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
59th 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.
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