Family visitors this week!!

I have been blessed to have my sister, Peggy, and her husband, Claude, come to visit me this week.  They arrived Sunday morning.  I’m sure that they were tired after the 13 hour flight to get here, but I didn’t give them a chance to rest.  We hit the ground running!!

After Sacrament Meeting we headed north to begin a 3 day excursion of Northland.  We arrived in Whangarei early enough that we were able to go to Whangarei Falls before dinner and settling in for the night.

Monday morning we went to Kiwi North Museum for a look at the kiwis and a tour around the museum and grounds.

Kiwis are nocturnal.   The habitat is kept dark so the kiwis will come out of their burrows and we can see them.
Difficult to get a picture.  No flash allowed.

The tuatara

We were able to join a group of students on a field trip to learn about the tuatara

There are beautiful flowers and trees on the grounds of the museum.  Because I have posted
before about this museum, I have not added a lot of pictures

This pine tree is unusual.  The needles seem to form in balls toward the ends of the branches giving it a “puff ball” look

I had invited Sisters Keily and Huston to lunch with us but they insisted that they wanted to treat us to lunch instead, so we met them at Town Basin Park where we enjoyed a delicious picnic lunch.  What thoughtful sisters!!!

After lunch we drove to Waiomio Glowworm Caves.  Photos are not allowed in the caves but it is quite spectacular to see the light of the worms.  It looks like the Milky Way on the ceiling of the cave among the stalactites and stalagmites.  I wrote about the cave and the glowworms in a September blog when my son visited me so I won’t go into detail again. 

At the entrance to the cave

You enter the cave on one side of the mountain and exit on the other side.  To return to the car park, you cross over the top of the mountain which is a beautiful bush walk.

There are a lot of huge, uniquely shaped boulders on the walk across the mountain

Our stop for the night was in Kaitaia.  After checking into our room and eating dinner, we went to 90 Mile Beach to watch the sunset.

Tuesday morning we drove to Cape Reinga which is the northern most tip of New Zealand.  At that point the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea merge together.  You can see where they merge by the whirlpools and the difference in the color of the water.

After out excursion at the cape, we drove to Paihia which is a village on the Bay of Islands. 

I was focused on my driving  LOL!    It looks as though I am the passenger by USA standards but I am the driver.

We were stopped on the road to wait for the sheep to be herded into a pasture/corral.

We arrived in Paihia, checked into our motel, had BBQ yummy ribs and chips and walked about the town for a little sightseeing before turning in for the night.

Peggy said I could post this “silly” picture of her if I would post the pic of me driving.
(Don’t like my double chin profile.)

I have been to Paihia many times but never really noticed this church before.  It is quite pretty “in person”

Wednesday morning be boarded a boat for a cruise around the Bay of Islands to the Hole in the Rock. 

We had a BBQ lunch on Urupukapuka which is the largest of the 144 islands in the Bay of Islands.  We hiked around the island for a bit before boarding to continue the journey to the Hole in the Rock.

There were sheep on the island.  We were told that they are there for a purpose.
They are New Zealand lawn mowers.

Gorgeous bright flowers

Last time I took this cruise with some of the senior missionaries, we sailed through the hole.  This time the sea was too rough to sail through.  We did see some whales in one of the bays.

Cape Brett Lighthouse on one of the islands near the Hole in the Rock

After the cruise we returned to Takapuna. On our way back, we stopped in Whangarei at Claphams National Clock Museum.  It was there that I learned about horology and decided that my husband, Kay, was a horologist.  Horology is the art or science of making timepieces or of measuring time.

Claphams National Clock Museum

Lovely colorful flowers around the square at the clock museum

At the museum you could see clocks of every variety from
grandfather clocks to wrist watches and novelty clocks.

Kay’s love of clocks began I believe when he inherited his grandparents wedding clock from his Aunt Katie.  The clock hangs in our parlor in a place of honor.  Inside the clock is the feather and a piece of his grandmother’s apron that she used to clean and oil the clock.  Kay always kept it in working order.  It is a cherished possession.   We also have a small, electric mantel clock that belonged to Kay’s parents.

Whenever we traveled, we would go to flea markets, garage sales or antiques stores and often returned home with an antique clock or two.  It is a chore to wind those clocks so they are not often chiming all at once.  In my kitchen I have a school house regulator clock that I kept wound and running.  My daughter, Deanne, told me that Rory, my granddaughter, reminds her daddy to wind that clock when it stops, so the tradition continues. 

I have so many clocks in my home that you wouldn’t believe it.  However, I don’t have as many as Claphams has.  It was a delight to see all of the clocks.  As we walked through the museum, I’m sure Peggy and Claude grew tired of hearing me exclaim:  “I have one of those!”

Kay fiddled with clocks and time pieces.  We went to clock shops and he learned how to clean and set the clock movements.  He could spend hours in his shop adjusting and cleaning the works of the clocks as well as re-finishing the outside of the clocks if they were wooden as most of them were. 

This is for my grandchildren who love Hickory Dickory Dock

This clock sounds a little “sick”.  It needs some TLC from Kay to make it play more smoothly

After touring the clock museum, we walked around the square.  In one of the shops we watched a glass blower.  This art always fascinates me.

It was a fun 3 days.  I had planned to take Peggy and Claude to see some of the sights just south of Auckland but duty called.  I had an unexpected, last minute meeting on Thursday morning with the area medical doctor and representatives from Sydney-Euro Center which manages Aetna International Insurance which the Church contracts to manage health care for our missionaries. 
Thursday afternoon I took a missionary to a doctor appointment that ended in the ER at Middlemore Hospital.  The missionary was able to go home and was not hospitalized but it was a long day before I got back to my flat about 10:15 P.M. 

Before the appointment, I had taken Peggy and Claude to the Auckland City Museum with plans to meet them for dinner in Auckland.  After dinner they went to a movie.  With some phone calls from me, they were able to take a taxi back to my flat where kind people/building manager responded to my calls to let them into my home so they weren’t stuck in downtown Auckland waiting for me.

Friday morning, I took Peggy and Claude back to Auckland so they could do a Hop-on/Hop-off bus tour.  I had a meeting that afternoon with the area medical doctor, the area mental health advisor, and a doctor in the area who sees a lot of our missionaries.  I met Peggy and Claude for a Korean BBQ dinner near the Sky City Tower before returning to the flat.

At the base of Sky Tower we watched a Lunar New Year Celebration

Saturday, Peggy did laundry, we played games, laughed and ate a lot of chocolate before I took them back to the airport for their evening flight to Australia.  I had so much fun visiting with them.  It is hard to have family leave.

Some of my family members have been at the Western States Livestock Show in Denver the past few days.  I usually join them when I can.  I am with them in thought this year.  This is a picture from the show last year.  I love these giants.

These last few days, I have encountered discouragement in some of the missionaries to whom I’ve spoken.   When they are battling a stomach virus, a sore throat/cough, an injured knee or back, or some other ailment mental or physical that keeps them from doing their best work, it is hard for them sometimes to keep positive and not to feel down and out.  I recalled a BYU address that I read recently given by Elder Jeffry R. Holland in 1980.  He was speaking to the students at BYU about the hardships and challenges of life as a student.  I think that it applies to missionaries as well as students and in fact to each of us.  I want to share a couple of paragraphs.

“I wish to speak today of a problem that is universal and that can, at any given hour, strike anywhere on campus—faculty, staff, administration, and especially students. I believe it is a form of evil. At least I know it can have damaging effects that block our growth, dampen our spirit, diminish our hope, and leave us vulnerable to other more conspicuous evils. I address it here this morning because I know of nothing Satan uses quite so cunningly or cleverly in his work on a young man or woman in your present circumstances. I speak of doubt—especially self-doubt—of discouragement, and of despair.

In doing so I don’t wish to suggest that there aren’t plenty of things in the world to be troubled by. In our lives, individually and collectively, there surely are serious threats to our happiness. I watch an early morning news broadcast while I shave and then read a daily newspaper. That is enough to ruin anyone’s day and by then it’s only 6:30 in the morning. Iran, Afghanistan, inflation, energy, jogging, mass murders, kidnapping, unemployment, floods. With all of this waiting for us we are tempted, as W. C. Fields once said, to “smile first thing in the morning and get it over with.” But my concerns for you today are not the national and international ones. I wish to speak a little more personally of those matters that do not make headlines in the New York Times but that may be important in your personal journal. I’m anxious this morning about your problems with school and love and finances and the future, about your troubles concerning a place in life and the value of your contribution, about your private fears regarding where you are going and whether you think you will ever get there. Against a backdrop of hostages and high prices I wish to speak more personally of you and fortify you, if I am able, against doubt—especially self-doubt—and discouragement and despair. This morning I want to attack double-digit depression.”

Elder Holland gives several examples and tells some stories to illustrate examples. These are a few of his words:

“If you are trying hard and living right and things still seem burdensome and difficult, take heart. Others have walked that way before you. 

Do you feel unpopular and different, or outside the inside of things? Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C. 

Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of semesters? Read Moses again. Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a forty-year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, “They come to pass.” They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have proven it. I stand before you as a living symbol that anyone can make it through school, fill a mission, and find a job. 

Are you afraid people don’t like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts with you on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led this Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Kimball has known few days in the last thirty years that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if President Kimball has in some sense become what he is not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part because of them? Can you take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who has defied disease and death, has shaken his fist at the forces of darkness and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, “Oh, Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain” (see Joshua 14:11–12). 

Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet. 

And Enoch? I ask all of you to remember Enoch as long as you live. This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, [I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech?” (Moses 6:31). 

Enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old, ungifted, inferior Enoch.”

Elder Holland shares things we can do to overcome discouragement:

“Immerse yourself in the scriptures. 

You will find your own experiences described there. You will find spirit and strength there. You will find solutions and counsel. Nephi says, “The words of Christ will tell you all things . . . ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:3). 

Pray earnestly and fast with purpose and devotion. 

Some difficulties, like devils, come not out “but by prayer and fasting.” 

Serve others. 

The heavenly paradox is that only in so doing can you save yourself. 

Be patient. 

As Robert Frost said, with many things the only way out is through. Keep moving. Keep trying. 

Have faith. 

Has the day of miracles ceased? 

Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved?Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith . . . that angels appear and minister unto men. [Moroni 7:35–37]”

He ends his talk with a message that touches my heart:

“Elisha, with a power known only to the prophets, had counseled the king of Israel on how and where and when to defend against the warring Syrians. The king of Syria, of course, wished to rid his armies of this prophetic problem. So—and I quote: 

Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about.. . . an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. [2 Kings 6:14–15] 

If Elisha is looking for a good time to be depressed, this is it. His only ally is the president of the local teachers quorum. It is one prophet and one lad against the world. And the boy is petrified. He sees the enemy everywhere—difficulty and despair and problems and burdens everywhere. With faltering faith the boy cries, “Alas, my master! How shall we do?” 

And Elisha’s reply? “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (2 Kings 6:15–16). 

“They that be with us?” Now just an Israelite minute here. Faith is fine and courage is wonderful, but this is ridiculous, the boy thinks. There are no others with them. He can recognize a Syrian army when he sees one, and he knows that one child and an old man are not strong odds against it. But then comes Elisha’s promise: 

Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. [2 Kings 6:16–17] 

In the gospel of Jesus Christ you have help from both sides of the veil, and you must never forget that. When disappointment and discouragement strike—and they will—you remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection. They will always be there, these armies of heaven, in defense of Abraham’s seed. 

I close with this promise from heaven. 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. [D&C 78:17–18] 

I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, . . . and mine angels [shall be] round about you, to bear you up. [D&C 84:88] 

The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours. [D&C 78:18]

I add my testimony that I have felt the presence and guidance of those beyond the veil.  I know that I am blessed beyond measure and guided by the Holy Ghost.  I see the Lord’s hand in the work. 

I love my Savior.  I love you my family and friends.