LOW KEY WEEK

This was a low key week.  New legal matters were slow on coming in.  So I worked on staying abreast of ongoing cases.  In my spare time I worked out and read.  In Covid 19 related news (is there any other news in this day and age?)  Auckland moved to level 2 and the rest of NZ moved to level 1.  At level 2 groups of up to 100 can meet.  So Bishop Dil contacted us and asked Sis. Gubler and I to proceed with the Temple Preparation class that he’d asked us to teach a few weeks ago.  I was happy with the additional spiritual work and prepared for our first class, preparing a power point.  Alisa was in charge of contacting the list of participants provided by the bishopric and inviting them to class, and advertising on the YSA facebook page.  No Church services yet due to the pandemic, so we’ll have the church house to ourselves when we teach the class at 11 a.m. today.  We anticipate somewhere between 6-10 YSA’s in our class. 

The elections in NZ usually happen in September, but were postponed until October due to the pandemic.  We watched the debate between Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her challenger Judith Collins.  It was fairly tame and both were articulate, I’d call the debate a draw. 

On Saturday our senior missionaries group took the ferry to Auckland where we visited the Marine Museum.  It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.  Alisa and I had seen the museum before so we just enjoyed walking around to view the various exhibits.  We all then took the ferry back and ate lunch together at a restaurant in Devonport.  

GROWN CHILDREN AT PLAY

I failed to mention in my journal last week what we did to celebrate Mom’s 59^th birthday.  Not much to buy here by way of birthday presents, and besides we don’t want to buy a lot of stuff just to have to find room in our suit cases to carry it all back to the US in a couple of months.  So I just tried to make her day special by cooking the meals and cleaning up afterwards. I got up early before she awoke, and walked to the close-by Countdown grocery store to buy ingredients. For breakfast I tried a recipe I found online, where you halve an avocado, crack an egg in the hollowed-out area where the seed was, then bake it in the oven.  I applied seasoning, and then I drizzled it with fine bits of cooked bacon.  You can eat it with utensils, or mash it up and make avocado toast.  For dinner I tried something new, I fixed cockles (small NZ clams) and pasta.  I cooked the cockles on the stove top in butter and garlic, it was fun to see each one open up as they cooked.  It all turned out pretty well, amazing what you can learn from YouTube!

For silliness this week, I researched and bought an electric bike online from a company in Asuza CA.  It has a 750 watt motor, a 48 volt 13.6 amp battery, can reach speeds up to 28 mph and can travel 40 miles on one charge.  It has 4 in. wide fat tires, good for traveling on streets, beaches and mountains.  It will be delivered the week after we return home, and will be fun to test drive then.  Because of all the shortages relating to disruption of supply lines due to Covid 19, I figured I’d better get my order in early.  We also found a good deal for $599 on week long cruise tickets to Alaska aboard Holland America from Seattle in May, and that will give us another excuse to visit Rachel and Brent’s family while we are in the area.

On Tuesday we had a hearing before the NZ Supreme Court in our ward missionary fund case.  We won at the appellate level, and now the tax commissioner has appealed to the Supreme Court.  The hearing was procedural, to determine whether the commissioner’s appeal raises new legal issues and its applicability to the country as a whole.  If we win, the case is over and Church members in NZ will be able to claim a 33% tax credit for their donations to the missionary fund.  If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the Commissioner, then they’ll set a hearing on the merits of the case itself.  For Tuesday’s hearing in Wellington we appeared remotely over a Zoom type app.

I’m still working from my home office, since NZ is still at level 2.  With NZ elections happening in October, I anticipate that we’ll drop to level 1 by October which will allow complete freedom of movement and the holding of church services again.  They only have something like 5-10 pending Covid cases in the entire country, so there is no real reason not to open things up again.

On Saturday the 4 attorneys in our Auckland offices and spouses travelled to Hamilton where we watched the Waikato Moo Moo’s play the North Shore Hybiscus in rugby.  We were invited to attend by Sam Hood’s law firm we use in Hamilton.  We made this same trip last year about this time.  The weather was nice but cool, we had a lamb luncheon, watched the game, then I treated the group to ice cream cones in Pokeno on the return trip. 

 

 

Remote Court appearance in Church v. IRD Tax Commissioner

 

Rugby-Waikato vs. North Shore

 

Ice Cream after the rugby match in Pokeno, note that on the menu you can get up to 12 scoops of ice cream!

 

Mexican food celebration!

Kept busy at the home office this week.  Always lots of real property transactions to deal with.  I finally got the Property Report back from local counsel in PNG for the temple site that’s planned for there.  The Badili chapel location in Port Moresby is where the temple will be built.  The land is subject to a 99 year lease in favor of the Church.  The land is on a hill top and will be very visible in the area.  The existing chapel will be torn down and the new temple and a new chapel will be built on the site.  The land will still need to be rezoned to accommodate the new construction. 

Also, the parties have now signed the Offer to Purchase contract I drafted for a new temple site in one of the island nations that hasn’t been announced yet.  It will likely be announced at next month’s General Conference.  My goal was to lock the land up contractually prior to the announcement,  so that the sellers wouldn’t be tempted to raise the price or back out of the deal.  We now enter into a 90 day due diligence period, with the closing of the transaction scheduled by the end of the year. 

As to our activities, Tuesday night we went over to the Polls apartment to watch the BYU-Navy game which BYU won 55-3.  Thursday night we invited senior missionaries over to our place to watch the newly released movie, Mulan, and for visiting and finger foods.  Saturday morning I dropped by my office for a few hours to catch up a little on the work.  Then Alisa and I drove about 25 minutes to the new Taco Bell that opened here 6 months ago.  It is the first one in the country with more planned.  The prices were much higher than in the US, and they skimped on the meat some, but otherwise it was pretty much the same experience as in the US.  The Taco Bell was part of the Lynn Mall which we hadn’t been to before, so we walked around the mall to check out the stores, reminded me of the Visalia Mall.  Cora turned 8, so we visited with her by phone to wish her a happy birthday.  In the afternoon we took naps, then I walked to Countdown supermarket to buy some goodies, then we walked to Steve and Luann Peterson’s apartment down by the beach where we had  been invited for a chicken enchilada and taco soup dinner along with the Romneys. 

No Church again today, so we’ll probably partake of the Sacrament at home again and do Come Follow Me.  At 5 p.m. we have 4 YSA’s coming over for dinner, chicken enchiladas again!  I guess I’ve had enough Mexican food this weekend to last me until we return home in 2½ months!

ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

This week New Zealand and Auckland dropped from Level 3 to Level 2 for Covid 19, which means we can travel freely between regions again, and businesses and restaurants can open again, with some distancing restrictions.  Meetings are still restricted to a maximum of 10 people, so Church services will continue to be from home.  Alisa and I are still working from our apartments, rather than at the area offices.  

Some of the senior missionary couples that are still here are admitting they really don’t have much to do, with the ITEP director telling us he has enough work to keep him busy 1 day a week.  Same with those couples who work with the young missionaries, there just isn’t much for them to do with the diminished numbers.  The young missionaries that remain are either the diligent ones or the ones who can’t get back into their home countries.  Luckily, the law matters keeps me more than busy.  I’ve been working this week on acquiring property in one island country that will be used for a new temple that has yet to be announced.  The Offer to Purchase which I drafted has finally been approved by all and is being circulated for signatures, so that we can have the property locked up before General Conference.

Today is Father’s Day in New Zealand, and tomorrow is Alisa’s 59^th birthday.  So since we can travel again, we got permission to leave a couple hours early on Friday and travel to the Bay of Islands, where we spent Friday and Saturday nights at the Top 10 Holiday Park, in a room on a hill with a beautiful view over the bay!  We enjoyed nice early Spring weather throughout the trip.  We drove the 3 hours, and after taking a ferry with our car across from Ohua to the peninsula we drove to Russell (the original capital of NZ but now a small town), checked in, unloaded the car, then walked into the downtown area looking for a place for dinner.  Downtown was quiet with most places closed, so we found a bar/restaurant that looked just ok.  But I was pleasantly surprised at the nice clam chowder I got with cockles and mussels, Alisa had pork belly and vegetables.  We walked back up the hill in the dark admiring the stars and trying to pick out the Southern Cross, which constellation adorns the NZ flag and those of other countries.

Saturday we slept in a little, then fixed breakfast in our bach.  Then we walked down to Long Beach, then around the old downtown, took pictures, toured the Pompallier 1839 Mission, and had lunch at the Earl of Marlborough.  Then while I napped, Alisa drove to KeriKeri to visit their chocolate candy store and revisit their sites.  I took the 4:30 ferry for people (not cars) across the bay and met Alisa on her return trip.  We visited some nearby water falls, then had dinner at Greens, where I had Thai and she ordered Indian.  We are at that stage in our mission where we’ve seen and done most of the things we want to do, at least on the North Island, and we are just visiting our favorites for a second go around before we return to the US.  This morning was Sunday, we got up early and drove back to Auckland to attend our Zoom Sunday School lesson.

Bay of Islands