Trip to Auckland

The mission President asked us to bring two Elders to an Orientation Meeting in Auckland this week.

We took Elder Hughes with us, and picked up another Elder in Roturua.  It was a LONG drive!

Gisborne is only about 325 miles from Auckland, but on the narrow, windy roads, it takes close to 8 hours to get there.  The Orientation meeting was wonderful.  President and Sister Porter are amazing leaders.  We have a lot of fun with them.  I wish we could see them more often.  We stayed in a really nice hotel with a wonderful view of the city.  I wish we could have taken time to go shopping, since Gisborne doesn't have ANY place to shop, but we were hauling boys with us, so it just didn't work out.

I need some warm clothes...it is getting pretty cold, and from what everyone tells us, it's going to get REALLY COLD!!! 

President and Sister Porter and us at the Orientation meeting

This picture was taken after 8 hours of meetings!! We were sooo tired!

View of the city of Auckland from our hotel balcony.
This city reminds me of San Francisco.

 It has lots of hills, and the climate is very similar.  It's a very pretty place,
but after getting stuck in traffic for an hour,
we were glad to go back to the small town of Gisborne!

 View of the bay in Auckland from our hotel

Auckland at night

Elder Greening and Elder Gubler

Elder Greening will be playing football at Dixie State College when he gets home from his mission.

We are excited to go watch him play!  He's such a GREAT kid! 

He is one of the assistants to the mission president.

Just a quick picture of the scenery on the way back to Gisborne.  

It is so pretty here....it looks like a post card everywhere you turn! 

We stopped in a neat little beach community near Whackatane.  We loved it!

 I hope we get to serve here some time! we LOVED this place!

Whackatane Beach

Elder Hughes had to put up with us for the long trip!

 I think he kinda liked it! Ha!