11 January 2020

Mount Maunganui Beach. (Thanks for the photo bomb Elder Folland)

We have had a great couple of weeks. New Zealand has the right idea. Close your business for 3 weeks and go on holiday with your family. We work too hard in America. I received a New Zealand calendar for Christmas from a friend. There are many holidays I just have to smile about. My favorite so far has been "2 January." Here's a picture of a small portion of  the holidays in January:

The day after New Years day--2 January--is a holiday because it's the--Day after New Year's Day--of course! I love it! It makes total sense to me.

                                 

The bad news is our favorite cream bun bakery has been closed since Mid December, mail delivery is sketchy , and most stores are closed. The good news is the other office couple, The Follands from Bountiful, UT, and us decided to take a day trip. The bad news is we had to work before we played and had to replace a washer that flooded a flat in the Coromandel Peninsula. The good new is to get there, we had to take the coastal highway on both sides of the Peninsula.  The good news is I had ocean view all the way. (I don't think I will ever loose my awe of this beautiful country.) The bad news is we were in the van 11 hours and my internal organs were thrown from one side of my body to the other on every turn because of the switch backs and I happened to be in the backseat of the van.  The good news is it only took about three days to recover from that trip.

I always get some sand from every beach we go to because the sand on each beach varies in color from white to coal black and everything in between! Those speckles in the photo are sea shells! All the way to the beach I kept telling myself that I wouldn't take anymore shells because I was upsetting the eco system by taking my 350 pounds of shells home, but when I saw this, I knew the little microorganisms would not be homeless if I took a few pounds more. The shoreline was covered in shells!  This was Waihi Beach on the east. There was only one issue. After the tide came in and went out, it left the beach slippery and we we couldn't understand why.
LESSON TIME:
When you walk on the beach and it is as slippery as ice, RUN THE OTHER WAY. Quickly.  Which will end up being SLOWLY because each step has to be calculated or you will slip like you do on ice...As the water would wash up on our legs, there was this slimey stuff in the water that stuck to your legs. All of a sudden we realized we were the only ones near the water and the standing room only beach was practically empty.  We were thinking we were PRETTY LUCKY to have miles of beach to ourselves...Finally one of our Stake Presidents and his family showed up, their son jumped in the water to body surf , he came screaming out of the water, with slimey balls attached all over his body! We had our first experience with "SEA LICE". Yes, it is as gross as it sounds. These little slime balls were creatures that are relatives of jelly fish! They don't sting you. They just attach to you.When any pressure hits them, the tide, the sand blowing in the wind, water from a shower, a towel, your swim suit or wet suit, or your hand to wipe them away, they explode and they emit a substance onto your skin that causes an irritation and  rash and can make you exceedingly sick. It is truely a no-win situation...We didn't go into the water, but the water did wash up on our legs. Dwight got a nice little itchy rash on his legs. The bottom of my feet felt raw. It's all fun until the sea lice show up at the beach...

The next weekend, we went to Mount Maunganui Beach. It has an inactive volcano above the shore line. This beach is also home to many little Islands like you see in the movies. My phone camera just doesn't do the volcano justice. It was massive and looks like a tiny hill here. 

I did get to learn what to do if a Tsunami hit! 

This plant was just incredible. It was HUGE!

The color of the week is Purple. Every where you look you see purple  or blue flowers. Pink was in November, White was in December, Purple and Blue is January. I can't wait to see next month's color. Today, as we went to church, the sides of the road were growing yellow flowers. I'm going with yellow next. 

Just another purple flower.

Can you say oxymoron?

And yet another sign. Not to be confused with Cow poo, sheep poo, or chicken poo. So many unanswered questions. Is Pony the preferred poo? How does Pony Poo differ from Horse Poo? Who fills the bags?  How big are the bags? Is this really profitable?  And you definately will want to get the 5 bag deal...

One morning we walked up to our office and at the front door was a package for US!!!  After Dwight shook it to death and tipped it upside down, We opened it to find a SUCCULENT SAM plant from Sam, Traci, and the kids, with all the dirt in the box, not the plant. But it was fixable and is growing like a weed. In 13 1/2 months, (yes, thats all we have left...) it is going to be ginormous.  I'm going to have to leave everything here to get my shells and plant home. So now, every time I look at it, I think of Family of Sam...It more than really made our day! (And yes, in the background you see that the missionaries are still getting Christmas Presents)

                                                     

We went to McDonalds the other day and this is how we received our change. Nothing we do can unwind it. It was so strange to have the lady at the window hand us a rolled up bill. 

We had Zone Conference this week and needed to take bikes to a pair of missionaries. It made me feel so HEALTHY as I looked out the back window at those bikes!  We chose a reallly good time to have them attached to our car, as there was a biking event going on in Tauranga. People on bikes thought we were one of them trying to get to the start line in our white shirt, tie and dress and they would wave and smile. We've never been so popular in our life...(Dwight still has selfie stick issues)

We stayed in a motel for the second time since we have been here. We wanted ice. We were told the ice was in our room in the freezer...

       

It sure was. All 12 mini cubes melted before we made it to the car, with our HOT water...I don't know why ice is so scarce in this country.

                                                 

This is a Maori Marae.  Pronounced Ma-rye.  Each tribe has one and it is used for sacred purposes. It is a gathering place for funerals, religious practices, weddings, family gatherings. In order to go in, you have to be invited. If you want to see what we have to do to go inside watch here...Each Marae has it's own form of welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74VcCJNaGvw
We only saw the outside. The carvings are incredible. 

                                       

Up at the top is replica of the chief. 

I about cried when Dwight came running out of the gas station and  whipped out Krispy Kremes from behind his back! But then I did cry when he told me he paid $23.50 for 6 doughnuts. The price we pay for a little bit of home. 

This was about 4:30 in the afternoon. We had a westerly wind and the smoke from Australia blew into town. Australia is over a 1000 miles away. It was an erie feeling to have the sky this color.

                                 

The fires are terrible. We had a South Pacific Area fast for the people of Australia and the fires, last Sunday to pray and fast for rain. It rained on Monday. It helped put out some of the fires. But I just read new ones have started up. This is a picture of a cooked kangaroo. There have been over a billion animals killed in the fires. The clear beautiful skies in Zealand are still smoke filled.

We had a special Zone Conference this week. We had a visiting authority and spent two days with Elder Yamashita. ( yuh-Mosh-tah) He is a General Authority Seventy assigned to the South Pacific. We didn't have to cook and haul food which made it even sweeter because we could actively participate and not have to cook and clean. I want to share some highlights from the two days we spent with him. 

1. If your body is weak, you need CPR. It can save our lives. When our spirits are weak we need SPIRITUAL CPR. 

C=Church every week

P=Prayer every day

R=Read the scriptures daily

2.  When faced with something unknown, sometimes we just need the faith to take the first step. He told us the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. They came to the River Jordan and were promised the waters would part and they would be able to cross over on dry ground. The waters DID NOT part as they stood on the banks of the river waiting for something to happen; RATHER, the soles of their feet were wet before the water parted. Their faith was manifested in the fact they walked into the water BEFORE it parted. They walked in expecting the water to part. As they moved forward, the water parted and they crossed on dry land.  Faith led to action and that producded the end result. Is there something in your life that you are unsure of? We just need to take the first step and believe.

3. He told of how difficult is it to be called as a missionary in the Papua New Guinea Mission. Sisters cannot serve there due to safety reasons. There are no washing machines, they use wash boards or rocks. They have no air conditioning, refrigerators, stoves or ovens.  There is all sorts of disease and bugs and rodents. All food is bought in an open market and you really don't know how long it has been there. This is a pretty tough place to be. He showed a video of a zone conference he attended there. All 24 of the missionaries were in a circle and had their arms entwined around each others shoulders. As they were swaying back and forth in the circle, they were singing, "Whata great day, Whata great day, whata whata whata whata, whata great day!" His whole point was that we can make our day whatever kind of a day we choose to have. I will "Choose Happy", how about you? 

Last but not least, we visited an abandoned gold mine. Didn't find any gold...But the feathers were nice. 

Aroha from the the beautiful land, Aotearoa

Elder and Sister Clayton

If you love what you have, you have what you need...