SPRING HAS SPRUNG

In NZ, Spring officially arrives Sept. 1.  But after a lot of rain earlier in the week, it has felt like Spring the last few days. Beautiful sunshine and pleasant weather in the 60’s this weekend, and blossoms are starting to swell.  the winter really wasn't too bad, except for a few frigid days when we had wind. And on Sept. 1, we will have finished 15 months and have 3 months to go. 

We’re still in lockdown level 3 until midnight tonight, then starting tomorrow will drop down to level 2.  In level 2 in Auckland, gatherings of more than 10 will still be prohibited (i.e. no Church yet), but businesses and restaurants will be able to open again, and we’ll be able to travel throughout the country again, within the regions.

The sad story this week was that a senior couple serving in Kiribati couldn’t get home because Tonga has closed its borders.  Anyway, he died this week, apparently from some non-Covid 19 sickness, he’d been in the hospital.  It looks like now they’ll be able to get the wife and his body back to Tonga, perhaps with some of the young Tongan missionaries who have been stuck in Kiribati as well.

Not a lot to report this week due to the lockdown.  I’ve continued to work from my office in apartment B302 this week.  Will probably stay there another week or two before moving back to the Church office building, just to make sure that the NZ government doesn’t change it’s mind again about lockdown levels.  To fight the boredom, we’ve been invited over to other senior couple’s apartments for dinner, this week the Walkers and the McMurrays.  Saturday evening we invited the Polls and the Walkers over for dinner, Alisa fixed tacos.  Also, I helped the Romneys move from their old 5^th floor apartment to another missionary apartment on level 2, the place where Alisa and I stayed for the first couple of weeks while we waited for our current apartment to become available. There are now 4 empty senior missionary apartments (I’m occupying one of them with my temporary office), waiting to be re-filled.  But the way things are going around here, I don’t think we’ll receive any new senior missionaries until sometime in 2021.  NZ isn’t even issuing any new visas at this time, as well as their borders are still locked down to all countries.  The local Auckland mission is releasing around 25 apartments previously used by the young missionaries since they were empty and not expected to be filled again anytime soon. I’m still exercising daily by jogging or riding my bike.  I’ve been running the stairs in our 5 story apartment complex to work on my conditioning and leg strength.