Happy New Year, We’re Starting up Again.

First of all, let me clarify that the writer of this particular blog is Elder Stauffer. Occasionally I am given the opportunity, or task, of writing. We hope everyone’s Christmas was wonderful, and that you are all having a great beginning to 2012. This past year has been an awesome experience.  We have experienced the gamut.   2011 has been hard, sad, scary, interesting, happy, spiritual, lovely, loving, inspiring, good and bad, but we wouldn’t want to have missed out on any of it, not even the earthquakes. We have missed being with family and friends, but have received so many blessings and definitely have seen God’s hand in our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

We have experienced our second Christmas season in the southern hemisphere where the weather is supposed to be summer-like. Last year it was very summer-like.  This year, not so much. Our summer has been unseasonably cool and overcast. The Kiwis take a lot of time off for the Christmas break, even the morning news takes a holiday. We thought for sure the daily morning news programs would be back on the air by January 9th, but, no.  The morning news stopped broadcasting before Christmas, and is still on a holiday. They replace the news with re-runs of some British Antique show. Go figure. Amy says they will probably start up again the first of February. Ya gotta love ‘em!

As mentioned in our last blogs, this has been down time at the Institute Building (the I.B. as they like to call it). We have had a bit of time to our selves, and so, when we go on walks, we go a bit further from our flat. This week we walked on the beach and through an old church that is falling down due to the earthquakes.

This wind surfer was having way too much fun!

New Brighton pier at low tide.

A playground and wading pool that normally would be crowded with kids, but, due to cold weather and quakes, has not yet been opened for the year.

Empty pool, no water and no kids, and this is the middle of the summer!

There is a lot of property for sale at the beach.  We are always amazed that ocean front property is not more valuable and does not receive better care. This one, as you can see, is a “Prime, Front Corner Site”. Let’s look over the fence.

Here are some more “Prime Properties” along the beach front road. Keep in mind, the beach is just across the road from these homes.  This is not Miami Beach, but it is beach front property! Interested? Going cheap!

We had a good experience on another morning walk.  We wanted to look at some of the gravestones at an old Anglican Church on Riccarton Road that we pass all the time. While we were there looking at the headstones, the grounds keeper saw us and came over to talk. We got to know him and he was a lovely man. He was able to take us into the church and show us the damage the quakes had caused. This is typical of the type of damage that most of the old churches have received due to the quakes. We did not get pictures of the inside of the Chapel because we did not have a camera with us. It was very sad to see the damage that was there.

These churches have been around for a long time, and are now very much in doubt as to whether or not they will ever be put in use again. As you can see from this picture, the stone façade has fallen down and has been replaced with plywood. The inside damage is worse. There were beautiful stained glass windows that were broken and bricks from the interior walls that had come down, and large cracks were showing.

One of the old headstones.

Peter was so kind to us, and had a few stories to tell about his experiences. We also found out by accident that he is a neighbor to an elderly sister in our ward, the Riccarton Ward. This is a sister that was baptized many years ago by Alan Sumsion from Bountiful, Utah.  Alan was on the High Council with me when I served in the Bountiful Stake. It truly is a small, small world.