No White Christmas but Wondrous still!.

Well, Christmas Day has come and gone, the kids here are out of school for six weeks and lots of businesses close for 2-3 weeks.  But missionary work doesn't take a holiday.  On the Dec. 19th Elder Olsen drove to Raglan to pick up an investigator and a recent convert while Sister Olsen fixed dinner. We had planned  for a couple of weeks to take them to the visitor center, have dinner,  and after getting dark enough we would see the Christmas lights at the Temple. I could tell Barry had been drinking when I picked him up, but proceeded and picked up Gary as well.  Within the hour we arrived at the visitor center and were met by two young sisters to guide us on a tour.  It was then we realized it would have been better to leave Barry at home.  The soft spoken, sweet sisters trying to impart a Christmas message ended up listening to Barry's troubles.  The incident wasn't without some humor. When we arrived at the temple, Barry, who had never seen the temple before, was in awe.  However, when leaving the visitor center, Barry looked up at the temple all lit up and exclaimed, "What's that, the courthouse?"  In fairness to Barry, though an alcoholic, he has come to church the last five weeks, and he enjoys the spirit there.

Gary, Barry, Sister and Elder Olsen

On our p-day, the 16th, we drove to Tauranga, a seaside town on the east coast.  This is New Zealands major seaport as well as a resort area.  You might not know this, but senior missionaries can swim in the ocean.  Sister Olsen just put her toes in the water and enjoyed laying in the warm sun but I went in and dove under a few breakers.  Sister Olsen wouldn't let me include a photo of her in her swimsuit..

Tauranga beach

Hobbit movie set along the road home

On Saturday the 21st we had a birthday celebration for Roger Hamon at the Bush.  Concerned that he might not live to long, his wife Karyn organized the party and we had the unveiling of his plaque mounted on a rock set in the center of the bush.

Final place for Roger's plaque

Roger and wife, Karyn

Rogers daughter Daishon and great granddaughter 

Later that day we traveled to Auckland to link up with Denise Peacock at her son's home.  She was so happy to have us meet his family.  Before joining the church, she had unexpectedly offended her daughter-in-law and been told not to come back.  The gospel has given her the courage to call and apologize and they have seen how happy she has become.  They expressed to us how grateful they were that Denise had found something to give her purpose and meaning in life.  We took her out for dinner at an Italian restaurant.  She flew from Auckland to Wellington to be with her second son's family and returned home after Christmas. She called us and let us know how thankful she is to reconnect with her family.  She was so excited to get the new lesson manual for Relief Society since she has been called to be a teacher.  Funny thing, Sister Olsen went the entire day with one of  Elder Olsen's name tags, even in front of the mission president not realizing it till we were at the restaurant.  No one mentioned it. Goes to show how much we pay attention to name tags.

Sunday the 22nd we attended Sacrament in Raglan, then our branch visited a couple of care centers in town and did some Christmas caroling.  I think we sounded pretty good and helped bring some smiles and Christmas cheer. That evening we went to the Walmsley's for dinner and a family nativity presentation.  They are a very musical family and  have a wonderful spirit.  The children and grandchildren all participated.  Brother Walmsley is a professor at Hamilton University; every few years he takes a sabbatical and has traveled with his family to the Ukraine, France, England, Canada, the USA and many other places. His wife home schools their children during that year away and they learn a lot about the places they visit.

daughter and grandkids performing

Brother Walmsley and more family

r-l  Don White, Mary Ann, son and daughter-in-law

l-r Rose Mary White, Sandra Taylor and friends of the Whites

On Monday the 23rd, we had our first group of volunteers, a YM's group from our neighborhood, to come to the camp to work.  We are anticipating hundreds of these groups over this next year to help get the camp ready for use.  We have 10,000 trees to plant this year alone.

anyone want a break

that's more like it

On Christmas Eve we gathered with four other couples and President Rudd and his wife at the Labrums for a wonderful dinner and to watch a short New Zealand nativity and the rest of the time we just told Christmas stories centered around our childhoods.

ready for the guests, all the men received musical ties

President and Sister Rudd and their visiting son

Elder and Sister Goodman

Elder and Sister Marsden

Sister Olsen's Christmas Trifle

Someone said there are no coincidences

On Christmas day, after a nice breakfast we opened a few gifts and especially loved the scrapbook of photos and messages from our family.

Christmas morning around the tree

 We then drove to Raglan and spent some time with Barry, who has no family in the area.  Christmas is a difficult time for him and he is pretty lonely. To encourage him to come to know and hopefully gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we gave him a set of cd's to listen to and read along with, some food items and a puzzle to help fill his time.  He's never done a puzzle and was a little dubious, but hopefully he will give it a try.  Better still, we are hoping to find a way for him to come work at the camp a couple of days a week.

Barry at his home in Raglan

We have had an unforgettable Christmas season.  Thank goodness for Skype, we were able to see all of the family, especially each of the grandchildren in their own homes on Christmas Day.

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon, we borrowed a couple of grandchildren and took them to see the movie, Frozen, which most of our own grandchildren had seen and loved.  We took Daishon Hamon, pictured above and her friend, Elizabeth, whose parents we also know well.  With Roger's cancer progressing, he and his wife, Karyn, look for opportunities for their daughter to have some enjoyable times away to relieve her worries about her much loved daddy.  They, and us as well, loved the movie and treats and it was fun for us to be with them.

Merry Christmas - Have a sausage!

Wow, it is so cold in Utah and so warm here!  I hope the cold temperatures so early means that January and February are going to be mild, but you probably better not count on that.  Although we are missing our family at this Christmas season, we're not missing "winter."  It has amazed us, however, that Christmas is so connected to "snow" to us who have grown up in Utah or other snowy areas.  It just has not felt like the Christmas season, but it is coming.  The extent of our Christmas decorations is a $5 wreath on our door and a small (really small) white Christmas tree on our sofa table; but we can look out and see the lights around the temple.  We've been singing lots of Christmas hymns at church as next week we have Sacrament meeting and then as a branch (approx. 35 members) we will go sing at a couple of care centers in Raglan. We will also be teaching the Christmas message several times this week; so that will also help us in seeing and feeling the "Christ" in Christmas.

lights at the temple

The Temple View Stake, in which we live (but are assigned to Raglan) has a fun Christmas tradition on the evening they turn the Christmas lights on at the Temple.  Everyone meets at the park and there is a program
and then everyone joins in the singing.  The Mauri people seem to be blessed with the gift of music; it seems like most of them have naturally beautiful voices and love to sing and harmonize.  Many of them also play the guitar or other instruments.  Our neighbor, Mark Struthers, is a born entertainer and has a daughter who has a very nice voice who often sings with him.  At the park he invited all the kiddies to come up and join him in the Jingle Bell line dance, promising them lollies (candy).   When someone asked him if he really had any lollies, he told them "no, but the kiddies could get them from their parents on Christmas.  The kids were having so much fun, they didn't seem to mind.  After the singing people either walked or drove around the neighborhood to see the decorated homes, several of which had grills set up and were cooking up sausages (rather than hot chocolate & donuts).  You take a slice of white bread, squirt some ketchup (different than American ketchup) on it and they'll stick a sausage in it.  They're not big into hamburgers here, nor hotdogs, although the sausage is similar.  Then everyone heads up to the temple, rather late in the evening as it is summer and it doesn't get dark until around 9:00. It was a beautiful sight; this year they used mostly gold and white lights. There were hundreds of people there the first night and they mingled for quite some time.  We know the senior and younger sisters who work at the temple and they all put in lots of extra hours during the holidays.

sausage anyone

We're still living in a construction zone, but all they have left to do is spread some top soil and plant some grass.  Maybe that will be our Christmas gift.  A couple of weeks ago they poured our combination side/walk/patio and we were fixing baked beans for a Christmas party at the missions president's home and weren't ready to leave when they poured the cement right in front of our door.  So, we had to crawl through a bedroom window, which is underneath the porch of the apartment upstairs; so we had to crouch down and make our way to the fire escape ladder in order to get out.  We were gone for several hours so were happy that we could go through our door when we returned, although Elder Olsen told me to take my shoes off and go first and I left some faint toe prints.

I made fresh strawberry jam (I should call it syrup as my recipe didn't work with NZ pectin) a couple of days ago, not thinking about how small our freezer is, at the time.  We had to take most of it out to our office at the campground, which has a fridge, but I'll probably give some of it away.  Strawberries are on at a really good price, peaches are coming on and we even tried our first watermelon and corn on the cob and it was pretty good.  M-m-m-m, that just reminded me we still have some watermelon in the fridge.  I love watermelon!

Sister Olsen in our office at the camp

an existing path within the camp

Things are starting to happen out at the camp finally! We hope that the camp will be operational by this time next year, but have our doubts, as there has already been delays due to rain, etc.  We won't be here to see it operating, but it would be nice to see it near completion before we leave.  They have been burying the 8 huge septic tanks and are about finished with drilling the well.  We're excited that our temporary office at the Bush is now equipped with a computer, printer and the internet.  Yeah! Now there are lots of projects we can proceed with.  However, Elder Olsen's favorite assignment is mowing the lawn on that cute little John Deere tractor.  This morning before leaving for Raglan for church, we ran around our 2 stakes here that are closest to the bush and left announcements for all the bishops asking for volunteers at the campground during the kid's summer vacation, which is just starting and goes through January.  We want to keep the existing somewhat developed campground in good shape while they are doing construction.  We won't start with having all the volunteers come to plant the 10,000 trees until March and April, when the weather cools. They will plant 10,000 trees a year for 10 years and the camp will increase from about 4-5 acres to 40 or 50.

four of the eight tanks are in the ground

the crane used to lift the tanks into the hole

Now an update on Barry Vetter.  This was his third Sunday at church and he love being there and has said that he wishes everyday were Sunday because he can feel of the spirit and the love of the members and is not lonely like he is most other days. He cried all the way through church the first time he came and went through a half box of tissues.  He is 55, lives alone in a 1 room apartment, has no family close by and doesn't work (he receives some kind of subsistence) and he is an alcoholic. As a child his father was abusive so his mother ran away and left them with the dad who became more abusive with them.  He was put in an orphanage when he was ten until he was 17.  He and a partner had 2 children and some years later they both died within a short time period; the son (9) had cerebral palsy and his daughter (13) had a brain tumor. Afterwards he and his partner went their separate ways.  To deal with the pain, Barry turned to drinking and has been drinking ever since.  He has gone through several addiction programs, but has never really stuck with it.  He has had a lot of anger, is very lonely, and is tired of is life as it is.  He has a really good heart and is quite funny.  Like today in Gospel Essentials we were talking about the fall of Adam and Eve.  We mentioned that one of the reasons they partook of the forbidden fruit is so that they could have children.  He said, "Well, why didn't they have any kids while they were in the Garden of Eden; were they just too busy picking apples?" One thing he really needs is something to do on a daily basis that is of worthwhile.  We talked to him about working at the campground and he was excited about that, but Raglan is 45 minutes away, so we are trying to find someone that might work over this way that could give him a ride 2 or 3 times a week.  Knowing how difficult it is to break addictions,  sometimes we doubt whether the gospel will be able to make a difference in his life; but we also know that the gospel can give you the extra help you need in doing so and that all things are possible through our Savior.

December evening

Bye for now; we are headed to the Stake Center to see the First Presidency Christmas Message a week later since our Sunday was already over with last week when it was broadcast.  - - - Just got back and that Christmas spirit is growing!

Visitor center

ADDICTED TO AMERICAN FOOD?

Little did we expect to hear Christmas songs at Church today.  The sun was shining and the weather is warm, the days are long and the flowers are blooming.  It just doesn't seem like Christmastime.

The first Monday evening in November all the senior couples met at President and Sister Rudd's home for a family home evening Thanksgiving dinner, the first and probably the only turkey we will have to eat while here.  We did see some frozen turkeys at the supermarket, 15 lbs for $89.00, no thanks we'll just have chicken.  New Zealanders don't have pumpkin pie either.  Well, on Thursday Sister Olsen picked up a roasted chicken, she made some stuffing, and she put some smashed, cooked pumpkin with a little brown sugar and spices, in some vanilla ice cream with a cookie crumb crust and it made a wonderful dessert. I think we'll make that a traditional dessert when we return home.

Roger being presented a plaque by Ken Williams

Last Saturday we hosted what Sister Olsen named "Roger Hamon Day at the Bush" to honor him for all that he has done to preserve the area that the church is making into a camp ground for the youth of New Zealand.  We had about 70 people in attendance, all brought a plate so we had lots of food, listened to several tell stories and sing.  Roger, though not feeling well was able to sing a solo.  He has a pleasing tenor voice.

Roger cutting his birthday cake

It was Sister Olsen's birthday a week ago; to keep her mind off of how old she was, she wanted to do something fun..  We left Monday morning and traveled to Auckland.  Our first stop was the Sky Tower, a tall monolith with a couple of observation decks and a restaurant at the top where we had a 360 degree view of the city. After returning to the ground, we walked around a few blocks and headed to One Tree Hill, a high point in the city.  Friends had told us about eating there at a nice restaurant and we found it in Cornwall Park at the base of the hill and shared a wonderful lunch before we headed back to Hamilton. Afterwards we went to the America Store, where Sister Olsen was excited to buy a few things that you can't find at the regular grocery store, like Lipton onion soup mix, canned pumpkin, green chilies, corn syrup, dill pickles, etc. Along the way home we stopped, at a small town called Pokeno, that is famous for yummy ice cream that is only half the price it is everywhere else.  Sister Olsen had a single, I had a double but an LDS Tongan family we met there really outdid us; the wife had four or five scoops and the husband had a 6 decker.

looking straight down from the Sky Tower

looking east from the observation deck of the Sky Tower

looking at downtown from One Tree Hill

Jerusa Nobre, a young single sister from Brazil who lives in Kerikeri stayed Friday night with us and attended the temple.  Sister Erina Williams also from Kerikeri stopped over on Saturday night.  She was attending the temple before she moved to Napier to be with her family.  We have let people know they could stay with us and sure enough they haven't hesitated to come.  We thoroughly enjoy having them to visit and report on whats happening in the area we first served.  Friday night we attended the 65 and over dance at the local ward.  It was raining heavy and not so many came, but we enjoyed the dinner and the music from the 60's and considering we hadn't danced together for ages, I only stepped on Dian's toes a few times.

In an earlier blog we mentioned the Murray family from Waihau Branch up north.  This was the family who were able to bring their family to the temple and be sealed just a week before the husband passed away with cancer.  Their oldest daughter was waiting for her mission call at that time.  Since then she has received a call to the Brisbane, Australia mission and came through the temple two weeks ago for her own endowments. While in the MTC in Auckland she learned that her Uncle that lives next to them was killed in an automobile accident seriously injuring her cousin and the uncle's partner.  The next day the missionaries from the MTC came to the temple, she was with them and determined to serve the Lord and set a good example for her brothers who need to make changes before they can serve.  She was feeling the comfort of the Spirit as she grieved the loss of her father and uncle.

At fast and testimony meeting at the Raglan Branch we had a wonderful experience.  There were only about 30 in attendance and the Sisters brought an investigator, male, 50ish who looked pretty rough.  Before the meeting started they introduced him to us and we asked a little about him.  Soon he was crying and it seemed he couldn't stop.  He was so grateful that the Sisters had invited him to church and that they really did care about him.  Several years ago he had 2 daughters, one 10 and one 13 who both died of cancer.  He said it tore his heart out and he has never recovered, he turned to alcohol and subsequently made poor decisions ending up in prison for several years.  This impacted all in attendance and each bore testimony of the Saviors love and power to heal.  Because he is a single man the Sisters cannot go in his home and have taught him outside which has embarrassed him when people have walked by.  So the sisters have invited us to teach him.  We know the Savior came to save us from our sins and that He can heal our hearts.

bouquet of hydranges from the bush