New Zealand Wellington Mission Blog MAY & JUNE 2020


New Zealand Wellington Mission Blog May & June 2020
Yes, it has been quite a while since we last posted to our Blog and much has happened over that period of time. We thought that April was busy, and it was, but we have to admit that May and June have been a bit of a blur. Time is flying by.

A Scene from one of our Daily Walks. It is beautiful down here, even in the Winter

Many have asked when we would be doing our next post or wondering if we had come home. Fred even had someone call on our home phone line to see how we are doing now that we were at home. They thought that we would have come home like most of the other senior missionary couples that they knew but Fred let them know that we are still here in New Zealand and are doing great. As we mentioned in our last post, all the Senior Couple Missionaries in our Mission were given the option to go home on 6 APR with all the other repatriated USA and CDN missionaries, or to stay. We chose to stay, and we feel so blessed that we did.

Well, here is our post and we are just at our 6-month mark for being on our mission. Only 1 year left and we want to make every bit of it count.

Some of the sights from one of the hiking trails

First, we should let you know about the COVID-19 situation here in New Zealand. As we mentioned in our April Blog post, New Zealand went into Alert Level 4 Lockdown on 25th MAR 2020 but we were still able to help all the Australian, USA, Canadian, French, Scottish, British and other young missionaries return home to their home countries by early to mid April. Level 4 Lockdown was very restrictive in any movement out of your home (flat or apartment). You could not travel outside the general area in which you lived unless you were an essential services worker.

Another View from our Hiking Path

You could go outside to get exercise or go to the grocers, fuel station, or for medical help. We were fortunate that we were able to set up our office in our Flat. We used our two personal laptop computers, brought home a printer from the office and all the files and supplies that were needed to continue to fulfill our responsibilities. We really enjoyed working from our Flat and we learned a lot through the process. It has been a great joy to work side by side with our best friend 24/7 and we have grown even closer to each other as we have worked and supported one another. And we have grown individually as we have been in this intense service opportunity. The Lord refines us as we go through these trials together.


We were in Level 4 Lockdown from 25th MAR 2020 until 27th APRIL 2020 at which time we went to Level 3 Lockdown. With level 3 we still could not travel out of our general area, but we could go to the beach, the park or attend other functions with other people as long as the size of the group was 10 or less. Social distancing was always a part of the lockdown for levels 4, 3 and 2. New Zealand got their active COVID-19 cases down dramatically and quickly and were very successful with 

virtually all the residents abiding by the lockdown mandates in order to accomplish this. In fact, on 13th MAY, New Zealand moved to Level 2 Lockdown which opened up travel within the country but still required social distancing and groups of less than 100. On Monday 8th JUNE 2020, the New Zealand government announced that the country was moving to Alert Level 1 because we currently had no active cases and there had been no new cases in the previous 17 days. This was a glorious day for all of us here in New Zealand. The government here had hit the COVID-19 issue hard and fast to get it under control and they were able to do that. Under Level one we have no restrictions in the country on a day to day basis. The only thing that remains is that the borders are closed to everyone other than repatriating New Zealand citizens.

We have had several New Zealand citizens come home and some have tested positive for COVID-19 while in their managed isolation and have been moved to a managed Quarantine location until they are free from the virus.


What has this meant for us in the mission? It means that we can go about life as normal for all intents and purposes. It was on the 14th JUNE that we went back to church for an abbreviated 1-hour meeting and we also did the same on 21st JUNE. Since then, Church has been all the normal meetings with the normal schedule. There is no need for social distancing whatsoever any longer. All businesses and facilities are open with no restrictions. Even Sports is back up and running, but only against other New Zealand teams because of the borders being closed to non-New Zealand residents and citizens. We are all encouraged to use hand sanitizers and just use wisdom in doing the things that will keep us healthy.

Now to look at the impact on the Mission. After sending so many missionaries home in March and April, our mission count was down to 45 young missionaries, 9 senior missionary couples, plus the Mission President and his wife. Many areas of the mission had no missionaries at all, which was very sad for the members in those areas.

But near the end of May and all during the month of June, we saw many of the repatriated New Zealand missionaries joining our mission. Those who had come home from other missions because of the COVID-19, and those who had completed their self isolation for two or more weeks, were excited and anxious to resume their missionary work. We had four New Zealand missionaries join us in the mission at the end of May and 74 missionaries join us during the five weeks in June. Each week, we had between 11 and 18 missionaries join us for a total of 74! Most of these missionaries were coming from other missions and were experienced and enthusiastic. Others had been going through the Missionary Training through their On-Line experiences and waiting to go to their missions. They were also a part of the reorganization of the mission. In a normal situation we would have transfers once every 6 weeks and it would be very busy around transfer time, which is when we would have the new missionaries arriving, missionaries who had finished their mission going home, and other transfers within the mission. In June we had that occur every week for 5 weeks. We were definitely blessed from on high and were able to perform our duties beyond our own natural capacity. Plus it was great to have the best companion on the earth to serve with. We are so blessed to have each other in this great endeavour.

With all these repatriated missionaries, we were able to fill up the mission again and the members are so excited to have these wonderful young missionaries joining them at church and visiting them in their homes. People who were investigating the church and had to put everything on hold were excited to be able to study with the missionaries again. We are so happy to have them back! We will not be the same mission as we were as there were many things that we learned and started to implement during the lockdown, such as the use of technology in communicating and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This use of technology will continue to be used in ways that we did not BC (as President Soloai put it, Before Covid-19, or his AD now refers to After Digital).

One of the things that we have really enjoyed over this past couple of months are the walks that we have gone on. We have done more hiking around this beautiful country, also some regular walks around our community and often to the Grocery Store. We try to go for a walk for at least 30 to 60 minutes every day. We probably do that about 70% to 80% of the time though, but it is great as we do it. One of the things that we find is that it is not only good for the physical health, which we do enjoy, but also for the social and emotional health. It gives us a lot of time to talk as we walk and we get to reflect on some of the lessons that we are learning and the experiences that we are having. It allows us to enjoy the beauties of God’s creations as we see His handiwork. It is good to get the blood flowing as we exert some energy as we go on our walks.

It is approximately a 20 minute walk to one of the grocery stores that we shop at and we never buy too much when we walk because it is also a 20 minute walk on the way home and we have to carry the groceries home. One thing that we really enjoy here in New Zealand is all the fresh fruits and vegetables. And they have them all year long, not that they are all grown here, but they are grown close enough by so that we can have them regularly. They do have winter gardens here, but they don’t grow everything in the winter.


We are enjoying some cold and wintry weather here in New Zealand – wintry meaning rainy and cold and damp. Those days feel extra cold as the dampness seem to chill us right through to the bones. Kathy is happy for her Canadian Parka! However, some of our winter days are like nice spring or fall days back in Calgary, especially when the sun shines and the wind is not blowing.


It is also so nice to be back to church and fellow shipping with the Saints. The New Zealanders are a wonderful people and a mixture of many nations. It is fun learning to pronounce all the Maori, Samoan, Tongan and other cultural names. It is actually a very interesting process trying to learn the Polynesian names with their pronunciations of the various combination of letters.

It is also interesting to note that while we were in lockdown, we started to use Technology much more extensively. Fred became the Mission Technology Specialist and we set up ZOOM meetings for very many settings. We were even able to use ZOOM to set up a few family meetings with our posterity and with our siblings.

We will not use technology as much as we did during the lockdown, but we will use it much more than we did before the lockdown. It is interesting to see how necessity is the mother of all inventions, or in this case, helping us to see how we can integrate technology more effectively into our missionary work. The Lord definitely knows what He is doing as he allows us to have different experiences to help us to learn and to grow as we strive to serve Him.
 

Elder & Sister Hurdman and President & Sister Soloai


On the 1st of July we also said goodbye to our Mission President and his wife President and Sister Soloai, as they finished their three-year mission call and flew back to their home in Auckland that day. On that same day we also welcomed our new Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Thomson, into the mission as our new President and his companion. We will definitely miss President and Sister Soloai but we do look forward to serving with President and Sister Thomson.

Prior to President and Sister Thomson arriving they had asked that we help by setting up Mission Zone meetings throughout the mission for them starting Thursday 2nd JULY and ending 12th JULY. They wanted to go throughout the entire mission and have a short meeting in each Zone and then have interviews with every missionary. They wanted to get to know each missionary and have the opportunity to get to know the mission more thoroughly.

Elder & Sister Brown and Sister Hurdman in Hawke's Bay



Sister Hurdman in Hawke's Bay






Even though it was a very busy month, we took some time to go up to Hastings in the Hawke’s Bay zone. The couple that trained us in the office are now serving up there and we went up and visited them for a weekend, June 12th -14th. We had a wonderful time! That was one of the places that Fred served when he was a young missionary. We did see some tender mercies from the Lord in the experiences that we had and the people that we met up in Hastings.

President Ruwhiu, a relative of the First Maori Family Fred met on his first mission in 1973





We do need to pause to say, though, that we have seen many other tender mercies of the Lord and have seen his inspiration in everything that has gone on to help this mission.

Bishop Morley, a member of a family that was reactivated and baptisms in 1974 in Hastings


One experience was when we were preparing for the 74 missionaries to come into our mission. We received a list in excel from our Area Office showing all the missionaries that were coming into our mission so that we could plan and prepare for their arrivals. The spreadsheet had quite a bit of information about each of these missionaries and Fred created a table in the spreadsheet so that we could use the information more effectively. As Fred was working with the spreadsheet, the impression came to him that we should add an additional column of information containing the release date for each of these additional missionaries. Fred went ahead and added that information and the next day, President Soloai asked for a printout of all our new missionaries and when they were to be released. It was so quick and easy for Fred to print that out for him because he had already added that information to the spreadsheet.

Another experience was when Kathy was asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago. Kathy had prepared hard and long so that she could give the message that the Lord would have her give. As Kathy prepared and gave her talk, she felt the inspiration of the Lord throughout the whole process. As Fred listened to the talk, the thought came to him that Kathy was so inspired and that it sounded like a talk that he would hear during a General Conference of the church. Kathy spoke about what the Book of Mormon means to her and she spoke of her many personal experiences along with many of the directions that we have received from living Prophets and Apostles. The spirit was very strong as it bore witness to the truth of what Kathy was sharing with us.

In closing off this Blog, we would be remiss if we did not share with you our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the sacred work that we are doing here in New Zealand. We see the Lord’s hand in our mission and the experiences that we are having. We can see why the Lord has called us to serve this mission at this time and in this place.

We know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and that he has restored His church to the earth in these, the Latter days. We know that the Lord is in control of His church and Kingdom here upon the earth. The Lord has restored His church to the earth with living Prophets and Apostles who receive revelation from Him for leading and guiding His church. We know that he is preparing the earth for His second coming and that it is not far at hand. We know that the Book of Mormon, the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price contain the word of the Lord, the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord and we are so blessed to have the scriptures before us. We are so grateful that we can have a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father and with His Son, our Saviour and that we can have personal revelation for our assignments and responsibilities and callings.

We love the Savior who Sacrificed His all that we might have the opportunity to return to live in the presence of our Heavenly Father and as Eternal Families.

May the Lord Bless you and Protect you in these perilous times and as we each prepare ourselves to meet Him again someday.

Love,

Elder Fred Hurdman
Sister Kathy Hurdman

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