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

 

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.