First Weekend in Takapuna, New Zealand

Saturday we drove north along the coast to the town of Waiwera.  Here we visited the Waiwera Thermal Resort (similiar to Lava Hot Springs).  It was great to swim, soak and relax.  After several blissful hours we drove back to our flat (apartment).   We, or should we say Gary, is driving on the left and learning all the tricks to adjust to this new country that we will call home for the next 18 months.

Tempatures shown are 118.4/104 in Fahrenheit

Sit back, relax and all the tension just goes away.

This was Susan's favorite spot.  Water was hot, but not 48c hot. 

Lava Pool, the small one, was just a bit too warm.

On the way home we were able to stop at a few places along the way to take pictures.  Yes you read that right!  Gary stopped and let Susan take pictures.  We have decided that we may never get this way again, and we need to enjoy ourselves while we are here. This location is near the town of Orwea.

Looks more like a vacation than a mission.

They call this kite sailing here. 

Sunday we attended church at the Takapuna chapel.  We had the opportunity to meet President and Sister Balli (Auckland Mission President).  The church meetings were wonderful.  We understood nearly every word.  Sometimes the accent is pretty strong and they might have different expressions, but it is the same language.  

At home today would have been Fast Sunday, but since we are17 hours ahead of Mountain Daylight Time (we went off New Zealand Daylight Savings Sunday morning) we will not be able to view General Conference until the following week.  As we walked to church we noted that it was 6 PM at home and the General Women's Meeting would be starting.  That conference session will be televised next Saturday (October 4th) and General Conference sessions the following weekend (October 10th and 11th).   Are you totally confused?  So are we.  We hope to view conference online before Oct 10 as even now we are beginning to see quotes from the Women's Meeting.

After church on Sunday we were invited to have dinner with a family from church.  It was delightful as we were able to carry on a conversation and enjoy the hectic lives of their teenagers.  It really reminded us of home when the family comes over for dinner.

Monday morning marks the completion of our first week in New Zealand.  

Welcome to New Zealand

We finally arrived in New Zealand, Monday, September 22, 2014.  Yes, we did leave Saturday night.  We crossed the International Dateline during our flight, so we lost Sunday.  When we arrived it was Monday 5:25 AM.

Upon arriving we went through customs - They have a unique way to do customs here called "smart gate".   You insert your passport into the kiosk and follow the instructions on the screen.   It reads the barcode and issues a ticket.  Then you proceed to a gate and insert the ticket you received at the kiosk.  You look straight ahead while your face is compared to your passport photo.  Finally you retrieve your ticket, go through the gate, gather your luggage and proceed to the custom's desk.  You give your ticket and arrival card to the agent and that's it.  It was all very slick.  Only people with US, New Zealand, Australian, or UK passports can use this method.  It made the customs process very smooth.

Yes! We were photo bombed.

The Reynolds, the couple we replaced, were there to greet us.  We went outside to put our luggage in the car and it was raining.  The wind was blowing hard as well.  By noon it had blown over and turned out to be a very pleasant day.

We were taken to our hotel.  The hotel is only a five minute walk to the area office.  We showered and found some clothes that were not too wrinkled.  Task was completed and we were taken to the area office where we started our mission in New Zealand.

View from our hotel window

Since there are many employees at the Area Office we had an brief orientation from Human Resources.

We had a meeting with the Area Seventy from Samoa who happened to be in town.  We talked about the proposed diabetes initiative.  Following this meeting we received training on how to use the office phones and learned our new email addresses.

Gary, Elder Fata and Susan

Elder and Sister Reynolds took us to lunch at a little restaurant where we had great "ethnic" food.

Upon returning from lunch we received a guided tour of the office building.  As we exited the office of one of the men who works in physical facilities, we noticed the last name on the door was "Scirkovich".  We walked back in and asked if he was related to a young man with the same last name in the Adriatic North Mission.  Turns out he is the father of Elder Scirkovich whom we served with.  Gary also renewed friendships with many people who he had worked with in various other parts of the world during his career in church welfare.  Gary has been dubbed "Winters-pedia" in regards to welfare.  Hopefully we will be able to meet their expectations.

Monday night we joined the senior couples for family home evening in the area office.  Of course by this time we were ready to drop, but we knew it was best to push through and not go to sleep until near our normal bedtime.  We were only able to stay up till 8:30 pm.

Every Tuesday morning the area office holds a devotional.  This particular one was on using social media to spread the gospel.  We were challenged to share our beliefs via social media.  It's nice to have positive things about the church on the Internet.  When someone Googles "Mormons"it's great to see the good news in the top 10 picks.  You may find this article interesting.

http://www.ldsliving.com/story/76964-10-things-people-ask-google-about-the-mormons-and-the-answers

In front of the office building - notice Susan's hair.  It was a bit windy.

Elder and Sister Reynolds, Susan and Gary

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was spent in learning procedures and "getting our feet wet".  Thursday morning we took our bags to the new apartment.  Thursday night we unpacked.  We were fortunate enough to be invited to dinner, so we didn't attempt to cook yet.

View of Takapuna Bay just down from the Area Office

 Friday we were on our own.  Friday night we continued to find places for "our stuff" in the apartment.
We also had our first "sticker shock" as we went grocery shopping.  The nectarines that we could go out in our backyard and pick off the tree - $7.99 a kilo.  But we will survive.  This is a wonderful place and we are excited and thankful to be here.

Saturday, September 20, 2014 Our Travel Day Again

Saturday morning we were able to get a late check out of 1:00 PM.  We cleaned up and took a shuttle to the airport about 1:00 PM hoping to be able to check in and get all set up for the last leg of the flight.

When we arrived at the airport we were greeted by the sign at Air New Zealand that stated that the ticket counter would open at 6:00 PM.  What??? Susan found a place to plug in her computer and we settled in for our next 5 hrs.  We made several walks around the airport and enjoyed a display they had regarding the poster art of some of the bands during the 60’s.  Of course we felt a wee bit old (one of our friends said "not old - vintage" as we recognized all the posters and bands.  Was that all really 50 years ago? 

5:30 PM people started to form a line even though there were no people at the counter.  We joined the line and found ourselves in line with all the Kiwis.  Now we were the ones with the accent.  We got checked and were told that our bags were definitely re-tagged for the flight and made our way to security.  We had a fairly easy time going through security until they ordered a bag check on Gary’s backpack.  Turns out his small quad (scriptures) with a natural leather cover showed up as something organic on the scanner.  With the bag check finished we got something to eat and then went to the gate to once again wait. 

We were able to gate check our carry on bags, leaving us with just our personal items.  8:30 PM we boarded the flight and really truly took off. 

The flight was uneventful.  We watched a few movies and tried to sleep with no avail.  We arrived in Auckland at 5:15 AM Monday morning where we were met by Elder and Sister Reynolds.

Our next post will have all the details about our first day in Auckland  -  Did we fall asleep in the middle of our meetings?  Where did our Sunday go?

Friday September 19th, Travel Day

Friday was our travel day. 

We received our itinerary and it was as follows –

UA5199		6:24 p.m. Fri., Sep. 19, 2014 Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)	7:34 p.m. Fri., Sep. 19, 2014 San Francisco, CA (SFO)	Canadair Regional Jet 200 Fare Class: United Economy (S) Meals: None	Flight Time: 2 hr 10 mn
Flight UA 5199 is operated by Skywest Airlines dba United Express.
	NZ7		9:15 p.m. Fri., Sep. 19, 2014 San Francisco, CA (SFO)	5:25 a.m. Sun., Sep. 21, 2014 Auckland NZ (AKL)	Boeing 777-200 Fare Class: Economy (Q) Meals: None	Flight Time: 12 hr 10 mn
Flight NZ 7 is operated by Air New Zealand.

We spent Friday morning rearranging things in our bags and weighing them.  Every time we would weigh them we would get a different number.  Finally we decided that we would just go with what we had and hope for the best.

We had a delightful lunch with our daughters, Lizzy and Sara, and Lizzy’s boys.   After lunch we went home and changed into our official "missionary togs" and loaded all our bags into our son-in-law’s truck and headed to the airport.

Upon arriving at the airport we went directly to the United counter for the official weigh in.  No waiting in line – just roll those bags up to the counter and weigh them in.  Each bag was under the limit, with not much, if any, to spare.

50 lbs. or less

Ready to check in

After checking in our bags, we went through security.  Again very short lines.  Somehow Susan always gets the “TSA PRE” on her boarding pass so she is able to breeze through security.  Leave the computer and liquids in the bag, keep your shoes and coat on, just go through security.  Gary unfortunately had to go through normal security.

Due to the short lines we had arrived at the airport more than 2 hours early.  We sat down at Gate B5 and started the final wait.  About 5:15 PM an announcement was made,  "The gate for flight 5199 has been changed to B9 and would now be departing at 9:30pm.  Anyone who had questions would need to go to Gate B9 where they would take care of you."  We proceeded to Gate B9 and waited in line for our turn.  We learned that a pothole in the runway at San Francisco was discovered and Air Traffic Control had delayed  flights as there was only one runway at San Francisco available.  The final solution was to keep us on the flight at 9:30 PM and then fly from San Francisco to Sydney, then Sydney to Auckland. 

The departure time on the board kept changing.  Finally we boarded the plane and departed at 9:51 PM Salt Lake City time.  We arrived into San Francisco at 10:20 PM local time and made the mad dash from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.  Our flight was to depart from San Francisco to Sydney at 10:30 PM.  Upon arriving at gate 102 (the very last gate in the international terminal we found nothing.  Absolutely nothing!  Everyone had left the gate area.   There was no one there – the flight had departed and we would now have to wait to leave on Saturday night as there is only one flight a day. 

We were put back on the original flight at 9:15 PM on Saturday night and told that due to the fact that it was an Air Traffic Control delay that we would not be compensated with a hotel.  Church travel booked us into a hotel and we caught a shuttle to our hotel arriving at 1:00 AM PDT.  Fortunately we were able to leave our 4 large bags at the airport and only had to take our carry ons with us to the hotel.  

We dropped into our hotel bed exhausted.  

Welfare Training

We actually started our welfare/humanitarian training this summer as we visited with several people at church headquarters in preparing ourselves for New Zealand. We also visited a few times with Elder Glen L Rudd.  Elder Rudd is not only an authority on welfare, he is also a wealth of knowledge on the church in New Zealand. 

Elder Rudd and Gary

We spent the week of September 15-18 in welfare training. Monday we went to downtown Salt Lake City for meetings at Welfare Square with Jamie Glenn. After our training we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a nice lunch and presentation by Steve Peterson, Managing Director of Welfare Services. Following lunch we had training relating to Emergency Response and Self-Reliance.

Tuesday we were back to the MTC in Provo. Sharon Eubank, Director of Humanitarian Services/LDS Charities, provided excellent training relative to humanitarian principles, the vision of our call, the purposes of humanitarian service, and an overview of the six humanitarian principles. (www.ldscharities.org)

Sharon Eubank

After lunch Gustavo Estrada instructed us on the use of the computer database program that welfare missionaries use in documenting humanitarian projects. Some missionaries felt a little apprehensive, but Gary mentioned that it really was a fairly easy program to use.

Gustavo Estrada and Gary

Wednesday our training was again at the MTC. Our instructor was Aaron Meacham for instruction on humanitarian major initiatives (www.ldscharities.org).

Aaron Meacham

During our devotional Thursday morning Elder and Sister Sharpe from St. George, Utah  (Area Welfare Specialists for Germany) treated us to a musical number.  Elder Sharpe played ths flute and Sister Sharpe accompanied him on the piano.  The number was a medley of Primary songs and Hymns.

Elder Sharpe

Thursday Gustavo was with us again in the morning to discuss area initiative (smaller locally focused) projects. We had the opportunity to talk about and show photos of some of the projects we did in Bosnia. In the afternoon Dr. Woolley led a discussion on safe drinking water. 

The entire week's training was very worthwhile and especially relevant to our humanitarian missionary service. We really enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new ones in the Lord's service. 

 Our entire welfare training was coordinated by a senior couple, Elder and Sister Palfreyman.  They are from Springville, Utah.  They did an excellent job.  We shared a common bond as they had just returned from a cruise of the Croatian coast in March.  

Gary and the Palfreyman's

Friday will be our "Travel Day". As our journey begins we have many questions. Will our bags be under 50 lbs each? Will we make all our connections? What adventures await us?

Stay tuned .

Our Farewell and First Week in the MTC

Today we talked in church.  We had been asked to talk on welfare principles.  Susan got on her soapbox and talked a bit too long, but Gary didn't seem to mind.  Some of the primary children and our grandsons sang "We'll Bring The World His Truth."  The ward choir sang "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go".

After church there was an open house at our friend's home, Chad and Karen Evans.  We had such an enjoyable afternoon.  They have a fantastic backyard and the weather was beautiful.  It was wonderful to just visit with friends and family.

Many people came;  friends from the Adriatic North Mission; friends from the Draper Temple and many of other friends and family.  It was a delightful day.

Friends from the Adriatic North Mission 

We went to the MTC on Monday and received our new name tags and some training.  Tuesday we stayed home as Susan was nursing a cold and felt it best not to try to get the rest of our district sick.  Wednesday at the MTC we received our typhoid shot so we can go to the islands.  Friday we had our picture taken in from of the world map pointing to our next destination.  We also received our welfare training schedule for next week.  We are particularly interested in this training as we will have to help train a few of the missionaries coming to New Zealand.  Knowing how to do certain things and teaching those things are different skills we want to learn.

Here we are in front of the map showing where we will go.

We will close this week with a reminder for those who are considering a mission - You Can Do it!  Don't worry about your children or grandchildren.  Forget about all the little things and just go.  The Lord will take care of your family better than you can and everything else will work out just fine.  All missions need senior couples, many are now serving live-at-home missions.  There is a mission for you.