Auckland and Hamilton, New Zealand --- October 8th and 9th

We flew to Los Angeles on a Tuesday evening to meet up with Johnny and Brittney, our delightful traveling companions. There were many Samoans in the air terminal because of the recent tsunami in Samoa. Some were on their way to funerals or to help their family members. We boarded Air New Zealand with MANY other people.

Each seat on the plane had its own screen for each individual to choose their own movies, TV, or games. A mother and her 3 children were sitting in front of us. I was shocked and horrified as I noticed this mother watching an R rated movie with EXPLICIT sex scenes in it while her about 10 year old daughter sat next to her and her 8 year old son sat on the other side of her. Then I noticed that the 10 year old girl was watching the very same movie as her mother. There was certainly a strong message there for me.

We left the USA on a Tuesday evening and landed in Auckland on Thursday morning at 7:30 am. You lose a day as you fly to NZ and then you catch the day back when you fly home.

We landed in the Auckland airport after a 13 1/2 hour plane ride. There are very strict rules letting you visit New Zealand and we witnessed this first hand. As we waited for our bags a food and drug sniffing Beagle dog was going around the terminal. The security officers make each person place all their bags on the ground and the dog then sniffs them. Unfortunately, we had brought beef jerky in our carry on. Because the jerky didn't designate the origin of the beef the officer gave the package to the dog and away the dog walked.....It was very cute.....glad it wasn't anything worse, right? We then had to have each of our bags x-rayed and I didn't know I couldn't bring a bottle of soda I bought in Los Angeles to the country....so the next security officer let me know I was a bad traveler too.

We drove to the Sky Tower, which is the highest tower in the southern hemisphere.....even taller than the Eiffel Tower. The tower gives you a 360 degree view of the city. It is amazing. We also drove to visit a lady that John had taught named Terri. She was happy to see John and doing very well. She told John she was going to start going back to church with her sons and her sister and her children. We stopped at the local Pak and Save (grocery store) and ran into two sister missionaries. We always loved seeing the missionaries in New Zealand. We ordered pizza hut pizza for lunch.....as we ate, Johnny remembered how the pepperoni tastes like a very strong smoked bacon.....we had Dominos pizza next time, minus the pepperoni.

Over looking Auckland from the Sky Tower

The city below and behind us

We then drove to Hamilton to spend the night. We drove to the temple first and went to the visitor's center. The temple site is such a beautiful place. It sits on a hill overlooking pure green valleys and hills. We wanted to go to the last temple session that night, but we were all so tired, instead we found a motel and decided we would go to the first session in the morning. What tender mercies we received as Johnny walked into the men's dressing room and began to realize he knew many of the people in the temple. We found out that 230 people (75 youth) from the Christchurch stake were at the temple for the entire week. They save their money, use their vacation time and then become the temple patrons and also the temple officiators in every area of the temple. What AMAZING members with such strength and faith. I want to be like them and I am going to try harder.

Johnny and Brittney in front of the temple

The beautiful temple

Johnny and Mom

We left Hamilton after the temple and began the drive to Rotorua.