"Crouch-Touch-Pause-Engage" - Words that Kiwis Live & Die By

Update...Pictures Added!!!
"The All Blacks" Win
 the Rugby World Cup 8 to 7 over France

A parade in honor of the "All Blacks" was held in Auckland, Christ Church and Wellington.  On the steps of Wellingtons city hall the "All Blacks" did the Hakka .  Over 100,000 showed up for the 45 minute parade through downtown Wellington!

From the stairwell outside our "Digi-Lab" you could see the parade route.  We wanted to go down and see first hand, but....

I think we've talked about how serious rugby is to the average Kiwi and winning the "World Cup" was huge.  This looks like a pretty good turnout...but just wait!

The throng is starting to get larger.  Would you say 5 to 10 deep?

Would you guess that they are 15 to 20 deep now?

Although you can't see the "All Blacks" very well from this distance, you can see that the street is a total mass of people maybe 30+ deep.  And this was in the middle of a constant drizzle!  Do they love their rugby or what!

Sorry for the poor photo, but rain was flowing down the window at this time and I did as good as I could!  You can see the throng filling in behind the cars and bag pipes on there way to New Zealand Parliament just 2 blocks away at this time of the parade.  They were greeted at Parliament by the Prime Minister and Members of Parliament.

The picture below is not mine, copied off the Wellington Diplomat website.  It shows Parliament behind (the round building called "The Beehive") and the throngs of people awaiting the "All Blacks".

The original post is below this note.  All above is the aftermath of the championship!
Six weeks ago, September 9th, the life of the average Kiwi was put on hold for the Rugby World Cup.

This event is held every four years and is hosted by one of the 20 Federation countries.  This year it's being hosted by New Zealand and the entire country is fixed to their TV'S watching the games.

20 countries are invited and play in four "Pools".  The winners and runner-ups of each pool move on to compete for the World Rugby Title.  It's all boiled down to the Championship game tonight with the New Zealand "All Blacks" facing the team from France.  You wouldn't normally think of France when you think of Rugby (if you think of it at all) but in 2007 they knocked out the "All Blacks" in the quarter finals.  Something the "All Blacks" have already avenged by beating the French earlier in the event since France was in their pool.

Anyway, any blog from New Zealand wouldn't be complete without something on Rugby.  Rugby to a Kiwi is like NFL football to someone in Philly!  Even more so.  We haven't caught the full spirit of the event because we didn't attend any games at the direction of the church Area Presidency.  It's so serious here in New Zealand that the mission president had to send out special instructions during game nights.  Those instructions included - no lesson teaching, no knocking on doors, no participation in the events, etc.

Anyway, here's a very feeble attempt to show you what it's like around here during World Cup Season...

Hollywood has nothing on Wellington.  This sign could be seen from miles (kilometers) away!  Others in town were seen as depicted below:

We kept this score sheet up in the apartment during the entire event...it's awaiting to notch the winner

One of the exciting things is to watch the country fans.  It's great the team loyalty.  It's not "beat you up" loyalty, but friendly jabbing and really fun to watch and listen to.  Here's something from Tonga, France and the US.

 

Fan "Craze" was also visible everywhere you looked.  Here fans waited outside the hotel when the "All Blacks" played here in Wellington.

 

New Zealand "Books for Fiji" - Mormon Helping Hands Project

When we arrived in New Zealand back in August we noted that one of the projects being worked on by the members was called "Books for Fiji".  We didn't think too much of it just wondering what it really was.  Then two weeks later we found out that it was a pretty big to do!  Sister Eileen Mueller from our ward was the local Public Affairs organizer.

While visiting the Fijian "Acting Head of Mission" Mere Tora, Eileen and Pres. Harvey (our Stake President) asked Mere if there was anything the church could do to help Fiji.  Mere immediately responded that the youth of Fiji didn't have very much to read and that if books could be provided they could be placed in rural areas and given to the kids. 

The project grew from there and Eileen organized three Stakes of the church along with community religious and political leaders who supported the efforts.  Ann and I became involved when Eileen asked us to take some photos for the newspapers in and around Wellington.  We were called away from our work at the archives on a number of occasions as well as spending a day (8am to 8pm) helping sort the books.  During these photo shoots we became friends with:

Wellington Mayor - Celia Wade-Brown

Porirua Mayor - Nick Leggett

Wellington City Councillor - Paul Eagle

New Zealand Labor Party Leader - Annette King

Fijian "Acting Head of Mission" - (we'd call her the ambassador) - Mere Tora

Fijian "Second Secretary" (we'd call him the assistant ambassador) - Niraj Mudaliar

It ended up being quite the deal with over 45,000 books being collected, sorted, boxed and sent to Fiji.  The books will arrive late November and the story will conclude with the books being handed out to the children by "Mormon Helping Hands" in rural areas of Fiji.  This event has now been written up on the LDS website at this link:

http://newsroom.lds.org/article/new-zealanders-respond-childrens-needs-fiji

Here's a collection of the photo's we took, some were used in local newspapers...

 Mayor Celia Wade-Brown (red hair) with organizer Eileen Mueller and Fijian Second Secretary Niraj Mudaliar.

 Ann and I with the Celia Wade-Brown and Eileen and Mia (Eileen's daughter)

  

 Niraj, Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett and Eileen

Labor party leader Annette King (she would be similar to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader) and Eileen.  Annette was most gracious!  She's a grandmother and has spend most of her life in the service of New Zealand.  Quite the woman and extremely nice!

 

Ann and I with Annette King

Here are various photos of the books being sorted.

Of course what would and LDS event be without food?

On Wednesday, October 19th, the Fijian "Acting Head of Mission" Mere (pronounced Mary) Tora hosted a reception at the Fijian Consulate for community leaders, local Fijian residents and church leaders to express thanks on behalf of Fiji to the Church for their involvement.

Mere Tora and President Harvey tell all the importance of books in the growing up of children.  Both told stories of their youth and how neither really had access to any books at all until their early teens.

Various photos of the group chatting one with another and Eileen giving a photo review of the project.



New Zealand Navy Comes to Wellington

2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the creation of the New Zealand Navy and as part of the celebration 11 of the 13 ships in the fleet were in Wellington the weekend of September 30th to October 3rd.  You'd describe the navy as defensive, not offensive with so few ships.  Only two of the ships are armed with more than gatlin guns or machine guns.  The city was totally abuze while the fleet was in town.  There was a parade down the main street in town

Below you'll find a review of everything we saw taking place in town during the Navy's visit.

The fleet steams into port.  We were at the Archives digitising records and caught a few photo's from the top of the building in the "Tea Room".

This is the navy's newest addition the HMNZS Wellington - P55.  She's an off-shore patrol boat that was commissioned in 2010.

When the ships came into port, HMNZS Te Mana - F111 fired off salvo.  You can see the ring of smoke over the bow of the ship.  The rugby stadium is in the background.

Here the HMNZS Te Kaha - F77 is aided by two tug boats as she gets ready to dock just behind the national museum.

Here's the Te Kaha docked.  She's classed a frigate and is armed with a 5" deck gun, vertical launch missile system, torpedoes and a close in weapon system for protection.  She also carry's a Seasprite helicopter for submarine duty and rescue.

Here's the HMNZS Te Mana - F111 also classed as a frigate with the same armaments as the Te Kaha above.

This is the HMNZS Canterbury - L421.  She's a naval logistic support vessel and the largest ship in the fleet.

Here's HMNZS Otago - P148.  Like the Wellington, she's an offshore patrol vessel.

These two are the HMNZS Rotoito - P3569 and the HMNZS Taupo P3570.  They are two of the four inshore patrol vessels in the navy.  They generally go off-shore no more than about 20 miles and conduct surveillance and support.

Here are the last two inshore patrol vessels the HMNZS Hawea - P3571 and the HMNZS Pukaki - P3568.

Supporting the above 10 ships you have the HMNZS Endeavour - A11 support vessel.  She provides fuel and stores for the entire navy.

Ten of the eleven ships that came to Wellington can be spotted in this photograph.  Can you see them?

The two frigate class ships the Te Kaha and the Te Mana are both armed with 5" guns as shown here.  These would be similar to the guns found on US destroyers.

A number of the ships are armed with self defense weapons similar to this 20mm gatlin gun.  Pretty cool!

All of the ships are armed with 50cal machine guns similar to this one.

Then the final armorment is the might "Kiwi" bird on the side of each of the smoke stacks in the fleet.

As I mentioned, with the navy in port, they marched down Lampton Quey in full uniform and formation.

Here they are, 600 strong, headed to the city council building.

They all dressed up pretty sharp!

Here are a group of the officers with medals pinned!

One of their marines got into the action.  Isn't he what you'd expect to see?

Wouldn't be quite complete without a band would it?

Hey, that's not a member of the Navy!  That's Ann McVey waving, smiling and I think I saw a wink as a sailor passed by.

You could sure tell that the navy was in town.  They were in all the pubs and cafes across the city.