Weepy Wednesday

Today it was our turn to go inside the Temple with our Mission. It didn’t really matter which day we went as we would have enjoyed the company of any of our missionaries but today was special. The peace and happiness you feel when you are inside the Temple with friends can only be surpassed if it was also shared with your family. We feel truly grateful to have the blessings of being able to go to the Temple. Although we are a little saddened that we have not visited this Temple as often as we would have liked but that is not why we are in New Zealand. We are here to serve the Lord in the way He wants us to and that is to work in the office and to take care of our missionaries.
Again another flu shot session. This time Elder Saunders was not needed to transport the missionaries back and forward to the medical centre so we went back to the office.
This evening we had a farewell party for the Witts and ourselves. All the senior couples in the area were invited. It was really lovely and finished off with Rangi Parker singing one of her beautiful songs. fI must admit to getting a little weepy during her song. The Parkers also gave us a beautiful necklace and cuff links.

Temple Tuesday

The three Zones who were attending the Temple today were also getting a flu shot. We were still going to take the mail to the Temple for them though. Well actually we didn’t stop at the Temple because just as we were pulling up the Assistants called and told us it was all changed and they were meeting at the Tuhikaramea Chapel instead. Sister Templeton sorted out the mail while I happily took snaps on my phone.
Elder Saunders helped ferry the missionaries from the chapel to the Dr’s clinic. I went with the sisters on one of the trips and also had the flu shot. My arm was a little sore that night but I think it was mainly because one of the Elders poked me in my arm!!
I should add that Sister Chudleigh and Sister Tiamona gave us a present. They both had knitted us a pair of slippers. A treasure for sure.

Memorable Monday

The office was quite busy today. A few of the Zone leaders popped in for their mail and some sisters brought Baptism records into the office. There were also a few other visitors to see the Assistants so that’s what make it a busy day. Sister T has now taken over the reception chair and role. Although I was still showing her new things so I was still there as well.
Elder Saunders was still training Elder T in the office and at the storage facilities.
We had a lovely treat at lunchtime. The McGregors had made waffles with fruit and ice cream, yummy. Then we were presented with a lovely plaque.
We had a special evening planned. We had invited the two sisters from our ward to dinner but had two additional sisters as surprise guests. I was hoping to spend a couple of hours on the Monday with Sister Chudleigh and Sister Tiamona but because of the holiday traffic from the Coromandel they were very late. So we invited them to stay for dinner as well. What fun. We so enjoy the company of Sister Loefky and Sister Taula but they were the first to leave as they had appointments to go to. Sisters C & T stayed a little longer and we had more fun with the stick game and the poi. Memorable Monday is well titled.

 

Well Done Sister Chudleigh

 

"Its The Real Thing" - all will be explained in a few weeks.

Our Final Week

It’s the start of our final week on our mission. There are times when we feel really sad about leaving our friends and our missionaries. We have watched so many of them grow in faith and in confidence but what a week to leave on our Mission Temple week.

Our Replacements Are Here!

63. Our Replacements are here!

After a few months of worrying if we would ever get replacements they started on Thursday. Sister T is brilliant and I have no worries about her learning all the things that I do. The only problem is me trying to explain everything. For a long while I have been compiling a file of the responsibilities I have and how to accomplish them. This is the point that I panicked when I was first called but here am I, all accomplished and handing it over to someone else. She is even correcting my spelling mistakes! So Elder and Sister T started on the Thursday and then came into the office on Good Friday as well. Elder Saunders has also compiled a useful file called on the road work file which has all the information he needs while travelling around the country. I think that impressed Elder T.
Saturday and Sunday we did not go into the office. Not to work anyway I did go in on Sunday to email the missionaries in our mission and left Elder Saunders to clean up from Sunday lunch.
It is at this point that I have to go back to Saturday for our next post. 

McLaren Falls

Often on our way home from Whakatane we past McLaren Falls but never actually drove 1.4 kms to see the falls but today we did. There were no steps to go down or up which makes a change. It was very noisy as we were so close to the fast running water. There were many signs around stating that no diving was allowed into the falls. The reasons were obvious as the level of the water was different most days. Only 26 days each year is the water released from the Dam above the water fall and we were lucky enough to be there on one of those days. The reason why I mention about the No Diving notices was because we saw two very foolish boys diving in. I took a photo of them before they took their dive just in case they had an accident and they wanted to identify them. (Waba ski, I’ll explain that later, maybe) Only joking, but I did take a photo.

Whakatane

Well we actually managed to pull off an additional trip to Whakatane but it took some organizing. We have been so busy in the office especially as we want to give our new Couple as much information as we can. A few weeks ago when we were in Whakatane we had lunch with the Waihirere family. It was so lovely to catch up and to see how their little one has grown. It was the mum who told of a KapaHaka festival in a few weeks’ time. I would have loved to have gone for a couple of days but knew that would be impossible. It was not until the Friday that we decided that we could go. It meant leaving the packing for another week which was frightening as we only had two weeks left. So off we set on the Thursday in the late afternoon and even took the toll road as it was getting late. We have a lovely meal out with the missionary couple in Whakatane. Although we were an hour later than their first reservation but 5 minutes early for the second. We managed to get up early the next morning so that we could arrive at the Waihirere’s in time to see one of Sister Waihirere’s favourite performances. The kapahakas were amazing. I could have stayed all day but we needed to get home to start our packing.
Although we did take one detour on our way home!