Sunday Evening
February 8, 2015
Greetings All,
Seems we have settled into blogging about
once every month. We are now fast
approaching the anniversary date (Feb. 24th) of this great adventure – hard to
believe, huh? In the words of Kermit the
Frog, “Times fun when you’re having flies.”
How’s that for hard up humor? Now
for the mission report.
Recently, we have been spending the
majority of our time organizing the national debut of Meet the Mormons which
takes place in approximately 20 venues throughout the Pacific on the evening of
February 9th. We have managed to rent theaters similar to the Megaplex
facilities you experience. The objective
is to invite opinion leaders, civic leaders, friends of other faiths and others
of similar background to an introduction of the Church. There is a concerted effort Church wide to
foster strong relationships with all individuals and organizations of
faith. As previously reported,
secularism is viewed as a common and formidable challenge.
For those of you who are dying of curiosity
and have not seen the production, I’m sure it is available on Amazon,Netlfix,
etc. Once this is complete (tomorrow) we
will be posting articles on Mormon Newsroom so if you have not visited that
site, give it about two to three days, then go to mormonnewsroom.org.nz and
you will be able to see what we do in this life – write articles, interview
individuals and chronicle events of general interest involving both the Church
and the community. And you thought
we were vacationing in New Zealand, collecting social security as expatriates
(partially true).
Of interest, patrons to the event are asked
to contribute what is referred to as a “gold coin” donation, an amount of their
choice. The aggregate of these collections is being donated to Caritas, the
Catholic humanitarian organization with whom we have a great relationship here
in NZ. (This ought to make Bunnell and McInnes warm and fuzzy.)
Later in the month, Apostle David Bednar is
coming for the 2015 review of the Pacific Area plan. During his visit, he will be in Australia
meeting with the Catholic Archbishop in Sydney as well as local civic
leaders. Here in NZ, we attempted to
have similar meetings but were unsuccessful.
He will also be dedicating the new missionary training center which has
been materially expanded. Look for that
article as well on newsroom.
Kids Visit
Yes, all of our kids together with their
spouses came to visit January 22nd through February 1st. A great, heartfelt reunion. We managed to
cover both the north and south islands as well as fly fishing for Adam, one of
his lifetime goals. I will now describe
the event in pictures.
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| Eight and one-half pounds, 30 " |
We are bearing down on the last months. Our release date has been set for July 25th. The intent is to fly directly into LA then meet the family in Newport
for our annual week long beach trip.
So that’s the latest from NZ. Hope this finds you well and happy. By the looks of weather reports, your weather
rivals ours. What up with that?
