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 Week 43

CPD (Comm/Publishing Department) Seminar

8 June 2025

We hope you all are enjoying some great summer activities and weather. I love June; having the children home from school, long summer evenings in the yard, family reunions, vacations, and a more relaxed schedule. 

This week we spent the entire week with our department (24 people) up North at the Bay of Islands (about 3 hours away) in a seminar for training and planning. Our department has grown significantly in the last six month. Twelve out of the 24 are new hires and so with such a large Communications and Public Affairs group we needed to get everyone on the same page with processes, systems, assignments, coordination and planning. They are great people and we love being with them and learning from their talents and commitment to bringing the Church out of obscurity in the Pacific. Interesting fact, in the last year almost every single trackable statistic is up in the Pacific: baptisms, sacrament meeting attendance, temple recommends, tithing, and the list goes one.  Some great work being done in the Pacific.


This is some of our team at dinner this week.


Every seminar needs a good break with a healthy game of Simon Says. They were terrible, but fun.


The valiant few who decided to get up and 6:00am and exercise together.


This is our leader Hatu Tiakia. He is the director of Communications and Public Affairs for the Pacific.  Great guy and lots of fun. Sometimes I am amazed at the volume of work that is done by the team. In one week (the week we were with Elder Bednar) the team travelled with Elder Bednar to 4 islands, wrote about 4 articles, posted about 15 different content posts on all the social media channels, produced a music podcast, supported an inter-faith concert in Tahiti, produced "Caring in Need" products, started Light the World Campaign planning, coordinated Giving Machines locations and support, and supported 2 government meetings, and an inter-faith dinner, and the list goes on and on. We are just happy to be a small part of the work.



The brightest rainbow I have ever seen. No tampering with this picture.


Zone activity on Saturday at the Auckland Historical Center. A bit cold but the company was great.


Mom and Dad Shaw would be so proud to see two of their sons making butter the old fashioned way.   Part of the historical experience was making butter. Great team work.

It was a very busy week but it doesn't equate with interesting pictures. I guess you just had to be there.

We are loving life. We are healthy and happy. Everything is great except we miss you, especially the grandchildren. Give them a hug from grandma...and grandpa.

Love Elder and Sister Shaw

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