WOW! / Look At That!

As part of our assignment we go on the road to visit the Seminarys and Institutes in our area.  On Sunday we traveled two hours south to Timaru to attend church with them.  There is a branch there and they have a chapel.  There is a lovely missionary couple there, Elder and Sister Jarvis, and we are sure the saints are happy to have them.  Monday morning we met with  Sister Ani Haua and her seminary students.  Left to right, Alex, Hailey, Sister Haua, Anahera, Kenya, and Dallin.  This is one of our favorite things to do to visit these faithful teachers and students who get up early every morning to study the gospel together.  What a wonderful way to start the day!

 This was a spectacular sight.  These are Moeraki Boulders that started as small balls  the size of a pebble and after 60 million years are a tall as Sister Blackwell.

Lots of these boulders are on the beach and some are still emerging from the hillside.

We took this picture for Bob Carter in our home town.   This place is Gore,  the Brown Trout capital of the world.  We met with Elder and Sister Chestley who are serving as MLS (member leader support).  They are from California and will be heading home in May.

This is as far south as you can go on the South Island.  Just outside the city of Invercargill and on a clear day you would be able to see the Stewart Island.

Sister Blackwell has been driving in the countryside.  It is so strange driving on the other side of the road and right and left turns have a whole new meaning.

We met with these dear people, Brother and Sister Wilson.  Brother Wilson is a counselor in the branch presidency.  They are from the north island and felt prompted to move there.  They have an on-line seminary here.  We took them to lunch at a Turkish restaurant.  It was very good!

This is a place called Curio Bay.  When you walk down to the beach, you are standing on a petrified forest which is magnificent!  It is also the home of the yellow-eyed penguin, which only come out at dusk.  We weren't willing to wait the three hours.

This is Florence Hill Lookout, so this is for you Grammy!   Beautiful! 

This is the seminary in Dunedin.  They meet in the chapel and are:  (left to right) Jisu, Jesse (he has a twin brother named Christopher), Sister Fortune, Brenna, Savannah, Emily, and Caleb.  They were absolutely delightful!
That night in this same room is where we trained six adults for Institute right after a missionary transfer dinner.  We can't believe we forgot to take a picture.  This was our first institute training and we were really focused.

Lots of cows and millions of sheep.

Larnach Castle in Dunedin.  William Larnach built the castle for his first wife, and married two more times.  He shot himself in the head in a committee room in Parliament.  The castle was sold and now visitors can pay dearly to view inside or even stay in the Larnach Lodge.  We can only imagine what that would cost.

This is the view from the castle down into Otago Harbour. 

Elder and Sister Blackwell standing above Pilots Beach where the Albatross have a colony.

Just wanted to mention that the reason we titled this post, Wow, Look At That!  because that is what we were saying constantly as we went around every turn.  The NZ people make use of every square inch of ground and it is manicured to perfection.  Altogether, we traveled close to 900 miles and were gone five days.  It was so fun that it felt like a vacation and we enjoyed all the wonderful people along the way.  We are to make this trek quarterly, so will look forward to seeing these great folks again.