Beauty is…

Beauty is…the faces of people trying to do the good work of Jesus Christ.  This week we traveled to the very bottom of the south island.  With Brother and Sister Bell (David and Winnie), we drove along the coast and then cut inland to Queenstown.  We met with several of the priesthood leaders, seminary teachers, and some of the seminary students that are in the Dunedin District.

In a tiny town called Omakau, we met Brother Kahukura.  Brother Bell calls him “the prophet of Omakau”.  Brother Kahukura is the seminary teacher for his two granddaughters.  Every morning they read from the scriptures and every evening they study seminary lessons.  This marvelous Maori man was baptized as a young boy and is hoping that these two young women will find the same anchor of faith that he has clung to for so many years.  He is a warm, hospitable, and remarkable man.  His two granddaughters are bright, happy and helpful to their grandparents.  We spent an enjoyable evening in their home.  We had dinner and a short awards ceremony where the girls received their certificates of completion for the year.  It was a special treat to hear each of these girls share their testimonies.

Tyler, Brother Kahukura, Maxine, and Nana.

On our trip we also met with Kim Carpenter who is the Branch President in Queenstown and with Jeff Mitchell the District President in Dunedin.  President Mitchell is a happy, enthusiastic man with a great love for the young people in his district.  The YSA and institute programs in Dunedin are thriving because of him.  Our last stop on Saturday morning was at McDonalds in Invercargill.  Here we had breakfast with three of the seminary students and their teacher. 

Invercargill seminary left to right:  Jared Raivaru, Jessey Kerr, Sister DeAnne Wilson, and Sabrina Morgan.

Sister Wilson, the teacher in Invercargill, was a lecturer of linguistics at university.  Now she teaches the gospel very early in the morning.  Being from Utah, where release time seminary is the order of the day, I can’t help but be impressed by these teachers and students who faithfully attend seminary before school, five days a week.  So many wonderful people putting forth so much effort.  It will be a pleasure to work with all of them for the next year and a half.

Beauty is…green.  I have long known that God has two favorite colors; blue and green.  As we drove through the beautiful rolling hills and sheep country of Southern New Zealand, I was able to see why He loves green so much. 

Green is now one of my favorite colors.

Beauty is…sharing laughs with good friends.  As we drove, and drove, and drove, we had great conversations with David and Winnie Bell.  They are quite indescribable, really.  I have convinced them to take a trip to Utah so that they can meet all of our friends and family.  We shared old family stories with each other and laughed until it hurt.  We found out rapidly that the Bells are rather like the Johnsons;  funny stories soon get whittled down to one word zingers that evoke fits of laughter.  “Where’s your Adam?” was everyone’s favorite.

  

John and David Bell in Ophir—that’s Ophir, New Zealand, not Ophir, Utah.

Winnie peeking out the window of a hut in an old Chinese settlement in Arrowtown.  Arrowtown was an old gold mining town and the Chinese gold-seekers had to live outside of town in these tiny huts.  We thought they were made for hobbits.  Winnie is Chinese and the size of a hobbit so she fit right in.  I can’t say the same thing for me.

I look more like Gandolf.

Beauty is… the majesty of God’s creations.  We got into Queenstown after dark which was late because it doesn’t get dark until after 10:00.  We could see the loveliness of the place, but pictures were difficult to take.  The next morning, it was cloudy and overcast.  The tops of the Remarkables (the only mountain range in the world besides the Rockies which runs truly north and south) was obscured by clouds.  We’ll have to get better pictures when we travel there again.

Queenstown taken from our hotel window.

These pictures do not do it justice.  It is truly a spectacular place.

Beauty is…the wonderful creations of man.  Near Oamaru is a quarry where white limestone is extracted.  Many of the buildings of this city are built using this stone.  They are really quite lovely.

Winnie walking by buildings made from white limestone.

One of the older parts of Oamaru has been restored and turned into a center for artists.  John loved this place. 

The bookbinder in Oamaru.

Beauty is…blue.  God’s other favorite color.  The ocean and the rivers are the most beautiful color.  The rivers are glacial run-off and the water is clear and turquoise.

Bungee jumper—bungee jumping was started in New Zealand.  I know everyone who visits will want to try this.

Beauty is… a good set of lungs and a good challenge.  In Dunedin we needed to stretch before the final leg of our journey home.  We went to Baldwin Street—the steepest street in the world.  The information sheet says that the steepest section is 1 in 2.86 giving an angle of 19.3 degrees from horizontal.  Because I am not a mathematician, that means nothing to me.  But I know it is steep because I walked most of the way up.  Coming down was more difficult than going up and I gave up and took the stairs.  Every year they have a race called “the Baldwin Street Gutbuster”.  The contestants pound downhill and the record is 1 min 56.06 seconds. 

Pictures do not do this street justice.  I am climbing on the left side of the road.  I have had a recurring dream for many years—a nightmare—that I was driving a car up a very steep road and the car fell over backwards.  I think I have been dreaming of this hill and there was no way I was going to let John drive up it.

Beauty is…a chance to do missionary work.  We had 45 minutes to kill before our appointment with President Mitchell in Dunedin.  We decided to spend it in the mall.  Our first stop was at a kiosk where they were selling housewares.  My attention was immediately caught by a mattress topper of memory foam (our bed is too hard and I wake up every morning with a terrible back ache).  As I studied the topper, a girl who worked at the kiosk came over to John and asked, “Could you tell me if your ward is having a service on Christmas Day?”  We all heard her say “ward”,  and knew that she must be a member of the Church.  We told her that since Christmas was on Saturday, there would be no service on Christmas.  She wondered if we had any copies of the DVD ‘Joy to the World’.  David said we would send her one.  We visited with her and found out that she was a lifetime member of the church from England.  She followed her boyfriend and his family over to New Zealand, moved in with him, and became inactive.  She did not want the missionaries to come to her house because she was afraid that she would be excommunicated.  We knew that it had required courage to talk to John in the first place, and we could tell that she still wanted to be a member.  Her boyfriend had pulled away from the church and he did not want her to be involved. 

We asked her about a queen-sized topper and found that one would be delivered in an hour.  We told her we would be back to buy it.  At dinner we talked to the District President about her and he said, “We aren’t interested in kicking people out of this church, we are interested in bringing them in.  We’ll get them back and get them married.”  I’ve already said what a wonderful man he is.  He’s just the person to invite her back.  We had her address and we gave it to him. He already has a plan.

When we went back for the topper, we reassured her that she did not need to worry about being “kicked out” of the church.  She told us how much she had been missing it. 

In writing this, some of the magic is lost, but I know that we were in that spot at exactly the right time.  John was a different kind of missionary—old and approachable and far from scary. Brother Bell said that I even had a bad mattress for a reason and I have to agree with him.  I was so glad we had those recognizable badges.  This morning I mailed her the DVD and a letter. 

Beauty is…New Zealand’s Christmas decorations—NOT!  I have been amazed at the difference between the way Americans and New Zealanders decorate for the holidays.  I said to John, “It’s like they gave our son Jeff a few dollars and asked him to decorate the entire south island.”  Decorations are minimal and seem to be thrown together with very little thought.  Martha Stewart has not made it to New Zealand.  I was commenting about this fact to Winnie and she said that David had hundreds of lights, but he didn’t want to climb on the roof or spend time in the trees, so he just threw them around the garden.  His daughter said that his place was a “blazing beacon of bad taste.”  I love that phrase.

Jeff could have done this,

or this.

Yes, that is a glob of icicles just tossed on the tree.

As we walked this morning, it hit me, we decorate beautiful trees because our trees outside are bare, our bushes are leafless, and our gardens cut down to nubs.  Here, the hydrangea bushes are flowering, the trees are fully leafed out, and Christmas trees get lost in the beauty around.  The stark winters in Utah are a beautiful backdrop for trees and lights.  Here, not so much.  And so we’ve gone rather simple this year.  We keep our drapes open and enjoy the bushes and flowers outside, and inside…

Thanks Connie and Dick, Rob and Mary, and Aunt Leah and Uncle Hap.  Without you, there would be nothing. 

Our flat may be bare, but our hearts are fully decked out with a love of our Savior and deep gratitude for His birth, His life, and His atonement.  We feel so blessed to have testimonies of Him and to have felt His love for us and for our family.  Merry Christmas!!!