Temple Trip, Spring Devotional, ANZAC Day, and Choirs 

Monday was a travel day. We were supposed to start our day with a visit from a young Seminary age student, but her aunt texted me they were having car trouble and wouldn't be able to make it. We went for our walk and then quickly packed for our Temple Trip. We ate a quick lunch and hit the road. Just as we were heading out of town, Audrey texted me with a link to the Oregon City Spring Devotional. She told me her dad asked her to send it to us. So, at 2:00 our time, I connected to the Zoom link for the devotional. Our reception was spotty at times, but overall, we got to watch most of it. Steve only listened since he was driving. The miracle for us was we got to see Douhet in the Stake Choir. Then, Season and Madison got up to share a scripture and testimony. I thought, wow, that is cool that we got to see them too. A little later, Anna and Alyx showed up in the Youth Choir. And then as if that wasn't enough, Elle was singing in the Primary Choir. A few days later, I found out that MyLiege and Adrienne made the beautiful bouquet that we saw at the podium. I am so grateful for the miracle of modern technology that allowed us to watch a devotional halfway around the world in real time while driving down the highway. It truly is a miracle.

When we got to Hamilton, we ran into some problems trying to check in. My phone was not downloading the document that had the password to the lockbox so we could pick up our key. Finally, I rebooted my Church phone and was able to reconnect the hotspot so I could download the document. All was well. Our room was like a mini dorm room. It had a couple sets of bunk beds and a queen size bed. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but it was clean, warm, and comfortable. We both slept well. And the price was GREAT.

Tuesday morning, we got up and tidied the room before checking out. Then we went to our Temple Session. The Spirit was very strong in the Temple and I'm so grateful we were able to attend. On the way home, we stopped at Costco just outside of Auckland and a little shopping mall across the street. We had several things we wanted to pick up where we could get a little better variety. 

On Wednesday morning, I took a picture of a house with a red door that we pass every morning when we walk. It always reminds me of MyLiege because she loves red doors. Lol. We had a wonderful District Council Meeting after our walk. Near the end of the meeting the South Zone joined our Zone for training. Sister Kinikini and Sister Lilloux did our training. I just love them so much. They talked about a lot of different ways we can meet people. They made it a fun activity. We headed home for lunch before we were going to go out visiting, when we got a call from the electrician. We had called our landlord about two weeks ago about a heat lamp issue. The electrician that came out said he had to order a part before he could fix it. The part came in, so he came over to fix it. He was supposed to be there at 12:30 but didn't make it to almost 2:00. They called to let us know. 

After he left, we mapped out a few people we could go see. We got a call from our housing coordinator, Elder Garner. He wondered if we could go to one of the Elders' flats to check out a leaking toilet. We added that to our list. Our afternoon proved very productive. We saw everyone at home except one. They had just moved two days before. On the way home we stopped by Sister Hester's to pick up some butter so we could butter several loaves of bread for our ANZAC activity the next day. We also swung by a sister who lives near us. She fell and broke her elbow the day or so before and we wanted to see how she was doing. Later, Sister Kreutzkamp dropped off the bread we needed to butter. 

Thursday was a very long day. We started with our SPF Zoom Meeting. Elder and Sister Shaw gave a beautiful slide presentation about the Temple. President Allen is letting all the young missionaries who are in a reasonable distance from the Hamilton Temple go to the Temple. I’m not sure how often. Maybe twice a year or once a quarter. Unfortunately for our missionaries in the Whangarei Stake and further up north are too far away to make the journey. I think President will transfer the young missionaries down south sometime so they will have a chance to go. As seniors, we don’t have that restriction. We are allowed to go once a month. It does take two days out of our work week to do it. Well 1 ½ days for sure. 

After the meeting, our Elders assigned to our Ward came over for our weekly Companion Study. We had a great meeting. After we did training on Chapter 9 from Preach My Gospel, we talked about different people we could help each other with. They asked us to visit a couple of people that they thought would be helpful to them. We put them on our list for Friday. We in turn gave them someone to try and connect with as well. 

After our meeting we headed to Pipiwai to the Te Horo school where we were holding our ANZAC activity. We had a pretty good turnout. Sister Kreutzkamp, Sister Hester, and I planned the food. We didn’t know some of the members were going to bring things, too. We had so much food. We were able to send a lot home with some families. We planned on something they call Sausage Sizzler, which is like a hotdog only they use buttered bread instead of buns. They also put grilled onions on them. Yum. We planned for 100 people. I think we had about that many. We also had chips and cookies. Well, someone brought about 5 pizzas. There were also Sloppy Joes. We had more deserts than you could imagine.

Those who wanted to, played Touch Rugby. They seemed to have a great time. I didn’t see much of the game because I was barbequing the sausages. Everyone had a good time. There was a playground where the little ones could play, so there was something for everyone. Of course, there were those who just sat and watched the game. After the Touch Rugby game was over, the rest of the people came and ate lunch. Then a bunch started up with a volleyball game while people finished up and started packing things to go. We invited the missionaries to come too, so that was fun for them. We had our Elders, of course, and a set of Sisters came.

We rested up a bit when we got home, and then headed off to choir practice. We have ALSO been asked to sing at our Ward Conference, which is the week before Stake Conference. We are still trying to recruit people to sing with us. We already grabbed a couple of sets of Sister Missionaries to help with the Stake Conference, but they won’t be there for our Ward Conference. I sure hope we can pull it off. 🙏

Friday was a slower day. We had a beautiful walk in the morning and took some pictures of the forest across the street from our house. We went and visited the two people the Elders gave us the day before. We had a wonderful visit with each family. The first one recently moved into the ward. They are not in the Ward Directory yet. They had a baby boy about two months ago. It was so fun to see a baby. The other man we saw is not technically in our ward. He is in the Denby Ward, but since they have Sister Missionaries, they can't visit a single man without another member present. They have been having problems getting other members to help so they asked our Elders to teach the man. Our Elders asked us to go visit with him since he is closer to our age. The Elders will still teach him, but they thought he might like a visit from us. We had a really good visit with him, too.

We ended up staying home for most of Saturday. We had planned on visiting several people on Whananaki North Road, but everything took longer than we expected. We had several things that just needed to get done and Saturday was the day to do it. Steve replaced a shower fixture in the master bathroom, fixed a handle on one of our suitcases, replaced a wheel on a portable heater, and even did some yard work. I cleaned the house, did the laundry, paid some bills, and took care of some paperwork that needed to be done before the end of the month so I could send it to MyLiege via email so she could print it and mail it to the Social Security Office for us. The paperwork needed to be signed by two witnesses, so we headed to the Hesters' house so they could sign our paperwork. I even managed to get an hour or so in on some work for HawkSoft. All in all, it was a very productive day. We accomplished several things that have been bugging me for some time now. I feel much better to tackle next week.

Sunday was a little busier than normal. We always start early with Church. We had a wonderful meeting and Relief Society lesson. After our meetings, we had Ward Council. It was fairly lively today. There were a lot of things that were brought up and we had good discussions. It is nice that we are able to contribute from time to time. Today we announced that someone we were trying to visit had moved just a week ago. The brother happened to be the 2nd Counselor in the Elders Quorum. No one had been able to get a hold of them for a few weeks, so it all made sense. Everyone was surprised by the move. Sister Hester called the Sister when she got home from Church to get the new address. She found out they did NOT move after. The address is wrong in the Ward Directory. Instead of 27 we needed to go to 21. I guess we will try and visit them again this coming week. 

After Ward Council we had our Temple Prep Class. It went pretty well. We have a great group of people in the class. I'm excited to be able to go to the Temple with them in the coming months. We came home after that, and I worked on my Blog Recap. Steve made a delicious dinner. He spoils me so much. After a few hours at home, we headed back to the Chapel for a Missionary Choir. The Stake is putting on a Devotional on May 5th, and the Missionaries are singing. I love serving here.  

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox