What do you want to do today?-I don't know, what do you?
Who would have ever thought we would reach this point serving a mission? It wasn't that long ago our days were so full it was hard to find time to do everything. Now we struggle to fill our days with mission-related work. Don't get me wrong-we do have work to do, but we have to pace the work to stretch it out a little bit. We don't want to work so hard on Mondays that there is nothing left for the rest of the week.☺ I still have bills to pay and emails to respond to. I get the same amount of emails in a week I used to get in a day. Sister Folland's work with travel and incoming missionaries has dropped off to nothing. Towards the start of the lockdown we were visiting flats that had been vacated by the rapid loss of missionaries. Our objective was to remove any perishable food from the houses. We actually found a lot of food that needed to removed. In one flat we found 5 dozen eggs out in the cupboard. That could have been a mess in a few months! It all ground to a halt last week when one of our senior couples out in Gisborne was going to check on a flat and the police stopped them. The police said in no uncertain terms that going to clean out flats was a non-essential job and they were to return home immediately. I wonder if the police officer would like to help us clean up 60 rotten eggs from a flat in a few months? Anyway being the obedient missionaries we are, we gave up that task until the restrictions lighten.
This coming Wednesday will mark the inital 4 weeks of level 4 alert lockdown. The prime minister is supposed to let us know tomorrow what the next step will be. We are hoping to drop back to level 3 which will mean restaurants can provide take-out again and we can expand our "bubble" to include family. We consider the other missionaries to be our family here so we are hoping we can interact with them a little more. We will also be allowed to travel to the beach, as long as it is within 45 minutes drive. Luckily, Raglan a coastal town with beaches is within that limit to us. Some new scenery!!!!!!
We are doing our best to put a positive spin on a difficult situation. Certainly, we feel blessed to be in a beautiful land where the risk of contracting the COVID virus is relatively low. We are doing some things we otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Last weekend, I extracted honey from a beehive on the property where we live. The hive has been abandoned by the man who placed it here so I volunteered to see what I could do. As luck would have it, the neighbor used to keep bees and still had some gear. With his help, we gathered about 20 Kg of wonderful honey. I didn't even get stung once, although the bees were not in the best of moods following my invasion of their territory. I have read a book for pleasure, the first time in years- "A Wanted Man" by Lee Child- a good old shoot-the-bad-guys-up mystery novel. Sister Folland has been doing cross stitch, name extraction and fiddling with Facebook. We get out to exercise and of course we have extra time for gospel study.
All is good here and we hope you are all safe. You are always in our prayers. We know we will eventually come out on the other side better and stronger.
Lots of Love,
Elder and Sister Folland
This coming Wednesday will mark the inital 4 weeks of level 4 alert lockdown. The prime minister is supposed to let us know tomorrow what the next step will be. We are hoping to drop back to level 3 which will mean restaurants can provide take-out again and we can expand our "bubble" to include family. We consider the other missionaries to be our family here so we are hoping we can interact with them a little more. We will also be allowed to travel to the beach, as long as it is within 45 minutes drive. Luckily, Raglan a coastal town with beaches is within that limit to us. Some new scenery!!!!!!
We are doing our best to put a positive spin on a difficult situation. Certainly, we feel blessed to be in a beautiful land where the risk of contracting the COVID virus is relatively low. We are doing some things we otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Last weekend, I extracted honey from a beehive on the property where we live. The hive has been abandoned by the man who placed it here so I volunteered to see what I could do. As luck would have it, the neighbor used to keep bees and still had some gear. With his help, we gathered about 20 Kg of wonderful honey. I didn't even get stung once, although the bees were not in the best of moods following my invasion of their territory. I have read a book for pleasure, the first time in years- "A Wanted Man" by Lee Child- a good old shoot-the-bad-guys-up mystery novel. Sister Folland has been doing cross stitch, name extraction and fiddling with Facebook. We get out to exercise and of course we have extra time for gospel study.
All is good here and we hope you are all safe. You are always in our prayers. We know we will eventually come out on the other side better and stronger.
Lots of Love,
Elder and Sister Folland
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