Southern News

The first week in February Mark and I went to stay at the Staging Post, just two hours north of Christchurch. It is part of a farm, and has a small swimming pool and some power points, good showers and toilet and chickens and quails wandering around. I like hens, and I think if we ever get a place in the country I would like to have hens again. Fairly pointless for William to have hens as he can’t eat the eggs, but I like the noises they make. (I say “again”, as we had hens when I was a girl. I loved the little bantam chicks, which were so pretty until they got all scraggy like teenagers.) The Matthews family have hens, one of whom is called William (yes a hen called William) from when he was their home teacher I think.

Workmate, Jimmy Ang, Thuy Van Duong, Nicola Petty and Mark Petty - 1 February 2010

On Monday before we left, Mark and I were witnesses for a civil wedding in a registry office. Thuy Van was married in Vietnam over the summer, but it was easier to get married again in NZ than to transfer the information. It was very nice even though it was in a registry office. She and Jimmy dressed up in their nice clothes, and Mark and I and a woman from Jimmy’s work were there as  witnesses. The celebrant was very nice and made an effort to pronounce their names properly. The room was pleasant and had a lovely view over the city, so it was nowhere near as dismal as they look in tv programmes. Mind you, Thuy Van is so pretty and vivacious that it is hard to imagine anything involving her being dismal. We had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant afterwards.

Mark and I are not good at packing. We take a long time and we take everything. Sadly we couldn’t take the bikes as they don’t both fit on our bike rack. We will have to buy a new bike rack. We did get away by mid afternoon though, and got to the caravan in time for dinner.

 

This is the hill we climbed up - the second bump from the right.

We spent Tuesday doing pretty close to nothing, reading, sleeping, eating, then went for a little walk before dinner. We played Civilisation card game. Then on Wednesday we went to Kaikoura in the late morning and got my hair cut and bought pukeko things to decorate our stand with at the Arts Centre. We had a pie for lunch, then a tornado potato (a South African invention). We looked at all the shops, then went for a drive up the back road towards Waiau. We walked up a hill for a bit too. It is nice to be fit enough to do that. We had seafood chowder for dinner, and fish and chips.

This is the view from the top looking down at the bridge.

Thursday was pretty much like Tuesday except we played another game of Civilisation and a game of Settlers of Zarahemla and I read another book. We went for a swim in the pool at the camp grounds. It was cold when we got in, but after we got used to it, it was lovely. We had another swim on Friday before we went home. It was all very relaxing and pleasant, and it was hard to come home to the real world, especially as my ethics committee application had been turned down, and I was starting seminary on Monday. I really love seminary, and the students especially, but it was hard to see the end of my morning freedom for another 8 or 9 months.

On Saturday was the annual Stake Picnic at the Groynes. Mark was looking after the rubbish (somehow that was part of his calling as Stake Clerk!) so we went for the whole time and took Sister Walker. It was very well organised by the Bournes. I enjoyed talking to lots of different people, and many of them were asking after William and were amazed that he had been out for a year already. I had a chat with President McDonald (Stake President) who had been talking with President Porter (William’s mission president) recently as there was a missionary being sent home.  He said President Porter was very happy with how William was doing. That was good to hear. Pres M also said that Pres P was very straight and up front. I think that would suit William.

I got to email back and forward with William near the beginning of the month and got a better idea of how he is.
Then it was back to work again after our idyllic holiday in the caravan. Mark has been really busy trying to finish off two jobs.
Jonathan started at Hagley for Jazz. It sounds to be just perfect for him. He will have Nanako Sato as his piano tutor, and will do theory and ensemble work as well. Mark went with him for the first few times, and says they speak an unfamiliar language to him, but Jonathan seems able to communicate.
Seminary started back this week, and what a joy it is. I have a lovely class of 6 or 7 who are all just lovely young people. They are all girls except for Kuki, who is a very nice, sensible boy. They are even reading. I am so excited about studying the Book of Mormon.

Jonathan bought a big thick book about 40 years of Sesame street, that I am reading to him. It is very interesting, and I like it because some of the people are familiar to us – including Frank Biondi, who is the cameraman we met who has been there since the start.

One Sunday we drove to Timaru for church. President McDonald asked all of us to speak as the High Council visitor. Timaru branch is 100 miles south of Christchurch, in a medium sized town. Mark isn’t a high councillor, but Stake Clerk, so this is a little unusual.  Going in the car makes me really sleepy. It doesn’t help that the neighbours had a party that was still going at 2.30am. Anyway... we had a lovely time in Timaru. The trip down was pleasant, and we were warmly welcomed. Jonathan gave a little talk about becoming self-reliant, then played his arrangement of “I am a Child of God”. There were a few sniffles and eye-wipings at the end of that. Then Mark talked about becoming temporally self-reliant, and I talked about becoming spiritually self-reliant. Everybody seemed to like our talks. It was a very nice visit for all of us. What was also really nice was when people asked if we had any other children and I could say that William was on a mission. A very nice Samoan lady gave us an enormous pudding, which is very nice. I had brought bagels and salmon to eat for lunch, which was also nice.

I was doing some web mooching, and found a site about being a senior missionary couple. Boy there are some GREAT assignments. There was one for the Polynesian cultural Center in Hawaii:
Quality Control
An individual is needed to provide statistical support for management decision making. Experience in the collection and analysis of data from a variety of sources is important. Evaluation of guest satisfaction, using paper and online surveys or interviews, with forecasting and tracking marketing and sales trends are the main activities. The person filling this position will interact with PCC officers, managers, and employees, and with BYUH faculty and students. The spouse will assist in other areas of the PCC according to his or her interests and qualifications.
Man I would just love to do that!
There were other cool assignments too – like this one:
Adventure Assignments
There are a number of hard-to-fill assignments that require members who have been richly blessed with excellent health, adequate funds, foreign language skills, and indomitable spirits.There are parts of the world where spreading the gospel is limited by the availability of mature couples willing to share their lifetime of gospel experiences with new converts. Branch presidents who have been members for a year and teachers who have never heard of Primary or Scouting require support. The Lord has a great need for mentors who have “been there, done that.”

I’m not sure Mark would be so keen about that one though. I’m not sure how adventurous he is.
And both of us would love serving in a mission office. Brill!

So as a consequence of that, I have decided that I REALLY want the Rogo thing to be hugely successful so that we can have a passive income stream and serve missions within 15 years. (That’s a bit scary now that I have written it down.) I met with the patent lawyer about 10 days ago and he asked me if we wanted Rogo to be a hobby or a serious commercial venture. I think I said I wanted the work of the former with the outcome of the latter. However, I now think I would be prepared to put more work and commitment into it. Boy I could do with William’s talents here at present, making signs etc! I thought a comic strip might catch peoples eye as they walked past.

Mark and I have been busy getting our stocks of books ready for the market, then had our first day at the market on the 27th. It was fun, and we sold 34 books, which is not going to make us a lot of money, but is good for getting feedback. Probably at least 75% of the people I actually spoke to bought books, so that wasn’t too bad. Some people just aren’t puzzle people, so I’d hardly expect them to be keen. It would have been exciting if we had sold a few more. I need to make some better signage too, to attract attention.

On Feb 28 church at Avonside was cancelled because of the tsunami warning. The chapel is right next to a tidal river and we meet at the time the tsunami was predicted to arrive from the big earthquake in Chile. We went to Riccarton instead and saw our old friends.  We were very lucky that the wave came through at the same time as low tide, so they pretty much cancelled out, though there were some big level changes in Lyttleton harbour. If the tsunami had been at the same time as a high spring tide, and heavy rain, there would have been some serious damage.

Beginning of March news flash – William is now in Kaitaia.

William illustrates his letters to President with a little picture of himself with some appropriate expression. A few weeks ago President Porter rang him as he was concerned that the man in the picture was looking a bit more depressed. I think that’s very sweet.

See y’all!
Nicola, Mark and Jonathan