Where Has the Time Gone?

Well this is something you don’t see very often. I was taking the garbage out on Monday morning and there was a motorcycle sitting in our driveway. I sent this picture to Elder Stosich, who is in charge of the Mission Vehicles, and thanked him for the new Mission vehicle and asked him why he didn’t leave the keys.

While going to fix a bike we came across this beautiful hedge of flowers. We love this time of year. Since these were so beautiful we decided go to the Botanical Gardens. The following are some of the beautiful things we found.

We do love the flowers and unusual plants this time of year. We don’t even have to go to the Botanical Gardens to find this beauty. The following are in and around our own yard or in some of the missionary flats that we visit while we are seeing sick Missionaries or fixing their bikes.

So much for the beautiful flowers we have seen and on to our activities for the last couple of weeks.

We had Stake Conference the week after General Conference and our Ward Choir sang for the Sunday session. The ladies all had these blue dresses made by Sister Fametau in our Ward. The men all had matching ties. It was great and people said the music was good also. The two young people between the men and women were our soloist for one of our primary songs.

We like to get our picture with some of the wonderful people in our Ward. This is us with Sister Latu and Sister Afu and some of their children. To the right is the Tauke’aho family. Their daughter was one of our soloists.

This is our Choir leader Brother Roberts and his wife.

Another bunch at Stake Conference from our Ward with a Visitor.

We made a visit to Bunnings hardware store where Sister Bartlett just had to have one of their barbecue sausages.

While there the children were getting face paintings. One girl had a unicorn horn actually glued to her forehead which stuck out slightly. Her bashful sister was a butterfly.

We also attended the 10th birthday of Mere who is one of the special young ladies in the Ward. We love the beautiful traditional Tongan outfits.

We will miss the White Sunday Primary program and some of the wonderful families like the Fameitau’s  and the Mohetau’s.

We had a fun preparation day activity with some of the senior Missionary couples at the Il Divo concert. They are four opera singers who perform opera, oldies, current songs, and original songs. In case you didn’t know they are from Switzerland, Spain, France, and US. We had a good time together.

Something else we will miss is the Missionaries who are leaving the Mission. Sister Motu’apuaka goes home to Australia, Elder Faatoatoa to Samoa, Sister Tulaga was a Visa waiter and is going to Trinidad by way of the Provo MTC for language training.

Elder Nuusila and Elder Stevenson go home to Utah.

These three are not going home yet, but they are leaving New Zealand. Elder Pack is going to the Cook Islands, Sister Blandford is going to Niue, and Elder Barnes is going to the Cook Islands. All of those are still in our Mission.

It is amazing that we also meet many missionaries who we are related to here in the Mission field. This young man Elder Decker is actually Elder Bartlett’s 2nd cousin twice removed. That is about the closest relation we have found among the missionaries. We do feel like all of them are our family as well as the Ward members in Otahuhu. We are excited for these last two months of our Mission. Where has the time gone?

We love you all and hope you enjoy all of the pictures.

Love Elder and Sister Bartlett

Another Temple in New Zealand

We were excited about the news from General Conference that there will be another Temple right here in Auckland New Zealand. The Hamilton Temple closed down earlier this year for earthquake upgrade and remodeling. That renovation will take approximately 3 years to be done. Hopefully the Auckland New Zealand Temple will take far less time. Our Stake is already planning a Temple trip next year to go to the Tonga Temple. Unfortunately we will not be here for that and probably would not be allowed to go that far out of our Mission.

There were so many wonderful things that came out of this Conference and we look forward to see what happens. Truly the Lord is hastening his work here on the earth in preparation for the Second Coming.

On a lighter note it has been many weeks since we last posted anything so we now have to catch up. We had a Family Home Evening with some Maori Culture so here are some of old men doing a Haka taught to us by one of our former Missionaries who lives in the Auckland area former Elder Taranaki.

Since the men had to do the Haka the women learned the art of weaving the flax plant and made a cute little flower.

We always try to take a group photo at the end of our Family Home Evenings.

We also had some Missionaries go home. Sometimes we miss a few since for some reason we get called out of Zone Conference and aren’t there when it ends.

Elder Canite went home to the Philippines, Elder Smith to Utah, Elder Tonga to Utah.

Elder Elton Nevada and Elder Wu to Utah.

Sister Peck to Australia.

Elder Leao to New Zealand, Sister Leausa to Samoa, Sister Tony to Malaysia and Elder Zacher to Montana.

Sister Garrett went home to Australia and Sister Erickson went home to Utah.

We are always sad to see these Missionaries leave. We have learned to love them and will miss them. They are all wonderful young men and women that we are glad to call our friends and family.

We had a wonderful lunch at the 360 restaurant (top of the Sky Tower) that rotated 360 degrees to give us a view of the whole of Auckland that surrounding area. We are with Elder and Sister Woodard and Elder and Sister Stosich

Since it is spring all the cute little lambs are showing up. This is around the base of One Tree Hill where the sheep and humans kind of mingle together. The sheep will not let you get very close.

We are also seeing many beautiful flowers starting to bloom.

We love all of the flowers that are starting to pop up.

Isn’t the one on the right beautiful. The flowers aren’t bad either.

These are the Elders in our District. We like to bring them some healthy fruit for our District Council Meeting. Right to left Elders Del Rosario, Bradfield, Peresetene, Fauatea, Koroi, Taeiloa.

Well that is about enough for anyone to digest this week. Through all of the good times and bad times we are here to serve our Savior as we serve his children. We have had some tearful times as some of our family have suffered tragic losses. Our hopes and prayers go out to them as we can not be there to comfort them in their time of need. We know that our Father in Heaven will watch over them and comfort them in their time of need. We love you our friends and especially our family.

Love Elder and Sister Bartlett