GENERAL CONFERENCE WEEKEND--HOW IT WORKS IN NEW ZEALAND

Last Sunday was day light savings here, so the clock moved forward an hour.  Spent the rest of the week adjusting my wake up time.  Monday evening was our YSA ward’s FHE at the church house.  It was a missionary theme, with a singing activity afterwards.  Friday I took Alisa and the public affairs intern Holley out to lunch at a poke restaurant.  Saturday I spent the day at the office with no one else there, finally working on putting together my power point and remarks for the upcoming NZ Education Week.  That’s what I needed, just a block of time to have to myself to think and meditate.  I have been collecting photos and local articles that I thought would illustrate the points and make it more interesting to the local Kiwis who will attend.  In the evening we had the Wrights and the Simpsons over for dinner.

This morning (Sunday) I got a charlie horse on my left leg at 4:15 a.m. which quickly woke me up.  So I just stayed up for the 5 a.m. session (Saturday morning) of conference.  I have to admit I did doze some, but did much better for the 9 a.m. session (Saturday afternoon).  We’ll watch the Sunday sessions tomorrow morning (Monday in NZ), then will go in to work around noon.  We’ll get our conference donuts tomorrow, since we didn’t want to go shopping on the Sabbath here.  In New Zealand, today was the usual Fast Sunday church services, then next weekend they cancel church services and watch the week old conference sessions. I facilitated the self-reliance class after church this afternoon (only 3 lessons to go!).  Then next weekend, since church services and our class are canceled, and we will have already seen General Conference, we’ll make the 6 hour drive north to spend the weekend in the Bay of Islands doing sight seeing. 

The other big news is that the appellate decision in my CPS v. Ciachurski case finally came out this week, and the court completely affirmed our trial victory.  That was my last big trial before retiring, down in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA in 2017, where my trial date got continued day by day until a court room became available, so Mom, Kimi and I got to go to Disneyland while I waited.  Anyway, that was a $1.3 million verdict, and with post judgment interest is now up to $1.6 million at least. That is a huge relief, and left my big victory in tack.  The debtors had to post a bond, so there is a source of complete payment, CPS is ecstatic and will continue to be a good client of the firm.