THE GIRL HAS GONE HOME

How fun it has been to have our grand daughter stay with us for 3 weeks.  We wanted her to see the northern part of the North Island where we worked our first 5 months and made so many friends, but we also wanted her to see how beautiful the landscape and the beaches are.  We left the afternoon of the 4th of July, missing the party that evening put on by the senior missionaries here in Hamilton.  We got bogged down in the heavy Auckland traffic for 2-3 hours so found a motel just the other side of Auckland for the night. We got an early start on Saturday arriving in Kerikeri just after noon.  We drove straight to Denise's and took her with us to Matauri Bay and Wainui Bay.  We stopped in to visit the Tua family who we worked with to activate and to teach and baptize one of their grandsons. They are raising 7 grandchildren since 2 of their adult daughters passed away, one in an auto accident some years ago and the other just 2 years ago following the birth of her youngest.  TheTua's were so excited and surprised to see us and after being there a few minutes we found out why. They all gave us hugs and SisterTua shed a few tears as she said that 2 months earlier the branch president had announced that Elder Olsen had passed away. They said many tears were shed, which should make Elder Olsen feel good to know he was lovd.  They took pictures of us and promised to show the branch on Sunday  that he still lives. We returned to Denise's for dinner and watched Mary Poppins on her big screen TV.  

Lydia and Denise at Wainui Bay

The Tua grand parents raising 7 grand children

Sunday was special because we visited the Waihau Branch and were able to see so many of our friends. We were so surprised to see John Koppa (Cooper).  He was a less active member that we visited several times but were not able to make any headway with.  He always said he knew the Book of Mormon was true and he prayed, but didn't feel he had to come to church.  Dian's grandmother McBride was a Cooper so she went to Family Tree and looked up some Coopers who could be his ancestors and she gave that to him.  He was mostly Mauri, but he explained that the Cooper sir name came from his great great grandfather who was a Scottish whaler. While his ship was docked in New Zealand,  he met a sweet Mauri girl  who became pregnant before he left thereby leaving the Cooper name for his male descendants.

We were also surprised to see Hema Richards, a widow who's husbands funeral we attended a year ago.  She had been a recent convert when we arrived but her husband had cancer and needed care all the time so she rarely came to church and always promised us she would come after her husband passed away.  Well, after the funeral we invited her several times to come to church.  Finally she informed us that it was Mauri custom to journey in thought and devotion to the deceased husband for one year before getting back in life.  It was the first Sunday that she had come to church and she was beaming from ear to ear and was so excited to have us there to see that she had kept her word about coming back.

On Monday we stopped in Pihia, a resort town on the Bay of Islands where Lydia bought souvenirs to take home, then we were off to Auckland for lunch and to link up with the Clayton's for her return trip.  She saw a"Nandos" restaurant and insisted that we have lunch there because it is the favorite place for some cute guy in some singing group she likes. They only serve chicken, so I was surprised to see barbecued ribs on the menu.  When I asked if they were were pork or beef the host said they were chicken ribs, can you believe that!  We left Lydia with the Clayton's to fly to Sydney Tuesday morning where they would stay for a week and headed back to Hamilton.

For two or three days following Lydia's departure we felt rather blue and the rain everyday didn't help.  We dug back into the work.  On the 10th we started live training with church headquaters in SLC on how to set up the reservation system for the camp.  Later that day I went with Joe Hay, our nurseryman, to Lake Taupo to pick up plants and pots at a big wholesale nursery there.

On Saturday the 12th, we had over 50 YSA Institute students come out to the camp and worked all morning in the rain planting trees.  Many were in "T" shirts, shorts and flipflops and they got pretty cold.  They were the faithful ones who accepted the challenge to do service among the 500 who were meeting in Hamilton for a special Institute gathering.  That night we invited the Goodman's and Labrum's for dinner and games.  We played the card game of golf since it was raining and neither of them got to golf for real that day.

the Labrum's, Goodman's and Olsen's

On Sunday we fixed dinner and took it to the Hamon's for a very special time with them.  The doctors have told him they can't do anything more for him but treat his pain and replenish his fluids by I.V.

Roger in his famous stripped PJ's and his cute wife Karyn

Deizharn, their daughter, in her new bedroom

We are finally getting more sunny days.  It has only rained two or three times this week. For FHE on the 14th the Elder's quorum in our ward prepared a "hangi" a Mauri feed for all the Temple Missionaries that go to our ward.  We welcomed their invite and had a wonderful time having traditional Mauri food and some fun singing.

The kids have been out of school the past two weeks so twice last week we had 20 or more kids come to serve at the camp.  We had them repot plants for next year.  We still have a 3000 more to repot in the next few weeks.

youth working around potting table

Finished the work -  now its time to eat!

Its wonderful to see the camp progressing towards completion.  We have been corresponding with the senior couple who will be replacing us.  They are a British couple who are the inlaws of our project manager, Adam O'Gram in the area office in Auckland.  They report in the MTC in Auckland on the 25th of September and we fly to the south island on the 1st of October. Elder Thomson, the area seventy is trying   to make special arrangements to get them here earlier if all goes well with their visas.