Wow! This week went by FaSt!!!!

Sunday:

We attended the Third Ward this week.  I wanted to take a picture with one of the NEW member families that we have visited and will be teaching.  This is the Apinero family.  They moved here recently from Samoa.  They were excited to find out that Mitch served his mission in Samoa.  It gave us something in common right away.  The kids weren't happy about taking pictures after church! The sun was bright, and they were tired and hungry! Actually, so was I !!

Monday- P-Day

One of the members of our stake (Lonnie Lardelly) is a rancher.  He called and asked us to come spend the day on his ranch.  He runs cattle and sheep....LOTS of them! He is a member of a group of families who own the ranch  (the two guys on the four wheeler are the ranch managers).  Lonne had fun comparing how the ranching business differs from the U.S. to NZ.  Their cattle don't look quite as good as ours do, but they don't have to do much to raise them! They just alternate "Paddocks" and let them eat till they kill them! They don't have to vaccinate,  & they don't feed corn or hay.  Their cost of production is WAY less than ours.  But I'll have to say....their beef does not taste as good as ours! Because they are grass fed all the way through, the beef tastes wild...kind of like elk or venison.

 His ranch was HUGE!!!! We drove and drove and drove!  All of the pictures below are views from places on his ranch.

 This is on the top of a hill where they land the planes that spray fertilizer on the grass and farms.

 The wind was blowing really hard, but the views were absolutely breath-taking!!

 This is one of their vineyards..

 And another one...

The grapes are almost ready to harvest.  They raise red and white wine grapes. They have TONS of vineyards!!!

Lonne was just amazed at all of the grass!!! A typical rancher!  These guys don't have a clue what it's like to water their farms and ranches!!

 They also have citrus groves.  This was a grove of mandarins.  They picked us a big bag of them...
YUMMMMMMMMM!!! We have been eating them all week!

One of the members of our ward invited us to dinner at their house.  We had been at the Lardelly's ranch all day and got home just in time to go to the Burt's house for the "catch of the day"....fresh tuna! Brother Burt is a big fisherman.  Their son served a mission in Australia with one of the boys I knew from Snow Canyon High School, and has since, been to St. George to visit him.  He loved St. George as much as we love New Zealand...just so different from each other, and both beautiful in their own way.  In the picture above, Brother Burt is telling Lonne a fish story....literally! We had a great time at their house.


Wednesday & Thursday

We drove to Hamilton for a Zone Conference.  We took two of the missionaries from our area with us.

I didn't get many pictures....we were in the car the entire day! It's about a 5 hour drive on roads that are basically switch backs the WHOLE way.  It just wears us out to drive! We were exhausted by the time we got to Hamilton.  There are tons of lakes along the way....but it was really cloudy and rainy, so the pictures didn't turn out very good.  The lakes are gorgeous! They almost look fake!

 These are two buildings made out of roofing tin.  It is a sheep dog on the left and a lamb on the right
(you can't see the lamb very well). This is just a little town on the way to Hamilton...

 Just a pretty sunflower in full bloom! My sister, Laura will love this picture...she loves sunflowers!

The only picture I got of the zone conference! The missionaries were singing a cute song to the ladies that prepared their lunch.  Our area authority, Elder Callister, attended the conference.  We learned a lot of good ideas for teaching.  We were in meetings until after 3:00 and then back on the road back to Gisborne!