Cobden School

As I mentioned last week, at the pacifica day activity we made arrangements with the principal to help out at the school. We are having a wonderful experience at the school. Judy works with room 2 and I have been working with room 3. I was in room three helping the children write diaries. One little girl asked me to help spell practically every word of her work. It is funny because I was unable to understand some of the words she wanted spelled because of the accent differences. Also, having me help spell is like having me teach piano. Spelling has been the curse of my life but so far so good. I had to have her use the unrecognizable words in a sentence before I understood her. Walk came out woo to me. I guess I couldn't hear the k at the end. It is pronounced "woook" here.

I prepared a talk on forgiveness last week and in the research I came across a quote. "If you don't like someone, the way they hold their spoon will make you angry. If you like someone, they can turn their plate on your lap and it is alright." I don't think that I dis like these people, but some of the folks at the gym do irritating things. One lady drags her feet on the treadmill and the high pitched sound is very unpleasant. Besides making it easier for me to get in and out of the car, I guess working out is to teach me tolerance and patience.

Last night we got a call from a couple at a motel in town. They were on a bus tour of the country and they are from Germany. She had fallen at one of the attractions, "Punakaiki", up the coast about 45 minutes. She didn't think she had broken anything but was very sore and wanted a blessing. Judy and I picked up Lyle Kitchen and we went over and gave the blessing. They had served a mission in Ireland and also lived in the stake presided over by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The brother was proud that Pres. Uchtdorf had ordained him a high priest and called him to be responsible for all the buildings (pfr) in the stake. He was not as proficient in English as she. He said he had about 3,000 word vocabulary out of the 40 to 50 thousand available. On the phone you would never know she was from Germany.


At school on Friday the 3rd there was an assembly of 4 class rooms. Part of the activity was a readers theater, where four of the children from room 2 and Sister Hoagland participated. There was a king, prince, frog, princess and dragon. Sister Hoagland played the dragon. Very cute!
We arrive at the school just before 11:00 in the morning and spent an hour. This morning we got there a little early and went out to the playground. Our lds kids and those in our class just mobbed us, giving hugs, and greetings. I stood next to the wonderful playground equipment and I had so many children wanting me to watch them do something I needed 10 sets of eyes.

When we were at the school for the pacifica day activity one little boy, looking at my name tag and suit said, "I like your uniform." At my first entrance into room there a little boy I had leaned over to greet took my tie and yanked on it. On Monday Sister Hoagland was asked how old she was. Not giving a specific answer, the little boy said, "you look 100.
Jenni's family went to Disney World this past week. We were happy to see pictures on facebook posted after they got home. They look like they had a great time.

We went looking for a less active sister this week in an area called Houpiri. We had to pass Houpiri lake on the way there.
This is a Dairy farm we passed also.
We traveled 8k's passed the place we were looking for and came to this deer farm,
and this dairy farm. This area is about 35k's from the main highway to Greymouth. We located the area where Sister Fitzwater lived and found she had moved to Cobden recently. They did not have her address so we do have some more looking to do. Our friends, the Rasmussen's, had worked with her before she was re-baptized a few years ago.
Here are our boys doing a Tongan war dance at the pacifica day activity at the Cobden school. Manui Langi on the right put them all to shame. She was really into it.
Here is Manui's daughter, Hola doing a Tongan dance. She did a wonderful job, but was so shy, she forgot to smile.
Here are two of our youngest dancers from the branch. Lisa Tau and Mele Langi. They also did a great job.
At one point all the students at Cobden school participated through song. In my class the children wrote about their experience at Pacifica day. Most of them wrote about the food. One said "the food looked good but he brought his own lunch". A little girl wrote, "the pumpkin was very good but everything else was yuk." That last adjective was the most frequent used that day.
Moni and Tupou joined by two other high school girls danced for the children.