My friend June

This is my visiting teaching partner June, and she and her family prepared a lovely tea for our sisters and some other sisters in the branch - delicious Chineese food! June is a wonderful sister and along with working at an assisted living center, lovingly cares for her family, and sends a birthday card to all the sisters in the branch. She is 100% good!

Our beautiful yard "award"

Yesterday in our mail box, was this little card. It said: To the Lucky Winners!! The Ashburton Garden Center had awarded us "First Prize" for the best kept cottage garden on the west side of Ashburton! In appreciation of your efforts you have won dinner for two at the Somerset Grocer. And the presentation would be on Friday at 12:00 pm. Well done! The standard was very high this year.

We were quite tickled over this! Kenny works very hard at keeping our wee yard looking beautiful! Inside were also two movie tickets.

I called our landlords, because incidentally, we were going to lunch with them on Friday at 12 at the Somerset Grocer. She laughed and immediately fessed up to having given us the card, because they had come by and commented on how nice the yard looked, and thought we should have "an award"! Upon looking closer the two movie tickets were out of her coupon book, and said the two tickets were at a discount price of only $26! They are very clever, and fun!!

Shawn and Jeanine's week in New Zealand

Shawn and Jeanine got to talk to the youth in our branch, and brought some lovely things for them regarding the theme "Arise and Shine Forth" We were so proud of them! We love them and the wonderful youth here!

Shawn went deep sea diving in the ocean and got us a crayfish which was delicious!! And we went to the pig farm, so Jeanine could kiss a pig! We got a lot done in a week!

We had such a fun time with Shawn and Jeanine! First thing, we took them on a suprise missionary apartment inspection in Christchurch, so they could see how missionaries live here! They got to meet with some wonderful families from Fiji, and hear about missionaries there and eat heaps of Fijian food! And they got to watch them play rugby!

We went on an airplane ride and flew around Mount Cook and saw a lot of the beautiful island.

Our Primary!

This is our Primary in Ashburton! They are beautiful and wonderful little Saturday's Warriors! We love them each one. They have enormous energy !! We love you good kids!

46 Years together!

Just wanted to show you my sweetheart and husband for 46 years, with his lawnmower in New Zealand. He bought it at the second hand store for $25 and loves it! Thank goodness our yard is quite small! On P day he mows the lawn and washes the car. He has taken good care of me for all these years. It's hard to imagine that so many years have gone by! We feel very blessed to have each other, and love each other more all the time, and have had joy in our journey!! To celebrate our anniversary, on Saturday night we went to McDonalds with the McDougals, and had a fun time with them. On Sunday we had Branch Conference and a big "bring a plate" dinner afterwards, complete with 2 whole pigs! Sunday evening we went to the Westerbaans and had lovely tea with their family. They didn't even know it was our anniversary, and they served Kenny's favorite desert, and played my favorite music! So we felt very celebrated. At conference on Sunday, they said that it had been approved to build a chapel in Ashburton, (but it will take a couple of years) and also that they would be made a ward soon. It was really a great conference with 192 people, and a lovely and amazing day!

Queenstown, NZ

We met George and Cloe Watson (Miriam's parents) down in Queenstown, and went to dinner. They love NZ so much that they come down every year for a couple of months! They are such lovely people and it was so fun to see them.

Donevan and Christine are here!

We are so excited to have our Donevan and Christine here! We had a fun first day - eating fish and chips and going to the Maori experience, and having lunch with our friends, the Stauffers, and their brother Elder Paul Johnson from the Quorum of the Seventy. Father and son doing the hauka together was fun! Today Donevan and Christine spoke in Sacrament meeting and did a wonderful job, talking about keeping our families safe and strong, and that Heavenly Father loves us just like we love our children. Everyone here was thrilled with them, and so were we. They brought CTR pencils and book marks for all the primary children.

Christine brought Kenny the mother lode of Mr Goodbars!!