Mt. Maunganui

Yes, we are still here!   The past few weeks have been somewhat crazy here.  It started the week before transfer when we got called on to go to Auckland twice to  take missionaries to the airport in a 12 hour period.  That's 6 hours traveling in 12 hours.   The following Tuesday, 4 missionaries completed their missions and went home.  Wednesday, we had 13 missionaries arrive to start their missions along with a senior missionary couple.  Usually, the assistants to the president drive up to the airport to collect the new missionaries but because of the size of the group,  we needed to drive up to Auckland again.  In order to arrive in time to meet the missionaries as they arrived, we had to get up at 4:15am.  We still arrived an hour late due to bad traffic.  The rest of Wednesday was spent getting the new missionaries checked in.  We have a 2 hour orientation meeting in the morning and in the afternoon,  Sister Folland and I speak with each missonary individually about the information they need to know related to our areas of responsibility.  The next day, Thursday, was transfer day.  We had all the missionaries involved in transfer come into the office.  This is a departure from how this was done previously where all missionaries traveled to their new area by bus.  The majority came in by car.  We had over 90 missionaries in for a short meeting with the president, then they all headed back to their areas with their new companions.   It all went amazingly well.  One thing that kind of complicated things was one of the new missionaries was flying in from New York and his flight was delayed which caused him to arrive a day later than the others and another two received their visas at the last minute so they showed up the day after that requiring more trips to Auckland and another day spent in orientation.
There was no time to catch our breath before Sister Folland and I had to buy food for the luncheon for zone conferences, which were held the following week,  We spent our p-day grocery shopping and cooking  "chop"(ground beef) for taco salads.  We fed over 200 meals between 4 zone conferences.   It all went well, though.   President made his signature "red neck milk shakes" for dessert.  He mixes them in a 20 litre bucket from Miter 10, which is like the orange buckets from Home Depot in the States.  He uses a cement mixer to stir them up.  We went through 84 litres(22 gallons) of ice cream to make the shakes.  They were a big hit.
By P-day(yesterday)  we were ready for a rest.  We had planned to go on a bike ride somewhere but then Friday night I got a call  from a set of missionaries that started with "Elder Folland, we are so sorry".  I have learned that means something bad just happened usually to one of the cars, which was the case with this call.  The Elder had parked on a slope in front of their garage.  He was planning reverse up the hill and go to an appointment, but instead of putting the transmission in reverse, he put it in neutral.  Before he knew it, the car rolled down the hill and struck the concrete wall of the garage, causing some major damage to the front of the car.  Saturday morning I went to check it out and it is pretty bad- probably totaled.  Luckily, the garage faired ok.
Because we needed to take some bicycles to a set of Elders in Mt Manganui, which is by Tauranga, we decided to head over there and see what we could find to do.  We ended up having a great and restful  day.  We rode bikes along the beach and I hiked to the top of Mt. Manganui while Sister Folland rested and wrote a letter.  We ended the day with a nice seafood meal. See the pictures from our day.  It was just what we needed to rejuvinate.  We are ready to tackle another week.
We are so grateful to be able to serve in this beautiful land.  We work very hard and by the end of the day we are ready to fall into bed but we feel joy to be involved in the Lord's work.  This is His Gospel and it has the power to save the world.   What a blessing to be involved in that!
Lots of Love,
Elder and Sister Folland