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