The MTC in New Zealand

Sister Lloyd with French Speaking Missionaries

While it has been Saturday all day back home, it has been a wonderful Sunday for us here in Auckland.  We attended church at the MTC with the 50 wonderful young missionaries that are here.  They are so enthusiastic and good.  We feel so lucky to get to rub shoulders with them.  They make is feel younger.

After church services, we all went outside to have our pictures taken on a beautiful sunny spring day.  Time is passing rapidly.  We are acclimating to our new time zone and getting in a lot of learning.  We are practicing our Samoan language with the Samoan speaking staff here

Elder and Sister Lloyd in front of the Samoan Flag

New Zealand!

We are in Auckland, New Zealand in the Missionary Training Center with about 50 young missionaries from all over the world preparing to serve missions in the South Pacific area including Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Papau New Guinea, Tahiti, and of course, Samoa.  As it turns out, we are the only senior missionaries here during this cycle so we are being treated quite special.  We have young men and women from France, Canada, The United States, and the South Pacific.  They are a delight!  Some of them are struggling with their English or are studying here in French.  They have been very kind and accepting of us.

We have a teacher all to ourselves.  Her name is Sister Langkilde.  She is of Samoan descent but was raised in New Zealand and has a charming NZ accent.  She also served her mission in Samoa and is bilingual.  She has been patient as we have practiced our Samoan with her.

We hope to take a couple hours to go shopping tomorrow.  We will leave for Samoa a week from tomorrow and be ready for the leap into the unknown.

Sister Langkilde

Just a reminder that we are 20 hours ahead of Pacific Time so while it is 9:00 PM Friday night, it is only 1:00 AM Friday Morning there.  That means when we get up tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM Saturday, it will be 10:30 AM Friday there.  When we flew here, we lost a Wednesday altogether.  We have been so busy and tired that we have had little time to think but miss you all and are praying that all is well with all of our loved ones while we are away.

On your marks, get set . . .

We leave in just 18 days!  What a whirlwind it has been preparing to leave.  We have had the blessing of spending many wonderful days with our family both at our home and at their homes.  We are filling our "Love Reservoir " enough to last for two years (we hope).  We have been packing, sorting, giving things away, throwing things away, repairing, and preparing our house and property.  The net result is that we are busy and  have not had much time to think about how much we are going to miss our family while we are gone.  We found a statement from our former college president, Elder Jeffery R. Holland (now one of the apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) that seems to help it sting just a little less.  He said:
          " . . . tell your wives that if you can leave your recliner and the remote control for a few short months, they can leave the grandchildren. Those little darlings will be just fine, and I promise you will do things for them in the service of the Lord that, worlds without end, you could never do if 
stayed home to hover over them. What greater gift could grandparents give their posterity than to say by deed as well as word, “In this family we serve missions!”  (October 2011 General Conference)

Indeed, this is a fulfillment of our dream of going on a mission when we retired.  What a blessing to get to go to Samoa and help the teachers there get their teaching credentials.  We talked to one of the former couples we are replacing in Sauniatu and they said that they have 3 or 4 teachers who have passed all of the requirements except to pass their English language exam.  Janice will have her work cut out for her to help them over that last hurdle to get their certificates.

We will keep you posted on our progress after we get through the Missionary Training Center in New Zealand and we are settled into our Until then malo soifua!

apartment in Apia, Samoa.