The Pacific Post

 Week 55 Happy Birthday to our Family!! 31 August 2025 Hello everyone. Happy birthday to our family! I was just thinking what a great thing we started 41 years ago. Everyone of them contribute to our love and happiness. I couldn't have imagined 41 years ago the happiness my family would bring me, all 28, almost 30 of us.  To celebrate Elder Shaw and I took a ferry to Auckland to buy "All Black" shirts.:()  We have tickets to a game in a couple of weeks and Elder Shaw really wanted a shirt. We ate dinner at a yummy Indian restaurant. After that we completed our day at "the house of the Lord". (That is what we call it now) I'm so grateful that it is close. Flying Rickshaw These two are our Stake YSA reps. The do a great job of running a very active YSA program in the Papatoetoe Stake. We teach institute on Wednesday night and this semester we are teaching BofM.  We have about 3 or 4 to start class and then as Polynesian time comes around, we have bout 12 to 16...

 Week 54 National Humanitarian Day & Social Media Metrics 24 August 2025 Hello Everyone! We are alive and well. We miss you, especially seeing you get together for reunions and family activities. It's a good/hard feeling all at the same time. It's great to see the people we love together and enjoying each other, but it's sad to miss out, but we wouldn't want it any other way. Here are a few pictures that tell about our week. The picture above and the three below are taken on National Humanitarian Day.   We decided it would be a good idea for our team to honor the day by providing some humanitarian work.   We found an organization that provides food for children in need in Elementary schools.   We packed 360 lunches for the children, boxed them up, and made the delivery to the school.  In light of how much humanitarian work the Church does in the Pacific, we thought we could do just a small part to honor the day. The gentleman on the left if De...

  Week 53 Public Affairs and Camera Training 17 August 2025 This is an FYI for future missionaries, whatever the weather report says for the day, don't believe it.   Always take a rain coat.   Even if the sky is blue and there is no wind and you can feel spring in the air, don't assume you won't get wet.   Auckland weather is a little unique.   Because we are so far south, we follow the path of winds and weather coming from Antarctica.   You may feel like spring is coming as you step out the door to go to the Area office and by the end of the day it is pouring rain, windy, and and a cozy arctic breeze.   That happened more than once this week.   This week could probably be described as full of variety.   Monday's tend to be big meeting days as our department and group plan the week and coordinate all the events.  We will give you a taste of only a few of the activities below. On the right next to L...

 Week 52 Pioneer Day and Prime Ministers 10 August 2025 Much of our week this week was working to arrange hosting for the king of Tonga going to Temple Square, the Prime Minister of Vanuatu meeting with Elder Bednar when he is in the US,  and Elder Meurs (the Pacific Area President) meeting with the new President of New Caledonia.   Our part of this process is the communication between all those involved, drafting letters, invitations, and bios and in the case of New Caledonia we track down who in the country has the best connection to the President Office's.  I believe most members of the Church have no idea the volume of dignitary visits and hosting that goes on all around the world.   For example, our department arranged for many of the ambassadors from Pacific to meet with Elder Meurs so that they can discuss how to get visa approved for missionaries.   A good portion of what we do is connecting people and building relationships that can ...

  Week 51 UNICEF Interfaith Dinner 1 August 2025 Hello everyone! What a great week. This week was a our big UNICEF dinner that we have been planning for a couple of months. 60 people invited. You have no idea everything that should be considered in a seating chart. Then we had Kosher and Halal diets. Interesting! Kelly helping Elder Meurs, Area President,  prepare his presentation for the UNICEF inter-faith dinner.  The Pacific Area works with UNICEF to fund and manage a number of child nutrition programs and Giving Machines here. UNICEF suggested we sponsor a dinner bringing together leaders of different faiths to talk about how we can work together more effectively to help and care for the less advantaged in the Pacific.  We had leaders from the Anglican Church, Catholic Church, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Baha'i, and a few others attend.  The presentations were inspiring. Such great people trying to do great things to help others.  Elder Shaw and I are t...