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!

Stopped in Cromwell

This is a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato). WAY good

Queenstown tram

Lake Hawea

Do the conversion = a long way

Warning: Tourist Trap

Outline of a Kiwi (actual size). Not quite

Golf course in sheep country.  All the greens had fences around them.  No I haven't been.

Lake Pukaki

Red Stag

Preach My Gospel

We have had a most wonderful,  amazing,  uplifting and spiritual experience. The Christchurch Stake, under the direction of Brother and Sister Pitama (pi-ta-ma) hold Missionary Preparation course three times a year.  We were asked to come and be "investigators" about half way through the 9 week course.  They have recent returned missionaries come and teach the class each week and they are amazing!  After each "Preach My Gospel" lesson, the perspective missionaries would teach the investigators.  We sometimes got to choose our scenerios and sometimes they would give us a concern for the missionaries to discover.  The "Preach My Gospel" manual is so amazing and inspired.  Even in these mock situations it is amazing how you can feel the spirit.

Three of the attendees already have their mission calls and are so pumped up.  They can hit the ground running when they get to their missions.  Any mission president would salivate over these young people who are so prepared.

On Mother's Day the Missionary Prep class held it's final climax activity.  It lasted from nine until three pm.  We started off with a Sacrament Meeting, complete with the sacrament and four speakers.  Elder Blackwell went first and told the story about his bishop calling him into his office to talk about going on a mission.  His bishop told him to pray about it, so he did.   He didn't receive an immediate answer, so he figured he was off the hook.  When he went to work later that day, every time he would think about a mission, he would start to cry.  (making very salty pancakes for the customers at Dees Family Restaurant)  He told how that one decision changed the course of his life.  Sister Blackwell was the second speaker and talked about how they had always planned to go on a mission together after they retired.  Two Clendon sisters, Julia and Grace, were the next two speakers.  One is going to Florida and the other one is going to Germany.  Grace can already speak German.  We had guest teachers all day, a wonderful lunch whipped up by Sister Pitama, more teaching situations, video taping and then a critic by the group, and ended with a beautiful testimony meeting.  Every single prospective missionary bore their testimony.  It was so awesome!  There were a few other students who attended class, but left early and we didn't get their picture.  We were honored to be in their presence.

Front left:  Julia Clendon, Grace Clendon
Back left:  Tutara Pitama, Aiden Johnstone, Daniel Sarjeant,
Gerry Kumar, Doren Semu, Jordan Lafaele

Sister Blackwell and Ellen Chan
Ellen speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.  She is just finishing her degree at the
Canterbury University in music and plans to put her papers in around September.  She
is so sweet and talented and amazing!  We just love her to death!

The beautiful and talented Suzanne and Hare Pitama

Luke Karene teaching techniques.  Luke just got married in April
to a darling girl named Hilary, also a returned missionary.


We are so amazed at the quality of youth here and the wonderful preparation they receive
before they go on missions.  Five of the eight above, plus Ellen already play the piano beautifully.
They all want to learn to play the piano.  Daniel is taking lessons from Sister Blackwell.  He started
taking lessons in January and is already playing hymns.

Akaroa

Confession:  When we have a day off we are in a very great place to be tourists.  April 25th is ANZAC Day, New Zealand's version of Veteran's Day.  When there is a National holiday we are required to close the Institute building (A of F 12).  We took the opportunity to drive 80 minutes to a French village of Akaroa.  The land formation is called Banks Pennisula, (hope you look all this up on Google Earth). It was formed by a 12 million year old volcano, one theory is the last eruption was similiar to Mt. Saint Helen's and had a sideways blowout and let in the sea.  While we were there we took a two hour tour of the habour and saw Hector Dolphins that are only four feet long and weigh about 120 lbs.  We also saw a white-flippered penguin, the smallest and rarest penguin in the world.  They weight approximately one pound.  The New Zealand Fur Seals were plentiful.  Their fur is so dense that in just one square inch there is enough fur to cover a small dog.  The weather was perfect and our sunhats and sunscreen worked splendid!

Tourists with name badges...

Beautiful Bay

Old Maori village

These sea birds are drying their wings after diving 100 yards deep into the ocean

View of Pacific Ocean

The seals against the volcanic rock.  Notice the layers of lava.

Seals are very awkward on land

Sea Cave

That little black spot is a penguin, remember he only weighs only one pound

This seal never did wake up

Lighthouse that was removed from mouth of bay, replaced by automated one.

Little River Giant Pumpkin Festival

One kid inside each bubble running around and they stay completely dry.  Notice the big zipper to get them in and out.

This and That

Riccarton Bush

Interesting roots

Can you find the Pakeha? (white person)

Sister Matthews and her Cashmere Seminary Class

Sister Grichard and her Asburton Seminary Class

Brother Bell and Minnie

Farmers Market

"Bee Stings"

Tasmanian Blue Gum. Planted in 1857

Market goods

Country Side

Plains looking towards Southern Alps

The first two pictures are of the Riccarton Bush.  It is located about two blocks from our flat and has been preserved as it was in the beginning.  It is very beautiful, with many different kinds of trees and bushes.  You can take a scenic walk through the bush, but must stay on the path and not touch anything.

The next picture is of our YSA group swimming at Hanmer Springs.  It is a beautiful little tourist town with some natural hot water springs.  We had thirty people go and they all bring food and do a big potluck.  It was the end of summer outing that the Stake paid for.  The kids love it!

The next two pictures are of our early morning seminary teachers with their students.  ( We supervise ten seminary teachers and have training for them every other month)

Brother Bell and his wife Minnie (she picked her own name from a book of names because she was from Taiwan and they couldn't pronounce her name) are shown here at his retirement party at the Institute.  Brother Bell was the coordinator for the mission and his replacement lives in Wellington.  One of our duties, we found out driving from the airport to the Institute, was that we would take over his duties from Christchurch to the south.  We grew to love these two people very quickly and will miss them very much.  They promised to stay in touch and we have Brother Bell on speed dial and talk to him nearly every day.

The market is held at the Riccarton Bush every Saturday morning and we were able to attend because everyone was at the chapel watching conference (which we had already seen) so my piano students were cancelled for the day.  It was very festive, with live entertainment, and lots and lots of food.  They were probably fifty booths with everyone's specialities.  We were tempted by the quich, the sourdough bread, cornish pasties, and finally the wonderful Bee Sting.    (it is a huge doughnut, baked, sliced horizontally and filled with custard)  We had heard about these and they truly lived up to their reputation.

The last few pictures are of the countryside just outside of Christchurch.  They plant trees close together and trim them like hedges and use them as windbreaks for their animals.  They are everywhere and are quite manificent.  We are guessing that they are high maintenance.  Their farms are neat as a pin, no piles of rubbish or old equipment lying around rusting away.  They take pride in their farms and gardens (yards).  There are flowers everywhere, even along the ditchbanks.  The ladies shopping in the grocery store all have a bundle of fresh flowers in their basket.