20 October 2019

Peace Lilies grow wild here!  (Look closely in the background.) I made Dwight pull off the road so we could take a selfie. Do  you know how many peace lilies I have tried to grow in my lifetime and killed? They are like weeds here.They are so breath taking! Gotta get me a selfie stick. Dwight's arms aren't long enough and he gets cranky with me as I'm telling him to stretch farther...

Every week, we discover something new and unique to New Zealand. If you want to buy a house, go to the house relocators. Pick out any house on their lot and they will move it to your property!

Here are a few more choices...

I still can't figure out what this sign means. 

Or this one! 

Something I love about New Zealand is the way they take care of their resources. When you go to the store--grocery, variety, clothing, you have to bring your own bags. If you forget to take them, then you buy new ones or carry your purchases out in your arms. Do you know how many cloth bags we now own because we always forget ours? About 12. And plastic ware is hard to come by. Most "take aways" (fast food joints) give you wooden ware!

Best news ever! We have moved to our permanent home! We are within walking distance of  the office. But it is uphill both ways..We have a couch! We have a kitchen table! We have 8 plates! I have three casserole dishes. Our bed has a bedspread! And I have a night stand.  This was my night stand in our temporary flat. The box worked well until it started to fall apart from the humidity. Our other place had a dish washer, but we never used it because we only had 2 plates. We have a dishwasher here too.  His name is Elder Clayton.

If you are wondering what this is, it is a towel dryer. Towels never dry here by themselves. Put your wet towels on this and flip the switch and it heats the towels and drys them. Lovely to get out of the shower to a hot towel! 

My hip has been giving me more than a bit of pain lately. (I think the change in barometric pressure makes my arthritis worse.)And it rains every day three or four times...) I went to a local doctor to see if I could get a cortisone shot to tide me over for awhile. I couldn't help but snap this photo on my "way out". It just struck me funny! Going to the doctor is so different here. The doctor comes out and gets you and takes your vitals and information. There was no nurse! Talk about over worked and under paid with socialized medicine. 

I wanted a picture of a typical street. Most buildings look like this. There are hundreds of little family businesses trying to eek out a living. The buildings are so colorful! In Montana, you can judge the size of the town by how many bars are in town. Here, it's how many bakeries are on a block. Oh the deliciousness found in each one. My goal is to visit all 150 bakeries in Hamilton before we leave. 

Today after church, we had to drive up the West coast to the Northern part of our mission. Another 2 hour one way trip.  Another accident that had to be taken care of. (Only 3 this week.) These white feathery grasses that we try to grow up north were scattered amongst the peace lilies. So beautiful. 

I just had to take a picture of this. The mountains look like this close up. They all look like they are terraced! Dwight and I think it's because this whole Island is made of volcanic rock. Cows and sheep are always on these terraces. I don't know how they stay upright and not break a leg. 

This road drove straight into the ocean. It was so cool. You go around a corner, see the ocean and the road just ends. At the beach. Into the ocean. You can drive right into the ocean. 

But we didn't. It wouldn't have been good for the Car guy to have to call the President and tell him WE wrecked a car. The sand was black. Everyone on the beach had black feeet. The ocean was ferocious today.

This week was catch up week. Did we catch up? Nope. There just aren't enough hours in a day to do what has to be done. Some days we work 11 hours. And next week the transfer cycle starts all over again! Our missionary with Cancer went home today. He did three weeks of chemo and will return home for the next round. Prayers have been answered. The tumor is shrinking, his eye sight was not affected, and it is contained in the one area. The miracle is that because he was here and not in his home country, chemo was started two days after diagnosis. If he would have been in his home country, it would have been months before he would have even been seen. It was a tearful goodbye, a mission haka for him, and there could be no hugs or hand shakes because his immune system has been compromised with the chemo. His mother has been staying here with him until he could go home. He continued going out teaching with his companion and had a baptism yesterday. Stayed strong till the end even with his adversity.  

I love going to church in our little Branch in Raglan. Today we talked about Paul and his ability to endure his trials happily. Our teacher,  a lovely lady of Maori decent, drew this picture of a sapling on the board and wrote these words in Maori. These words mean--"As a tree grows, it bends as it weathers challenges, but as the adversity comes, it makes the sapling tall and strong." We can weather the storms of life through our Savior Jesus Christ. Another thing that stuck with me today was  a quote by Bruce R McConkie.
"The caravan moves on with or without you." Are we on board or left on our own?
I know I want to be on the carvan, not left along side the road to muddle through life on my own. We need the Savior in our life.

We really enjoy being in our own house. It's so lovely. For the first time since June, I don't have anything in a suitcase. It feels so good. I have a full size washer, but a dryer that dries 5 items at a time. I have a full size refrigerator! I can buy a stalk of celery and not have to cut it up to fit it in the frig. We have so much more than we need in America. There are only about 10 varieties of shampoo to choose from here. It makes life simpler. So much frustration in the US comes from having to make so many choices on things that really don't matter. The stores close at 5:00 at night. A liter of gas costs $2.13. (About $96 to fill our little Toyota.) It took about 12 gallons. Dwight just did the math $8.05 a gallon. 3 liters of milk cost $5. 39.  They do have Cover Girl and Maybellene makeup. But a bottle of Cover Girl foundation is $54. You get to a point where you don't even look at the prices because you can't do anything about it. Some things are ridiculously cheap, though. An HP printer for $29. A flat iron and blow dryer and brush kit for $24.99! A bag of lollies costs $10.99. (A package of licorice or bag of candy) My sweet tooth is breaking the bank. 

Time is going so fast. In six days we have been on our mission two months! We only have 10 transfers left! Love to you all, 

Elder and Sister Clayton