They have the most interesting trees here and I love the root system. This is Shakespere Park

April 28, 2009
This week has been a week of trying to get responses from our Public Affairs directors on the various Islands. Paul has emailed them, called them and emailed again and again…..but we only hear from one of our islands. We are trying to plan a visit to Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa, sometime in the next two weeks so that we can determine where they stand and then provide

any training and help that they may need.

These are the other two Public Affairs couples that work in the office with us. The Clarks and the Webster. Both couples are in their seventies.

Our office workday is like an 8 to 5 job. We work on the computers and phone all day, which is kind of boring, so when we put pictures on our blog, it’s mostly our weekend trips. Most of our family thinks we are just down here having a vacation but to those who know Paul and I really well, know that putting on a dress, nylons, ties and suits to sit at a desk for 8 hours, five days a week is definitely not a vacation. We do have lots of fun because we have our weekends free and can take off to see the beautiful sites.

Last Saturday we went to Orewa which is a half hour north of our house. It was overcast, windy and some rain but we felt we had to see something and had a great time.
We found a great little Mexican restaurant, owned by a guy from California, had some lunch and then walked around the little shopping area of the town. I love their fruit markets and bakeries. They have the most wonderful looking breads and pies. They also eat a lot of meat pies and Panini’s here. So there is never a want for food.
We sat on the beach for a while and there were tons of kite surfers, wind surfers and three wheeled carts with a sails on them. Those things looked really fun and really tear up and down the big flat beach.

They even had beach skateboard surfers with a sail pulling them along on the wet sand. The wind was really howling and I could hardly talk into it. It took your breath away. We just sat down and watch the action.

It wasn’t cold and the whole beach was dotted with the colorful sails and kites.
Some of the kite surfers were going 10 to 15 feet in the air and landing it. It was amazing. I kept thinking how much fun it would be to have all these toys at Bear Lake. I could just see the boys flying through the air when the wind blows.

The three wheeled cart looked like a real riot. They were zipping across the sand on three wheels and then would tip on to two wheels. I wanted to get on it and fly across the sand. People here don’t mind wind, rain or cold, they are out having fun.

We have been trying to get our visa stuff done AGAIN!!! (For Samoa this time.) We had to go to a doctor here and do new chest x-rays and fill out all the paper work again. We have to be finger printed and have an FBI report done. We hope we can get things done so that we can move by the middle of June but it’s looking more like July now.

Every Monday we get together with all of the senior couples for FHE but last night was the most wonderful family home evening yet. Elder Scott is here touring the Islands and he invited all the senior couples to an evening with him. There were 10 couples and the Area Presidency. We met at Elder Callister’s home, a member of the Area presidency. His apartment is near the beach overlooking the ocean. It makes our place look like a dive but we still like it.
Elder Scott asked each of us to stand and tell him our assignments and then to say two things that we appreciated about our spouse. We were each able to do that. He then gave us some good advice. He said that we should take time away from missionary work and go somewhere for a couple of days and relax and just think about what the Lord would have us do to be successful in our assignment. He said that we often get too involved in just doing work that we really don’t get the spiritual guidance that we all need. He also talked about keeping a private journal of your thoughts when you have promptings from the spirit. He said that it should be kept where no one else can read it. He said that he keeps his on the computer with a secret pass word. When he dies, it will die with him.
It was a wonderful evening and we were all able to shake his hand and talk to him personally. This is one of those great rewards that you get while serving a senior mission.

This is Cornwall Park. This whole huge park belonged to Sir John Logan Campbell. He wanted the Kiwi's to have a fun place to visit and do family things so he donated his family farm to New Zealand. They wanted to name it after him but he was such a humble man and said to just name it after Cornwall.

These are our fun friends the Nalley's, Lon and Kaye, we have loved them from the first day. Paul and he give each other lots of trouble.
This is the cute Tea house were we ate lunch on our Kayak trip.

Just enjoying the river with the Nalley's.

April 19, 2009

It seems like we have been on the go for days. Last week was Easter and we had four days off. So we decided to take off to the south. It took us five hours to drive what is normally a three hour drive because it was a holiday and everyone was on their way out of town. It took us 2 hours to just get through downtown Auckland.

We had made reservation at a bed and breakfast called the HillTin. We thought it was just a clever way to tap into the name Hilton but in fact it got that name because it is really made out of corrugated tin. The entire house including the shower had cement floors and the walls were tin. It had several bedrooms so they changed it into a bed and breakfast. We arrived at eight thirty using our TOM TOM GPS. When it said “you have arrived at your destination” we were out in the country and there were no homes in site, we couldn’t figure out where to go because the only other road was a gravel one that went through a farm field and then angled straight up a very steep hill. We called and asked where to go from here and she said “Oh take the gravel road” and that we would see the sign. We saw a sign made out of tin with hand written letters saying “Hill Tin” we went up the road which was completely dark and wound our way up a hill. We arrived at our place and it was just a unique little home. We were greeted by Chris, the owner and shown to our room. It looked like someone’s bedroom and if we wanted to watch TV we had to go into their family room and watch it with her.
In the morning she made us poached eggs over toast with cooked tomatoes and bacon. It was really good. The view from their hill top was spectacular and you could see the entire valley from their patio and kitchen. Quite a beautiful site.
After Breakfast we said our goodbyes and headed off to the Waitomo Caves, ” Wai” means water and “tomo” means holes or caves. The caves are all formed from limestone and are a result of millions of years of water running and dripping through the rock. The area is honey combed with caves running all over the place.
You can explore several different caves depending on the experience you want and all the caves have glowworms in them. Glow worms are the larva stage of a fly and they hang from the cave ceiling with a little speck of glowing tail. They hang a silk like thread straight down to catch other bugs which they then eat. It is really quite amazing to see thousands of these little specks of light lighting up the cave which would otherwise be in total darkness. We had reviewed the many brochures and planned on doing the black water rafting, where you float the cave in inner tubes but when they told us that you had to jump backwards off a five foot high shelf into the cold river, and in total darkness to boot, “I said NO way.” They also mentioned that there were fresh water eels all through the river. Well, that sealed it, we took the rubber boat. Besides it was a cool rainy day and I was already cold in my sweatshirt and windbreaker so I wasn’t about to get into a bathing suit and jump into a cold river with eels.

I did get to feed some goat meat to one of the eels and it was huge!!! The boat trip was great and we were able to see the glow worms up close. The Glowworms are the larvae stage of a winged insect that can only survive in damp dark places. The light glowworms emit is call bioluminescence, a mixture of 4 chemicals. The whole top of the cave was covered with glowworms.
We also walked through another cave with stalactites and old fossils of the Moa bird which is now extinct. We hiked to the end of the cave and saw several sink holes where animals had fallen into the caves and died, leaving just their bones.

After we finished the last of our scheduled caves we took off for Lake Taupo in the middle of the island. Lake Taupo is the biggest lake in Austral-Asia area and roughly the size of Singapore and it’s famous for its rainbow trout fishing. I wonder why we went there??? We got there in time to charter a fishing boat for the next day and had a nice dinner at Burger fuel overlooking the beautiful lake. In the morning we ate breakfast and then drove to the famous bungee jumping site. It was set up on a long platform that hangs over a beautiful river and was about 200 feet above the water. I could hardly walk out on the platform because it was so high. I couldn’t believe anyone would want to do that but Paul wanted to do it. So he got into the line to pay and discovered that it was a 3 hour wait. Our fishing boat was scheduled to begin in an hour and a half so it was wait in line or go fishing. We went fishing.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get a license but Paul talked me into it.

We had been out about ten minutes when we had the first fish on. Paul was reeling it in when I had one on. It was a fun three hours and we caught 9 fish and 3 got away. Paul got the record for the biggest and I caught the smallest.
We walked around the town which was so cute. It reminded me of how shopping was 30 years ago in the states with lots of little shops and bakeries all over the place. All of the restaurants on the water front had tables outside so you could eat outside and look at the lake. It was so quaint. We spent two days there and then back to Auckland.

It was a fun weekend. We are trying to go somewhere every weekend because we are going to Samoa in June.
Monday seven of the senior couples went on a kayak trip up north at a place call Poipu. You can only go when the tide is up because it’s a tidal river that empties into the ocean and only once a day is the river full enough to paddle down. We had so much fun racing, splashing and relaxing with such great people.

One couple, Sandy 75 and Reese 79, were giving us a bad time because we were paddling in sync, so we threw them a rope and started to tow them down the river. A few minutes later unknown to Paul, we were towing 4 couples. Each had passed the one behind a rope. We turned around and they were all laughing at us. Paul thought it was getting harder to paddle.

For lunch we went to a place called the Tea House which is only opened at lunch time. It’s just a small house and the owners cook up three main dishes. They had these biscuits that were to die for and they came with homemade raspberry jam, cream, and butter. It seemed like we had stepped back in time to England and we’re out having a tea in the country side.

t

Tuesday
We were in a Public Affairs conference all this week. It started off with a devotional with President Baxter our Area president. He is from Scotland and is a great, spiritual man, but has a cute personality too. We spent the rest of the day getting binders and all training material ready for the conference. We left around 2:30 to go to Hamilton a two hour drive for dinner and to go to the temple. The temple is beautiful but a really different design. You have to walk through the chapel to go to the changing room. It was a long day and we didn’t get home until 10:30. The rest of the week we were in training from 8 to 4:30 every day.

Friday after the conference all six couples went to Rotorua for a night and a day. It’s a three hour drive southeast from Auckland. They have a park called Te Puia and it has a cultural show, at which Paul and I both got picked to perform. I had to do the poi balls and Paul had to do the Huka.

Paul our Maori pole God. I think he finally has the tongue thing down

In the park there are Maori villages, geothermal geysers, and mud pots. The whole town smells, in fact the locals call it stinky town because of the sulfur smell.

After the park we went walking around town and of all things, ran into people from Utah. Paul had his U of U hat on and a lady came up and said that they were from southern Utah. They were there on vacation and their husbands were off hunting deer and elk. It was fun to talk with them for a while.
We ended the day by going to a place called the buried city. The city was covered with five feet of mud after a volcano had erupted and the whole town was cover with a huge wall of mud. Before the disaster there was a pink terraced waterfall that was beautiful and tourists would come from England to see it. Unfortunately it was all buried under the mud and destroyed. We hiked down to the river and saw another waterfall that was so beautiful and well worth the hike. The streams had huge trout in them and it about killed Paul to look but not touch. We got home around 9:00 and are exhausted today.
I kind of feel that we are like Chevy Chase in the movie “Vacation” when he had only a few minutes to see the Grand Canyon. His head bobbed up and down a couple of times and he was off to something else. We look about the same as we are trying to see so much of New Zealand in such a short time.

Second week in New Zealand

Working hard at the office

Auckland from our car

Hole in the rock

March 22
Our first week at the office was one of introductions and getting all our office equipment, email accounts set up, figuring out the phones and receiving our cell phone. Orientation on how to use the printer, phones etc., what meetings were required and we met with Elder Baxter the Area President. There are two other couples that work with us. The Webster’s are from Bountiful and the Clark’s from North Salt. Each couple has certain areas that they are assigned to work with. We have Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Christmas Island.
The people here are lovely and so friendly that you love them immediately. Richard is excited to have us here and has told us that several time. He says that “We get it”. We have had several meetings with him and the other couples and we are getting our jobs redefined. We had a phone conference with Alan Wakeley who is the director of public affairs for Australia and boy did he pile the work on us. We are on the Opinion Leader committee with him and the Pierson’s and we were on the phone for 2 hours getting instructions. After that conference call we both felt exhausted and had to go to Burger King for a coke.

We are still using the GPS "Tom Tom" because we can’t remember how to get to places. This weekend we went to Paihai a beautiful city on the east coast which they call the bay of islands. It was a three hour drive through some of the most beautiful and interesting country side. There were huge palm trees mixed with pine trees and shrubs and hundreds of shades of green. I really do think that this is where the Garden of Eden should be. So many times we wanted to stop and take pictures but there were no places to turn off the highway. I kept thinking that there should be a place for Scenic Overlook but then they would have to have them every 2 miles. The roads wind up and down and all over the place and the speed limit is 100km/hr so the drive was quite exciting.
We took a great four hour boat trip all around the bay of islands and ended up going through a place called Hole in the Rock. What gorgeous landscape all around this island. There was a really cool light house out on the end of the island and I immediately thought of Tricia’s because she has always loved them.
We have found that everything closes early here. All the shops were closed at 4:30 and yet the restaurants don’t open until 6:00 so you can’t eat early or shop late. Even the mall closes at 6:00 PM. I guess the people here just go home early and then stay there because nothing is open past that time.

We went for a walk our first day here and discovered the great place.

This is our first day in New Zealand. After taking a much needed nap, we didn't sleep too well on the 13 hour flight here, we went for a walk to see what the neighborhood looked like. It is so beautiful. Lush green vegetation everywhere. The streets wind up and down with cute little houses, many in a jungle like setting. The beach is only a few blocks from our home and I suspect that we'll spend much of our weekends and evenings down there. Richard Hunter, the area public affairs director picked us up from the airport and took us to the area office to pick up our car. Just the thought of driving on the other side of the road about scared us to death and the actual experience was even worse. Every time I go to signal I turn the windshield wipers on instead. I hope the other drivers can tell by the wipers as to which way we plan to turn. There are lots of round abouts here and you have to be a bit aggressive to get in and out. That coupled with right seat driving has made our first two days here rather sporty. I have only had one incident of driving on the wrong side of the road. We were leaving a parking lot and I had to hurry to get out. My instincts took over and I took off on The wrong side of the road. both the other driver and myself had to swerve to avoid a collision. He didn't even honk at me or anything. they are much nicer here than in the states. We did however need to go back home so I could change my shorts. We have a Tom Tom GPS in our car and that little thing is wonderful. We have made shopping trips to the Mall and other grocery stores and it gets you right there. The sweet little voice is so kind and she doesn't even get made when I don't follow instructions just right. She just kindly tells me to take the next turn and gets me back on the right track. Kind of like the Holy Ghost. We love all the little shops and markets that they have here. We can walk to lots of them and others are just 10 or 20 minutes away. This is all quite different from Taiwan but the country side is beautiful from what we have seen and we already love it here.

This our ward farewell Party. Paul needs a longer tongue if he's going to make it as a dancer.

I had fun trying to do the Poi balls but I have 23 months to really get it down.

Jodi visiting with our bishop and Howdy Doody Dave with his back turned.

Paul with Larry Miller and Roger Ricks

New Year's trip

Hot Jodi singing with
Brandon on guitar and Craig on drums. Elliot and Luke making sure they do it right.

Jodi Shayla and Pat at Crystal Cove

Pat and Shayla freezing to death

Jodi Shayla and Brandon in Vegas with a great homemade meal from gourmet cook Shayla.