Mike and Lois Wellington NZ Mission: January 2017

We had some fun experiences in December preparing for Christmas. First our Ward had a Christmas BBQ. Quite a bit different than winter Christmas parties. One of the members had a field next to his home. So they rented a tent for the food. BBQ chicken, burgers, sausages, hot dogs. Lots of other dishes.

Young men, not so young men, and elders playing Maori Ball. You have to stop to catch the ball and do it one handed.

Bishop's daughter. As you can see, it was just freezing....

No bbq is perfect without roasting marchmallows. They had white ones, green ones and pink ones. Christmas spirit.

We had Stake Conference in December, so to set the mood, they had a Gold and Green ball. They went all out-rented a scissor lift to install a mirror ball in the gym, synchronized lighting, a live Samoan Band, food.

We got invited to Parliment in Wellington for their annual Christmas Concert at Parliment. One of the Ministers of Parliment hosts it each year. The band was the Salvation Army Band. They had a choir too. It was really nice.

The Samoan Ward in Wellington invited the senior missionaries to their Christmas party too. It was so fun. We left about 10pm, but it looked like they were just getting started. There was so much food, including about a dozen seafood platters (like one serving was a whole fish, or eel, or not sure what.

Each group, primary young men, young women, female adult, male adult, had a skit to perform.

Lois found a cute 1 week old Samoan baby to play with.

See if it will play.

Then we had our real Christmas when Cody, JoEllen, Ethan, Gavin, Trevor, and Reese came on Christmas Eve.

These kids perform the Christmas story each Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning. We dubbed our little flat the Tall Hobbit Flat.

Our huge Antarctic Tree. It fit nicely on the coffee table.

The boy and his mom.

After church on Christmas.

Our Christmas present.

It is really nice to have Christmas on Sunday. We got up early and did presents, had a great breakfast, then went to church. Then enjoyed each other for the afternoon. It was great to have some action and noise in our little NZ home, finally.

New Zealand does a great job of fitting something huge into a small space. These gardens cover a long hillside, but they have the pathways zigzag back and forth, and you have the illusion that you are away from the city noise and traffic, and most of the people in the gardens. I'll just post several photos, so you can get the feel of it. Maybe a couple of comments. Fit tracker shows we climbed 19 floors. The whole of Wellington is steep hillsides.