Welcome 2011

There is a sign in downtown Christchurch that I would be proud to wear around my neck…

Winnie was my mother, and yesterday was her birthday.  She was born 89 years ago, and I spent the day thinking about her and the great good she did here on earth.  Her parents were disappointed when she was born.  They had wanted another son to serve a mission in gratitude for the blessings of the gospel.  As I thought about this, I thought about the obscurity and narrowness of our vision at any given point in our lives.  Grandma and Grandpa Amacher could only see a daughter, a girl, who was unlikely to become a missionary.  If they could have seen the whole picture, they could have seen Mom’s great posterity who could and would fulfill those wishes—I’m missionary number 34.

Mom not only became a missionary, but she and my father provided a loving, inspiring, pleasurable, and safe environment where we could grow and learn things of this world and of the world to come.  She was and is the matriarch of our family.  I am grateful for all she did for me in this life, and I have no doubt that she is still helping me and mine.  I just finished a book by Robert L. Millet, ‘Talking With God’.  He wrote of a very sacred and personal experience.  He told of a son who had separated himself from the Church and from the family.  “He became heavily involved with addictive drugs and buried himself in a hellish world that held out little hope for a return to normal living.”  As parents do, the Millets grew more and more concerned when they didn’t hear from him, wondering whether their son was lost, imprisoned, or dead.  One night after many months with no word, their pain and worry became almost too heavy to bear.  “… as Shauna and I knelt in prayer, broken and torn emotionally and physically weak from worry, we wept through our prayers and pleaded long and hard, once again, for the Good Shepherd to lead his wandering sheep home.  We went to bed and slept from sorrow.”

In the night, Brother Millet had a dream.  His father, who had passed away several years before, came to him in his dream and said quite forcefully, “Son, I want you to pull yourself together.  I am going to help you with those children of yours.  Be patient.”

He sat up in bed, woke his wife and they both wept with gratitude.  Days later they received a call from their son.  “I just can’t live like this any more.  Can I come home?”

When he arrived home, he shared with his father, “I know this sounds strange, but one night some time back, I was on the verge of doing something that would definitely have cost me my life when I heard Grandpa Millet’s voice say, ‘Don’t do that! You have been taught better.  Now get up and go home.’

I’m grateful for the influence that my mother had on us when she was here with us, but I am convinced that her influence now can even be greater.  I’m grateful for that, being so many miles away from my children and grandchildren.  I’ll work here, she can watch over and bless there.

This holiday season has kept everyone busy with their families, and some of them have shared their family time with us.  The Bells had us over on New Year’s Day for feasting and fun.  Winnie and David have nine very beautiful, very active grandchildren and their place feels the most like home. 

The twins; Ella and Eva.  They are promised to Jonathan and Jeffrey—it’s all been worked out between the grandparents.

Miriam holds a hedgehog that the kids dug up in the back yard.  Joven (Miriam’s husband) is in the background relaxing, Kobe, Eva, Ella, Rylin, Candace, Miriam, and Emi.

The hedgehog, who is nocturnal, tries to flee… the children in close pursuit.

Some of our young adults have gone to the north island for a YSA conference.  Each stake was required to put on some kind of skit.  They practiced at the institute building a couple of nights this week.

Tui, Stephanie, and Tui—all great girls!

With everyone away, we finished up two weeks of online seminary training.  We are waiting for some “tweaking” in the central office before we can continue.  In working through some of the actual lessons that have been prepared for the students, we are amazed and thrilled with their ability to invite the Spirit.  We can see the value of this program and actually met one of our online students for next year.  He agreed to give it another go—last year he didn’t finish—and we promised to make greater efforts to help him complete the year.  I love the Doctrine and Covenants—it will be a great curriculum.

We were told that we are responsible for the Institute building.  John takes that assignment very seriously.  Although there are people hired to clean, he cleans and organizes and follows people around making sure that they treat the building with respect.  We have both been concerned about the outside of the building.  We think someone is hired to mow the lawn, but they must be enjoying a long vacation.  We have no tools, but John decided that we could weed and make things look better anyway.  It was a hot day, there was nothing but cement to kneel on, and my back gave out after an hour of bending and pulling.  I did the only thing I could do.

John….he just kept going.

Things did look better when we finished.

We also took a day to do the rest of the flat inspections.  I was pleasantly surprised at the efforts of these missionaries.  I love the young missionaries and I’m learning to appreciate what my sons’ lives were as missionaries. 

Elder Kolia, a missionary from Samoa, bore his testimony in church on Sunday.  He told of his own conversion.  He studied to become a Methodist minister and in 2007 had passed his final exams.  He was waiting to finish the process and embarked on a quest to gain a basic understanding of other religions.  Elder Kolia had a question for which he was unable to find the answer.  He invited the missionaries to tell him about the LDS church.  These missionaries asked him to read the Book of Mormon which he started to do.  He was uninspired by the book.  When the missionaries came back, they told him that he should pray before and after he read.  He decided to do as they suggested.  Before reading the next time, he said a prayer, and the results were miraculous.  The very first sentence he read upon completion of his prayer, answered the question he had long wondered about.  The Holy Ghost bore witness that this was his answer,  he knew that the book was true, and that he had found the true church.  “And now I’m not a Methodist minister, but a Mormon missionary”, he said.  It is a great and marvelous thing the way the Holy Ghost and the inspired words of ancient prophets work together to provide powerful, testimony building experiences and to help us find answers to life’s most difficult questions.  Joseph Smith expressed it perfectly when he wrote about his experience with James 1:5: 

“Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine.  It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart.” 

I have felt that myself as I have sought answers and I’m grateful.

We went into Cathedral Square again on New Year’s Day.  We knew that it would be less crowded and we wanted to see more of the heart of Christchurch.  Here’s some of what we saw.

Statue of Queen Victoria at the entrance to Victoria Square.

Statue of Captain Cook also in Victoria Square.

This is a BIG deal—the Rugby World Cup.  The school schedules have all been changed to accommodate participation.

Grand buildings, and those that are not so grand…..

Some earthquake damage, poor Elvis….

and some that you would like to blame on the earthquake but can’t.  This is the main Christmas tree for Christchurch.   I think it is very much like the one in Time Square…

We have only posted beautiful pictures of New Zealand, and lest anyone get the wrong idea….

Lots and lots of graffiti and the remnants of a New Year’s Bash.

One funny story about John.  He has a few major fears; moose (for obvious reasons), Mexicans (all the killings going on in Mexico), Machete’s (Just after we got here, a policeman was attacked by two kids with machetes.  Pictures of his mutilated face came on our Yahoo home page every time we turned on the computer.), and Arab jihadists.  As we walked around the city, we passed three young men speaking Arabic—or so we guessed.  John became agitated.  He looked to his left and saw this van…

and read out loud in his dyslexic way, “Explode more.”  He’s getting rather jumpy in his old age. 

Life is a great gift, full of heartwarming moments.  We’re grateful for everyone of them.