Temple Trip with the Area Presidency

We've talked about doing a temple trip all together, but given everyone's schedule we just haven't done this for a while. Well, we finally got a day where all of us had some time.

We left the office at about 1:15pm (after the weekly AP meeting). Sister B. had made lunches for everyone, so we had that on the way done. I drove the van and we had fun discussing the "Area Plan" on the trip.

We met up with the senior missionaries that serve in Hamilton (about 20 couples). The mission president, President Rudd, was there too, so that made for a great session. We met President Going (the temple president) as we entered (he checked our recommends).  It was a wonderful session!

Left to right: Elder Haleck, Sister Haleck, President Pearson, Sister Pearson, Sister Nielsen, Elder Nielsen, Sister B. and Elder B.

We went to the distribution center as well and had a great day.

Youth Conference in Christchurch

We were asked to do some social media training at a youth conference in Christchurch, so that made for a fun weekend. Elder and Sister Thomson were also there, so we stayed with them. They found a great rental that was just 20 minutes from the conference (a lot closer than being in the city), and it was cheaper too! Elder Thomson is the Area Seventy that covers the south island. We were able to see some of the sights here as well, so that was fun. They had been numerous earthquakes in Christchurch from 2010 to 2012, so they are still doing a lot of rebuilding.The youth conference was great and the kids were fantastic!

Sister B with our luggage!!!

A lot of reconstruction work going on!

Here's the video we made of the skits they put on:

Teaching in Samoa

Given the General Conference weekend, the Area Presidency were in Salt Lake for almost 3 weeks. So, we took the opportunity to do some additional "social media" training for the PSD department (Publishing Services). In the past, we've been to Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne (in Australia); to several locations in New Zealand; and during their July break this year we went to Tonga. So, now we are off to Samoa. They have high schools on the island of Upolu and on Savai'i. We started off going to Apia on Upolu. The school is right next to the temple and we were able to stay in one of missionary housing apartments there (that happened to be vacant).

Our flight arrived late Monday night and we went for a walk around. Here's the Apia Temple. It was about 40 feet from where we were staying. It is a lot warmer in Samoa ... like 85 degrees! This is something we were not used to, given the typical 65 degree weather in Auckland. The apartment had air conditioning, so that was nice. But, we did have a few issues in the apartment (fridge didn't work well, no internet, and some bugs). But, overall, everything was just fine and we had a wonderful time.

Here's some of the classes we taught: 

The kids at the high school were just fantastic ... and they were so fun to be around. I now have more than 100 new friends on Facebook, so that was exciting too!

They have so many cool buses in Samoa ... how about this one: "Queen Patsy"!

On Thursday we caught the ferry to Savai'i ... it is about a 1.5 hour trip.

We are at the campus!

Our first class ... we taught a total of 10 classes.

This is the Vaiola school.

On the weekend, we had some time off, so we saw some turtles, went snorkeling, and found some awesome shells. 

We went on several walks and it was fun to see bananas growing by the side of the road. Also, on Monday it was Patsy's birthday!  We had a fun birthday breakfast in downtown Apia.

On our last day, it was raining, but we still had a great time at the beach!