior missionaries were involved. We took groups of 25-30 people through every 15 minutes. Our job was taking people into the chapel to see a 15 minute video and then hand them off to the missionaries who then took them on the actual tour.
It was really fun to associate with the young elders and sisters. They are so pumped up about the work and they just shine. Paul found a young missionary, Elder Kafusi, who had just signed to play football for BYU at the end of his mission so of course he had to tease the young man about his decision.
We have a great group of senior missionaries and we really have fun with them. It’s an amazing opportunity to associate with such special people who are here to serve the Lord. I love them all. The Carlston's( Janet and Gary )are from Logan and Elder Nance is from Wyoming.


August 28 Mayor Brown from Manukua City came to the MTC open house and Elder Callister took him on the tour. He seems to be so impressed with the church. Elder Callister was excited about the friendship that has been made with him. I love the way the Lord works.

Sept. 4 2010 Paul and Terry Pearce left at 3am this morning to drive down to Rotorua to do a little fishing. I can’t imagine getting up that early to go fish. They wanted to be on the river by 6am but I guess they took a wrong road in the dark and didn’t get there until 7. Paul said it was 1 degree Celsius when they got there. Paul caught one really nice fish and then it just died. They stayed for another hour or so but didn’t see another fish caught. It was still early, so they didn’t want to come home so then decided to try one of the little lakes they had fished before. Terry misspelled the name of the lake in the GPS and they ended up at the wrong lake.
It looked nice so then stayed and fished for about two hours. Paul said that as he was getting ready to fish a man walked up to him and said, “Fish and Game, Are you planning to use that spinning rod here?” Paul said “Shouldn’t I?” and the officer said those are not legal until Oct. 1. Now that is something that would never happen in Utah or Idaho. The officers there, would just wait for you to start fishing and then give you a ticket and take your pole. Once again they didn’t have the right fly and never got a bit. They did meet a nice senior couple that showed them what they should use this time of year and as they were leaving, the lady gave Paul two of her flies. He said “why thank you and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Her husband said, “I’m glad I didn’t give those to you” and Paul said “me too, because then I would have had to have my friend give the kiss”.