A LITTLE SELF MAINTENANCE

This week I took care of a little self maintenance.  Since we have good insurance currently, last week I went in for a physical.  This week Tuesday Alisa and I had some blood taken for labs.  On Thursday I had my 2nd colonoscopy which went well.  4 small polyps were removed.  By Friday I was feeling back to normal.  It’s not my favorite procedure.

We continue to work from the apartment.  Tomorrow, June 1, we begin the 6 month count down until we return home.

Saturday Alisa booked us up pretty solid.  We started by playing pickle ball with the group outdoors at a local elementary school.  The we went on an outing with Elder and Sister Greg and Lori Burton, a younger senior couple from Wyoming.  We drove to the Waitakere Ranges regional park where we hiked to the Kitekite water falls.  Of interest is that we saw fresh water eels in the river there. Afterwards, we stopped in the tiny town of Piha and had pizza for lunch at the Piha café.  In the afternoon we were invited to do lawn bowls again by Mike Fox from the Browns Bay pickle ball gang.  This time we went to the Sunnybrae bowling club which is pretty close by.  Then we came home to watch That Darn Cat on the Disney channel.

Kitekite falls

Elder and Sister Burton from Wyoming

Old hollowed out Kauri tree

Fresh water eels in the river

MORE ADVENTURES

Another full week of work.  I seem to always have enough little legal messes to keep me busy full time.  I settled a little mess this week in Samoa that has been going on for years literally.  The Church has about an acre of land they own, but for some reason the Church buildings encroached on the neighboring  parcel when they were built. So there was the issue of whether the Church owed money for infringing on the neighboring land. Also, initially the Church leased the land, then they learned it wasn’t customary land at all, but freehold land.  So then they purchased it, but some of the village chiefs felt the Church wasn’t playing fair.  Anyway, long story short, we decided to buy another ½ acre adjacent to our 1 acre parcel, the land that our buildings encroached upon for years.  But one of the local Church members had built her kitchen fale (shack) years ago so that it encroached upon the ½ acre we were trying to buy.  The head chief felt the Church was delaying in buying the ½ acre but we said we wouldn’t buy it until the kitchen fale was removed.  So finally the stake president and some members went by and helped the Church member tear down her kitchen fale and move it elsewhere. We got the head chief to sign our offer to purchase and the deed, and we closed on Friday.  It was a mess, but hopefully the village elders are now all happy and everyone can go their merry ways.

Thursday Alisa and I spent a couple of hours and helped a few other senior missionaries move about 14 cars from a Church parking lot in south Auckland to the Takapuna chapel parking lot.  These are extra cars which have been abandoned since the young missionaries went home due to Covid 19.  Apparently the new location will be more convenient to the mission offices for when new missionaries start coming back.  It turns out that there will be a number of new mission presidents around the world that won’t be able to report for duty come July 1 due to countries being locked down.  So the Church will just have local members cover for them until they arrive.  Tahita opened up on Thursday to all visitors again.  I predict that will start the snowball rolling and other countries, especially in the Pacific, will follow suit.  French Polynesia was really hurting since so much of their economy is reliant on the mighty tourist dollar. 

Saturday morning Alisa and I got up early and were on the road by about 7:30 a.m.  We drove the little over 2 hours to Raglan, a cute little beach town west of Hamilton on the Tasman sea.  We first stopped at the local I Site to buy some souvenirs and get recommendations on what to see in the area.  Then we walked around downtown, stopping to buy some fresh sour dough bread at a bakery and a sammy (sandwich which we split), stopped in some shops and made a dinner reservation at the Orca restaurant which looks out over the water.  Then we drove to the local wharf where we had a lunch of fish and chips, the best in town we were told, and I agree, and after we gave our order, the place quickly filled up.  From there we drove to the Waireinga Bridal Veil Falls which we hiked down to.  Actually, these were the most impressive falls I’ve seen in NZ, 50 meters high.  We then returned to Raglan to check in to our the little house we’d rented through Air BNB, and were impressed.  We took naps and read, then we headed back to the Orca restaurant at sunset and enjoyed our meals.  I had slow cooked beef cheeks, mash, bacon and mushrooms. Alisa had a pasta dish.  We dropped by a grocery store to pick up some milk for breakfast, then headed back to our bach.  This morning we had hot cereal and sweet rolls that Alisa made with her new KitchenAide we inherited from the Whatcotts, checked out, then went down for a stroll on the Ngarunui Beach and Manu bay, quite scenic with its fine black sand beaches, and waves that roll in from the left side.  There were a lot of surfers enjoying the crashing waves.  Then we ended our adventure by driving back to our little apartment in Takapuna.

Abandoned vehicles!

Raglan fun

SOME POSITIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM THE COVID 19 RESTRICTIONS

Just arrived home from a pleasant early Sunday morning 3 mile hike, including along the Takapuna beach and downtown area.  A beautiful, crisp sunny day. Saw many people out for strolls and bike rides.  Not a lot of news this past week.  Kept more than busy at the office, cleaning up a real estate transaction mess by our local counsel in Kiribati (who I will never use again) and getting close to resolving a multi-year property dispute where one of our church buildings in Samoa has encroached upon a neighboring parcel by buying the ½ acre infringed upon.  Alisa and I got our annual flu shots (remember it’s late fall going into winter here), and I worked another Saturday to get caught up.  Alisa and I were in charge of the FHE for the remaining senior couples via Zoom Monday evening.  I put together a power point where I taught a brief lesson on “Using our Talents and Gifts, and Second Chances”, then Alisa led a get to know you game and then Scattergories.  I believe it was well received.  The government announced we were dropping to level 2 under the Covid 19 restrictions beginning on Thursday.  0 deaths and basically no new cases in the last week.  So Thursday I walked downtown to get my first haircut in over 2 months since the barber shops were open again.  There were lines of gentlemen who had the same idea I did, but I didn’t have to wait too long for a cut.  It was strange seeing people around the downtown area again.  Saturday morning I went with a group of senior missionaries to play pickleball at a local elementary school, we brought our own net and chalked our own lines.  I played pretty good after our lay-off, the regular indoor courts are not open yet.  Then I went on a 5 mile bike ride around Lake Pupuke, and through Milford.

As I was walking this morning, I reflected on some of the positives to come out of the Covid 19 lockdown since early March.

1.       I got out to exercise more regularly, jogging and biking, as an escape from being cooped up in the apartment.  As a result I’ve knocked off my extra gut I’ve been working on in my sedimentary lifestyle.

2.       We’ve saved money on laundry not having to pay to have my white shirts laundered and pressed on a regular basis.  In fact, I roll out of bed in the mornings, throw on some casual clothes and am at the office (one floor down) in a matter of minutes.

3.       We saved a ton of money otherwise.  I believe we’ve only put 1 tank of gas in our car since early March, due to no travel allowed.  Other than groceries and basic rental and utilities expenses,   not much else to spend money on.

4.       Learned how to chat remotely on Zoom and Teams.

5.       Read 4 or 5 books, which I don’t normally do.

6.       Spent more time with my missionary companion.

Now that we are free again to travel between regions here in New Zealand, and since we still don’t have regular Church meetings to attend on Sundays, Alisa and I spent a couple of evenings this week planning excursions to see new sights.  For next weekend we’ve rented a bnb in Raglan, which is a little resort beach town a couple of hours south of here.  Then a couple of weeks after that we’ve purchased inexpensive plane tickets to fly to Queenstown, which is a winter resort town near the southern tip of the south island.  We got to know a missionary couple whom we roll played with as less actives at the NZ MTC back in February, who were called to be the branch president of the branch in Queenstown, and they invited us down to stay with them and do a little touring over a 4 day weekend.

Scenes from this morning's hike: Takapuna Beach and Rangitoto Island

THE ONLY SURE THING IS DEATH AND TAXES--NOT ANY MORE!

More of the same this week.  Lots of work at the office.  People are getting outside more and traffic is picking up as they are feeling more confident now that we are at level 3 in the Covid 19 restrictions.  I see a lot more joggers, walkers and bike riders as people are looking for any excuse to get outdoors.  As my jogging becomes more regular I’m finding that it is becoming much easier for me to do and my stamina is increasing.  I’m even toning up a little more as I’m trying to not take as many seconds at dinner time.

On Saturday morning I got up early and went on a 5 mile bike ride through Milford and around Pupuke lake.  Then Alisa and I drove over some dirt roads to Waitakere Ranges Regional Park and Whatipu.  We explored the caves there and the black sand beach.  We also visited Huia and Don McClean lookout points where we saw some beautiful vistas of the ocean and nearby islets/motus.  We arrived back home around 3 p.m.  For an early Mother’s Day gift I treated us to take out dinner from Steamheads restaurant, some pasta dishes.  Today for Mother’s Day dinner I found a recipe called Herbed French Toast with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraich  which I’m going to try.

In the evenings this week Alisa and I worked on putting together a power point FHE presentation for tomorrow night.  I will be doing the lesson entitled “Using our Talents and Gifts, and Second Chances!”, then Mom will be playing a get to know you game and Scattergories! which we will do with our Seniors group over Zoom.

The real big news this week was that the Appellate Dept. of NZ finally issued on Wednesday its ruling on my ward missionary fund tax case, which I was in Wellington on on March 17.  The 3 judge panel unanimously reversed the Feb. 2019 High Court ruling, now ruling that all monies donated to the Church’s missionary fund by anyone qualify for a 33% tax credit!  The NZ version of the IRS has disallowed all such credits since 2015.  The High Court ruling was handed down before I arrived in the mission field, and held that missionary fund donations by the missionary, parents and grandparents were not subject to the credit because the missionary received a benefit (the mission experience) and thus it wasn’t a true gift.  The High Court also strangely ruled that siblings, aunts and uncles, and anyone else could claim the tax benefit, in essence splitting the baby.  The Appellate Dept. ruled that there was no direct benefit to the payor, regardless of who that was, and thus that it was a gift and qualified.  This is especially good news in that Church members in NZ can now go back to 2015 and claim the credit for each year that they donated to the missionary fund, and good news is a little scarce to come by since Covid 19.  The Commissioner now has 20 days to appeal, which I think she might not do since the Crown’s counsel got beat up by the judges at the March hearing.  We’ll let the general Church population here in NZ know about the ruling once we find out if there will be another appeal.  I’ve shepherded the appeal through local counsel since I got here.  As best I can tell, this may be the reason I was called to NZ on this mission!

Beach views with black sand at Waitakere Ranges Regional Park

Pampas grass vista

Exploring the caves

Hiking to Donald McClean lookout

LEVEL 3

This week NZ dropped from level 4 to level 3 related Covid 19 restrictions.  The main difference we have observed was that many restaurants started up in business again, via take out, and travel restrictions were loosened up to allow travel around the Auckland region, more cars on the road.  The drive through line at Kentucky Fried Chicken down the street from our apartment was ridiculous, wrapping around 2 times and up to 1-2 hour waits (KFC here is the most popular fast food, more so than McDonalds and the others).  I noticed a lot more people out and about, I believe that people have gotten tired of being cooped up. 

Friday May 1 marked completion of 11 months on our mission, with 7 to go.  So at the end of the workday, to celebrate I dropped by the Noodle Canteen and brought home takeout.  We enjoyed Honey Chicken noodles, Garlic Prawns and Curry Laksa.  It was the first time for our trying out this place, and we were pleasantly surprised. 

Saturday morning was our break out day.  For the first time in 2 months, we went out on a Saturday for an activity.  We drove to Shakespear Regional Park and hiked 5 miles.  We observed native bush, pastures, and scenic ocean views. Down by the beach people were going out in the low tide area and collecting cockles to boil and eat.  It felt good to be out and about.  In the afternoon, Alisa made brownies, and we took some to 4 lonely young Elders who are confined to their missionary apartment, and to Bishop Dil and his family, including meeting his daughter Emma who just returned home from her mission to Australia. 

We’ll have Sunday School today again via Zoom in our apartment.  I’m not sure how long it will be until the Church allows the holding of Sabbath meetings again.  We continue to work out of our apartment office.  I suspect that NZ will go down to level 2 in a couple more weeks since it has become apparent that there really isn’t a Covid 19 problem here, at which time we should be able to return to our offices in the Area Office building. To date, after less than 2 months, there have been 1,485 cases of Covid 19 in NZ, 5 currently in the hospital, with 1,263 recoveries and 20 deaths.  Of the deaths, most all were people who had pre-existing conditions, less in total than what you’d expect from the common flu.

Double wrap around drive through line at KFC!

Apartment office

Scenic views at Shakespear Regional Park

Collecting cockles at low tide in Shakespear Regional Park

WWII pill box in Shakespear Regional Park