MARCH 2012

Hello, Everyone! We've been here a little over 3 months now, and I'm not sure even where to start catching up on our blog, so I think I'll just start with NOW and go backwards until my memory gives out! This week was transfers again, and fortunately, neither Elder Farnes or I were transferred; but Sister Palmer went home (or at least to see her grandmother in Auckland before returning to her family, who are currently in Washington State, since her Dad is mission president there...but he gets released in July and then is coming to New Zealand to live!). Sister Palmer will be going to BYU, so she really doesn't have a place to call "home" yet. Anyway, back to our zone, Elders Kelly and Hopoate were both transferred, so we have three new missionaries to get to know. We've met Sister Hemi (raised in New Zealand, but her family now lives in Papua New Guinea), who is Sister Itaia's new companion. We've also met Elder Barnes (from Farmington, UT), who is the new district leader replacing Elder Kelly in Flaxmere. Our other new elder is Elder TAMALE (and we don't have a clue where he's from, but Mexico would be fun!)

Summer is almost over here in New Zealand, supposedly starts in December and ends the end of March, but even the New Zealanders have said we haven't had a summer. We've only had maybe 3 days when we wished we had air-conditioning, and most of the people here haven't gotten to spend much time at the beach. It seems to us that it rains a fair amount, but the newspapers are claiming February as one of the driest yet. Interesting...seems we're having strange weather phenomena all over the world.

In our district, we only "lost" Sister Palmer, since her mission is over, but the sisters were moved to Flaxmere this week, an adjacent town to Hastings, because most of the Kiribati members live in Flaxmere...it will be easier for the sisters to be closer to them. So, in addition to transfers, we've been busy playing "musical flats" moving people around. In the back next to us are President & Sister Kezerian, who were here for our district meeting 2 weeks ago.