Mike and Taufa's Birthday FHE celebration.

Here we are in Greymouth. The branch planned a birthday party for Mike as well as the branch president's son, Taufa, who turned seven the same day. He is a cutie as are all the children in Greymouth.

As you can see from the pictures we has a feast. They roasted two pigs, which is the custom in Tonga, and served lots of other food to go with it.

Sister Helquist, our missionariy couple there, bought a huge cake. Mike gave the lesson about kindness. It was a great and fun evening.

We flew home to Tawa Tuesday morning to prepare for 'shifts' next week.

Nelson to Greymouth - July 07

The last leg of our journey was from Nelson to Greymouth. Along the way we once again saw heavy frost and beautiful scenery. Logging trucks will always remind me of New Zealand. One of the natural resources is farming trees and logs for export and sharing the road with these big trucks is a common sight at any time of the year.

Winter Wonderland on the south island - July 07

Several miles down the road we found ourselves in a winter wonderland of heavy frost. The trees and grasses all around us were white with it. It was beautiful and these pictures don't fully capture the beauty of it. Each scene looked like it could be a Christmas card. I wanted to go home and decorate for the season. It is a bit early unfortunately.

Interviews on the south island July 07

Last week we began our interviews on the south island for this July in Queenstown. We then left to drive to Invercargill and began our trip around the island stopping along the way to visit our missionaries.It was -4 degrees in Queenstown. Along the way we had a very Kiwi experience of seeing a herd of beef cattle being moved from one paddock (field) to another. They do this by driving them along the road. As you can see from the pictures they are literally all around us. It was amazing!

Doubtful Sound continued

The water was so calm it was like glass. We enjoyed the quiet journey and getting to know the Baxters better. We saw dolphins jumping and playing in the wake of the boat along with blue penguins which are too tiny to see in my pictures. It was a fine day.

Doubtful Sound

Here we are with the Baxters in Doubtful Sound. We have just arrived. This is in June, the beginning of the winter months. It is cold but not freezing.

The scenery was incredible! We had a quiet lovely day cruising around the sound.