Octogonal historic church house contructed from 1 Kauri tree

FARMERS MARKET

More of the same this week.  I kept busy at the office.  I’ve been in my old office for 2 weeks now since returning from the home apartment during lockdown.  So I’ve gotten used to being back in an office setting, a bit of an adjustment at first. Tuesday night pickleball started up again this week.  Alisa and I decided to start driving our own car so that we can decide when to arrive and return.  Otherwise my exercise program is still proceeding, 50 push ups and 50 touch your toes, then jogging, walking, bike riding or pickleball each day.

Saturday morning I organized an excursion by senior missionaries to the Otara farmers market.  This is my favorite such market because it is the largest, has the best selection and actually has good prices, much better than can be found in the stores.  I go every quarter or so.  We had a total of 9 missionaries attend.  I found mandarins for $1.49 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) while in the store they’re $5 per kilo.  Pineapples for 99 cents each, beautiful apples for 99 cents a kilo, and so forth. They had a typical winter selection of fruits and vegetables.  In the evening I took Alisa out to dinner at Bueno Sera in Devonport, then we came home and watched Singing in the Rain.

TWO FATHER'S DAYS

Covid 19 is still in the news a little here.  2 New Zealanders living in Great Britain were allowed to come to NZ for a relative’s funeral, a compassionate exception, and apparently brought Covid 19 with them.  They weren’t tested in advance and left isolation, but there is no report of anyone catching it from them.  That was the great scandal this week, but otherwise, no Covid 19 in NZ as the borders remain locked down.  They are starting to realize that even that affects the economy since NZ relies so heavily on tourism and imports.

I enjoyed going to Church again last Sunday.  Everyone was happy to be back, and the turnout was great in the YSA ward.  Even shaking hands was back in style.

This was the first week I was back in the area offices, got all the computer and phone equipment back up and running.  Even the heating in my office is working again.  It was for the most part a rainy, overcast week.  We are back in the middle of a typical NZ winter, which frankly is quite mild.  It was very quiet in the area offices, most of the employees who work there aren’t anxious to return, I think they are enjoying playing hookey “working” from home.  The target for them returning is the 2^nd week of July. 

I’m working on getting back in good shape.  I’m jogging daily now, and daily doing 50 pushups and 50 touch my toes.  One of the young men in the ward is attending barbering school, he was looking for people to practice on so I had him give me a haircut this week.  Did a good job, then charged me $30, more than the regular barber does!

Some interesting statistics I saw this week.  The Church still has 2,300 young missionaries serving in foreign countries who have completed their missions but can’t get home.  In the next 3 months, another 2,100 will be finishing up, of which 1,600 may not be able to return home unless their countries reopen their borders.  If they can’t get home, the Church can’t just release them and allow them to wander or become homeless (remember they don’t have work visas and can’t get jobs).  So the Church will probably extend their missions, because then they’ll have housing, food and insurance until they can go home.  New mission presidents start July 1.  There are 132 couples going out.  Of those, 73 are cleared to go and start serving.  59 are not cleared yet.  Of the 73, 63 are citizens of the countries they’re serving in.  Of the 59, 34 have visas but no travel clearance, 9 have travel clearance but no visas, and 16 have neither.  So Covid 19 is still having a big impact on missionary work.

Yesterday, Saturday, we took it easy.  We helped the family of one of our YSA’s pack up and move to a new home in the morning.  I also took a 5 mile bike ride in the morning and jogged 3 miles in the evening.  The young people in NZ, especially Auckland, are discouraged.  A starter home in Auckland is around $800,000 NZD, or $550,000 USD.  And mortgage loans require 20% down.  Meanwhile, jobs here pay less than in the US.  So we’re seeing more and more multi-generational living arrangements in homes here, similar to what has been happening in Hawaii for many years.  I suggest that the young adults go to smaller towns where housing is less expensive, but the YSA’s tell me that jobs are scarce there, and so are potential mates.

Today is Father’s day.  I’ve heard from most of the kids so far.  I tell them not to forget that I’m entitled to 2 Father’s days this year, since it is celebrated in September in NZ!

RETURN TO LEVEL 1

After an action packed week before, this week was rather tranquil.  Wrapped up work at the home office. Saturday, I made 2 trips back to the area offices to transport my computer, materials, chair and supplies to my old office and spent the afternoon setting things up there again.  Almost felt like going home again.  Afterwards, I went back to apartment A-302 in Shoelhaven apartments and cleaned, vacuumed and set the furniture in the apartment back up again so it was livable once more.  It actually was a blessing working from the apartment in that I learned how to work remotely, and got better at a paperless environment.  I liked rolling out of bed and getting right to work, and coming home for lunch every day.  Friday evening Alisa and I went out to dinner at Bushman’s Grill with the Craig and Jackie Poll.  Saturday morning we also played pickleball at a nearby elementary school.  Otherwise, not much too exciting happened this week.  Today our YSA ward starts meeting for regular Sacrament and other meetings so it will be nice to compare notes on how all the young adults did during the Covid 19 lockdown.  New Zealand went all the way down to level 1 this week, there are no reported cases of Covid 19 in the entire country.  I attribute this mainly to them locking down the borders early on, as many of the island nations have had the same results of no such illnesses.  Now I’ll be watching to see how the economies of these countries I do work for come back. Also, this week we marked our one year anniversary of entering the MTC.  Looking back the time seemed to go quickly, but looking forward time still seems to pass slowly as I wait to get back to family and friends.

TRIP TO QUEENSTOWN AND MILFORD SOUND, FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK

Monday June 1 was the Queen’s birthday holiday in NZ. It’s not technically Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, but that’s the date the Kiwis have selected to celebrate it. Guess they decided that it would fit there best on their holiday calendar, and it’s considered the first day of winter here as well. I celebrated by working in the home office all day, always plenty of legal work to do. It was a short work week anyway, Monday through Wednesday, and the rest of the week to play.

Thursday morning Alisa and I were up early to catch our 7 a.m. flight out of Auckland airport. While the NZ borders are still closed to international flight due to COVID 19, they are encouraging domestic flights to try to bring their tourism industry back. It was interesting to note that at the airport no one was wearing a mask, not even “social distancing”. Other than a little hand sanitizer and fewer people, it appeared to me that the reality is that the NZ people have moved on. Freeway traffic and city traffic is back to normal as well. One nice side benefit however was that people were seated every other seat on the plane, which meant more legroom for me! We also boarded the plane a few at a time, row by row. The 2 hour flight to Queenstown on the South Island went smoothly. We descended through snow dusted mountains. We were greeted at the airport by Martin and Margaret Bourne. They are from Christchurch,NZ, in their late 60’s, serving in Queenstown as mls missionaries with his specific assignment as branch president of the branch there. So far they have mainly served remotely due to COVID 19, they are trying to reactivate the branch. When they can meet in the rented house in Queenstown which they use as their chapel, they average about 45 to 50 on Sundays, but only about 15 are locals, with the rest being tourists.

It was a nippy Thursday in Queenstown, in the 30’s and low 40’s. Queenstown is located right on a picturesque lake, and surrounded by mountains. The downtown is quaint and designed for tourists. We stopped for hot chocolate at Patagonia and to get to know our hosts a little better. We had met them at the NZ MTC when we volunteered to be Investigators for them to practice on back in February. Then we walked the streets of Queenstown to window shop before visiting Fergburgers for lunch. I had a venison burger. Most of the touristy shops were restaurants, sweets or clothing stores. We also stopped by nearby Arrowtown, another little tourist town with an old Main Street that almost looked like it came right out of the old West. Then we drove on to Cromwell, where the Bournes rent a house.

Friday morning we were given a tour of Cromwell, a town of about 5000 people, but it is not oriented around tourism. By now I was wearing my long johns to keep warm. We spent the afternoon driving to Te Anau. Elder Bourne’s driving left something to be desired, he usually was speeding on the windy narrow roads, and usually too far to the left! For the trip, I felt like I was taking my life in my hands being in his 4 door green Honda compact. But the Bournes have hearts of gold, and I survived both their driving! We saw many beautiful pastures and sheep, as well as rivers and hills. We pulled into town as the sun was going down. We checked into our rooms at the Top 10 Holiday Parks, a chain of motels around NZ. Fortunately our room was toasty warm, because it was cold, Alisa and I didn’t explore the grounds much there. We ate dinner at The Ranch house, an Americanized restaurant down the road. I had a nice steak with salad and “chips”.

Saturday we ate breakfast at a cafe downtown, my eggs Benedict and salmon were good. We stopped for gas at CalTex, and got sandwiches for later in the day at Subway. Then we embarked for Fiordland National Park. That was another 2 hour drive. By now we were driving in the Alp like mountains and by crystal clear lakes with a light dusting of snow. We had to wait almost an hour before we were allowed to drive through the single lane tunnel through a large mountain, between 1-2 miles long. On the other side the weather was sunny and bright. We were fortunate to have beautiful crisp weather the entire time we were down south, instead of the predicted rain. We stopped by the museum where I had just enough time to buy a poster, then found our ship, the Mitre Peak I and disembarked for a 2 hour tour of Milford Sound. The snow capped mountains and waterfalls did make one feel like he was in the fiords of Norway. The water was smooth on the sound, then turned choppy as we broke free into the Tasman sea for a quick tour of the rocky shoreline before re-entering the sound for the return trip. We also saw a number of dolphins in the sound. If our cruise at the end of our mission actually happens we’ll revisit the Milford sound then along with 2 other sounds. Otherwise, we can check this trip off our bucket list now. We retraced our steps back to Te Anau, ate dinner at The Fat Duck (I had the seafood chowder which included green lipped muscles), then on to Cromwell.

This morning we got up early to shower and repack, then caught the 2 hour morning flight via Air New Zealand back to Auckland to spend the rest of our sabbath day.  Enjoyed Sunday School via zoom, then dinner with all the Auckland OGC couples at the Tanner home.

Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park

Queenstown