Dunedin as seen from Signal Hill at night fall.  In person the lights were twinkling.

A view near Christchurch

A memorial to the 185 people who were killed in the Christchurch earthquake 4 years ago.

Looks like Switzerland.

Don't miss the ever present sheep that are grazing on the green winter grass.

Playing "Oh My Heck" with the Petersens and the Cannons

Buying rocks near the beach full of rocks.

A rock hunters beach.  There is no sand on this beach just rocks, rocks, and more rocks.  Most of them smaller than two inches in diameter.

John & Marilyn Dougall who are serving in Auckland Mission came for a visit.

Another Game of Oh My Heck

 

New Pictures and Text added June 8, 2014

Here are some picture of our good friends, the Bachelors- Margaret and Danny who are now studying with the young Elders.    The first picture is eating at our Flat and the second is taken on a walk with Margaret near their home on the Queen's Birthday holiday.   We have eaten with them 2 times and enjoyed many good times together.

We enjoyed taking a day off, from the Archives for the 2nd time and attending a Zone Conference in a small town about 2 hours away called Gore.  The countryside is beautiful and the meeting always inspirational. 

We  have really enjoyed the Elder in the middle of the picture- Toomalati .  He is from American Samoa and will be going home in 2 weeks.   Next Fall he will be playing basketball for Washington State in Tacoma, WA.

Bad picture but had to show you some more sheep.

We often have the Elders and Sister for dinner and usually with an investigator. 

Most of the time our Sisters do not drive.  They ride bikes, take the bus or walk and on occasion ask the Dickey's for a ride.  

In May the senior couple from Invercargill (about 3 hours away on the southern tip of the island) spent the night with us and after church on Sunday they had dinner here and brought a set of Elders with them.  Elder Harding served here as a young missionary many years ago.

New Zealand celebrates the Queens birthday in June so we had a day off from the Archives.  To celebrate we inspected 4 missionary flats and then went for a walk on St Clair Beach.

Looking down on the beach from above.  Notice the houses of Dunedin, built on the hills.

 

Another Saturday we drove to the outskirts of the city for this view of Dunedin. 

There are always sheep to be seen and green pastures even though it is winter here.

Last week we were ask to give a presentation at the Genealogical Society of Dunedin (NZSG).  Their meetings are at the public library and this month there were about 40 people in attendance. 

We used a power point presentation showing a clip from our DC video, slides about Family Search and then some of our Probate records.  It went very well and in 2 months we will do the same thing for another chapter.  Some of the Probate records from NZ are now online and someone told us the next day that they had found a record they were searching for and really enjoyed seeing it online.  

Needless to say, we are very happy to be here and to leave footprints for many years to come. 

The outgoing chairman of our NZSG chapter, a retired Presbyterian minister.  

Pictures of our Flat April 18, 2014

Our Home Away from Home.  39 Opoho Rd,

 Dunedin,

 New Zealand

 

 Our Flat is at the top on the right.  Two small bedrooms, a sunroom, a living dining room combined and an old fashioned kitchen.  

The view from our bedroom.  There are almost always clouds.

Not enough closet space so you improvise.

The small bedroom where Rob has his computer and where my clothes are stored







Our new Wonderful bed and it has a heat pad!

 The living room.  The little heater you can see keeps this room warm if you close the drapes and both doors.

And there were plenty of opportunities to organize.

Our fully supplied kitchen.  The sink is a pain, but...   Mike Higgins who is our project manager and lives in Auckland was our first dinner quest back on

 Feb 24, 2014.

The adventure begins.

The Cute Family, plus a new baby, that is living in our home in Providence, Utah

Layover in Auckland

We arrived safely in Wellington, NZ and were met at the Airport by our Mission President, Michael Kezerian, his wife, Sandy and the Assistants to the president.

Two nights were spent in the mission home with another senior couple, the Browns who are serving on the South Island in Greymouth and the new office couple that we actually met in the MTC the McGregors.

Rob received his first and only driving lesson (from young Elders) using the left hand side of the road and the steering wheel on the right side of the car, which was quite an experience.  They say you can always tell the tourists in New Zealand because they have the cleanest windshield's in the country.  You see the controls for the windshield wiper and the turn signals are opposite from the United States.  At any rate he did pass and our new Toyota Corolla Hatchback was delivered to us the next day.  The Church leases our car and we pay $175 a month plus our gas, which we think is a terrific deal.

Our time in Wellington was short but we did take a few hours to meet the Records Preservations Missionaries there and learned a little about what we would be doing for the next 17 months.

The weather was perfect for our ride across the Cook Strait to the South Island and Picton.  We had great conversations with other travelers around the world and even met a lady who grew up in Salt Lake City.  She and her husband basically live on a small sailing boat and travel from ocean to ocean.  The boat is equipped with many home conveniences and can be heated by solar panels and converts salt water to pure drinking water.  

One Happy Couple

Our first night on the South Island was spent in Nelson at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast.  We took a long walk and enjoyed the sights of this lovely little tourist town.

The next stop was at the Abel Tasman National Park.  It sits along the coast which enables you to see the North Island as you walk the trail along the side of the mountain.  Our 3 mile hike was just perfect.  We especially enjoyed seeing the Fern Trees.  Yes little fern plants as we know them are the size of small trees.  The weather was perfect and our bodies up for a good work-out after days of sitting in a class room and a very long flight.

A real live Fern Forrest.

 Notice the mountains of the North Island in the distance.

After several hours in this beautiful park we headed down

 the West Coast to Graymouth where we spent the night with the Browns (A senior missionary couple we met at the airport in Salt before we boarded the plane.) They had flown from Wellington and we took some of their extra luggage in our car and delivered it to them in exchange for a nights lodging and dinner. It was a gorgeous drive on small windy mountain roads as well as times along the coast.  Rob did a great job of staying on the correct side of the road as my hands waved up and down trying to keep my mount shut when I thought he was taking the curves too fast.  This was not a time for taking a nap.

Touring in style!

Pancake rocks just north of Greymouth.