Meetings, Inspections, Top of the Island, and General Conference

Monday was a little different that other days. We planned on staying home and catching up on all the things we didn't do last week. For the most part, that is what I did. However, Steve was busy all day. He started by picking up Elder Carlisle so they could pick up a trainer from the Bishop so they could pick up a mattress from one flat and deliver it to another flat. We received a phone call from one of our Elders complaining about his horrible mattress. It was so bad; you could actually fold the mattress in half! One of the other flats had a couple of spare mattresses to accommodate visiting Elders to their flat. Elder Garner will deliver another flat at our next Zone Conference.

The Cape Reinga Lighthouse

They also fixed the windowsill at the first flat that had been destroyed by someone, putting wet towels or clothes on the windowsill a LOT. They had to sand it down and refinish the frame again. It turned out very well.

While they were gone, I had our video call with Douhet's family. I thought Steve would be home in time for the call, but I didn't know he was going to fix the windowsill. Anyway, we had a very nice visit. Laila and Tyus joined the call so I could see our delightful little Roman. He is so bright eyed and cute. Laila says he is a good baby and growing so big already. 

You can see the whitecaps
in the Tasman Sea
on the left and the
calmness of the
Pacific Ocean on the right.

Steve got home not long after the call. I had to send him out again; to go pick up the keys and remote we got for the Bream Bay Sisters last week so he could take them back to the property manager. He decided to do grocery shopping on his way home. We were supposed to have a Family Home Evening with a family, but they were in Hamilton, so we cancelled.

On Tuesday, we managed to take a nice walk. We also were able to watch part of General Conference. And of course, we had our six young missionaries over for Pathway. We always love Tuesdays! That took up most of the day. I also prepared a Family Home Evening lesson for our little family we visit every other Wednesday evening.

Wednesday turned out to be very busy. We had a wonderful DCM meeting in the morning. I got to give a short presentation on how I have recognized the promptings of the Holy Ghost in my life. We also had a fun and very instructional role play by the Hikurangi Elders and the Ngahere Sisters. 

Pacific Ocean

After our meeting, we swung by the Toyota dealer to schedule an appointment to have our car serviced. It is just the normal scheduled service based on mileage. At home, we grabbed a quick lunch and opened a couple of packages from Amazon before we headed off to a Family History teaching appointment. We are helping the Denby Sisters with this family. We have seen them several times over the last several weeks. 

The brother said he was related to George Washington, so we spent the entire time working on that. The George Washington that he is related to is NOT President Washington. There is about 50-year difference. I told him that it might be possible the two George Washingtons were related to each other, but without more information we couldn’t make that assumption. So, I tried finding any source records about his ancestor so I could perhaps go back another generation. In the meantime, The guy kept pulling up records about President Washington and asking if that could help me connect them together. I told him we needed records closer to the dates of his ancestor, but he kept finding earlier and earlier records about President Washington’s family. It did NOT help.

Tasman Sea

The first time we visited him, he told us he was related to royalty. When we researched that we were able to find that one of his lines is for the last name of Royals. No royalty there. They are trying to find some famous or royal lines because the government may pay money of you are a descendant of certain people. They are more interested in connecting to someone like that than to find out who their actual ancestors are. 

Thursday was another full day. We picked up the Carlisles first thing and headed to Bream Bay to start our flat inspections. All five of our flats are going to the Carlisles and we are getting two flats further up north for this transfer. We got to the Sisters flat in time to watch SPF before doing our inspection. We are training the Carlisles. We needed to be at the Sisters flat before they headed out for the day, because we were having trouble with their door locks. Hopefully they will be fixed soon. While we were in Bream Bay, we decided to show them the Chapel and our old flat. 

It was a little windy! The Tasman Sea
is in the background.

Next, we headed for the Murdoch Crescent flat. It is far different from the Sisters flat. We were able to show things that we deduct points for, as well as what we can do to add bonus points. If the missionaries get 5 perfect scores in a row they get a cute hand carved kiwi. If they get another 5 in a row, they will get another smaller hand carved kiwi. We do our best to help them get their kiwis. If their deductions are only a couple of points, we do our best to find bonus points so they can still qualify for the kiwi.

Lots of sheep up north.

The Carlisles got a call from the Elders that serve in their Branch asking them to meet up with them around 3:30. We still had three flats to do. We figured we could get two more flats done since they were very close to the flat, we were just at. We saved the Hikurangi flat for next week. We inspected the next two flats and dropped the Carlisles off at their flat before heading home. Once home, I wrote up the issues that we found that day in hopes the property managers will take care of them.

Friday was more flat inspections and a play day. We headed out very early to get to Kaitaia by 9:00 or so. It is about 2 hours and 15 minutes away from us. There was some construction on the way, so we didn't get there until almost 9:30. We did two inspections. We could have done it via a video call, but we wanted to go up to the top of the Island and Kaitaia is about as far from our Mission office as we go. The Elders we visited were awesome. Even though they come to our Zone Conferences, we don't get to know the Elders in the Kaikohe Stake very well, so it was nice to get to meet them. 

A few "friends" we waited for to cross
the road on our way home.

I’m really glad we did in-person inspections, as we needed to do some training on a few things they were unaware of. For example, their washing machine has a filter in the drum that they didn’t know anything about. It was VERY full of lint. We showed them where it was and how to clean it. We also showed them the filter over the stove and told them how to clean that. It will take several soakings in hot water with a degreaser in the water to get it clean. There were a few other things we showed them.  Overall, both flats were pretty good, and they both got full points. We didn’t deduct for the filters they didn’t know about and the couple of deductions we did make, we found some things we were able to give bonus points for. When they are just a point or two below full points, I always try and find bonus points for them.

The Pacific Ocean in the background.

We spent the rest of the day driving mostly. We did stop at the tip top of the island in a place called Cape Reinga. They have a lighthouse there, so we hiked in to see it. Cape Reinga is where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. “The tides race each other in a display of awesome ocean strength as you stand on the bluff, buffeted by the inevitable breeze and wowed by the beauty of this spot. A sweep to the left takes in Cape Maria van Diemen, the name a legacy of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who literally put this country on the map, and to the right, the beautiful arc of Spirits Bay, its name underpinning the sacred cultural aspect of this amazing place.” (https://www.aa.co.nz/.../cape-reinga-where-two-oceans-meet/) The scenery was breathtaking and well worth the extra time in the car. 

On Saturday, we watched all three Saturday sessions of General Conference today. The talks were so good. The Music was awesome. I loved the children’s choir in the afternoon session. I also loved the missionary choir in the evening session. There were about a dozen or so Senior missionaries from our previous mission. We recognized a few faces. It was fun to see Ken and Leanne Jenson in the choir. They are currently living in our old apartment in Salt Lake City. And of course, the Tabernacle Choir was awesome as well.

I was able to work on HawkSoft as well. I tried to get to it all week, and just never found the time. I also spent time on the New Convert Initiative. I sent emails to all the bishops who have current new converts but have not filled in their spreadsheets. I actually got two bishops respond back to me that they went and filled in their sheets. YAY!!! I think they are beginning to recognize my name and that I’m not going away. Hahaha

We also took a walk between two of the sessions. It was so windy, I thought we would blow away. We saw two ducks just sitting on the lawn in front of a house. We crossed to the other side of the street so we wouldn’t scare them away. They never budged. Well, they moved enough to know they weren’t phony ducks. Hahaha 

On Sunday, we watched both Sunday sessions of General Conference. I worked on my Blog Recap and spent time preparing for Seminary this coming week. We only have two weeks left of Seminary before the end of school.

The talks were all good. They kind of run all together, so it is hard to pick the one I like the most. I’m looking forward to doing a greater in-depth study of each talk in the coming weeks of my scripture study. I may have to wait until Seminary is over so I will have more time to study. I am also looking forward to going to the Family History Library at the Stake Center a couple times a month. I’m really hoping I can get past the couple of roadblocks that have plagued me for the last 50 years. 

It is always exciting to hear about the new temples that were announced. President Nelson talked a lot about preparing for the Second Coming Jesus Christ. He said, "Now is the time for us to make our discipleship our highest priority." He said one way we can do this is to increase our attendance at the Temple. He then gave us a promise.

"Here is my promise to you: Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find Him in the temple. You will feel His mercy. You will find answers to your most vexing questions. You will better comprehend the joy of His gospel."

I Love General Conference!

All our Love,

Elder and Sister Wilcox