FIRST MONTH IN NAH ZILLAN

25 September 2018

G'day frooom dawn-undah,

We bin ear a wake.

The witha ‘as bin very rainy must deyez. . . nairly drown wawkin' ta wuwk.

No utes ear. . . jist an ole Nissen we’re driven. It is a motaw pool caw for the Pacific Area Office.

We’ve drivin' on the lift through lots of strange intersickshuns. . .. red leyets that we stop foo and get honked at for doin' it.

Made it taw Chuwch 'n back with veary lil damage. . . .and gawt it back into are caw pawk.

No Jandals or gum boots yit. 

It was Fawthaws Deye ear on Sunday and we git ollies for the olideye .

Whew, it’s wearin' me out trying to translate what we hear people saying into phonetic spelling.

There are two men at the Area Office who talk at the speed of a light and slur all their sounds together.

They may as well be speaking Mandarin Chinese and I could understand just as well. 

We really can't understand anything they say . . . and they are both ventriloquists.

THEIR LIPS DO NOT MOVE so it is no help to watch them speak.

HOWEVER, these Kiwis are the best and nicest people you’ll ever find . . .well, at least, until they get behind the wheel in the right front seat. No South American friendly honking here.

Here we are in beautiful downtown Takapuna, Auckland, NZ.

It took 18 hours including layover time to get here. We left SLC International at 5:00 PMish on Friday, 24 August and landed on Sunday morning, 26 August at 5:30 AM. The PAO Executive Secretary couple –

·        picked us up at the airport,

·        took us and all our luggage to Apt. A202 in the Shoalhaven Apartments, 180 units in three buildings.

·        took us to the 11 AM block schedule at the ward nears the apt.

·        took us to a Sr. Missionary Family Home Evening event where we introduced ourselves.

Yeah, we did all that on Sunday. I wonder what we told people when we spoke at the FHE?

We are in a two-bedroom apt about 12 minutes walking from this office on Huron Street which is literally IN downtown Takapuna. It’s winter here . . . August is like February in Portland or Seattle.

·      No central heating in the Apt although the bathroom floors and towel bars ARE heat. Heavenly.

·      No central cooling either. Outlets all have switches so when we plug-in anything, turn in switch too.

·      Up is “OFF”. Down I “ON” for all switches.

·      Combination washer/dryer in the same little unit which is about the size of a 1950’s portable RCA TV.

·      First load of wash took 9 hours! It figured out the dials . . .now washing only take 2 hours.  ... humm?

·       

The office is five stories building occupied by all the Pacific Area Office functions which including 14 senior missionary couples and one single who are –

·        Area Executive Secretaries

·        Associate Legal Council (4 couples who are attorneys and wives of attorneys)

·        Public Affairs

·        Family History

·        Welfare Specialists

·        Education / Self-Reliance Specialists

·        Medical Health (Doctor)

·        Mental Health Advisors

·        IFR and ITEP Specialist (Yeah, I’ll find out who knows?)

·        Oh yeah and one Architectural Specialists and an all-around great lunch maker.

It's all good. No worries

The Area President assigned us to the West Harbour Ward in the Henderson Auckland Stake. Everything around here is a suburb (sort of) of Auckland. This ward is the only ward in this meetinghouse, so we have the primo 10 AM block. We are about 20 minutes from the building.

There are four people in addition to Dyan and me in the ward that also work at the PAO.

I've taught Elder's Quorum once, Dyan taught R.S. once today and both of us taught SS Course 16-17 on Sunday as subs. There are about 12-20 people in Elder’s Quorum. If you are in the presidency (A president and a counsellor), most of the time teaching the priesthood class is part of the presidency assignment.

This week we were called to teach that SS Class which is great.

There are eight really super kids in the class. They are all in Year 12 or 13 in sort of High School. There are all on the edge of being in college or on a mission.

We also found a new way to walk to work last week that is much nicer than the street sidewalk. See attached. The streets are so narrow that it feels like the bus mirrors are going to smack us as we are walking on the "footpaths" (no sidewalks here, called footpaths . . .that’s probably because they are three feet wide and dangerous) 

I'm off to South Auckland this week on a Quality Assurance Inspection of a Pacific Series Stake Centre. (We saw Tropic Series stake centres in Samoa)

So, there you have it

Ole goud dawn unda.

Now wawries . . 

Rot uz same amel lettuce soo

Elder Harris