The Clayton's Mission Adventures

Volcanos and Earthquakes and Fire Trucks! OH MY! Well, it's bean (that's how we say been around here) an exciting week. The White Island volcano erupted in the Bay of Plenty. We are about 1 1/2 hours away. It didn't do any harm except to the 40+ people that were gathered around the perimeter gazing into the bubbling volcano. 16 are dead, several are in critical condition and 4 are still missing.  The next day, we had an earthquake in Gisborne 5 hours away. It was a 5.2. All missionaries were safe and accounted for. I'm starting to think we need a mission emergency plan. I'll get to the fire later... Summer has officially arrived. (Holy hot and humid, Batman!) Just another over achieving tree. Christmas came and went. We didn't have snow, but we had white flowers in every ditch, on every tree, and along side the roads. It was different than what we are used to yet somewhat the same. I'm so grateful for my missionary companion and since "TOG...

Merry Christmas from New Zealand! We put tree a up in the office today. (Note the luggage in the background. We have 15 missionaries going home tomorrow and 18 arriving the next day.) This is our BUSY week. Wait, so is next week and the week after and week after that... We haven't traveled much these past few weeks. (We have had 43 consecutive accident free days and haven't had to go drive any wrecked cars!) I probably just jinxed Elder Clayton. (Update: the day after I wrote this, Dwight got a call and someone had backed into a fence and scraped up their car)  Pictures of the week: Everything is in bloom. We had to stop on the way home from church and take this picture of a blooming tree. I'll just say it one more time, the flowers are HUGE in this country and have a silent competion to see who can outbloom who. We still can't figure out the selfie stick. The pained, confused "How in the heck do I get this thing to work"  look on Elder Clayt...

KIA ORA!  family, friends, and loved ones: Carli sent us a selfie stick! Now we have to figure out how to use it without having it in the picture.  We officially missed Thanksgiving this year. With turkeys going  for $9.98 a kilo a 20 lb turkey would cost around $99.80. So we just worked all day. Some nice man named Peter who knew it was Thanksgiving in the States and knew we were missing being with family, brought 19 cream buns into the office. That would have been lovely except Elder Clayton and I were the only ones in the office that day. Soooo, we shared with whomever came into the office, (the postie,and 2 sets of elders) and then we ate the other 14. Kinda felt sick by the end of the day. Happy Thanksgiving. These are REALLY good...The yellow stuff is passion fruit jelly complete with crunchy seeds. The Kiwi's have Black Friday! But it starts on Saturday and lasts until Tuesday,  from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. each day(?) It's not mine to que...