Transfers and school days

This week we said good bye to Elder Schipper and said hello to Elder Beckwith. Elder Beckwith is from Adelaide, Australia, making this period the first we have not had an Elder from USA. He is a fine young man and are looking forward to working with him. We had six hours between the time we dropped off Elder Schipper until we picked up Elder Beckwith at the Hokitika airport. We decided to take a quick trip to the glaciers a couple of hours south of here. Because of un-anticipated delays we had to rush to see the glacier and get back in time to pick Elder Beckwith.

We also had an unexpected meal with our youth at the flat Sunday,
After our work at the library this afternoon, we found these two hungry Tongan's. We brought them home and they began to make themselves banana sandwiches.
Sunday was the day for speakers to come from the district. Because it is so far for them to come, we always prepare a meal for them and send them on their way well fed. We planned to provide that meal this time but the brother and sister declined the offer because they had his mother in law with them and she was having some difficulty. We were going to also have President and Sister Kinikini with us but their baby daughter was ill. We had no trouble finding a way to take care of the food prepared. Tongan youth.
While they were waiting we had Pony do a make-up for seminary. He was absent a few too many days. Here he and his sister are working on his assignment. Above, a couple of others joined them in the effort. Our Relief Society President was also there and we had a great discussion on gospel doctrine with the youth. They had a great time trying to answer gospel questions. Some of the answers were really funny and caused much enjoyment by all.
Sister Hoagland had her cyst removed a couple of weeks ago and had the bandages removed last week. We are glad that is over. It was tested and was not dangerous.
Thought you would like to see our growing garden.
We were surprised to see how different things were at the Fox Glacier. We had some very heavy rains early last winter and it caused many land slides. The area where we viewed the glacier in January was no long there so we did not have a high perch to view from. We were now on the canyon floor looking up at it. This shot shows some people climbing the face of the glacier, which must be done with a guide. Others hike up the left side onto the top. We could not see them from here, but they were there.
There are two other ways to see the glacier. You can take a helicopter to fly over and even to land on it near the top.
Elder Palanite took our picture here. They are paving the road from the main highway to near the parking lot. This caused some delays which made us rush our visit and made us 5 minutes late picking up Elder Beckwith.
Here is our good bye picture with Elder Schipper. He is off to Wellington area. He tells us his new area has even more food for him and he is worried about getting fat. He says his face really show the fat now.
The Monday after we returned from Nelson the Elders had to drive up for interviews with the mission president. Since it was "P" day the all got together for a hike up to the same place we went. The center of New Zealand. It is a small zone but with great missionaries.
While we were in class, outside the New Zealand police were teaching students how to ride safely. I think they went through the whole school that day.


All the school is having a section on pirates. These kind of pictures will go in their term book and sent home for family to enjoy along with their school papers and projects. This was my meanest pirate face.
Each Friday four classes join together in an assembly in one of the four rooms. This week was room 2's turn to host and they were preparing little skits to present to the other classes. The children were divided up into groups of three or four to come up with their pirate skit. The class, when we are there sometimes have as many as 5 adults there, one teacher, 2 aids (for two autistic children) and us. Each of us took a group and came up with a skit. Great fun!
This was Sister Hoagland's group.
Here is a faithful crew member trying to revive his poisoned captain with the evil mutineers in the background.
Talia and Veronica are pretty little Maori girls. Conner is the cute little blond polangi (white boy). We are here 3 or 4 times a week helping during their reading time. It is great to see their progress. Their methods are so different than how we think our schools do it. They rely on illustrated books which pretty much tell what the words are. Phonics is looked down upon. That is why they have some pretty strange ways of pronouncing words. Phonics would standardize how they emphasized syllables and pronounce words, but as it is, it is different in every part of the country.