Gratitude

The Saturday after Thanksgiving the senior couples gathered together at the Area Office and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  We had 50 people for dinner and everyone had a good time.  They do have turkeys in New Zealand, but they are hard to come by and they are not cheap.  A 12 - 13 pound turkey can cost $65.00 to $70.00 dollars.  Some of the other things that are harder to find in New Zealand are ready-made pie crusts and canned pumpkin.  Can you tell that Susan likes to go the easy route, and not make it all from scratch.

We had four different ladies cook the turkeys, make the stuffing and the gravy.  All the others had food assignments to feed 15+ people.  Cooking a turkey is also a challenge, as most of our apartments have small ovens.  A few apartments have larger ovens, so they cooked the turkeys.

Several sisters volunteered to decorate a table.  This required them bringing dishes and tableware for 8 from their apartment.  There are some very creative people in our group.  Check the sea shell decorations out at one of the tables.  We gathered together on Saturday afternoon, so no ties allowed except the mission president who had a baptism to go to afterward.  We let him off the hook this time.

We truly have much to be thankful for.  We enjoy good health, have a comfortable apartment, and a beautiful country to live in.  We have two new grandsons and all our family are doing well.  With all these blessings, we are reminded often to be positive about the challenges we face in life.  There really is much to be thankful for.

Christmas season in New Zealand falls in the summer.  We went with some other senior missionaries to a Christmas craft fair in a neighboring town.  All the decorations and the trees are out, but the weather does not look or feel like Christmas.  After our morning adventure we came back to our apartment and decided it was time to put up some decorations.  They may be quite sparse, but it is okay - we have an adventure planned for Christmas.

  So now it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our apartment anyway.  

"Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's will never be the same again once you have celebrated them while serving a mission...The twelve or eighteen months will seem as a small moment, but the memories will last through the eternities."  Vaughan J. Featherstone, April General Conference 1992

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

We spent the majority of this week catching up because we were out of the office most of last week.

On Wednesday we received a package from home that had our very own Christmas tree enclosed.  We were delighted to unwrap a craft paper tree with all the ornaments and a star for the top.  The package also contained  a garland with pictures of our 9 grandchildren.  That very evening we decorated our tree with the help of a young elder from our mission.

This delightful young elder is recovering from an illness and is unable to go out to work with his companions during the day.  Until he recovers, he must spend his day in the mission office and go home each evening with one of the senior couples for dinner and rest.  When the evening is over his companions collect him from the senior couple and he goes home for the night.  This talented young missionary helped us decorate our Christmas tree.  Both he and we enjoyed the evening together.

The weather in New Zealand (the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere) doesn't seem at all like the Christmas season we are used to.   The spring-like weather just doesn't feel like Christmas will be here in less than two weeks, but we are enjoying the beautiful Pohutukawa trees (the New Zealand Christmas Tree) which is famous in this part of the world.  

When we first arrived in Auckland, the Pohutukawa trees across the street from our apartment looked like ordinary green-leafed trees.

But as the spring weather warmed, the trees started to blossom and began to decorate themselves.

But the best part is when you get up close and look at the blossoms.  They look like Christmas tree ornaments with their own tinsel.  Now that is something that helps to get all of us in the Christmas Spirit!

"Christmas is what we make of it.  Despite all the distractions, we can see to it that Christ is at the center of our celebrations.  If we have not already done so, we can establish Christmas traditions for ourselves and for our families which will help us capture and keep the spirit of Christmas."  

Thomas S. Monson