ChCh Chronicles: In-Service / Queenstown

We will have pictures in this post. But mostly we hope to relay some of the wonderful experiences we have been having. It is such an amazing experience to travel and meet with the wonderful saints here in New Zealand.

To give a little background about the Church in New Zealand. If you look at a map of this beautiful country you will see the south island is more than half the total land mass. There are 28 stakes in New Zealand. Of the 28 stakes, there is 1 stake on the south island and two districts. The main difference between North and South is that the Pacific islanders have settled in the north where the weather is warmer and the Europeans settled in the south for various reasons. Whatever the reasons, the church in the south island has struggled where we are serving.

Our responsibility is everything from Christchurch to the south end of the island. It doesn't look that far on a map until you start driving. The first day of the trip we headed for Dunedin which is close to a five hour drive. We did stop in Omaru and met with the amazing Sister Lisa Smith who is the on-line Seminary coordinator for the Dunedin District. The on-line students live too far out to come into a class and therefore they do their work on-line from a teacher in Wellington.

In Dunedin we met with Elder and Sister Webb, from Utah, who are serving their second mission. They served their first mission in Japan and worked in the mission home. They didn't know the language so when they went shopping bought fifteen pounds of salt instead of sugar. They ended up sharing with others. The language definitely was a barrier. They help with the seminary and institute classes and are truly an amazing couple. We also went to seminary in Dunedin with Sister Fortune. After class we did an inservice with her, as it is too far for her to come up to our monthly inservice in Christchurch.

The next morning we traveled to Queenstown, which is up in the mountains and is about a five hour drive from Dunedin. The town reminded us of Park City, Utah because there are summer and winter sports there. Mostly, the people are tourists. They have a small branch there and we met with the branch president, President Carpenter. He is an American and was on the BYU golf team as a non-member. He was baptized and met his wife at BYU. The branch only has about 25-30 members and struggles because of the distances they have to travel. It was so beautiful here, especially the lake which is fed by glacier water. We rode the gondola to the top of the mountain and got a spectacular view and pictures from up there.

Our next stop was Timaru, which is another five hour drive from Queenstown. On the drive, we go throught the interior of the country and saw a much different landscape than the coastline. There was one part that reminded Elder Blackwell of Poverty Flats, with low growing brush and bare hillsides. We saw hundreds of Red Stags. They are a little smaller than an elk and are raised on farms. You can buy their meat in the supermarkets and the males are raised so people can come and shoot them. There are lots of sheep, huge beautiful turquoise colored lakes, and very sparsely populated. On a clear day you should be able to see Mt. Cook, which we didn't see, but maybe next time.

In Timaru we held in-service with Sister Haua and Sister Jarvis, who is serving with her husband and is from Pleasant Grove. After the inservice, we attended Sister Jarvis's institute class, which was wonderful. Then Sister Jarvis taught a Tai Chi class and several non-members attend that. We only stayed for a few minutes. Elder Jarvis serves in the branch presidency and is the first counselor. They are in great need of Melchizedek priesthood here. Call yourself on a mission and move to Timaru. They would love to have you and you would fall instantly in love with them.

The next morning we attended seminary with Sister Haua and her five students. It is such a joy to see these teachers all in action and see them interact with the students. What a wonderful way for these young people to start their day! After seminary, we drove to Ashburton to look again for Brother Atwood's friend named Lyn Rosevear. Brother Atwood sent a picture and his testimony and we put them into a Book of Mormon and took it to him. We found him this time and had a nice chat with him and gave him the Book of Mormon. Brother Atwood is a wonderful man we worked with in the St. George Temple.

Our Christchurch inservice went very well. We had Brother Caldwell from the high counsel, Pres. Bourne from the stake presidency, Sister Van't wout from the stake teacher development director and three seminary teachers. We taught about the breadth and depth teaching that we learned in the MTC. They seemed very interested and were even writing down things we were saying. We were amazed!
They are so gracious, loving, and kind to us. We wondered why we hadn't learned this teaching method forty years ago. It is so inspiring and really teaches the students how to get the message from their heads down into their hearts. Wow, we really had a spiritual week!