VOLCANIC ACTION

This will be an abbreviated update. On Monday the volcano on White Island blew its stack, while there were about 50 tourists on it.  Some survived, but a number were severely injured or burned or killed.  Mom, Ed and I drove through Tauranga on our way to Rotorua a little over a month ago when Ed was visiting.  White Island is one of the locations I had thought to visit, but the ferry ride from Tauranga over and back would have taken too long, so we skipped it.  I suspect that the island will be off limits for many years after this catastrophe!

The Riggs dropped by Wednesday evening for an excellent lasagna dinner Mom made.  The Riggs went on a cruise of the south island post mission and had just arrived back for a day before heading home to Tennessee. 

I survived through the Friday workday.  It has been 2 weeks since I took over Elder Riggs’ real estate and construction work in addition to my work, in essence now doing 2 attorney’s work.  I am almost caught up by coming in at 7 a.m. and staying until 6 p.m., and I am learning the specifics of how to do the real estate and construction stuff.  I noticed that the massive load of emails coming in that I have had to respond to dwindled to a trickle by Friday. New Zealanders take off work roughly mid-December to mid-January, which means my work load should lighten up somewhat for a while while I take care of the backlog. 

Saturday morning Mom and I just went down to the local Takapuna beach where I jogged then we played in the water a little.  Afterwards we helped clean out an apartment that the missionaries will stop using as excess.  I napped and read until we had the new missionary couple the Romneys and the Whatcotts over for a taco dinner.