New Zealand 2016 - North Island

We landed in Auckland on April 1, 2016.  At the airport we had problems.  First going through customs, Sister Murdock forgot to declare our wood and bone carvings so they went through our luggage and was talking of fining us $400.  We believe that the man could see that Sister Murdock was about to cry worrying that her grand kids' gifts would be taken from us, so he finally just gave us a warning.  We then had problems getting our rental car.  From the time we landed to the time that we finally got our car it was over 3 hours, sitting waiting for a shuttle to take us to the car.  It was cold and rainy - not a good time.  Sister Murdock was wanting to just go home to America!  Tired, stressed and discouraged, we finally got our rental car, a Fiat, with a foreign shifting system.  It was raining, dark and Elder Murdock was having a hard time trying to figure out how to make this car go forward!  But things got better once we reached Spencer on Byron, wonderful room and bed!  Following is some pictures of the sights and things we did on the North Island, hope you enjoy them.

April 2, we tried to go to the temple but found they closed early because of General Conference.  So we returned on April 5th to do a session and had a wonderful time.  But we believe Sister Murdock left her brain back in Tonga as she discovered she left her blood pressure meds and today she left her favorite string of pearls here at the temple.  They did find them and some Senior missionaries are mailing them home to Idaho for her.  And we found someone coming from Tonga to Auckland that will bring her medication to us.

The temple is set in a beautiful country setting up on a hill.

After leaving the temple we headed to Raglan for a drive.  We found this silo and on the side it said "Portland Cement".  We found it quite interesting!

This is some of the beautiful county side on our drive to Raglan.  The hills were rolling green!

It then started to rain and this rainbow appeared.

On April 3, Sunday, after church we headed up to the North part of the North Island.  We came upon this peninsula.

It was a beautiful view!

Elder Murdock is standing on the viewing platform of this peninsula.

The country was so beautiful!  The pictures do not do it justice.

This is one of our favorite views!

We love the fern trees.  In this area they were growing among the other trees.

Another wonderful view on our drive today!

Wish the pictures would tell the true story!

On April 4th we headed to Hobbiton.  The set is located on a 1250 acre ranch, with 11,000 sheep and 12,000 cattle.  It was one of the most beautiful ranches we have seen.

We are starting our tour of Hobbiton.

This is the little garden in the Shire.

One of the houses.

They were all so unique in their own way, each one different.

They looked just like they did in the movie!

This is additional Hobbiton houses.

It was amazing to see the detail that was in each one.

This was the only one that you could go in to have your picture taken, but there was nothing inside like in the movie.  All of those scenes were filmed on a movie set.

This is the oak tree just above Froto's Uncle's house.  It is not a real tree, completely made of steel, Styrofoam that is painted and silk leaves from Japan.  After it was assembled the Director did not like the color of the leaves, so every leaf was removed and painted the color he wanted, then put back onto the tree.  This tree alone cost $1 million!

This is a shot looking down from Froto's house on the Green Dragon.  It was quite the sight!

This is also looking down from Froto's house.

And here is Froto's house!  We wish all our grand kids could be here to see this with us!

We are now heading down to the Green Dragon.

Here we are at the Green Dragon.  It was an amazing building!

Inside we were offered a drink.  Out of the four drinks offered, 3 were alcoholic.  The one we had was Ginger Beer.  It is kind of like Root Beer.

This is one of the fireplaces in the this building.

Here we are saying goodbye to Hobbiton and looking over the 1250 acre ranch.  It was so very beautiful!

We moved on to a Maori show in Rotorua.  We were greeted by the tribe members.  Prior to this greeting we were asked several times not to laugh, talk, and to show respect toward this greeting.  They instructed us that this is a very honored greeting.

Here more tribe members greet us.

After the greeting we were then invited into their Village where we moved from one area to another learning about the traditions and way of  life of the Maori.  In this one we learned how the markings on their faces were etched into their skin and that a lot of the tribesman would die from this.

Here the group of men in our tour group was taught the Haka.  Sister Murdock tried to get Elder Murdock to be a part, but unfortunately he would not!

We were then invited into an area where we watched them uncover our meal for the evening.

Before our dinner, they performed a nice show for us.

This was the dining hall where we had a wonderful meal served to us.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

On April 6th, we met with the Waddoups and Elder and Sister Maughan to help train the Waddoups.  They were a little overwhelmed with all the projects that we were leaving for them to take care.  They are wonderful people and we are sure Tonga will fall in love with them right away!
April 7th we flew to the South Island.

"Sometimes blessings flow to us like water from a spring, but more often, I think, they come to us from a well, when we are willing to do the hard work of letting down a bucket and then pulling it up, heavy and dripping.  Faithfulness brings forth these blessings."     Chieko N. Okazaki

Farewell to Tonga

April 1, 2016, the day has come to say our final goodbye to Tonga.  It was filled with final meetings and many mixed emotions.  So excited to be heading home to see our family, but having a hard time leaving the people that have become our family here in Tonga.  Following is some pictures of our last few days and our preparation to leave Tonga.

This is our crate all packed and ready to be shipped.

We are saying good by to our crate, hope it makes it home soon!

When we arrived at the airport, this sister was there from our Nakolo project.  She is one of the prettiest Tongans we have seen.  It was nice to be able to tell her goodbye!

President and Sister Tupou came to see us off.  We were all checked in, so they did not need to help us with anything.  Elder Murdock is having a hard time wearing shoes and socks, and pants!

This is part of the group that came to tell us good bye.  The rest of the Seniors made it just as we were heading through the gate, so we were unable to get pictures with them.  Our dear friends that we will miss terribly!

This is our plane that we will be boarding.  It is a Boeing 777.  This is a first time for it to be here in Tonga, so we are on the maiden voyage making history for Tonga.

The Seniors are up on the Observation Deck waving and yelling good bye, so this is our final good bye to them.

GOOD BYE TO TONGA!  Next stop New Zealand!

"That friendship which intelligent beings would accept as sincere must arise from love, and that love grow out of virtue, which is as much a part of religion as light is a part of Jehovah."    Joseph F. Smith

March 2016 Sights and Events in Tonga

Following are some interesting sights that we saw and wonderful activities we had with the Senior Couples.  Hope you will enjoy them as much as we have.

Beautiful road scene.

Just how fast do you want to go?  Only in Tonga!

This is Ela and one of her teachers cutting different shapes from cardboard boxes, then coloring them to use to teach the children their shapes.  They do not have the funds to purchase such items.

This is another little project that we are working on that will finish after we have gone.  They will be doing gardens like this one in 182 families' yards.  They will grow their own vegetables for their families to eat and to sell the surplus at the market.  In doing this they will have sufficient funds to keep their little gardens going.  The Ministry of Agriculture will be teaching them how to retrieve seeds from the plants to start their own seedlings.

This is what the garden spots will look like.  We will provide the soil, manure, and seedlings to start.

More of the little gardens.

This is a classroom at Atele Tonga Boys school, their boys who are in, what we would call shop, do the renovations on their existing classrooms.  More schools should follow this example!

In this picture is Elder and Sister Murdock, and Sister Wunderlich, and Sister Faux, they were kind enough to translate for us at Nakolo Tonga Ward.  They are great Sisters and are doing a wonderful job!

Here all the Seniors went to "Ahopanilolo, a cooking school.  They teach their students about being a chef, hosting, waiters, and entertainment.  It was a wonderful night and a great meal!

Another shot of our wonderful night out!

Here we are at the same place.  We are a little red as there was a red light over us!

These are some of the students from our Viani School Project.  We were checking to see how the new floors were doing and they look great!  So do the kids!

Goodbye to Elder and Sister Tupola, Temple Missionaries.  They will be greatly missed!  They provided all of us with fresh vegetables from their garden that they created while here.

This is Elder and Sister Tupola with President and Sister Wasala, Tonga Temple President.

This a the group that was able to come and tell them good bye!

Final wave goodbye to Tupolas!

It has been raining for two weeks.  The car was very dirty, so in a down pour Elder Murdock took a sponge and washed the car in the rain in his swim suit.  He was soaked!

Only in Tonga would you see some one leading a horse from a van down the side walk in downtown Nukualofa!

We like the shade on this tractor, very unique, very Tongan!

These are the kind of ploughs that they use here in Tonga.  A lot different than what John McNabb uses!

It has been raining so much this popped up in our lawn in just a couple of days it was this big!

This is another school that is requesting help to build more classrooms as they are over crowded.  This is one of the students working a lathe.

This is the welding students.  We thought Nick would enjoy seeing this!

Here is one of the classrooms.  There was not room for all the students, so the rest sat on benches outside and listened through the windows.  They are in great need, hope we can help them!

This was at a special gathering for honouring the Elderly in Houma Village.  We were invited by the Noble as we have been able to get a water project approved for this village.  They wanted us there to thank us for our help.

This beautiful girl entertained us with a wonderful dance.  She was very beautiful!

This is a group shot of all in attendance at this program.

This is just one of the many houses here in Tonga.  You can see the wiring going through the wall and we are sure that it is not working!  This is a typical Tongan house.

Another home of Tonga.

This is our last President's Dinner, therefore we had to say our farewell to all.  It was a lovely dinner and we were thankful Ana was able to be there as well.

Here we are giving our farewell!

This is a shot of the group that was at this dinner.

We are all went to dinner at the Scenic hotel and had a great time together.

This is a shot of our table.

Another shot of our table.

A group shot of all that was able to go.  There is one couple missing.

This is a fountain downtown Nuku'alofa.  They had to put a fence around as the children, even the big ones, would get on it and break it.  Pretty sad, but that is how Tonga is, they have a hard time taking care of their things.

This is a little history of the Royal Palace located downtown Nuku'alofa.

HAPPY 47th ANNIVERSARY!  We took some time out and went to dinner on March 28 at our favourite pizza place, Marcos.  He is an Italian and makes very good pizza!

Following our dinner we headed to FHE for game night with the Seniors.  It is always a fun night!

Picture of the King and Queen of Tonga.

Final hair cut with David.  We will miss his wonderful hair washing massages!

Elder Murdock's last hair cut from David.

Elder Murdock is having his last hair washing massage.  They are so wonderful.  Sometimes for at least 5 minutes!

We spent many hours with this man, Fine from PTH.  This is his little office.  We could not have been able to do as much as we have done without his help in getting us the best price possible!

This is the little homestead we took a picture of at the first of our Mission.  It has grown to 4 other buildings!  I believe they are sleeping accommodations for this family that has grown!  They even have a car now, and running water across the road from a faucet that was installed.  So they have to haul their water from there every day!

We are having our final farewell to Siaosi Palu.  Another man that we could not have done as many water projects without his help.  He was always there when we needed him doing all that he could to make our projects a success!

"Christ's ideal of friendship requires that we be friends on a high moral and spiritual level.  Under his divine guidance and discipline ... our affection and friendship can mature into charity, the pure love of Christ, and we can be Zion, a people with one heart."    Sandra Rogers