Denver to Wellington - July 30 to August 15, 2011

On January 6th, 2011 Ann and I received our mission call from a prophet of the Lord to serve in the New Zealand Wellington Mission assigned to do Family History Records Preservation.  We couldn't be more excited about this calling!  We expected Europe because I had previously served there, but being called to New Zealand and especially to a mission with Family History implications confirms that our
Heavenly Father is in charge and knows each of us personally!

Here we are with opened calling letters from President Thomas S. Monson, the prophet of our church.  In these letters we received our assignment.  The entire family was on the phone as we opened the letters and no one quessed the right calling!

Finally, after seven months of waiting, we're packed and ready to head to New Zealand.  We'd said our Denver goodbyes, proceeded to Salt Lake to say our Utah goodbyes and we were ready to get into the Mission Training Center in Provo.

We arrived at about 10am Monday, August 1st at the MTC in Provo.  There we were taught from Preach My Gospel for a week and then the second week we were taught how to digitise records.  Quite the experience for the two weeks we were there!

One of the traditions at the MTC is to stand in front of the world map and point to the location you've been called to serve in.  Here we are pointing to New Zealand.  Everyone was envious of our assignment!

After two weeks in the MTC, we're ready to head off to New Zealand.  Here we are holding the doorknob hanger that indicates we've departed on our mission.

Saturday morning, August 13th, we were shuttled from Provo to Salt Lake to catch the plane to Los Angeles.  As we approached the United gate in SLC, who do we run into but Brian Stein and Doug Legg from Sports Authority.  What a special treat!

Here are copies of our tickets from Los Angeles to Auckland.  The flight really wasn't too bad.  Although we were in the middle seats, the other person on our row moved so we had all four seats to spread out in.  I watched two movies during the flight which lasted 13 hours and that's all I can remember.  Ann was much the same.

We flew on a Boeing 777 landing in Auckland about 5am in the morning.  We proceeded to Customs then caught a bus from the International Terminal over to the Domestic Terminal for the flight down to Wellington.  It was a snowy morning and all the South Island airports were closed.

When we arrived in Wellington, we were greeted by a snowstorm.  It was the first one seen in Wellington in over 50 years.  Not much stuck to the ground, but it was exciting for the folks who'd never seen snow.

Here we are atop our flat in Wellington.  You can't see it, but the snow is falling at least a little anyway.  We're ready to get going with our assignment.