Return to Kerikeri New Zealand

About forty five years ago Elder Huntzinger served in the Kerikeri area. The town was not very productive then so they served more in the outlaying areas. They traveled a lot in those days. On "P" day they visited Matauri (mat ow ree) Bay. In 2012 he got to return. We found the town of Kerikeri growing and even booming with businesses and a growing population. We were there to see about housing for missionaries. We found 2 homes that are near town and quite nice. We checked out some places for us to stay the night and found the Wharepuka. Several cabins in dense subtropical surrounding. I was a great place to stay and the food was good too. It was a 3 hour trip up from Takapuna, where we stay, that is just north of Auckland, so we were getting tired but didn't want to waste any time and not see what we could in this simply amazing area. On the trip up Elder Huntzinger drove so I could see more. I just got tired of saying "wow". I have never seen such beauty. I would love for one of our artist sons come and explain the shade of green here. It is just different and most pleasing color I have ever experienced. I want to say it is more blue than some greens but that doesn't make a lot of sense since the desserts have mostly blueish greens.... Lets just say a picture is worth a thousand words..... here goes.

We met with the Real Estate Agent responsible for the flats we went up there to see. The houses she showed us were very nice and we hope to be able to use one.

 We checked out 3 places to stay and really liked this one at the Wharepuka a cabin in a subtropical rain forest. It was so fun and wonderfully decorated.

We then went to the Puketi (poo ket ee)  forest to see the Kauri (cow ree) trees. This is the legend of the Maoris about how Tane (a myth character represented by this big strong tree) divided mother earth and father sky. Thus Tyler's middle name. Here is a close up of the Kauri tree bark. The smell in the forest was most unusual as was the song of the birds. These pictures don't do these trees justice they are just huge. They were used to make masts on ships, the gum was very valuable to resist water so anything made from it was good at water repellant. Not to mention the amount of wood that is in one tree.

This is a Kiwi fruit orchard. When LaVar was here before they were known as "Chinese Gooseberries" but kiwis sell better. There were several of these in the area plus, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, avocado, passion fruit, and grape vineyards.

This is up one curvey road down to Mataui Bay

The dark places on the beach are piles of shells. There were just heaps of them.

On Sunday we went to the Waihou (Y how) Branch. It was a great experience to meet with these sweet people. The young woman who gave a message on the Second Coming was the one of the best I have heard. The branch President said that he has served for 10 years as Branch President. He said his branch goes from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific ocean. It is a bit exaggerated but on a map we could see what he meant. I hope to someday return to this gorgeous place. This is the view they have out of the windows of their building. I'm thinking this must be what Heaven is like. Green must be Heavenly Father's favorite color too!

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The Page is turned

 We said good-bye to our sweet families we have been teaching. This I want to remember:
Nicole is a Maori and is striving to get to the temple by the end of the year. Ti is from the Cook Islands and a very supportive husband.

 Nukami had an incredibly hard upbringing and he still has an uphill battle, but he has been on the other side and knows that is not for him. He is only 19 but was given 3 years to think about his future. He was asked to speak at a "Why I Believe Fireside" to about 200 people. He was so nervous but once he started talking about joining the church and not about his past, he stopped being nervous and talked freely. Who could resist a smile like this?

This lady is aptly named "Joy". She was baptized almost a year ago. She let us come and practice on her. She had never read the Book of Mormon. Elder Huntzinger made it come alive for her and she still was struggling some with reading. She does come to church now and goes to the Otahuhu Ward. She has a wonderful accent!

Love these all, and we will love our new ward when we have given up getting one last lady into her new ward. That didn't happen last week, because she had a friend in trouble and not the week before that because her dad was very ill...... maybe this coming Sunday? We will see.

Simple brain

I wonder if this simple brain can hold all I have learned the last two days working in the office.We will find out as the days go on. Working with a windows PC is something I never wanted to do (sorry Greg). They are just harder since I have always worked with Apple computers. Today the office was full of missionaries picking up everything from their mail to drying racks. It was very fun to have them there. They just had Zone Leader training. Tomorrow starts Zone Conferences. We will change " flats" and cars with the other couple Saturday. Sunday morning at 6:00 am we have our first presentation to Tamaki 2nd ward council. We will drive from north of Auckland back down south just the opposite of what we are doing this week. We will pass the sweet families into this good couples hands starting tomorrow and on to next week. We will miss working with the families. I never really understood that Elder Huntzinger is a great teacher! So many people warm right up to him and get enthused, as he does when he explains things. It's very beautiful to watch. It is a fabulous talent.

What? Can you "transfer" Senior Missionaries?

 I guess the answer is "Yes, sure can". We get to keep the same companion but we are being taken out of Tamaki Stake, just south of Auckland and we are being moved to the office in Takapuna, on the North Shore. We will dearly miss this stake and all of the 10 wards, they treated us so well. We have continuing appointments with 8 families and just started teaching another tonight. We will dearly miss these wonderful families. Some are coming to church again and some are needing more help to do that. There is another missionary couple that will replace us. This is their second mission, their first one was to the Navajo Nation in Gallap, New Mexico. They have a wonderful set of skills that definitely will be of use here.

    Elder Huntzinger's jobs will be maintenance of the cars and finding and managing new flats for the new missionaries that are coming in. There will be 36 more at the end of the year than there are now, so that is 18 new flats, or apartments. They all need to be equipped and maintained. He coined a name for himself with a little help from a son, he will be the "flat-car czar".  Funny

      I will be recording baptisms, finding records, referrals and supplies. The mission office is a nice office with extremely kind people. The apartment we will move to is within walking distance to the office. We have friends that we knew in the "70's when we were all going to school in Pittsburgh that are serving in the Area office right around the corner. "That's something to be happy about," per our grandson Sam.    

    Our closing hymn in the Otahuhu ward that we attended today was, "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go." That was a good reminder. Did I already say that in the six weeks we have been here we have come the love the people in the wards. Samoa's are the great singers and the Tongans sing with the incredible enthusiasm. We will miss getting to know them better.

Trip to the BEACH! Piha Black sand beach

This is our Preparation Day (P) day and we decided to drive to the beach. Piha is a small town near this beautiful black sand beach. On the west side of New Zealand. ( first day I have had on jeans in a full month).

Manukau Habor on the west side of the North Island.

We stopped at a rain forest not a tropical rain forest because we are not in the tropics but it was very green and very beautiful. The visitor center had examples of gorgeous birds we could have tramped (hiked) to see but because we were heading toward the beach we wanted to keep going. The road to this place is very curvy and narrow!

Learning to speak the Maori language. It doesn't come naturally to me. Neither does Samoan or Tongan but we still try and sing in those languages because it is important to the people, especially Tongans. The Tongans sing with great gusto. Our mission president encouraged us to be the loudest singers, but I have proven I can't do that, though we try.

We found this interesting. We didn't see any penguins, but we found out it is possible.

Lion Rock

This is the black sand beach. Made of volcanic rock. Very sparkly. There were a few people on the beach but not many. It is still winter but it was a sunny day.

Ok it was sunny at times but we still had coats on because of the wind and bit of cool weather. Looking this way it was all misty, looking the other way it was very clear.

Good try to hold a sea gull

The water is so clear.

Walking out over the volcanic rock wasn't easy going but the view was very worth it.

There was this orange thing in the corner that we never got to see what it was. We needed Sam the tide pool explorer's help to find out what creature it was.

The color of this water was simply amazing!

Very powerful waves! Very healing and relaxing. I could have stayed all day. That was not an option.

Little flower growing in hard circumstances.

This is a shell that we found and a needle to a  pine that is like a Norfolk pine but huge. The branches come out level with each other and then it goes up to another level. They are wonderful. Notice the homes that look directly at the beach. It was good I wasn't coveting them, don't you think?

We got in our very new Toyota and I couldn't get it to start. The key didn't seem to go in correctly. I needed to go to a lady that was out working out in her yard and she called a mechanic that didn't normally work on Monday. He came in about 2 minutes and had us up and going. The key is still a bit wonky but with effort it works.

These are electrical boxes that someone has beautified. Thought Tyler would enjoy seeing these. Up close they are a bit strange but passing by they look great. Love the colors and the birds depicted.

We were trying to get picture of the curly new fern branches coming out of the top of this tree fern. The motif is in a lot of places and this fern leaf is displayed too. We will keep trying to get a better picture of them.

This was a great day. We came home early to go a visit a lady and her children. She had stopped us at the grocery store and made an appointment with us. She was not home, it turned out, but the next day we went back and she was there, we taught her the Restoration lesson and she invited us back.

Today we just met up with Tom and Donna Noland. They are doing so well. It was great to see them and remember Merle Heuitt. Wonderful lady!