Hoagland Mission: September Zone conference

It was a hectic day at church on Sunday. Elder Hoagland had to speak and teach the priesthood lesson. Sister Hoagland was involved in the primary program date mess. It has been rescheduled twice already and when we got to church we found that most of the children would not be in town for next weeks program. The last change was because the president's son's and one other boy were going to be playing Rugby. One family had already change plans to visit their dying grandma and had rescheduled flights for the new program date. Others also would not be there so now, after many angry moments among the members, we have a new date the end of October. All is well in Zion.

On Saturday we went to one of the many rugby fields in the area and watched the Kinikini boys play. It was a beautiful shirt sleeve weather day. This is the under 11 all-star team in red and white for the west coast playing a team from Christchurch. West Coast lost 48-0.

This is the under 9 teams representing the same areas. Taufa Kinikini is running with the ball just in front of the man in the middle. At Sundays game it was announced that he was selected to the all South Island team. He is the one with the big trophy last week. His older brother, Mau i, played on the under 11 team but was not as successful. His mother reports that he has eaten himself out of shape. He does make a mean cup of "Milo," a favorite, chocolate flavored, hot grain drink. It is also full of sugar.

This is our next door neighbor, Nori. When we arrived she came a day or two later with a little welcoming treat. This picture was taken from our driveway over a short fence, looking into her back yard. She owns her side of a duplex. She is a lovely Catholic lady who loves to work in her yard. She has recently been slowed down with some back pain which she hopes to have surgery on asap. With Socialized medicine it will take some time.

Spring is almost here. These camellias are at the Nelson branch grounds. I think we had the best weather for this zone conference than any other. We had our meeting in the space between the chapel and cultural hall and the two little wall heaters never got us warmed up. There must have been too much cold coming from the chapel. It was by far warmer outside. Our meeting was on how to plan your day most effectively. The Jolliffe's are very good teachers.

We had some time to talk with the Jolliffe's this time while the companionship's were off doing some planning exercises together. He talked of some of his work at home where he worked for the church managing several farms in the U.K. and was also on some boards of church owned companies in Europe. He said his board work was very interesting as some of the company managers where getting into trouble with the governments. His job was to get them into compliance with the countries regulations. He said they hated to see him walk into their offices because they knew he was going to stir things up.

This is an informal picture of the Nelson Zone. Our two Elders from Greymouth are in front left. There are three Tongon's, Three English, Three Australians, and three Americans in our zone.

This picture represents the timber industry here in N.Z. There was very little timber in this country some time back and it is all the result of tree farming. So far they are actually cutting these trees down for timber and planting more. That is the industry our Tongan's are involved in right now. Of coarse there are "tree huggers" here are trying to put a stop to that with carbon offsets, etc. These trees would not even be here if it wasn't for the lumber industry.

We pass many of these hills with sheep on them on the way to Nelson.

Another sign of spring, calves from the dairy industry.

On our way home we stopped at the swing bridge over the Buller River. I paid for the Elders to cross the bridge and while taking some pictures of them I was bitten by a sand fly the became infected. Friday I had to get a prescription for an ati-biotic. As they say, no good deed goes un-punished. This is a picture of a couple riding down a cable. A very fast but short ride.