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!

Road to Huia (Who E ya)

These lovelys are just everywhere in the winter

we wonder if they bloom always or just in winter. Cala Lillies are our favorite flower though we love others, these are such a joy to see, and many of them are quite large. Bigger than the florist sells in the US.

I have always found cemeteries interesting places. In some there is real peace, some you can see the true sadness in loosing loved ones to death and other headstones are an attempt at humor..... all seem to tell a story.

This is our lunch treat! Elder Huntzinger gets an egg roll and I tried a mince pie. Mince is actually hamburger and it tasted somewhat like a pot pie, some are better than others but they don't give you a fork to eat it with and judging from the look on the ladies face someone that just bought food and asks for a napkin is quite a puzzle to them. A "napkin" is a baby diaper, and a "servette" is a table napkin. Elder Huntzinger corrected it because I was just laughing at the mistake.

It's scenes like this that reminds me that we aren't in the US anymore. Rolling green hills "terraced" sort of and GREEN. With this much rain everything should be green. Moss grows on the asphalt streets where the cars don't go. Curtains mold and things on the porch get musty smelling easily. The ground is just saturated with the water. Even if it looks solid to walk on it is quickly obvious that it is deep mud.

This gorgeous shell gets duller every day, things just don't do that well when taken out of the environment they came from. The silver fern is a symbol of New Zealand and if you watch for it you will see it too. It was on the skulling shell they used in the Olympics.

This is a favorite picture. The rainbow just kept getting more intense and it was one of those times when a really great camera would have captured it better.

Rachel this little shed reminded me of the pictures you like to take. 

We then went to a little shop in the town and bought a bag of crisps, (potato chips) and we got an orange and chocolate ice cream cone. The ice cream here is just wonderful, light not heavy cream and light also on the sugar, it seems to me. 

The trip to Huia reminded us of the "Road to Hana" on the Island of Maui with Tim and Micah, years ago. The road was very curvey and the vegetation came right to the road. The trees were very different than we normally see in town and there were huge ferns that were about the size of trees. We loved our Preparation Day (P) day activity on our trip to the Manakau Heads, which is the narrow mouth to the Manakau Habor which we see from our west facing windows. They are called heads because they are mountains on each side of the harbor.

P.S. this blog site is being very hard to use. Stephanie suggested I try another one which I just might do. I will update here if I make the change.

WE ARE IN New Zealand!

Island of the long white cloud. It is winter here and so for the last two weeks it has rained every day. Most days have 100% humidity even when it is not raining. There is mossy lichen stuff that grows on the asphalt, the windows and curtains have mold on them, but having said that, it is truly a beautiful place. Even in the winter there are flowering trees, flowers in the yards, and fruit hanging from the trees. So many people don't eat the fruit and one day given the opportunity I will ask why and get some to enjoy.

This is an English speaking country but right away we noticed the differences in how it's said. LaVar had a hard time finding one of his large bags and I got to stand for awhile just enjoying the moment of FINALLY getting to New Zealand. The missionaries we flew with had already gone onto customs. We figured someone was waiting for us and at 6:00 AM they were. The mission President and his wife, Sister Lekias, Elder Passehl one of the office staff, and Bro. Nelson, the man we have been corresponding with about what to bring etc. He had a car just for us. There were 2 vans with trailers behind to take the Elders, Sisters and all their stuff. We went first to One Tree Hill. It is a hill that from the top one can see almost all of the gorgeous city of Auckland, including Sky Tower both harbors and Rangitoto Island, one of the newest volcano made islands in the Pacific. 
Our Mission President is from Australia, first thing he said was, "welcome to the Heart of Polynesia"!

This is a view from One Tree Hill, it cleared for a few minutes only and then this heavy wet fog just engulfed all of us. The assistants forgot to bring their camera so we got just one shot with the iPad. We were glad we thought to bring it with us out of the car.

President and Sister Lekias and all the new missionaries.

Gift basket from Sister and Elder Nelson

This is a "fizzy" that is quite good. Not like anything I have tasted before.

Flag of New Zealand and a booklet from the mission

View from one of our 3 balconies out to the west, which seem like east to me. Just a bit turned around.

Our "flat" has 2 bedrooms and a lounge (living room)and a 3/4 bath. It is on the 13th floor, my lucky number. It has a tv,  dvd player, a large black leather couch, a table with 4 chairs and a desk. Our mattress is brand new and we have two night stands. It is the smallest space we have lived in yet, but everything we need. What you see in the kitchen is the refrigerator/freezer, microwave, 2 burner glass cook top oven and the dishwasher is under the oven. All things have a switch on the wall to turn them on, even the oven and dishwasher, all outlets on the wall have a switch to turn the outlet off.

We have been given the entire Tamaki (tom a key) Stake to work with as MLS missionaries. Now this is a little confusing to most everyone (we think); because for us MLS means Member and Leader support, but for others it refers to an application used by wards and stakes to organize information, send reports, and do finances named Member and Leader Services. Ummm -- maybe they should be closely related and we are going to try to turn this into an advantages.

Mission Training Center

Timothy and his family were visiting Utah from California and he offered and we accepted a ride from him to the MTC in Provo, Utah. We had just come to Tyler's and Charlotte's home from the Family reunion in New Mexico on Sunday and we left for the MTC on Monday morning. We spent some time sorting out our clothes so that just our carry on luggage was needed.  

This is as we have just said "good-bye" to the grandkids 

that were there.

This is our "district" at the MTC. These are the people we studied with. Sister Preador, Sister Iversen, they were going to Spokane Washington as employment specialists, us, and Elder and Sister Hogg, going to Fiji doing office work we can't remember. There was another couple that was with us and he thought he was having an asthma attack but when he went to the hospital they found he had pneumonia. The bottom two are our young returned missionary trainers, Bro. Lystrum and Bro. Barney.
The food at the MTC was very good and it took a lot of will power not to eat the ice cream, cream puffs, and heavy meals that were offered. Like one lady said many meals were breaded, sauced and basically great tasting.
      We really enjoyed our time at the MTC, the young missionaries there are very impressive. They study all different languages and they are in little pockets deep in studying. For a huge group of basically teenagers I never saw any unwise goofing around, not to say there wasn't laughter and joyful times, just not rough housing, mean spirited stuff. The big meeting we had on Friday night when all the missionaries came together was very impressive. We stood with about 2,000 young men and women and sang "Called to Serve", it was a very touching moment for me and I didn't resist the urge to turn around and look at all those great young people willing to go and help others come unto Christ.
       Brother Featherstone came to speak to us. He talks just as fast as he always did, but he is older now and some things got slurred. Many of you will remember he came to Philmont when we were there many years ago, he held Micah on his knee and took a picture with Rachel there too. He met Alyssa and Steve coming out of the temple on their wedding day and congratulated them on their choice to be married in the temple. We were glad for his message. He told of one of his grand daughters who is somewhat challenged and on a mission.  One day as she and her companion were walking along the sidewalk they saw two young girls playing in their yard. They began talking with the girls when the girls mom came out. The mom talked with Jennifer, Elder Featherstone's grand daughter (the missionary) and her companion. She didn't want to be taught but finally agreed to let the missionaries teach her young daughters scripture stories. After the missionaries had been there several times to teach the girl's mom came to sit in on one of the lessons. Jennifer asked the mom about her parents. The girl's mom said that she didn't want any contact with her parents, she had left home in anger years ago and was very happy with her life away from them. Many times Jennifer told the mom that she needed to call her dad, the lady refused. Maybe because of Jennifer's challenges, or maybe because it was the right thing to do, but one day after many months of encouragement, the lady went into her house and called her dad. The dad on the other end of the line could hardly speak but was able to get his wife, the girl's mother on the phone. The girls mother just told them she was fine and enjoying a good life, they told her how they had worried and fretted all these years that they didn't know where she was or how to contact her, and basically how over joyed they were to finally hear from her. The mom of the girls did share with the missionaries that she had been raised in the church and when she left home was the first time she had not gone to church. There was a bit more to the story but the missionaries were able to continue to teach the girls and one was old enough to be baptized and wanted to be, the mother agreed. Jennifer encouraged the mom to call the dad again and ask him if he would come and baptize the little girl, at first the mom flatly refused but with Jennifer's help she finally called again, and he readily said they would be on the next plane.
        Just a little example of how anyone's boldness could draw families together.  

New Zealand here we come. After waiting for 10 months for our Visas to come, finally we are on our way.