Beach Trip, Whangarei South District Meeting, and Happy Easter! 

On Monday we got up fairly early for a P-Day. We had to travel 1 1/2 hours to Coopers Beach for our Northland Senior Missionary Activity. We had a total of 6 Senior couples. They try to have an activity once a month at a location near where the Missionary Couple that is planning it lives. This time it was at the topmost portion of the North Island. Now, we have a beach not very far from our front door, but we traveled 2 1/2 hours to join our fellow Senior Missionaries to go to their beach. 😊It was so much fun getting to know the other couples. We are the newest couple, but only by 2 weeks.

Lunch was delicious. Someone brough pulled pork for pulled pork sandwiches. Someone else brought oven roasted potatoes that were in something wonderful. So delicious. We also had a vegie tray, a yummy fruit salad, and of course cookies and desert squares.  We talked and visited and just enjoyed each other. The weather was a little breezy but not too cold. I only put my jacket on when the wind started picking up a little stronger. When it came time to leave, we all packed up and then stood around a talked for at least another 1/2 an hour. No one wanted to leave.  

On the way home, we stopped on the side of the road to have a Zoom call with Sierra's family. That was a lot of fun too. We talk with each of our children each month. Each child gets a week on their own.

On Tuesday morning I went out the front door to check if the trash needed to be put out. I walked right through cobwebs. That started the hour-long project of cleaning cobwebs all around the outside of the house. We were too late for the trash, but did manage to be in time for the recycling items.

Once we finished with that, we headed into Whangarei to enroll with a doctor's clinic. We have some prescriptions we need to get refilled, and we can't do that without being enrolled in the Medical system. As soon as they finish getting us enrolled, we will be able to get our prescriptions. 

After we finished that, we started visiting the members we had picked for the day. The first sister we visited was very sweet. She acted like she had seen us at Church, and we had a very nice visit. We realized about halfway through our visit that she wasn't the sister we were looking for. For one thing she mentioned she was 81 years old and the sister we were looking for was 92. She also mentioned her neighbor name and it wasn't the name we were looking for. Finally, she talked about the Kingdom Hall and we realized she was not a member of our Church. We still had a great visit with her. I think she welcomed visiting with someone. I left our "calling" card with her and told her to call us if she needed anything. She sent us on our with with a nice box of chocolate! The other three people we contacted didn't go nearly as fun. One wouldn't talk to us, one thought she had COVID, so we only talked a little through the screen door, and the last one was at the apartment, but she no longer lives there. She was visiting the people who live there now. I think they were family.

On Wednesday, we attended our first Whangarei South District Council. We were supposed to meet in the local chapel, but the Sister Missionaries were unable to get the key and so we held our meeting at a park nearby. Where we thought was a picnic table, turned out to be a big square bench kind of thing. Since we didn't want to sit with our backs to each other, we thought we would try the skateboard "bowl" and sit on the edges. It was a little tricky, but we managed to climb up the ramp and sit on the edge. Our meeting went very well. Again, I am so impressed by these young missionaries.

Thursday morning started with our SPF (Short, Power, Frequent) Zoom meeting. Our topic was the last week of the Savior's life. Several Sister Missionaries and Elder and Sister Bailey presented it. They did a very good job. We went over to the Hester's for a light lunch, before heading out visiting with them. They are so good to us. They have volunteered to help us move this week. Brother Hester has a trailer that he is going to bring down to help us. We will have to do something special for them after we get moved in.

We ended up staying home on Friday. We spent our time working on the Ward Directory, making birthday cards for members with birthdays in April, catching up on our studies since it has been hard to stay on top of that since we moved out to Bream Bay, and working on some stuff for HawkSoft. It is a long holiday weekend because of Easter. The whole island shuts down for Good Friday and Easter Monday. Stores close and everyone goes on holiday for the long 4-day weekend.

We planned on packing for Saturday. That didn't work out. We got a text on Friday evening asking us to clean up the side yard. Most of the yard work is done by gardeners. We don't ever go on the side of the house, so we didn't really think about it. We had a house inspection a week or so ago from the home association in the neighborhood. Apparently, they were the ones asking for the cleanup. So, we tackled it on Saturday. 

Steve did most of the tackling, as I was doing laundry and working on HawkSoft. I did go out and help with the picking up of everything when he was almost done hoeing and digging out the dead stuff. I think it looks pretty clean now. Our showers sure felt good after that was done.

Easter Sunday started early so we could make it to Church before 8:30. We had a lovely program. The Primary started the Easter story and sang a song. The Young Women continued the story out of the scriptures and sang a song. The Young Men continued with scriptures. Then ALL the Priesthood sang a song. Next, we finished the scripture story with our Young Missionary in the Ward. He also gave a brief talk. He was followed by our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Hester. The last speaker was Bishop Henare. He also gave a very nice talk. Elder Wilcox gave the closing prayer. We just had one meeting today. We were home by 11. We spent time reading and studying more about the Easter Story. After that, we made dinner together. We then settled down for a nice relaxing evening.

I hope you have all remembered why we celebrate Easter. The symbols of the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs should point us to the Savior. Easter Morning was His resurrection. He overcame death and paved the way for all of us to one day be resurrected. Our bodies and our spirits will be joined together, never to be separated again. Easter is related to new birth or a newness of life. Both the bunny and the egg symbolize new life. Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!

May you all have a VERY HAPPY EASTER!!!

Elder and Sister Wilcox