Happy Birthday To Me!

First thing Monday morning we went to the estate agent’s office to ask for an Electrician to checkout our system. Thankfully he came out within the hour and found the fault in the outdoor water feature. He sealed it the best he could but we have left it unplugged just in case it blows the electric again and no one is at home to reset the lights.  The lights are also for the front porch and our neighbour’s under cover car port which she needs to be able to park. Hence the first job for the new missionary couple is to sort out the electric. There are fish in the outdoor pond and if the water is not filtered through then mosquitos will breed in the stagnant water.
So guess what we did for the rest of the afternoon. Well Elder Saunders slept and I watched the birds!!!!! Actually I had a nice chat with my friend Gay in England. I did appreciate the company especially as it was the middle of the night in England! At 4.50pm Elder Saunders was still sleeping and I was afraid that we would be late for a dinner appointment we had at 5.30. But he woke up just in time for us to arrive there at 5.31. What a lovely birthday treat. I felt spoilt. Chicken baked with apricots, maggots glazed with honey, cauliflower and broccoli cheese, mashed potato. Jahzae had make garlic bread and Djahni had made a banoffee pie especially for me as she knew that I loved it. We later participated in Family Home Evening. I was asked to choose my favourite hymn. That is always so difficult to choose but as it was FHE what other song could we sing but ‘Family Night’. Saunders and I started to sing it quietly to see if they knew it, but they didn’t so we ended up singing a duet of family night. Now our family may be asking did we get the last few lines correct or even did we sing the ending the same. Nope, nothing changes. We also played the simple ‘Heads Down, Heads Up game. Then we taught them the very complicated ‘Spot’ game. Some of you may be saying, that’s not a complicated game. But you try explaining and playing it when you are laughing so much. What a blessing to have made friends with such a special family.

 

 My yummy Banoffee pie. It was really not that hard to cut. It just made a good photo.

 

 

Antartic Sunday

Sunday was a lovely morning at church. The Relief Society lesson was about listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We all shared special personal experiences from our lives. Lunch for me was left over pasta. Elder Saunders just went to sleep. He is coming down with a nasty cold and was feeling quite poorly. So that left me to sit on the hillside behind the house. Actually it’s the spa pool area, photos to post if they come out good. Anyway I sat up there all by self for nearly two hours, well not quite by myself. I had the birds to keep me company and the scenery was magnificent.

The plan of keeping warm with the electric fires failed Sunday night as the electric kept tripping. Every time we reset it the alarm went off. I spoke to the lady downstairs to apologise if she could hear our alarm and it was actually louder downstairs. So we had to go to bed with no heating and lights so another cold night.

Kiwi Walk

Last night, Friday we decided to go on a Kiwi Walk. There is a special kiwi Reserve in Ohope so as the Kiwi's only come out at night we decided to go in the dark. I don't need a tourch I have my phone light!!!famous last words. We were only 10 mins into the walk and my battery was down to 50% so turned around and came back out. By the time we got to the entrance it was down to 33%.

 As we were travelling home the phone battery completely died. If we had continued on the walk into the pitch black bush the phone would not have been the only thing that would have died. Little did I know what was on the sides of the path through the bush!!!!!

Saturday afternoon we decided to go on the walk during the day. Such a lovely start to the walk…..
5 minutes into the walk there was a sign post pointing the direction, 25 mins one way or 20 mins the other way. This would take us roughly to the midway point.  Let’s go for the longer first leg we decided. Such a pretty first leg, for the first 10 mins. Then we went up and up and up and up and up and a flat spell must be near the top? Then we went up and up and up and up. By this time I was not feeling so good. Those of you who know me will know that general I avoid high place. But from the bottom looking up it didn’t look THAT high. I started to get panicky and started breathing deeply but that only last for so long. Poor Elder Saunders had me holding on to his sleeve for dear life. Until finally I fell to the ground and focused on getting my breath back to normal. Come on girl pull yourself together!!!! So after saying a pleading prayer I started to breath more normally and felt a lot more calm. Had I miraculous been transported down to the bottom of the bush and not still in the bush up the highest mount in New Zealand? (That’s just a little bit of an exaggeration but it’s poetic licence as I’m the author). NO, we were still on our way up to the top. But I was calmer and actually able to enjoy it a bit more. Well actually not really enjoy but tolerate the awful conditions! I now held Elder Saunders hand and calmly (not) climbed the last million steps. (Listen this is my story and if I want to use poetic licence I will, ok). It took us almost an hour to complete the first leg of 25 mins. But made it we did! There’s a photo that I took to prove it. Now the only way is down. So down and down and down and down and down and down and down and up and up, now wait a minute we already done the up bit??? Okay, only just a couple of hundred steps. (Tell the truth now about 40-50). Until finally we reached the bottom, yippee we made it. Now you may ask did we see any Kiwis, of course not they only come out at night. So are we to go back at night? Of course (not).

     The view from the top                                                                          Proof that we were at the top

 

  

I'm glad you can't see behind those glasses.                                                  Sophia what is this plant?  

 

                                                                Finally out!

On The Road Again

On Friday we went into the office for a few hours so that I could sort the post and other bits. Elder Saunders sorted out any paper work he had. We won’t be back in the office until late Wednesday afternoon or possibly even Thursday. Before we left Hamilton I picked up a Subway from the shop just down the road from the office. Shhh don’t tell anyone but the owner is a church member and gives full-time missionaries a half price deal. Yummy! We arrived in Whakatane about 2.30 and collect the keys to the flat for the new missionary couple arriving in a couple of weeks. We planned to stay here for a few days before going to Gisborne to move the Sisters into another flat. It was very cold the first night we stayed even though we brought two oil heaters that did not take the chill off the air. The only other heating is a log fire that first needs cleaning before it can be used. So our first shopping trip on Saturday was to buy electric heaters. So Saturday night was nice and toasty.
Saturday evening we had arranged to meet the Waihirere family at the chapel to collect some doughnuts. Their daughter Djahni is fundraising to go on a netball tournament next year in Australia. They bought a fundraising pack of Mamas Donuts while they were in Hamilton on a Temple trip that day. So we bought a box. President Waihirere said he was coming around to our flat to help us eat them. “No you’re not.” “Yes I am,” “No you’re not,” “Yes I am.” So the conversation went on and on for a few minutes. We had invited the Missionary Elders around to share doughnuts and ice cream plus I knew he had eaten some earlier. Also he had been travelling since early morning so no way would he come back to our temporary home (just a few days - but a really lovely few days). So just as we were leaving the chapel he said “Meet you at your place!” It was a really fun visit and he didn’t eat my doughnuts, he left that to the missionaries.

    Yummy ice cream
     Sister Saunders!

Gisborne????

So what is Gisborne going to be remembered for?

District Meeting

Another first for us this morning. We attended the district meeting in Gisborne and it was so good. Elder Harrison is the district leader and he did a wonderful job of instructing and inspiring us all. Near the end of the meeting they did some roles playing both Elder Saunders and I got to be people on the street and that was so much fun. And no we didn’t give the missionaries a hard time.

The District  with their Zone Leaders.

Pure Beauty

Just a few of the beautiful pure images I saw this past weekend.

 

Missionary Rescues?

What is that? A lonely lost stuck Big Stick.

 OH NO! A big Wave.

 I will rescue you.

 Saved!

 Back into the Ocean Big Stick.

 You are finally free big Stick.

 

FHE

On Monday after a busy day of flat hunting we were looking forward to our Family Home Evening with Elder and Sister Belliston.  They had invited a few friends and families to come to an outside activity, so dress up warm was the order.  Elder Belliston had chopped up some firewood earlier in the day and Elder Saunders was supposed to arrive back earlier to help him but that didn’t happen as we were so busy. The evening was such a fun. We all sat around a log fire listening to Sister Belliston tell stories of pioneer children. I think we were all listening intently including the children but maybe that was because they were promised hot dogs if they behaved. I’m not really that keen on frankfurter style sausages but toasting them on the campfire actually made them delicious!!!

A Bit Of Fun

 What is Elder Saunders looking for? Elder Romney's bald patch.

Ha Ha Ha you couldn't find it because I don't have one.

 All's good now Elder Baker

House Hunting Week 2

Elder Saunders has had a very busy few weeks closing down a lot more flats, about 6 I think. Thankfully most of the time he has had help from the strong missionary Elders to move the furniture out. He has stored some of the items but some was rubbish and had to be dumped. Other things he gave away to the charity shop or took them to Camp Tuhikaramea.

This week I have just tried to catch up with all the baptism records and updating the missionary records after the transfer week.

We left for Whakatane early Friday morning that was after a quick stop at the office to check the mail. I don’t like going to any areas without checking to see if there is any letters or parcels for the missionaries. There wasn’t much there but I took what there was. We arrived in plenty of time for our 12 o’clock appointment to see a flat. To be honest Elder Saunders and I looked at the outside of the flat last week and he decided it was not suitable. But after having looked around the inside and seeing that everything was on the one floor he decided to give it a big maybe and would let them know on the Monday. After a weekend of pondering on the flat he decided that he would go for it. So we know have a flat in Whakatane for our missionary couple arriving in 3 weeks.

We stayed the weekend in Gisborne at the Belliston’s home. For the first few days we did not see much of them as they were busy of course with missionary work and we were busy flat hunting. There isn’t much in Gisborne at this time sadly. Mainly because we are fussy, we want the sisters to be in a safe location and for it not to be too small. We looked at two flats that were so small and one of them would have had to have the fridge in the living area which already could barely fit table and chairs in the room. I think it must have been built for Hobbits!!!

On Sunday we went to Te Hapara Ward and stayed for all 3 hours. This was a first for us as we normally go to Mangapapa Ward or start travelling back to Hamilton after Sacrament. We had wonderful meetings and felt spiritually feed. We attended the Gospel Principles class and the topic was The Word of Wisdom. The missionaries gave the lesson and as we were reading from the manual each of us were sharing experiences and our testimonies on how living a healthy lifestyle blesses our lives. We also shared how not living quite such a healthy lifestyle pulls us down. My Relief Society lesson was also good especially as we divided into three groups and shared our experiences on how to keep the Sabbath day holy. Something Elder Saunders and I have always tried to do.
We spent the afternoon relaxing and reading. The most relaxing day we have had in months. We spent the evening chatting with Elder and Sister Beliston.