Welcome to HASTINGS and to HAWKES BAY

We live in Hastings in a "flat" (apartment) with three other units. We have a tiny front yard, and the backyard is a parking area and lines to hang clothes. We have only met one neighbor, a Maori named Jonno, his partner Mahi, their son CJ, and a new 2-week old son they haven't named yet. Our flat has no heater, no air-conditioning, no screens on the windows, and one electrical outlet in every room except the bathroom where there are NO outlets. We do have two bedrooms (a queen bed in our room and twins in the other room for when missionaries need to stay over), one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Despite these humble circumstances (at least compared to what we are used to), our home here is considered very lovely, and we are comfortable and content. Neither our stove nor our oven worked the first three weeks we were here, but we could use a hotplate, a crockpot, and our toaster...or, if need be, we would go out to dinner! Going out to dinner is a challenge, too...the prices are exorbitant, the food really different, but at least there is no tipping in New Zealand. We have found out that we quite like Burger King and Domino's Pizza...see, we're just like the missionaries! We're not complaining, just commenting; every missionary needs to make adjustments to different ways of living, eating, and cultures...and we're loving it. Here are some pictures of our flat, and many, many Maoris live in far more humble circumstances.

Here's the front of our flat, living room on the left, master bedroom on the right.

See the signs for the intersection where we live...and Willowpark should sound very familiar to our family as one of our favorite places to visit in Logan. No wonder we feel right at home!

Backyard, our car, and clotheslines

...and our living room, complete with Christmas tree decorated in blue.

...and our kitchen with its tiny fridge...but plenty big enough for two of us.

ARRIVAL in New Zealand - 24 Nov 2011

The big day finally came, and we arrived in New Zealand on Thanksgiving Day (at least by USA reckoning). We were met at the airport by the Assistants to the President, Elders Lekias and Lemalu. Elder Lekias' is from Australia, and his parents are currently serving as the Mission President and wife in the New Zealand Auckland Mission. President & Sister Kezerian were at a zone conference but would arrive home later that evening. We went first to the mission office and met Elder & Sister Brazzeal (St. George), the office couple, along with the office elders (Lott and Bonifay-Jenkins). We were then taken to the mission home, where we would spend the next two nights in the General Authorities suite! It was raining in Auckland when we landed there, but after our one-hour flight to Wellington, the skies were blue, and we enjoyed beautiful weather and gorgeous scenery our few days there. On Saturday we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with most of the senior couples at the mission home before we were bid "goodbye" and sent on our 5-hr drive to our assigned flat in Hastings, NZ. Elder Farnes had had one driving lesson in our 2010 Toyota Yaris, and we were both scared to death to head out on our own on the other side of the road...but it turned out to be a good experience. We built up some confidence and saw some beautiful countryside on our trip. We arrived in Hastings about 9:00 pm and were met by our sweet landlord, Sister Rose Edwards, who is also the stake Relief Society President, mother-in-law of our bishop, and wife to the 2nd counselor in the Stake Presidency. She had really gone more than the extra mile to make our flat comfortable, attractive, and stocked with many of the things we would need.

Elders Lekias & Lemalu

Assistants to the President with "newbies" Elder & Sister Farnes

Mission Home in Wellington with "our" Toyota parked out front.

Back of mission home shows it's a lot bigger than it looks from the front. The upstairs has a dormitory that can hold about 12-14 incoming elders, a room for 2-4 sisters, the Kezerians quarters, and offices for both of them. Downstairs had "our" suite, large living room, large dining rooms (2), large kitchen, and large family room, plus a big garage. They host a lot of incoming missionaries there, as well as visiting authorities.

President & Sister Kezerian with the"newbies" in their gorgeous backyard.

One of the breathtaking views of the coast in Wellington. Wellington is quite hilly, and it is also a very windy city. We loved the tours both Pres. Kezerian and Elder Brazzeal gave us, but we were happy that we didn't have to drive there (except for Elder Farnes driving lesson).

Family and Church History Mission

Elder & Sister Harwood, District Leaders

Elder & Sister Jackson

Sister Janet Allen from Australia

Elder Sy ("see") from California, really wants to go to New Zealand after his mission, so we gave him our NZ flag when we left. He was SO excited.

Elder Farnes at one of our computers.

From October 17-November 16, almost five weeks, we served as missionaries in the Family and Church History Mission in Salt Lake while waiting for our visas to New Zealand. We were assigned to the "Patron Assistance" district, where we spent our days at the computer filling requests for patrons out of the state (and sometimes out of the country) who wrote in requesting copies of various documents, i.e. birth, death, marriage certificates. We would find these documents for them, most of the time on microfilms, and then make them copies. It was interesting work, and we felt that we were making a contribution from Day 1. We also met some very, very nice people. Our district leaders were Elder & Sister Harwood from Idaho, who were just wonderful. Our favorite young elder was Elder Sy (see), also from Idaho. He really wants to go to New Zealand someday and was thrilled when we gave him our New Zealand flag as we left. Each Monday we had an hour devotional in the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg chapel, and the other four days of the week we had prayer meeting with our district each morning. One other highlight of our stay at the FHL was getting to meet Elder & Sister Marks, who are good friends and neighbors of President & Sister Kezerian, who will be our leaders in New Zealand.

Mission Training Center

We entered the MTC on Monday, Oct. 10, 2011, and spent the next five days learning how to be effective missionaries, primarily using PREACH MY GOSPEL in all our classes. There were 76 senior missionaries who were in our group, eight in our district, and two of those eight were members of our American Fork East Stake: Elder & Sister Gibb, who were going to Bolivia. One of the most delightful couples in our district were Elder & Sister Oakley from Texas (near Dallas), and they had been called as nurses to the Tennessee Mission. Our group was a big one, but the MTC had its biggest group of senior missionaries the previous week: 102. We loved the MTC, even though Elder Farnes didn't particularly enjoy the role playing. We also had brand new, never-lived-in-before accommodations, so we were quite spoiled. On Tuesday evening we had a devotional, and the speaker was our General Relief Society President, Julie Beck. Before the devotional started, we sang a number of hymns as a 2500+ group, and that's an incredible feeling, especially singing "Called to Serve." It was so much fun sharing our excitement with the young missionaries ...just a superb week all the way around.

Here we are at "The Map."

Our whole district, L-R, Elder & Sister Oakley, US, Brother Sillitoe, Elder & Sister Danielson (district leader), and Elder & Sister Gibb.

The CALL

Our call to the New Zealand Wellington Mission arrived on Wednesday, July 20, 2011. We are called as member and leadership support, so we will be serving in small branches wherever our mission president needs us. We enter the MTC on Monday, Oct. 10, and then fly out to New Zealand on the following Monday. We will be serving for 18 months.

July 2011

Here we are with our mission calls...we EACH got one, fortunately to the same place!

It was only 7:00 am when we opened our calls, so we were thrilled when Bob was able to come over before he went to work.

Jody's cute family were good sports about getting up early...the kids still in their pajamas, but we rewarded them with donuts. And we all had a great time sharing our excitement.

And then the phone calls began...mostly all day long, but it sure was fun!