December 7, 2019

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 question why since we gained 7 lbs on Thursday and needed to walk it off shopping. We found a Christmas tree for $7.20. Such a good deal! I won't tell you what we spent on the lights, Christmas topper and 5 ornaments. They obviously WERE NOT part of the Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Black Friday Sale...

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree brings us much joy. I found an extra pillow case in the closet for a tree skirt!

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I missed the last day of the Black Friday Sale because our Mission Christmas Conference started on Tuesday. We brought ALL 187 missionaries to Hamilton! We rented Camp Tuhikaramea. TOO-EE-care-aw-me-aw. There is something about this language that if a word doesn't have at LEAST 4 syllables, it's not a word. I'm  pretty sure my name would have four syllables. LEE-ta would be EL-ee-tea-ah. Everything is small here. The soda's, the roads, the cars, the chickens, the cows, (no growth hormones...) the clothes. But NOT THEIR WORDS!

Here's a word for you. Yep that's "one" word...

Back to our Christmas Mission Conference...So this was a camping adventure. All the Elders stayed in tents and the Sisters stayed across the lake in cabins. It rained all day. Not a gentle rain. Typhoon like winds and water being dumped in buckets...

The tents were put up in the rain. 

 Then the rain stopped as quickly as it started. 

 Our mighty Army that put up the tents in the rain and then had the faith to make it stop. 

 Here is where we would gather for our meals. We ate and ate and ate and then we had free time. We had devotionals, guest speakers, singing, athletic events, a movie, testimony meeeting, and group pictures. We had milkshakes, popcorn, treats.  I came away knowing that it is not by accident that we are here serving. Long before we knew this is where we would be, we were being prepared by life's experiences to do this. Everything that happens to us happens for a reason and that reason is that we are being prepared for what is yet to come. The best part was that I DID NOT HAVE TO COOK! It was catered. It was lovely to eat someone else's food. 

 Of course, we had planned activities. Here we were all trying to gather for a group picture. It went a lot better than anticipated. Our first game was a free for all. We divided up into zones. Each companionship had to tie their legs together like in a three legged race. 

There were four goals. Then there were about 30 balls placed in the middle of the field. The companionship had to work together with their zones, to make a goal. If you had a soccer ball you had to play by soccer rules.  If you found a football, you had to play by football rules. If you had a volleyball you had to play by vollyball rules.  If you had a basketball...well, tough luck for you...There was alot of cheating going on...

Some companionships were not equally yoked...


The best ones were the Threesomes that were tied together...

 There were lots of pile ups!

 Of course, it's not Christmas without presents. Postage is ridiculous. This Elder REALLY was loved...(yes that is $191.05 for postage)

And this one won the prize...

I had to bring all the Christmas packages to the Camp. I have probably accounted for and handled 300 packages since November 1! We had to haul them from the upstairs Mission Office to the camp. Then we set them up in Zones for the Missionaries to take. Islanders don't practice gift giving. We have many missionaries from Samoa, Tonga, Kitabis, French Polynesia, etc. It's a melting pot. So we purchased gifts and wrapped them for the missionaries that didn't get anything. 47 Elders and 15 Sisters. Now do the math. Some missionaries got 5 or 6 packages from home. Some got none from home. EVERYONE went home with something. 

Here's a few of my missionaries that always sing to me. 

My favorite song they sing to me is a Tongan Hymn called "Folofola Mai 'a Sisu". 

There is strength in numbers. What a wonderful group of young people. I love them. 

Here's the head scratcher for the week...Fish and Chips can be found on every corner. Of course Fish and Chips is pronounced "Feesh and Cheeps". What language is Fush and Chups??? Was there no "I" on the stencil?  Is someone a REALLY bad speller?  Are the owners from Russia? Actually, it's really a pretty good attention getter. Next date night:
 Fush & Chups

We started making popcorn for 200. But the Elder in charge of ordering the popcorn machines ordered these little cuties. They took 1 tsp of oil and 2 TBS of popcorn which resulted in a little less than 2 cups of popped kernals in each batch. Then the poor over worked machine had to cool off for 10 minutes between batches. 35 minutes later, with one small bowl of popcorn for all of our efforts, my fellow senior couples that were helping me were out of control laughing. It was fun to be with the other Seniors in our mission. We had more fun than the young uns.




 The bad news is we realized that we might have 200 bags popped and ready to eat by 4:44 am the next morning. The good news is we are wise enought to know when to give up. The bad news is we had to go to several different stores to buy enough already popped packes to feed the 10,000. The good news is the grocery stores were still open! The bad news is each packet had 13 popcorn pieces in each one.  The good news is we made a really sweet memory. Sweet As!

Our first cockroach experience. We have to keep the windows open or our house is dripping with mold. Open windows=unwanted friends because there are no screens on any windows. The cockroaches are out in force now that it is nice and warm...Because we spray, he chose to die in the doorway of our bedroom. Yuk.



Sign on the wall near the bathrooms at Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Up to Scratch". They weren't, We didn't.




One last thing I want to address this week. Cooking and baking here. I wanted to try a new recipe...First: Preheat oven to 180 C.  I don't know how to convert F to C.  The formula is take your celsious temperature and multiply times 1.8 ( or 9/8 is that is easier) and add 32. And you have Fahrenheit!  (Ready to throw the towel in and go the bakery for cream buns before I start...) So I get the calculator out and figure it out.  Second:  1/2 cup sultanas. Get the phone out again and look up sultanas. Golden dried grapes. (Why can't we just call them raisins?) Don't have them in my pantry. Cream buns are sounding better.) Third: Red glace cherries? Sounds like fruit cake stuff. I'll just leave those out. Fourth: Finally something I understand! Sweetened condensed milk. BUT I may need to triple the recipe because the dang can was so expensive and I WILL not waste it! Fifth: 200 g of milk eating chocolate. Could we assume that means chocolate chips? Get out the phone again. 200 g. of sugar is 1 cup. But 120 g of flour is 1 cup. 90 g of oats is one cup, and 300 g of salt is 1 cup. Nowhere does it mention milk eating chocolate. I'll just wing it and use 1 cup. Sixth:  Grease a 20 cm X 30 cm lamington pan. A what? Do I have one of those?
SEVENTH: Hop in car and go straight away to the Bakery Take Away and get those 1000 calorie apeice cream buns. And this is why our mission is called a 20 K mission. Google that one to see how much more Dwight and I will weigh when we get home...

One last thing. Christmas is upon us. Remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. I am so thankful that our Savior, Jesus Christ was a perfect example of how we should treat others and show unconditional love towards all.  If you have a moment watch this video about the Savior's birth. It's beautiful.

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/light-the-world/all-year

Till next time,
Elder and Sister Clayton