D for Devotional?

I was looking forward to going to Time Out For Women in Auckland on Saturday 15 April. There were many different motivating speakers attending most of which I have heard of before. But I guess the main attraction for me was David Archuleta. For those of you who do not know then I will explain. He was a finalist on American Idol in 2008. And we just happened to be in the States when the final was on. Our dear friend Leane placed one vote for me for David Archuleta but she posted several more for David Cook who won. Anyway I just love the sound of his voice and I have taken a great interest in what he has been doing over the years. What was really exciting was he decided to go on a mission for our Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Now for the D is for Devotional? Well it could be changed to D is for David because can you imagine my delight when we were told that we would be having a devotional for half our mission on the Thursday before with a few of the TOFW presenters. Guess who we got lumbered with????? David Archuleta and Brad Wilcox. Calm down girl. I think I was excited as all the other missionaries. It was a very special meeting. Brad Wilcox is an amazing inspirational speaker and brought the scriptures alive for us. David spoke and sang many hymns including a on the spur of the moment duet with our lovely mission president. Luckily President Rudd has a good singing voice. (Also luckily he probably will never read our blog) They sang the first verse of I am a child of God. It was so gently sung, magic! At the end of the meeting instead of us staying in our seats while our guest left we were told that both David and Brad would like to go around to all of us missionaries and talk and shake as many hand as he could. So I waited patiently as he went up and down the other isle. Then was eagerly waiting for him to down my isle, instead I just saw the back of his head as he chatted with the young missionaries. Now what was I going to do. Well his manager suggested I stand at the end of the isle beside her then he would have to pass between us to leave the chapel. So did that go as planned, NO! As he finished shaking the young missionaries hand he went in the opposite direction from me across the back of the seats. I don't know what came over me as I just quietly said "DAVID" he turned around and shook my hand as he said "Sister Saunders". Now where was the photographer when you want him. No one was around. But I had plenty of witness.
Can you imagine my surprise when I arrived in the office the next day and turned on my computer? Elder Christy, Elder Kirk and Elder Rasband had hijacked my screen saver. Plus they took a photo of themselves. I hope they don't mind me posting that photo on here. To be completely honest I prefer the photo of the three Elders with their cheeky grins than the David one although I was please that they took it don't get me wrong but I just love those three Elders. I guess I should add that Elder Saunders was also their with me. We also took the Witts with us and what finished the day off nicely was that we all went out for a meal in Auckland.

8 Months But Whose Counting?

Has it really been quite a few weeks since I've written this blog? The weeks are going by so fast. Less than 8 months to go before we come back to England. But I don't think anyone is counting the weeks!!!!!!

Hamilton Here We Come

On Sunday we went to church before starting our travels home from Gisborne. We pass by Djahni and her family’s home by about half a mile so I asked very nicely if we could just do a quick toilet stop. I had no idea if he would stop or not until we went down their street. I hope they were as pleased to see us as we were to see them. Big Hugs! Plus we did not stay for longer than 10 minutes so that pleased Elder Saunders. When he heads towards home he never wants to stop so I feel as though I have been treated this weekend.   

Eastwood Hill

 

Next we visited the Eastwood Hill Arboretum. We were told this has such pretty gardens but actually it was full of trees. Elder Saunders was not impressed and did not want to go inside but just for me he did. We (I) actually had lots of fun before we went inside. A bird welcomed us and came so close to us I even feed it some apple. I don’t know what kind of bird it is yet but when I get Wi-Fi next I will google it. I think its a male Chaffinch. That was a good start to our adventure. There were different coloured routes and we decided to take the yellow route which may have taken about 45 mins. When we were about half way around there was a bench so Elder Saunders sat for a while, while I went under some trees to find the Tuis. Boy was I in for a treat. I think it may be the mating season as they was a lots of different calls from them and most of them kept flying around in pairs. I took loads of photos and even videos. Again hopefully they are not too long for me to post on the blog and that you can watch them. After that we went for the second half of our walk, or at least that was what we thought. At one point we could not find any yellow markers and double backed on ourselves only to find that we had to go back in that direction again. We seriously did not know what to do and were quite annoyed. So we followed another trail not knowing if we were going away from the exit or not. It turned out as I thought, we were going away from the exit. Rather than turn back we had to go on another 45 minute trail. We were not happy bunnies when we finally found a yellow/purple/red exit trail. After another 15 mins walk we had finished our original 45 minute walk for a 2 hour hike!!!! I seriously did not want to go into the car absolutely hating this place so I suggested we sat down on the benches for a few minutes to calm down. Timely our welcoming committee returned and I was able to take a photo of our bird on the table. Just in case some of you experts want to comment on this we do know it was not the same bird. But it made for a good ending to our story.

What am I trying to take a photo of the Tui of course.

I'm so proud of my Tui photos.

 

      


The beginning of our walk

             the end of our hike!!!!!

Rere Falls/Rockslide

We managed to deliver all the machines yesterday which actually gave us a P-Day. So we decided to go sight-seeing. First we visited the Rere Falls. It may not be as pretty as some of the other falls we have seen but there were no steps to go down or climb up so this was a plus for us. We then visited Rere Rockslide. You must check this out on utube it looks such fun. Obviously Elder Saunders and I will go back when the weather and water is warmer to have our turn on the slide!!!!!!

Thumbs up for our next visit in the summer when we go for a slide!

 

Kapa Haka Treat

This will be one of the highlights of our mission I am sure. I have been looking forward to watching Djahni’s High School Kapa Haka performance all year. I say ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ here because Elder Saunders just forgot all about it, whereas I never could. Those of you who are my facebook friends will know this story already. This is the blog version. Djahni is the daughter of the Branch President of Whakatane and as most of you know we just love this family. We were also hoping that her performance would be on a Saturday so that we could attend but it was scheduled for 9.30 Friday morning. So we said we would do our best to attend. We were blessed that 2 washing machines broke down this last week in Gisborne (poor missionaries). Plus the sisters who we moved a few weeks ago in Gisborne didn’t have a washing machine and that was due to a misunderstanding between the missionaries and Elder Saunders. So we HAD to go to Gisborne this weekend. And to get to Gisborne you have to go through Whakatane. We left after transfers on Thursday and stayed with the new couple in Whakatane, Elder and Sister Clark. We spent a lovely evening with them and in the morning we all went to the performance together.
This was the regional final and to go through to the nationals next year you have to be placed in the top three. Each performance lasts for about 20-30 mins and there are lots of different segments to each performance. The first group were brilliant and not knowing much about what the judges were looking for made me a complete novice. As I have just found out that that group were not in the top 3. Anyway after only a few minutes of Djahni’s group singing I looked at her mum and said that they were lovely and I got quite emotional. The rest of it was so so good. Hark at the expert here! We left after that and never saw the remaining 6 but the prizing giving was at 4pm. We went on our way to Gisborne and delivered the washing machines and had a lovely catch-up with the missionaries. We then had another super FHE outside by the camp fire with the Bellistons and their friends. All the while I kept checking my phone for the results. After we had part of the FHE outside and ate some food we came inside to watch a good video. About half way through the video the results came in. Naturally I looked at the message but didn’t want to detract from the spiritual message so just keep the disappointment or joy to myself. For Half an hour. I was in tears thinking about Djahani, her family and the other performers and families. Was it tears of sadness or joy.  After the closing prayer was said I calmly said do you want to hear the results and just to humour me they said yes, as if they had a choice. They Won. Can you believe it? Well of course you can they were the best but I was overjoyed. Hope you enjoy some of the photos and hopefully can see the video. Now back to missionary work!!!!!

Transfers Week Part 2

Tuesday
Elder Saunders had no part in taking the missionaries to the airport so he caught up on paperwork and looked for more flats online. I was able to complete what I couldn’t do yesterday.
Wednesday
 Our newbies from the MTC arrived in good time in the morning and we whisked through the orientation in a few hours. In the evening we went to Presidents house for dinner followed by testimonies.
Thursday
Not such a big transfer this week. Elder Saunders helped me load my car. The Elders came and helped take some of the bedding for the new missionaries. I gave out my post and bedding. The Newbies met their trainers for the first time there were lots of hugs and smiling faces. We then had a meeting in the chapel where the released and new callings for Sister Trainer Leaders, District Leaders and Zone Leaders were announced. The newbies and their trainers were introduced to everyone. The President and Sister Rudd gave short talks. The Bellistons were there so they were asked to share their testimony. Then after we had our Subway lunch we all went on our separate journeys home.
Now you would think that after being through many transfer weeks that this is all routine, which it is, most of the time the same order happens BUT it is far from the same thing each time. Each transfers is different although missionaries come and go they are all unique. The more transfers we participate in the harder it is saying farewell from the mission field. Welcoming is easy and an absolute joy to meet and greet each missionary. To hear their testimonies on Wednesday night is such a pleasure and treasure. We have made such special friends and I know that our relationships with many of the missionaries will last throughout the eternities. We look forward to hearing from them in the future as they participate on life’s journey. This sounds like we are on our way home or something, not yet, another 9 months before we step on English soil.

July Transfers Week Part 1

Monday
So many lovely missionaries are going home. Most of them came into the office as they arrived by bus. Normally I just plod through the noise and get my work done but this was a different Monday. I don’t know if I have mentioned it before but I am the proctor of the language programme in our mission. Today we had our first test scheduled. I had set up my lap top before and everything worked but today when I set it up I realized that I didn’t have a port open to be able to actually do the test. Sister Witts, bless her heart had popped into the office and tried to help sort it out. She even spoke to the IT person in America but even he couldn’t sort it out. So my problem was flagged up and I’m still waiting a week later for it to be sorted. Anyway if the test had been taken he would have failed!!!!!! Although we used the time we had waiting for reviewing the demo test and listening and talking about different questions that may be asked it was horrid. I don’t mean it was his fault but because these missionaries have been on a mission for 18 month to 2 years and they haven’t been out to the theatre or watching movies or even going to hairdressers. I feel I am going to have to prepare these missionaries for the random questions that will be asked about their hobbies they haven’t been part of for a while. Wow, hope you don’t mind me ranting on about this it just gets my annoyance off my chest, thanks. By the way I was able to cancel the test and this Elder will hopefully be able to take it sometime in the future.
I just could get my head around my work. So only did small task and talked to the outgoing missionaries. Unexpected to me was one very special missionary who was going home came into the office late afternoon. That was a special goodbye but not forever I feel sure.

Self-reliant

A few weeks ago I had a text asking if we could participate in a ‘Strengthening Families’ evening at Te Awamutu.  Although we were quite honoured and pleased to be asked this has been the first presentation since being over here that we have been asked to do. We were very worried about our abilities to be able to manage a 20 minute workshop and present it 4 times. After a lot of thought and prayers we decided that we would plan to do it. We don’t like to commit to anything because of the nature of Elder Saunders calling. Either he may have an extra-long day or he may be out of the area. So once we made the commitment we hoped that we would be able to fulfil the assignment. Our workshop was about self-reliance and we were told that because the missionaries think that Elder Saunders is so funny that he could bring humour into it. Now that was a challenge. But guess what department if upstairs from the Mission Office? Self-reliance. So both of us went upstairs and spoke to Sister Wood who suggested an amusing video, just what we needed and used. It was hard to fit everything that needed to be said into 15 mins, yep it was shortened from 20 to 15 mins. So I was able to give out handouts and refer everyone to the self-reliance courses they do in Hamilton town centre, above the mission office. I think we did okay with the presentation, we received a few positive comments. Elder Saunders was great and his confidence grew and grew with each group. That was good to see.
The next challenge is for our Ward to assign us a talk in Sacrament. We were asked a few months ago but couldn’t accept because we were out of town. We are now just waiting to be given a topic so that we can talk when needed.
My next challenge is a Relief Society lesson I have been asked to give on 23 August.

Miracle Moment

This week Elder Saunders has been moving more missionaries around. Many times on his removals it has been drizzling with rain and he just gets on with the job but on more than one occasion it has been bucketing it down, or as he calls it a mini monsoon! What can you do in situations like that? Only one thing, call Ghost Buster? NO Call the weather man, NO? Call some who can control the weather, YES! He said a quiet prayer and the rain stopped and as soon as they had finish loading the van the heavens opened. This has happen on at least 4 occasions. Who says miracles don’t happen! 

Hairy Feet!!

We must now go back a day to Monday. We first went into the office to sort out the post and other bits then off to collect the Zone leaders from Te Awamutu for our afternoon P-Day visit to Hairy Feet. What a treat we had in store. We were welcomed by the owner Suzie Denize who explained how  film location scouts spotted their farm and asked if they could have a closer look with view of filming the Hobbit Movie there. I don’t think they hesitated in saying yes. There is not much left of the props that they used but who needs the props when you have ready-made rock formations. They already used to show people around their farmland but now they have made proper tracks and have lots of different stories to tell about scenes that were taken in all the different places. All the props and markers that the film makers took were taken away but a few were actually farm materials. But, and don’t spread this around because they may come back for it, one of the markers that Bilbo had to stand on was left behind. The tour normally takes about 1½ hrs and has a limit of 9 people but there were only the four of us and it lasted 2 hrs. It is such a pretty place.

The not so fierce warriors. 



 

Now this is the image we are trying to create!

Fierce animals are coming over the hills behind the camera man.

Sister Saunders is trying to create a scary atmosphere with her pathetic howling. Elder Roberts

gets the giggles. Stop spoiling our image says Elder Nelson.

The perfect pose!

 

 Do we have the right look this time?

 

Sunday at Bremworth Park

We actually we went to our own Ward for church on Sunday, Bremworth Park and as always had a lovely meeting. What was especially nice was that we were able to arrange a Dinner appointment with Dear Sister Sayce. She invited us over to her house months ago but we’ve been so busy. So we set a date for Tuesday. I hoped that nothing would happen so that we had to cancel that appointment. I’m glad to say we went as planned. She only lives 3 houses away from us. So we didn’t have to walk far. As Elder Saunders is slightly (hmm) fussy with what he eats and it can get very embarrassing trying to explain what he does or doesn’t eat. But Sister Sayce got it perfectly right. She made mince pie and mash with vegetables of course but that wasn’t for him. With desert you cannot really go wrong, so crumble and custard was yummy too. The time was 7.30 so now it was time to go home as Sister wanted to watch her cooking programme!!! I started to add one and one together and actually came up with two. This was the same show that I was watching with Sister Belliston. So we stayed a little longer to watch the beginning of the finals. Although I happily watched two episodes of the show Elder Saunders just persevered through those few hours.

Sunday at Bremworth Park

We actually we went to our own Ward for church on Sunday and as always had a lovely meeting. What was especially nice was that we were able to arrange a Dinner appointment with Dear Sister Sayce. She invited us over to her house months ago but we’ve been so busy. So we set a date for Tuesday. I hoped that nothing would happen so that we had to cancel that appointment. I’m glad to say we went as planned. She only lives 3 houses away from us. So we didn’t have to walk far. As Elder Saunders is slightly (hmm) fussy with what he eats and it can get very embarrassing trying to explain what he does or doesn’t eat. But Sister Sayce got it perfectly right. She made mince pie and mash with vegetables of course but that wasn’t for him. With desert you cannot really go wrong, so crumble and custard was yummy too. The time was 7.30 so now it was time to go home as Sister wanted to watch her cooking programme!!! I started to add one and one together and actually came up with two. This was the same show that I was watching with Sister Belliston. So we stayed a little longer to watch the beginning of the finals. Although I happily watched two episodes of the show Elder Saunders just persevered through those few hours.

Check out the flat!

Wdnesday
On our back to Hamilton we took a slight detour. Actually it was quick a big detour as it took us an extra hour and a half out of our way. One of the missionaries flat was reported to be cold even with all the heaters we have given them and apparently the Elders were always ill. I think it was a bit of an exaggeration but we had to check it out. We were offered another flat in that area so though we would check that out at the same time. The flat was a bit dreary but the new one was very nice. Maybe a bit large but we can look up a few of the rooms. So I think our visit was worthwhile and Elder Saunders is going to swap them over.
Then to finish the day off we popped into the Witts and we were welcomed with a bowl of homemade leek and potato soup. Yummy, well I thought it was yummy obviously Elder Saunders wouldn’t eat it!!!! But he had bread and Jam so couldn’t complain. We were spoilt by Sister Witts throwing together a quick desert but blow me if I can remember what it was. How we love spending quality time with our friends.

Blow Out!

Early Tuesday morning we headed off to Gisborne to move the sisters to another flat. We were quite excited to see snow on the hills as we came closer to Gisborne. It rarely snows here which is why we were excited. We arrived in Gisborne just as the Missionaries were finishing their district meeting. What a lovely welcome I got. They all started singing happy birthday to me that was very special. I had actually baked cookies for them all, yummy. So that was a nice treat for them. But when we all went outside the missionaries said “you’ve got a flat tyre”, as if we would fall for that one. Did you see the post a few days ago when I asked what is Gisborne going to be remember for? Well here’s your answer. Flat tyres!!!! So yes we did have a flat tyre. Elder Saunders did inflate the tyre a little which was enough to get us to the garage. Then the drama started. The garage man said because we did not have their tyres on the front wheels the lease plan was invalid. Also one of the tyres was just on his limit so again invalid because he said it was under!!! Thankfully after he had checked with the leasing company they agreed to pay him so he changed the tyres.  As it all turned out alright in the end it also did us a favour because by the time the tyre was changed so also was the trailer loaded with all the sister’s furniture. Now it was time to supervise the unloading. Which did not take long because we had the help of 6 Elders and 4 Sisters.
We had a nice relaxing evening. While Elder Saunders and Elder Belliston chatted in the lounge Sister Belliston and I sat on her bed and watched an Australian cooking programme. I have watched it once before so knew a few of the couples. I think it is called ‘My Kitchen Rules’. It was fun to watch but more fun to chat with Sister Belliston.