UNDER TWO MONTHS TO GO!

Down to under 2 months remaining on our mission.  The time seems to pass more quickly now.  General Conference this weekend will be another big boost.  I looked at the list of missionaries currently serving from the Visalia stake, and saw that Sis. Gubler and I are the only ones still serving foreign missions.  The rest are serving stateside, mainly due to Covid 19.

Our Temple Prep class went well last Sunday, we had 8 in attendance.  Tomorrow church meetings start up for our YSA ward again.  We’ll teach our 2^nd lesson beforehand.  In NZ the wards meet the weekend of General Conference, then take the following weekend off to watch the tape delayed sessions, due to being a day ahead on the calendar.

I’m keeping busy at the office.  My big case relating to ward missionary fund donations finally was decided by the NZ Supreme Court on Tuesday in favor of the Church.  They denied the tax commissioner’s application for hearing after the Appellate Court unanimously ruled in our favor. That means that going back to 2015 and moving forward Church members in NZ will receive a 33% tax credit for their mission fund donations.  That should be a big morale boost for the members in NZ, as well as a financial boost in these poor economic times.  This has been my favorite case to work on. 

One more fun note about my missionary fund case.  On Wednesday afternoon (Thursday here) I got a call from Elder Ian Ardern (Area President) telling me that Elder Stevenson of the Twelve was excited by our victory and wanted a write-up he could share with the First Presidency and the Twelve at their regular Thursday morning meeting, and Elder Ardern wanted to know if I could do the write-up.  I replied that of course I could, so I dropped the other matters I was working on and got cracking.  I had it to him promptly so that he could forward it on.  I’m sure that my name won’t be on it when it is presented, but it’s still a privilege to know that something I wrote will be seen by the Brethern in SLC!

The NZ MTC is still closed, mainly due to the borders being shut done.  A new catering contract was entered into for all the meals there just a couple of weeks before Covid 19 hit and the MTC was closed down.  I reviewed the contract form, which unfortunately didn’t contain a Force Majeure or frustration of purpose clause in it.  It looks like the caterer after waiting patiently for months is now invoicing for their lost business and this might lead to litigation. 

Thursday we took Steve and Luann Peterson to the House of Chocolate for a visit and dessert.  Friday for date night Mom and I walked downtown and bought a couple of pizzas at the Pizza Club for dinner and left overs, and watched youtube videos about Tahiti which we will be visiting post mission.

Saturday I did my standard 10 mile bike ride around Lake Pupuke and ran the stairs in our building (5 flights x 5 times) for my morning exercise.  Then Mom and I took the Romneys with us to the Otera farmers market, but unfortunately they were still shut down due to the pandemic restrictions.  So we visited another farmers market we’d never been to, the Parnell market in Auckland.  It was much smaller but still fun with interesting items for sale.  I bought some fresh asparagus, fig and ginger jelly and some beef hot dogs from the local venders.  I cooked one of the hot dogs for my dinner during BYU’s football game with Louisiana Tech and it turned out to be the best beef dog I’ve had since being here, it tasted like the real thing.  Oh yeah, BYU won their 3^rd game in a row.  Time for bed so I can get up early tomorrow to watch General Conference.  Monday morning I will visit a BP gas station down the street to buy some Krispie Kreme donuts to eat with our hot chocolate while we watch the Sunday sessions of conference.