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.