New Zealand Hamilton Mission

Hello all, It's my turn(Elder Folland) to write the blog this week.  I am finding it hard to come up with something to write about.  I guess we have "hit the wall" so to speak.  When we first arrived in the mission, everything was new and we experienced sensory overload, so to speak.  New foods, new stores, new customs, new people to get to know, new driving laws, new weather, new landscapes and new jobs and tasks to learn.  At times it was almost overwhelming.  We felt we couldn't work fast enough to keep pace and couldn't learn our jobs fast enough to avoid having disasters occur, although no disasters ever happened. Over the past few weeks, things have changed.  I noticed I can drive almost everywhere in Hamilton without GPS as well as many areas outside of Hamilton.  I have gone from feeling totally lost and thinking "I don't know where I am in this world" to being confident with my situation.  Sister Folland recently asked me if she ...

These flowers are everywhere! KIA ORA! is a traditional Maori greeting.  I love to hear it!  It is wonderful to see such diversity here in New Zealand.  There are people of Maori descent, people of European, Australian, Tongan, Indian and etc. descent everywhere you go.  In South Davis County, Utah, there is an overwhelming majority of caucasian people, so I have loved being exposed to the variety of different cultures. We had a senior mission conference on the 24th of January.  It was very beneficial to bring in all our MLS (Member Leadership) missionaries to receive instruction about how they can help with our mission focus.  Two of our senior sister missionaries have been assigned to visit with all our young missionary districts (groups of 8-10 missionaries).  They have been doing role plays with each missionary, just to see where the teaching level is.  Now they want to focus on the missionaries who are struggling so that they c...