WILD MAN OF MATAURI BAY

This has been a very positive week.  We had to ford a small stream to reach the home of an older sister who had moved into the Matauri Bay branch.  After spending an hour with her we were intrigued with a little old white wood frame Church of England and cemetery on the grounds surrounding it.  With nowhere to turn around we entered into the a long grassy drive leading to the last house (or hut) on the lane.  Just after getting through the gate we mired down and couldn't move forward or backwards.  Dogs began barking as Elder Olsen got out to push while Sister Olsen got behind the wheel.  Back and forth several times we went till we finally got the car onto the grass.  I was just getting back into the drivers side when the resident came swiftly towards the car hollering at us for digging up some of his grass.  This guy was scary.  He was 6' 6" and his hair was long curly dreadlocks sticking out from his head in all directions, like the wild man from Borneo.  He had a rough beard and weathered leathery looking skin (I wanted to but didn't dare take a picture of him). Sister Olsen strained to see if he was carrying a gun or a club.  "How would you like me doing wheelies on your lawn, he yelled?"  He carried on for a while, with us trying to apologize. He eventually settled down, saying, "It's a good thing I'm a nice man."  During this time his dogs were jumping against the car and leaving their paw marks which turned out to be minor compared to the globs of mud all over the hood and side of the car from me spinning the tires so much.  Our mission moto is to talk with everyone about the gospel but we failed with this man.

We took part of our p-day on Monday to teach a lesson to the Himiona children.  We have taught them 3 lessons this week and invited them to church today.  All six of the children, ages 4-13,  but neither of their parents came to the Branch Conference. We didn't know they were going to send all of the kids with us and we were a little worried because they can be a handful (including their big dog, Popeye) when we are teaching them. They were amazingly reverent.  They thought it was quite long, but they loved Primary and the potluck lunch (or feed) we had afterwards.  We were also surprised to see Brother Tua and his family out.  We have been visiting with them about 4 times in the past 2 months.  They are the grandparents who are raising 8 of their grandchildren, due to the deaths of 2 of their 3 daughters (car accident and cancer).

Himiona's little black pig which often ends up being in the house

several of the Himiona cousins

the branch luncheon

In the middle of the week we visited Brother Rouse and found his two children with him.  He is a member and we invited him to join with us again.  He would be alright if we taught his son and daughter, but we would have to deal with their mother who no longer lived with him.  He is the caretaker for a retreat in a wooded area.  In his extra time he does trapping for opossums, stouts, weasels, stray dogs, since these animals kill the endangered kiwi bird and their young.  He also loves to hunt wild pigs, and before we left he gave us a roast and a couple of chops to try.  We'll let you know later if they have a wild taste or not.

We kept seeing signs for a nature preserve right in our area so we took an hour the other day to see what was so special.  Early English settlers logged out and killed by gum bleeding 97% of the natural native Kauri tree forests in all of New Zealand.  These are girthy behemoths of rock hard wood.

Sister Olsen, the tree hugger

scaly bark on some of the Kauri trees

At a nearby inlet and marsh area we took the following pictures:

Low hanging tree and Whangaroa Bay harbor

Hillside cottage at the end of the bay

Sister Olsen's favorite bird, the Pukeko

Hopefully our patience has paid off.  Amelia has requested to be baptized on the 17th of August.  She is excited about inviting her family to her baptism, many of whom thought she would be one to get religion in her life.

Broken down vehicle - a blessing in disguise!

Hi Dear Family and Friends,

What a week!  We went on splits and knocked on doors, we were invited to a party and then uninvited, had my turn at a little car accident (Dian) and, the best news, found and started teaching several new investigators.  The Snows, the older couple in one of the branches that have been such good friends and mentors, have a daughter, Natalie, who served a mission about 10 years ago and a grandson from Provo, who has been living with them.  Mitchell has been preparing to go on a mission, but has had some health problems in the past, so the mission dept. suggested he go to school this next semester in Auckland while they were processing his health forms, etc. Natalie wanted her nephew to have a missionary experience before going off to school and suggested Elder Olsen and I go on splits with them indicating you don't really get the full missionary experience unless you knock on doors.  After doing so, I can see why the church is phasing that out as members hopefully get more involved in providing referrals.  Elder Olsen and Mitch struck it rich; about their 3rd door they met a middle age lady originally from England, whose divorce was final that day, and she was apparently in a good mood.  Of course, Elder Olsen, who served his first mission in England, loves to chat with anyone who has lived there or been there.  He took me back the next day, introduced me to Sister Peacock and we set up an appointment to start teaching her later this week.  Natalie and I didn't fair as well.  We had a very brusque, "Have a good evening, Ladies," and a door slammed in our face,  a "can't you see I'm eating my dinner," (no we couldn't), "I have my own religion, thank you, etc." On the 4th or 5th door a young boy and his mom that Natalie knew from school (she's a  teacher) came to the door and invited us in. The mom was Christian but didn't believe it mattered what religion you belonged to or if you went to church,as long as you lived a good life.  We left some brochures and bore our testimonies and hopefully planted some seeds.  I think I like referrals better!

About a month ago we visited a young dad from the Matauri Bay branch who was baptized but has not been active since about age 12.  He has a non-member partner and 2 little girls.  He said he would talk to his wife about us coming to teach him and it took us several tries to catch up to him again.  During the week we finally found him home and made an appointment to have a Family Home Evening with his family on Monday evening. He mentioned that it was his youngest daughter's 1st birthday Saturday and they were going to have a hongi (a Maori cookout) and invited us to come.  We thought that would be a good opportunity to get to know his family better and perhaps pickup some contacts.  When we got there he came out front and basically un-invited us, as his backyard was full of drinking, smoking and cussing friends who were all mad at him for inviting missionaries that would make them feel uncomfortable.  He gave us a couple of big plates of food and we gave him the gift we had brought for his daughter.  In parting he said, "Remember to come back on Monday evening for FHE," and we went on our way with enough food for that night and Sunday dinner. Certainly wasn't what we would think of as a one year old's birthday party! We'll see how Monday goes.

We've had a few changes in the Zone here; our Zone leader, Elder Smith, from British Columbia, ended his mission, so we got a new zone leader from Cedar City, Elder Taylor.  We also got 4 other new Elders, including 2 who moved into Kerikeri, a few miles from us.  One is just out and is from Logan and the other is from Tonga.  They got there late Thursday evening so we took some dinner and bedding over to them since it was too late to go shopping.  The next morning, we decided to take them some breakfast. Elder Olsen does most of the driving, especially in towns where you have lots of roundabouts, but I was driving as Don's back was hurting him and he had taken a muscle relaxer and was very relaxed.  I did fine with the roundabouts, but on our way home when we crossed a bridge (their streets are narrow to begin with) there was a sidewalk that ran along one side of it, making it even more narrow (excuses excuses), and I hit it with the front tire. Needless to say, Elder Olsen was instantly alert and I thought, "What in the heck was that," as I had not even seen the sidewalk.  We had a spare thankfully, but tomorrow we will need to buy a new wheel and tire.  The worse part is having to call the mission office and report your accident.  We have each had an accident in the 2  1/2 months we've been here, but they can't very well take driving privileges away from both of us, at least not where we labor.

An update about our funny, Amelia.  She is going to come through!  We visited her a few days ago and she was all decked out in her sweater, sweatshirt, ski cap, etc., as it was freezing in her home.  About a month ago some neighbor boy came to her home for something and huddled up to her only electric heater and said he wished he had one to give to his mom who is sick. Amelia didn't even hesitate to give their heater away.  There is an old fireplace in their home, but she was out of wood and they often don't have money to buy it nor do they have a vehicle to go get it.  On our way home we tried to find a place that sold firewood, but could see no signs. We finally stopped at this place that had a big stack of wood, but no one was at home. We wrote a note explaining the situation and left some money in a baggie  and took some wood back and left it on Amelia's porch. We had said to her during our conversation earlier that we wish that we could help her get her vehicle running again (it needs a major repair), but her answer surprised us.  She said, "The Lord must know what's best, because if I had had a car to drive these past few months I would have been on the go all the time and I would not have been here for you to teach me the gospel nor would I have made friends with Rema and Rehu," who pick her up for church most Sundays and have been so good to her.  This next week is the "Unveiling," a one year anniversary of her husband's death.  It is a Maori tradition and they make a big deal of it.  She has really stressed out about it and she will be relieved to have it over with and so will we because then her mind can be where it needs to be.  She said that once it was over with, she would be starting a new chapter in her life and the only decision she had made so far was that the first thing she was going to do was to get baptized.  What good words to hear!

We love the words of  President Hinckley," There is a hunger in the land and a genuine thirst - a great hunger for the word of the Lord and an unsatisfied thirst for things of the Spirit.. . . The land is starved for spiritual food.  Ours is the obligation and opportunity to nourish."  There are so many ways for us to do our part.

An inviting shady land

lush foilage 

dry wall made from volcanic rock

typical  mailbox along rural country roads

bird of paradise flower

Lots of love, Elder Don & Sister Dian Olsen

A New Mission Formed

The new mission at Hamilton had its formal beginning earlier this month.  Our mission has gone from 240 missionaries to 120.  But the mission will be receiving many more missionaries over the next few months until our numbers are back to around 200.  Our zone leader, Elder Smith is being released this week to return home to British Columbia.  He has been a good leader.  Another team of Elders has been added to our zone.  They will live not far from us in Kerikeri, but their areas are a few miles south from here, the towns of Paihia and Moerewa.

This has been a disappointing week.  Our most promising investigators, Marama and her daughter, Genieva called the morning of our appointment and told us that after her discussion with her partner they decided this would not be a good time in their lives to proceed with the lessons because of the conflicts that have come up with the father.  We asked if we could visit for a half an hour that afternoon.  We were pleasantly surprised that her partner was there and was somewhat willing to discuss the situation.  He was baptized in his youth but had been inactive since he was twelve.  He didn't want his daughter and her mother to accept the gospel because that would put a crimp in his life style(a little smoking, drinking, cussing etc.). She already understood that before she could become a member she would have to get married or stop living with her partner and that most likely was a sore spot with him.  We left a prayer in the home and she promised us that she would get back in touch with us after she had resolved things with her partner.

Another promising investigator, Paul Haddon, is a 75 year old gentleman who's wife is a member but is inactive and due to diabetes needs dialysis 3 times each week.  He is reluctant to move forward because of the criticism he fears from his siblings and children.  His father was a Methodist minister and he would be breaking tradition.  His wife thinks if he got involved now he wouldn't be able to adequately take care of her. We encouraged him to tell his family how he really feels about the church and to continue to express his love towards them and they would get over it.  May be there will be some new developments this week.

We also visited and encouraged Brother Leef, a widower of 10 years who's eldest daughter just died of cancer.  This is motivating him to get active and prepare to go to the temple to have his family sealed. We next visited Sister Yvonne and her non member husband.  They are an older pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent) couple in their mid 70's and finding it hard to keep up on all the work a large parcel of land requires.  They have declining orchards, chickens, and several dilapidated out buildings and an old crumbling house.  They were hilarious, they both started talking so Sister Olsen listened to her and Elder Olsen listened to him. It seemed like they were starved for company and they each talked non-stop for almost an hour  before we could get a word in. Gary seemed to be quite proud that his great grandfather was one of the criminals sent to Australia from England in the mid 1800's.

Saturday we visited a rugby game that our young investigator, Desire, played in.  She's on a mostly boy team.  Her parents were there and we wanted to meet her father, who is a non-member.  She needs to let him know that she wants to join the church before he will give his permission.

This week we will be working hard to find some new investigators to teach; hopefully the members will start to get more involved in giving us referrals after the world-wide missionary training 3 weeks ago.  We spoke in Sacrament meeting today and reviewed the plan for the wards and branches to take on the responsibility of finding, referring and fellowshipping.

Saturday night we went to the stake talent show put on by the YM/YW and it was awesome!

Fabian Himiona of our branch presidency in Matauri Bay

Several weeks ago on our P-day we visited a little town on an isolated peninsula in the Bay of Islands that we accessed by ferry. The name of the town is Russell, the earliest place that British sailors and whalers began frequenting in the mid 1700's.  It lived up to its wild reputation.

The old church and cemetery at Russell

A sad story of a little boy who drowned

Sister Olsen at the base of a large tree in Russell

Sister Olsen in the apartment trying to stay warm

The Lord Remembers Those Upon the Isles of the Sea

We did end up celebrating the 4th of July after all.  Thursday we got a call from the mission office couple, who had picked us up from the airport when we first arrived and have been so kind to us, asking if we would like to come down to Auckland Saturday for an Independence Day Celebration with all the other senior missionary couples in the mission and from the area office.  It was a 3 hour drive each way but was very enjoyable.  That will be our preparation day for this next week, as there is much to be done.  There were about 15 couples, only one of who we knew, but we made friends fast.  We had a lovely meal and then played a couple of games, one of which was writing down something about yourself you think no one else (but your spouse, probably) knows about you.  Someone then read them and the rest had to guess who it was.  I'll just share one, because it is worth the time to read it.  Someone wrote that they had killed,  cooked and eaten a rattlesnake.  It turned out to be a sister who had gone to girl's camp as a leader and had seen a rattler coming out of the bush close to her and the girls.  She grabbed a shovel and killed it, then skinned and cleaned it and cooked it up for dinner with some chicken for dinner.  She stretched and dried the skin, took it home and hung it up on the wall with the quote:  "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat!"  There were all kinds of missionaries: the mission doctor (an OBGYN, who jokingly says he can't help you unless you're pregnant), a counselor, a lawyer, welfare, Young adult coordinators, family history and records preservation. institute teachers, etc.  There is only one other MLS or proselyting  senior couple in the mission (they could certainly use lots more).  One of the couples assigned as welfare missionaries is Elder and Sister Reynolds of Bountiful who our neighbor Diana Fullmer knows well.

Elder and Sister Reynolds and the Olsens

One our way home last evening we stopped at the grocery store in our town to buy some milk.  A Tongan fellow came up to Elder Olsen and introduced himself after seeing the missionary badge.  There are few jobs available in Tonga and most families make do with a large garden and maybe a few animals.  As a result, many come to either New Zealand or Australia for seasonal work in the orchards or processing plants.  This man was a member and as we talked, we asked if they had been going to church.  He and his friends have been here for several months, but haven't been able to go to church because they have no transportation.  We invited them to go with us today, but we only had room for 3.  There are probably over 100 Tongan men that live together at this motel complex and maybe a dozen or so are members.  Why we were at the mission office yesterday we had picked up a bunch of copies of the Liahona (Ensign), which we passed on to them with several Book of Mormon's and a dvd to help occupy them during the week and told them we would be glad to give them a ride next week and hopefully find others with room to take some of their friends who may like to come.  So another area in need of some missionary work.  Wish we had met them when we first arrived here so that they could have been going to church all along.  They had a couple of members take our pictures with them in front of the "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" sign I think to send to their families to prove that they had found a church and attended.  We were thinking of Sister Sarah Naylor, who is leaving or has left  for Tonga on her mission.

Our Tongan Brothers at the Waihou Branch

It's interesting that while many Tongans and Samoans come to New Zealand for work (usually seasonal) many New Zealanders, particularly the younger generation, move to Australia for employment because of a lack of jobs available in this country, especially in the North  There are a lot of farms and orchards, but that doesn't provide full-time employment for many.  That is another reason why the branches and wards are small up north, because the younger families move away.

As Elder Olsen and I spend a lot of time driving, we review the lessons (when the roads aren't too curvy) and we work on memorizing scriptures (we know lots of scriptures; it's remembering where they are that's difficult) and also a new Maori word.  I don't know whether we will ever be able to understand spoken Maori (because they talk so fast) but they love it when we use a Maori word here or there and can actually pronounce it correctly.

We are still teaching Desire, the 12 year old, and hoping that she will be able to be baptized by the end of the month.  Her parents moved to a town about 1 hour away, but she wanted to stay here to finish her  primary schooling, so she is living with her aunt.  Her mother is LDS but not her father and she needs to get his permission when he and her mom come up for a visit next weekend.  Her aunt felt like it would go better if she asked him in person.

Desire with her aunt and nephew

We had an interesting visit with a man by the name of John Kopa (Cooper).  My grandmother on my dads's side was a Cooper, so I told him maybe we were related.  He is an inactive (for years) member, but he says he has a strong testimony, reads the Book of Mormon and prays regularly.  He doesn't feel a need to attend church and feels there are too many church leaders who are hypocrites.  We asked him, being Maori, how he got the surname of Cooper.  He said many generations ago, probably the late 1700's, a whaler by the name of Joseph Cooper visited New Zealand and left a Maori baby and mother behind.  I was a little taken
back, as there are several Joseph Coopers in my ancestral line.  I was a little relieved when he said his Joseph" was from Ireland or Scotland and  I came back to our apt. and confirmed mine was from England.
He is very interested in family history and indicated if anything could get him back into the church, that would be it.  I printed off some family history (names of Joseph Coopers who lived during that period of time, etc.) and found out what the hours are for the family history center at the ward and thought of the many reasons it's important to actually attend church, so we're ready for our next visit.  He has a non-member partner, but we think she would be interested if he would lead the way.  Pray for us.

We have taken the RS president, Erina, out with us a few times and she is a great missionary. (We learned a few things from her).  They don't have a branch mission leader in Matauri Bay and we suggested to her that she should be called to this position and she indicated that she would be glad to do both.  Every adult member in that branch has two or more callings it seems.  We are due to be getting several more missionary sets in this district in the next several months.  We are excited to see the Lord's work  forwargod at a little faster pace!

A lovely log home in the country

the "Secret Garden"

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!  We'll be thinking of the Good Old USA Thursday.  We have a Zone Training that day and I thought I would make some kind of dessert and decorate it with red, white and blue sprinkles, but you can't find such a thing, so I'll just be picking out the red and blue M&M's from the bag I guess.

We had a really discouraging few days a couple of weeks ago, but things are looking up.  Let us tell you about some of the people we have met and some investigators we are working with:

Amelia, the widow with 14 year old twins, boy and girl.  We have worked with her since we got here and she read the Book of Mormon pretty regularly at first and said she knew it was true and came out to church once and just loved it.  Then there were a lot of complications in her life (sick kids, daughter-in-law had new baby, grandkids got ckickenpox, she had to go out of town, etc.) and she kept cancelling her teaching appts. and wasn't making it out to church.  We kept in touch but were beginning to think we should move on.  However, we stopped by on Saturday afternoon when we were over er way (along way), we invited her to go back to the stake center for a production of "Women at the Well" and she accepted and loved it.  She really feels the spirit through music and through the association of other sisters at church.  She then said she would come to church the next morning and arranged a ride with a neighbor (several miles away).  She came and participated and asked us to visit her this week.  So we are thinking after she has the 1 year Maori commemoration of her husband's death and the end of this month she will go forward with baptism.  Sometimes we just have to exercise greater patience and love.

Then there was Divena:  She came to a presentation a couple of weeks ago by Herrewini Jones, who is a very spiritual and  knowledgeable member about both the gospel and the Maori and their connection to the Book of Mormon peoples.  Divena,. is a neighbor to the Snow's, who were hosting the fireside.  She felt the spirit very strongly that evening and was excited to take a Book of Mormon home with her and immediately started to read it  However, when we checked with her a couple of days later things had gone amiss.  She had told her sister, who had immediately called her 90 year old mother, who immediately called her and  demanded that she have nothing to do with those Mormons.  Her mother told her how important it was to stick together in their religious traditions.  We asked her if it were more important to listen to the spirit or her mother, but Satan knows just how to get to each of us, and  apparently Divena decided she should listen to her mother).. (Which is usually a good thing, but not in this case when the Holy Ghost had testified so strongly).

A week or so ago we were out finding inactive members, and located some Maori rednecks.  We pulled behind the house and found a bunch of family members cleaning and hanging up eels (100 or more) that they had caught in the marsh behind their home.  Apparently, they dry and smoke them and told us they were delicious.  Maybe we'll give them a try, someday.  They do not have any snakes, but these eels were about 3 feet long and looked like slightly flattened snakes to me.  They were rather yucky to look at and smell.  We told the group who we were and asked if Toko, the member was there.  They pointed at a man sitting on a chair near by, who grunted at us but wasn't willing to say much more.  The rest of the family was friendly, but religion was not on their priority list.

Friday we found (literally) the member, Sister Forsdyke, who lives furthest (30-40 miles of windy  roads with heavy vegetation as we got closer) from the church.  She joined 5 years ago and was active for about a year and has pretty much been out of contact since.  She has a 5 or 6 year old son who is autistic and she said it was just too difficult to take him to church because he caused such a disturbance.  (For instance, when the members were singing a hymn, if someone was singing off-key, he would curl up in the corner and cover his ears and cry.)  We mostly listened to her and after some time, she said that perhaps once in a while she could find someone to stay with her son so she could attend.  She has still been reading the scriptures and praying and we  told her about all the resources that are available on lds.org website.  We also talked to the RS president about someone being assigned to be her visiting teacher and at least calling or e-mailing her a couple of times a month.  She seemed to be so pleased that someone had noticed she was not there and had gone to the effort to visit.  Wow!

view from the road to Sister Forsdyke home

We can't end before mentioning the world-wide missionary conference that was broadcast last week.  If you did not go to it, take the opportunity to watch it on lds.org.  It was wonderful and is going to change missionary work to keep up with the changing world.  Tracting is going to become a thing of the past and members,  particularly ward and branch counsels, are going to be much more involved in finding, preparing, and helping to teach and fellowship investigators.With these changes and the big increase in number of missionaries, we are going to see some fantastic things happen, even "a marvelous work and a wonder. "  We love this work and are excited to be a part of this new missionary effort!

Relief Society service project, food for needy

poinsettias grow year round

Love ya lots, Elder Don and Sister Dian