New Zealand Hamilton Mission

(Almost) Happy New Year! It is hard to believe it is nearly the end of 2019 and the start of a new decade.  Christmas was very different for us this year.  Not only did many of our traditions end with the sale of our house, but we had Christmas in the summer, with warm, sunny days and short nights.  Many people here go to the beach for a barbecue on Christmas instead of roasting chesnuts on an open fire, or going on a sleigh ride. We missed being with our family, although we did have a nice video chat with all of them on our day after Christmas(Boxing Day), but their Christmas day.  One tradition we were able to keep going was making Christmas candy, which we shared with many of our friends and associates in the mission and ward.  Almond Roca, peanut brittle, coconut-cashew crunch and mini carmel pecan rolls were cooked up. We celebrated Christmas eve with some friends in our ward, the Cassidy's and their family.  It was a big group with lots of kids a...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Joy to the World!  The Lord has Come! It's December 2019, and this year we will celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ in the beautiful land of New Zealand.  We have just begun summer here.  We are taken back to our time in Miami, Florida when we were newly married and the temperatures at Christmas time were in the 70's and 80's.  In other words, there will be no snow...and we're okay with that! We were listening to a Tabernacle Choir CD with songs and music from their 2015 Christmas concert.  That year, the concert was entitled "Hallelujah", and featured guests Laura Osnes and Martin Jarvis.  Four opera singers from the Metropolitan Opera also participated.  At one point in the concert, Martin Jarvis describes a beautiful story behind Handel's Messiah.  At the time that George Frideric Handel wrote the msaterpiece, he was heavily in debt.  He had mainly composed Italian opera, but t...

More pictures: Over the waterfall Where's the raft? There's the raft-but where's Rach? There she is-out of the boat! We made it!!!!

Well,  3 weeks ago we discussed getting back on  weekly blog posts and now 3 weeks later I am finally getting back to it.  We have not been sitting around doing nothing though and in fact we had almost a week with a lot of fun activities because of visits from several family members.  More on that later. Since the last post, we had a transfer week which was relatively small but still busy with all of the extra events associated with it.  Around that time, I took a trip up to South Auckland to evaluate a flat(apartment) that was hastily vacated by a pair of elders, due to an unfortunate circumstance.  We were hoping to move a set of sister missionaries there because we were concerned for their safety.  They had been stalked at their flat by someone who was knocking on their door and windows in the middle of the night.  The President felt we needed to move them ASAP.  Upon my evaluation, I found the location to be acceptable for sisters, but t...

Our world is generally busy and stressful at times. We discovered a very peaceful place above the hustle and bustle this week.  It is called Till's Lookout.  Doug rode his bike and I walked several mornings for exercise.  The views are so beautiful and we arrive just as the sun is rising.  The bike/walk path leads to a very peaceful Arboretum with a large variety of trees and plants.  The quiet atmosphere of this place promotes meditative thoughts and spiritual insights.  It is a wondrous way to begin the day. Wednesday, we were able to drive to a town called Matamata to meet our friends the Brocks and Chidesters whose cruise tour group was touring the Lord of the Rings movie set callled Hobbiton.  We joined them for the tour and enjoyed some time together visiting.   Thursday, we drove to a place called Tamaurunui to tour a flat (apartment) that we are leasing for a senior couple arriving this month.  We found the flat to be a g...