WE'RE IN NEW ZEALAND

Monday and Tuesday was training at church headquarters with the Office of General Counsel in SLC.  Ed and Lora dropped in to visit and try out some of the restaurants with us.  Wednesday we did our final packing, stopped by Costco one more time for final supplies, said our good-byes, and flew out.  After a layover in San Francisco, we flew 12 hours to Auckland International Airport.  Since we crossed the international dateline, we lost a day and are now approximately a day ahead of the US.  Jet lag wasn't bad.  We are in the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere, just passed the winter solstice.  However, even though it's winter here, it's still pretty much shirt sleeve weather, sometimes requiring a light jacket or sweater.

Alisa and I have been introduced to most of the other senior missionaries here, we have a nice 2 bedroom apartment with a study, and our new office will be on the 3rd (top) floor of the church's Area Office building.  Groceries cost about the same as in the US, although many local brands.  Spent the weekend walking and jogging around our neighborhood to become familiar with the area.  This morning we took our car out for a spin at 7 a.m., since traffic was light and I wanted to get used to driving on the left side of the road.  Today was stake conference, we even met there the local grandmother of Kalei, Lora's roommate this summer at BYU.  It's a small world. Everyone is friendly and kind, this area reminds me a lot of Hawaii.  We've been invited over to different homes about every night this coming week.

Tomorrow we get to work!