We have been good this past year, and Santa did find us in Takapuna, even though we had a beach and not a chimney, but we hang our heads knowing we dropped the ball the past few months by not posting anything on our Tanners in Takapuna blog.  The problem now is you’re getting a lot at once because we do want to count our blessings and record some worthwhile events.

As we shift to December…first we have to thank all for your Christmas wishes and especially those who went the extra mile (7,000 miles) to mail us an actual card or letter!  We were stunned to receive dozens of surprises – most through the Church “Pouch” delivery- during the month. They all went up on the kitchen wall for us to stare at and enjoy. We are lucky to be able to receive mail (letters only) for only the cost of a regular U.S. 1st Class postage stamp at the Area Office in New Zealand via the Church’s pouch forwarding service. If you want to send us a letter just address it to Gordon W. Tanner – POUCH, PACIFIC AREA – Office of General Counsel, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150. Do you know, New Zealand charges about $3 to mail a letter one mile away?!  Anyway, thanks so much!

We knew Christmas was going to be different, but due to all the activities, singing, friendship and technology that allowed our family to include us in their events and lives it was not painful!  We so appreciate all the efforts to include us and make us feel loved!  We decorated for Christmas and played Christmas music from Thanksgiving on and that really made a difference.  They do sell fresh trees here on tiny corner lots or front yards and lots of lights and ornaments, but I’ll be darned if I could find one metal hook to hang things on our artificial tree with.  When I got tired of trying to string fraying gold thread through the tiny holes, I resorted to paper clips (that we brought from the US)!

Gordon and one of the other attorneys (Elder Lynn McMurray) were asked to provide the musical number at the Area-wide Christmas devotional that was broadcast throughout the area. They did a wonderful job singing “O Holy Night”.   It was just the right touch for the devotional by the Area Presidency.

Christmas week we had a dinner with friends five nights in a row with good people, good food and fun games! 

We enjoyed some beach walks and “bush” walks nearby with friends during the 4 days of holidays at Christmas time.  We even had a New Year’s Eve get together here with finger foods and a games of Pounce (a bit like Nertz), Sequence and Cover Your Assets all going at once.  We tooted our horns and banged our pans on the stroke of 10pm so we could all get home by 11:15 or so to see the fireworks from Shoalhaven at 12M to be the first in the world to bring in the new year and new decade.  This was helpful since we played Pickleball early the next morning at the “chapel” which is the name for the building we attend on Sundays.

We are honored to be able to serve in this beautiful part of the world at this beautiful and sacred part of the year. We love all we serve and work with. We are excited to be doing meaningful work that blesses the lives of others and help Light the World – one by one – to invite all to come unto our Savior Jesus Christ. May each of you have a blessed and glorious new year ahead. We love you all.

November marked our 6 months here and I’d say most everything is feeling very comfortable at this point.  Yes, even driving on the left-hand side of the road – though I’m probably turning or not turning when I should-  at least I’m not aware of my indiscretions – so I’m comfortable!

No church calling for Gordon yet – although he has 2 widows and a family to minister to – but I was called to serve as Ward Relief Society Compassionate Service leader, which can end up being a very busy calling with lots going on and several widows and elderly people who have a lot of needs.  I’m actually gearing up to practice my hair cutting skills on a senior Englishman who just doesn’t get out.  His wife has memory issues. We’ll see if he invites me back after my skills are revealed.  I just recorded the memories of attending Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in London in 1953 by a senior sister in our ward, and am going to make her a little booklet of personal history essays. Also just before I got home to NZ guess who dropped by to visit Gordon? Rick’s parents – George and Dixie Whitehead from St. George, Utah stopped in before their cruise began. They knew several people in the Area Office – no surprise. It was a treat!

We had a fun Thanksgiving get-together with all the senior missionaries who work at the Area office. It was complete with all the trimmings:  roast chicken, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetable plates, homemade rolls, gravy, even jello.  You can buy turkey here but everyone tell us ”You don’t want to.”  It’s stringy, dry, small and costs a month’s rent.  So we go with chicken.  

Afterwards, we had a pie contest with categories for creativity, beauty, crust, and tastiness.  I planted and decorated a “tree” in a mound of pre-Christmas “snow” on my fresh strawberry pie and — who knew – I took first place in the first two categories. In that fun, joined my “Patagonia famous” daughter Stefanie who a couple days before had won the company dessert contest on her first try! Well done Stefanie. A week later we supported all the senior missionaries who threw a Christmas party for their entire apartment complex – Shoalhaven on December 2. Over 80 adults and kids came and it was a great time had by all. We made and delivered over 85 humanitarian hygiene kits to the Auckland City Mission as part of the event. The residents say that can’t wait for the 4th Annual Christmas party!

October was an “on the road” month for both of us but many of them were different roads.  We left for SLC on September 28th to attend General Conference, Office of the General Counsel training meetings, and the J. Ruben Clark Law Society leadership meetings, and the annual International Law and Religion Symposium in the Provo area during the 2 weeks around General Conference.  Being at Conference, of course, was exhilarating and wonderful- we were able to attend three live sessions while staying at the downtown Marriott.  We helped host the delegation from New Zealand at Conference that included the head Muslim cleric of New Zealand. We really enjoyed getting acquainted.

It was a treat to see many friends gathered from all over the world, not to mention our family that lives there, as well as our family visiting for Conference – Heather and Shannon from Spokane, and my sister Donnette and her husband Joe Wheat, and their daughter Heidi and grandson Kade from California. We also squeezed in 24 hours with our dear friends and former roommates of the House of 12. Fellow OGC missionaries – John and Lisa Adams – were in town from NYC and we got to have lunch downtown with them too.

It was heaps of fun to see Stacia in The Addams Family at the Hale Theater and have dinner with the Tanners and the Hardys.  Sunday afternoon after Conference we had a huge extended family gathering for dinner at Charlene and Lindsay’s.

 I then flew to Spokane on October 6^th with Heather and Shannon to spend 9 days at Whiteheads. I had total fun hanging out there, writing some of my “52 Stories” which was prompted by Heather (and even completed by many of us), helping with meals and projects like the great and early snowfall that split a lot of trees and fractured branches.  We all pitched in for a few hours and worked non-stop to clear the yard of branches and debris from the yard and deck creating a huge pile fifteen feet long and nine feet high.  This surprise snow storm made it Spokane’s snowiest October in 44 years! 

With Autumn’s baptism on the horizon, I flew to Bellingham on Thursday and the gang drove over on Friday with all of us attending the event on Saturday morning.  That was a real break for me since I was already in the States and could just fly from one daughter to another!  That afternoon was the Bastian Birthday Bash including many of Phil’s family and lots more good food including Café Rio and three custom cakes for the kids!  My birthday cake was baked the following week and though not as fancy, maybe the hit of the month being pumpkin with a creamy, rich cream cheese frosting. 

Alia got her tonsils out at age 6, which was hard, but she was a champ!  The ENT had never seen any tonsils so large in a child and confirmed she would sleep much better once they were out and she could breathe freely.  I learned the game “One Night Werewolf” which quickly became everyone’s favorite, and had special dates with each child.  These included bowling (I knocked myself out by rolling 6 strikes out of 10- and I only bowl about once every ten years!), went to the trampoline zone, the Dollar Store and out for ice cream and did fine on the freeways, even driving on what was now the “wrong side” of the road for me!

The day before Halloween I flew to Scott and Stef’s and we enjoyed the Santa Barbara Zoo and trick or treating the next evening before they left for Maui the next morning.  I watched the kids for 5 days and enjoyed the beach, the park, the gorgeous weather and lots of fun games capped by ice cream every night! 

It was a tearful goodbye.  Again.  Their lives change so much between visits but thank goodness for Marco Polo, Face Time and Instagram-I feel like I’m never far behind.  It felt strangely like home to get back to Auckland, be reunited with Gordon and to sleep in “my own bed.”

We thought it would be fun to share some of the things that we have found are different for us here in New Zealand.  One that pops immediately to mind is how well Kiwis treat their dogs.  We are told that cats do live here, but I have only seen one of them.  Dogs, however, are given the royal treatment and are out and about everywhere. Bowls of water are even placed on sidewalks by shop owners outside their doors.  The dogs wear a lot of cute jackets and are treated to obedience and training classes with their new owners upon purchase.  Nothing that new yet.  But what caught my attention was the wall of Wag Dog Food in the refrigerated section of the grocery stores. By all appearances it looks like jumbo rolls of Jimmy Dean sausage. This high-quality dog food boasts extra-high meat content.  I mean, these animals had to have been valiant in their pre-earth life to deserve this kind of treatment here in what I call “the Garden of Eden.”

We have also noticed a certain rugged toughness about this people.  They are a fit, outdoor and particularly adventurous people who learn to take on the ocean waves most any time of year, with or without wet suits. They regularly go barefoot whenever they feel like it.  I was in the grocery store the other day and saw an adult woman enter barefoot and proceed with her shopping.  That was my third spotting of a barefoot shopper.

You rarely see an umbrella (at least up for very long in our infamous wind), and even in the chill of a rain storm, you can see Kiwis walking without a coat and in short pants and sandals-or “jandals” as they like to say.  While we’re outdoors, there are many colors of sweet potato or “kumara”, green, red, and yellow kiwi fruit-the yellow or golden interior being much sweeter and a bit more “dear” (expensive), and zucchini are “courgettes”.

We also have the “dawn chorus” here which is constituted of heaps of birds who begin chirping loud and early. I often ask myself what in the world they are so anxious to communicate when they get so intense… They say when Captain Cook was greeted by this “dawn chorus” the sound was deafening.  But with unwanted predators like possums, rats and stoats, wildlife has dwindled tremendously-especially birds, whose eggs are easy to get at.  When we go “tramping” we often have to spray and brush our shoes (supervised by a paid attendant) so as not to bring in any unwanted bacteria which can damage and kill tree roots- especially the endangered and revered Kauri tree, some of the world’s mightiest trees. They can grow tall and straight which can live for over 2,000 years.

Another thing that takes a while to get used to is remembering that every electrical outlet is independently activated every time you use it.  At 220v, the voltage is twice as powerful as what we use in the US, so if there were a problem, the consequences would be huge.  So, turn that little switch on every time you make toast or plug in your phone and to recharge and turn it off when you’re done.  You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! We are just lucky that both NZ and AUS use the same type I plug. Who knew there were 15 varieties of plugs in the world!

Kiwis love to abbreviate words and names, just like the Aussies.  Breakfast is “brekkie”, barbecue is “barbie”, sandwich is “sammie”, and McDonalds restaurants are “Macca’s”. Swim suits are “togs” and clothes pins are “pegs” – or with the NZ accent “pigs”.  Mark is ‘Mock”, Paul is “Pole”, Heather is “Heetha”, and Jean is “Jane”.  The trail side pit toilets are “long drops” and sweaters are “jumpers”. Who said Kiwi talk is not a foreign language?

Enough of words, what about phrases?  “One sammie short of a picnic” substitutes for “not the sharpest knife in the drawer.” A “muppet” is a complete idiot. “Chuck a sickie” is to take a sick day. Such an “egg” is such a clown, “wee” is very small or early while “knackered” means exhausted. To “cut your lunch” or to “mow a mate’s lawn” is to date his girl. “Heaps” is lots and “bits and bobs” are odds and ends.  To be “chocka” is to be stuffed with food. “Shifting” is moving residences. “Not even” is “No way.” “Taking a tiki tour to the wop wops” is to get lost out in the middle of nowhere. A “ratbag” is a brat. “Yeah/nah” is an indecisive No. “Want to hit up the Coro, bro?”  “Keen!” is “Do you want to go out to the Coromandel with me?”  “Yeah!”  “To reckon” is “to think, feel or guess; to “take a think” is to mull something over…You mix these unfamiliar expressions with accents from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, Samoa, Tonga, China and India all trying to speak the New Zealand version of the “King’s English”  and it sometimes gives one reason to pause…Definitely keeps us on our toes and keeps life interesting!