Nan's Blog for March 2014
It was an interesting Fast and Testimony meeting we had in
March. When Brother King, who was
conducting, invited people to come up to bear testimony, he asked them to be
brief. If they wanted a speaking
assignment, he added, see Brother King!
Few people seem to pay attention to such requests. I do not think they mean to be disobedient. I think many of them genuinely have no
concept of the passage of time. Time
seems to be measured differently to different people. He also asked people to
come up early, and not wait until the last few minutes. That did not work either. People were even slower than usual to start
coming up, then in the last five minutes they filed up to the front seat in
droves. Again, I do not think it was so
much a matter of disobedience, as not catching the spirit of testimony until
late in the meeting. The bishopric do
not like to cut people off when they have already summoned up the courage to
come to the front seat. So we had a
short Sunday School lesson, which was a pity as the volunteer teacher Llewellyn
Wright had prepared much.
Many people had experienced the Spirit talking to them during the
past week. Some had remarkable
experiences to tell of being guided by the Spirit. One sister, Marina Pullen, who had lived in
Tokoroa for a while was visiting from Taupo. She spoke of giving up the
business she had built up and run for 14 years because she had been prompted by
the Spirit to move to Taupo. In her
mind, or in a dream, she had seen people in Taupo whom she did not know. One was a woman with a moko. They were asking her to come and help them in
their work. When she moved to Taupo she
met them, including the woman with the moko, who was the Relief Society
President. Marina is now her first counselor.
The woman was visiting Tokoroa that day with Marina When she introduced herself in Relief
Society, I was justified in staring at her.
She was not old, and I thought only old women still had the moko
tattooed on their chins. There are very
few around these days. Apparently she
had it done during a period when she was 'less involved'.
Tina Brown of our Relief Society presidency in her testimony noted
that the youth were missing, including her own sons. She said she was going out to round them up
before she sat down. I do not know
whether she did. Someone they respect
should do that each Sunday. Those youth
are our prospective missionaries.
Slackers our youth may be, but we are farewelling a missionary from the
ward with increasing frequency. Which is great.
One day Ray decided we would visit the Maungatautari
Northern Enclosure. (Ours is the Southern Enclosure.) I was glad about that, as
we had only been there once, and that was before it was finished, and I
remembered little about it. It was a perfect day for an outing, though the
ground was bone dry. We so badly need
rain, the countryside is brown. We
walked up two paddocks from the car park.
Ray found the walk up the paddocks tiring, and did not think he wanted
to walk the loop track, which is all the track there is within the small
enclosure. He did it anyway. It was not a long walk, a little more than a
kilometre I should guess. It took us
half an hour. It was a lovely path, narrower
and less civilized than the tracks in the Southern enclosure.
When we
got back to the gate, it was about noon, and I brought out the snacks. Ray suggested I walk around the track
again. I was delighted. I had been wishing to do this! I thought I might take 20 minutes. Ray always likes to know how long I will
be. Actually I was back in 12
minutes. I really enjoyed the repeat
walk. Not only could I enjoy the path
again, but I could walk fast enough for aerobic exercise, and going fast enough
to breathe deeply exhilarates me. That
is, when it is not steep enough to strain my heart! Then it's a different story!
Back at
the car, Ray orientated himself with the map.
He had been confused as to exactly where we were. He decided on the route we would take to get
home. I guided him along the by-roads he
had chosen, which is something I always enjoy.
On our way we stopped at a cemetery.
Ray likes wandering around cemeteries. It
seemed to be a family cemetery. The
prevalent name was Penetito. I jumped to
the conclusion, being in the area it was, that it was Maori, but Ray thought
Italian. Mostly they were Maori given
names, except the most recent, which was definitely Italian, but the surname in
this case was not Penetito! So there
could have been an Italian enclave there in rural New Zealand.
My friend Betty in Wales sent me sheafs of newspaper clippings
about the terrible storms they had in February. Gales of 108 miles an
hour, the headlines declared. Three of the items were of particular interest to
me. One was about my 'home town' Llanfyllin.
I call it that though I never lived there. I was born there, and my ancestors lived
there for generations. I stayed there a
couple of times in my childhood and visited for a few days in 1960. When I
visited in 1997 I had leisure to make my acquaintance with the old town. Old town it is, as it was granted a charter
over 900 years ago. A prominent landmark
was The Lonely Tree on a nearby hill. I
did not know it was 'world famous' until I read the newspaper clippings! It was blown down in the storm, and it seems
the local council had phone calls and messages of regret and sadness on email
and twitter from many lands. I did not
think so many people would even have heard of Llanfyllin! “People who have
connections with the town, or have family in the town have requested to have
family members ashes scattered around the tree.” Well, I never! I sat under that tree a couple of times, and
all I was aware of was sheep turds!
The second item of interest was a beach near Aberystwyth adjacent
to which I had camped in my youth. Then
it was merely a beach, and not a particularly prepossessing one. Now it is a desolate landscape of prehistoric
oak trees. Very dead of course, and
fallen over. Scientists have identified
pine, alder and birch among the oaks.
They reckon they are 4500 – 6000 years old. They were covered the last time the sea level
rose, when the area became a bog, and a blanket of preserving peat was formed.
Later sand was blown inland and covered the peat. Evidence of human occupation
was found. All of which justifies the
legends I learned in childhood of 'Cantre'r Gwaelod', a country buried beneath
the sea. Legend had it that on occasion
church bells could be heard from beneath the waves on quiet nights. Ghostly
bells they would have been! Now the
surging sea has swept away the sand.
What will happen next?
The third item was a photograph of an immense wave breaking over
the sea front at Barmouth, which was our local seaside town when I was a
child. That was where we went to the
beach on special occasions. It was a big
deal in those days to get there, by bus and train. As often, I was glad I do not still live in Britain,
and hope nothing like that happen here.
One Saturday, Cyclone Lusi, which had been hovering around in the
Pacific and was now downgraded to a tropical storm, was supposed to hit us that
night or the next day. I partially
filled about 18 rubbish bags with compost for sand-bags. There was no other
soil available without digging up and throwing out some of my vegetables. Ray wanted the bags to hold the big gates
closed in case of a flood. I wanted some
to put around the garage doors to discourage water running in. Ray even moved things off the floor in the
garage. I did not really think the storm
would affect us here, but it was as well to be prepared, for South Waikato was
on the warning list.
We even determined not to go to church, because if the storm did
hit, we ought not be on the roads. The
main thing was of course that we could not drive out of our place without
removing our sand-bags, and what if we did that and then the storm came while
we were away? Paranoia? Or disinclination to go to Church? I caught up on a lot of Church reading that
Sunday!
Having made the 'sand-bags' I did not want to empty them in case of
further need, remembering our flood of
2002, when such bags would have been so useful,
but neither did I want to waste my compost, which takes such an effort
to make, turning it over from one bin to another and then doing it again. So I had an idea. I went up to the council offices to buy
several of the green rubbish bags which are now standard issue and have to be paid
for.
Fortunately
I have dozens of the old brown rubbish bags which we used to get delivered
free. It was these I had filled with compost.
As soon as I had dug up my potato crop I set about trenching that part
of the garden. I dug until I came to the
subsoil. By then I was in a trenches up
to mid-thigh. I should have chosen a less fertile part of the garden, but that
was the only 'empty' place at that time.
I filled the green bags with useless subsoil. These I placed in caches near where we would need
them and retrieved the bags of compost.
(I wanted the different colour bags so I did not mix up the good and
bad, which I might easily have done.) Now that we are prepared we'll probably never
have another flood and so much the better!
While deploring the drought, we have been enjoying the continuing
summer weather. Going for our walks and making our little excursions in the
car. Long may it continue! I mean the walks and excursions, not the
drought! Love to all, Nan.
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