Mike and Danny's visit

Mike and Danny spent the day with us.  Since the lab is really small it was a little crowded today.  Mike took us out for lunch at a really nice restaurant across the street from the archives.

After work we went to the McVey's to Skype Kristina and Mark about their cruise.  It sounds like they had a great time.

Tonight we are going to the Mission Offices for Family Home Evening with the Young Adults.  We were invited last week but we were too tired after flying all night.

It is fun getting to know the young missionaries.  Two of them live in the apartment right behind us.  All of the ones we have met are really neat.

Family Home Evening was a lot of fun. First to get to know everyone we had to tell two truths and one lie and everyone had to guess the lie.  Then the Elders gave a lesson on the Articles of Faith.  The meeting was then closed and we played the chocolate game (with Cadbury Chocolate).  You rolled a die and if you got a six you had to put on a hat and scarf and cut the chocolate with a knife and fork and then eat until someone else got a six.  However, you couldn't eat the chocolate with your hands.  Someone always rolled a six right after me so I only got two small pieces of candy (lolly).

September 12, 2011

First Sunday

Don and I decided since church doesn't start until 1:00 p.m. that we would see how long it took us to walk to the archives.  It took us about 40 minutes.

We still don't have a car so the McVey's take us everywhere - shopping, work and church.

We went to church today and the people are very friendly but their accents are hard to understand so we have to listen very carefully.

Afterwards there was a baptism for a young girl named Chelsea Bolton.  She was very excited about being baptized.  President Kerzarian and his wife were there.  I talked to his wife and she does indeed know Dixie Bedingfield.  When I mentioned Dixie's name she immediately said, "Yes, I know her.  She use to babysit me."

Later we went to Roy and Lorraine Ditchburns for dinner.  They also had Mike Higgins and his wife from Auckland and Danny Chen from Hong Kong and the McVeys for dinner also. The Ditchburns had so much food it was immediately worth 2 pounds.  Mike and Danny are here to evaluate us for the week.  They just finished setting up a Digilab in Christchurch and wanted to see our system.

September 11, 2011

Driving Lesson

This morning we went to an outdoor market to buy fruits and vegetables.  They had many vendors selling food and the price was cheaper than the grocery store.

Then the McVey's took us outside of Wellington to Lower Hutt Valley so Don could practice driving on the other side.  He did very well on rural streets.  The only problem in town is that there are a lot of cars and the roads are narrow with a lot of one way streets.

We are about a mile away from the center of town so we went and walked around.  We are slowly learning where things are.

September 10, 2011

John and Emma

We are filming probate records and so usually we have a will, affidavits, motions and then a probate.  They are usually quite normal but today instead of the usual the packet was full of letters.  We all stopped working to listen to some of the letters.  The letters were from the early 1900's.  What do you think those people would have thought if they knew we were reading their letters.

The letters were about a man leaving New Zealand to find work in Africa.  The wife Emma receives a letter when he reaches Africa but then when her husband John is suppose to return she doesn't receive any more letters.  She now is left with 12 children and doesn't know where John is so to receive any money she has to prove he is dead.  She proceeds to write letters to every ship line to see if he was a passenger on the ship.  She writes many letters which will be filmed.  They never found him and after a period of time they declared him dead and a probate was issued.  It also had (love) letters written from John to Emma before he disappeared.  I think she had to prove that he didn't just leave but that he loved her.  Poor Emma!!

The world cup rugby game is tonight at 8:30 p.m.  A lot of people are in town for it.  It is in the stadium across the street from where we work.

Tonight we are doing laundry.  They put a washer and dryer in the bathroom but to vent the dryer they hung it upside down.  We have to stand on our heads to see the knobs.

September 9, 2011

World Cup Rugby

New Zealand is hosting the World Cup Rugby competitions.  Tomorrow a game is played here in Wellington.  New Zealanders are pretty excited about it.  However, the missionaries can not watch it.  They have been instructed to stay away from members homes during that time to avoid seeing it on TV.  We can see the stadium from our tea room (lunch room) where we eat lunch every day.  We can also see the ocean and we are right across from the ferry so we see cars and trucks going on it every day.  Also in the summer we will be able to see the cruise ships.

We are beginning to learn the equipment better and we are slowly getting the routines down.  It is great working with the McVey's so life is good.

September 8, 2011

Retirement is over!!

Retirement is over!  Today was our first day of work at the archives.  The building is like Fort Knox.  We have a security badge and to get to our office we have to swipe the card at least 5 times.  We even have to swipe it to get into the bathroom and take the elevator.

There are seven of us working there now but the single sister Lupa is going home next week.  She has now served 18 months and will be returning to Salt Lake.  She is originally from Tonga.  Then Roy and Lorraine and local New Zealanders and have also served 18 months.  They will all be leaving next week so we only have this week to be trained by them.

The work today wasn't really hard but it was hard remembering the routines.

After work we went shopping for basic household needs.  The sad thing is that we won't be able to ship the appliances home because the voltage is different and the plug is a different shape.

Hopefully we will get an internet connection soon.  We ordered it yesterday and they said it could take up to 10 days.  We hope it is sooner than that.

We went to the McVeys last night and finally got onto our e-mail account.  It wouldn't work because of our location so it kept asking us security questions.  We hope we don't have trouble getting into our banking account.

September 7, 2011

Second day in Wellington

Today the McVey's took us grocery shopping.  The price is in kilos but it is very expensive and everything looks different.  Body lotion in the United States is about half the price as here.  Just for the basics it was over $200.00.  The senior missionaries here spend about $600.00 a month on groceries.

Later we went to a cell phone company called vodofone.  We will have a landline and an internet connection.  We will also have a basic cell phone with rechargeable minutes.

We also got a New Zealand driver's license.  We didn't even have to take a written test.  They just wanted the money.

September 6, 2011