Our Home Temples

The New Zealand Temple in Hamilton is one of the first places we went, about an hour-and-a-half drive from our flat. 

Beautiful New Zealand Temple, Beautiful New Zealand Sky

Very Small Bob and Jan at the New Zealand Temple

 It’s one of the earliest temples built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—not so surprising when you know the Church was actually in the South Pacific islands years before it was in Utah.

The temple stands on the highest hill in the area, surrounded below by peaceful green pastures dotted with sheep.  

Overlooking the Lovely Green Pastures

Bob and Jan on the New Zealand Temple Grounds

 

Although all the temples have lovely landscaping, we’re lucky to have beautiful flowers in bloom here all through the winter. These pictures were taken in August—the equivalent of February in North America.

Bob represented the church in the land purchase for the Kansas City Temple. We’re not only sentimental about it because of that, but because that’s where Bob proposed. At that time we stood in muddy clay amongst earthmoving equipment! But now construction is well underway and scheduled to be completed next spring.

Kansas City Temple Under Construction

 

This new temple will be open to the public for a few weeks prior to dedication. Although we won’t be back home yet, we extend a heartfelt long-distance invitation to all our family and friends to visit the Kansas City Temple during this open house. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see inside one of these beautiful buildings. We promise you’ll feel a wonderful sense of reverence, purity, and peace there.

To give you our own answers for a few questions people often ask about our temples:

How are temples different from regular churches?

When Jesus walked the earth and organized His church, He ordained His apostles with a mighty authority as recorded in the 16^th chapter of Matthew, verse 19. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. “ This same authority to bind beyond the grave has been brought back again to earth, and is available only in the temples. We were married in a temple so our marriage can endure beyond this life.

Who can go inside the temples?

Members of the Church must first diligently practice a way of life that prepares us to undertake commitments in the temple that we solemnly live by for the rest of our lives. Those who wish to undertake these covenants or sacraments must receive the recommendation of authorized leaders of the Church that we are indeed ready to undertake obligations requiring this disciplined and selfless life forever afterward. Every member of the Church who wishes to, is invited to qualify for these vows. They are not to be undertaken lightly because living up to them is a serious obligation.

What kinds of vows are taken in the temple?

Nothing that would offend anyone we know! Everything in the temple is centered in Jesus Christ and the way of life He taught in the Bible. We undertake commitments such as working hard, caring for the earth, living in complete faithfulness to our spouses, purity of thought, and selfless service.   

BRRRRRR!

We've had the coldest temperatures ever measured here this week, with once-a-lifetime snow in Auckland--which we ourselves didn't see 5 minutes north here in Takapuna. Please follow the link to see an article in yesterday's paper, which included a caption beneath this very photo describing the “white-out” it showed: Snow Article

(Urgent parental appeal to our kids in New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, and Utah: Please be careful you don’t get injured falling off your chairs laughing...) 

Actually cold weather here is pretty difficult because there is no central heating and no insulation in the houses. Windows are single-pane with daylight showing in around the frames. So 36 degrees outside is 36 degrees inside.

Kiwi Cooking

We quickly discovered that cooking is an important part of the culture here down under. For example, the break room at our office has a fully-equipped kitchen. At lunchtime it’s common to see the HR manager sautéing salmon or the ICS manager chopping up a fresh salad. 

Break room kitchen

On the home front, though, the missionary couples all seem to have one major stumbling-block. Looks like an ordinary kitchen stove, right? 

Lying in wait...

Most of the couples have flats with an oven that only has a top element (45 minute recipe still raw after 3 hours) OR a forced air setting (25 minute recipe burnt after 7 minutes—and melts your mascara when you open the door). But we have a very modern oven, so we have BOTH settings and can choose whether we want raw food or burnt food!

We have a favorite television show broadcast out of Australia called “Junior Master Chef”.  These are young kids (REALLY young—as young as 9!) in a cooking competition. We wouldn’t have thought some of them were even old enough to be trusted alone in the kitchen with a knife, but it was all, “I got really worried I was running out of time to dry my gnocchi dough.” And, “I was completely confident about my hand-rolled phyllo for the chocolate ginger custard.” Or, “Jack’s asparagus gruyere soufflé looked brilliant, so I just hoped the judges would like the seasoning I ground in with my veal paste.” One of them had already written a cookbook on lamb!

So it’s been rather dismaying not to even be able to turn out a simple batch of chocolate chip cookies here.

Of course the fish is superbly fresh and there are a lot of varieties we never saw in America. Check out the fish market in downtown Auckland.

Fresh from the sea

Yes, that's the price.

Curious, but we think we may pass.

Red snapper really is red.

May be some kind of sardine; they are very small.

We bought some snapper and ran into a little communication difficulty. Bob asked them to fillet ("fill-LAY") the fish. "Sorry? What?" In Kiwi it's pronounced "FILL-it". However pronounced, Bob cooked it up and it was delicious, firm and very mild. Can't wait until the weather is nice enough again to try grilling some of the fish here.

Meats are different cuts, even if they have the same name as American cuts. All the meats have a very different taste and smell. A colleague here who has a ranch in Idaho tells us it’s because all New Zealand livestock is completely grass fed.

We wonder if that’s what makes the dairy foods here taste so extraordinarily wonderful! Each time we drive to the temple in Hamilton, we stop on the way home in a little town called Pokeno, where there are two side-by-side ice cream shops. One has 20 flavors and the other has 22. 

Bob's favorite orange chocolate chip + a scoop of Dutch chocolate

 

There is a lot of sugar in the foods here. Even the horseradish sauce is sweet! We couldn’t find cereals that didn’t have sugar as the first or second ingredient, so Bob eats oatmeal and Jan eats homemade granola (“muesli” in Kiwi). Even some foods with labels that look identical to American products—Old El Paso enchilada sauce, for example—are really sweet here.

Some of the things we usually cook with are hard to find, stocked in unexpected aisles. We searched for weeks for pearl barley in the rice section, for example. (The rice section here is half-an-aisle long.) Then one night we finally found it: in the meat cooler right near the sausages.  Jello (“jellie”) is right next to the ice cream cones, which are in with the maple syrup…

We haven’t yet seen many foods that were completely unfamiliar, but here is one that was new to us.

About the size of a thick thumb

And very pretty

 

Any guesses? They’re yams! You only thought you’d eaten yams. We scrub them, bake them in their skins, and eat them—skins and all—with butter. They aren’t sweet, but taste like very flavorful potatoes.

We tried passion fruit this weekend. The skin is dark purple, nearly black, and very tough like a pomegranate’s, only thicker. We couldn’t tell which ones were ripe so we asked the attendant at the market, who told us they were all ripe—all their foods were always perfectly ripe! Nothing to do but try one.

Passion fruit: the one that's not kiwifruit or nectarine.

Also like a pomegranates, the fruit inside is all about seeds, with a small amount of highly-flavored flesh around them. Of course they tasted like passion fruit, but a lot more sour than expected…Or maybe ours wasn’t ripe…  

We came across some dark purple carrots once at the veggie ("vegge") market, about the color of very dark beets. We brought one home and were so curious to try it that we forgot to take a picture of it first. Oddly enough, it tasted just like a carrot! We haven’t seen any since that night, so don’t know if they are now out of season or what.

Also new to us is kiwifruit juice, which has become a favorite with Bob, but Jan thinks it looks way too much like something Captain Hook tried to trick Peter Pan into drinking.

Juice or poison?

We also love the Australian Bundaberg sodas. The flavors available are blood orange, apple ale, guava, sarsaparilla, lemon lime & bitters, ginger beer, pink grapefruit, creaming soda (red cream soda) and Jan’s favorite,” peachee”—a dangerously delicious carbonated peach juice.

Peachee: If you ever see it, buy it.

It’s very common for people to have bearing citrus trees in their yards (“gardens”) here. Our neighbor has a mandarin orange tree and has invited us to help ourselves. He also has tangelos and grapefruit on the other side of the house. 

Mandarins right across the driveway. Definitely not like a Kansas City winter.

We’ve heard a lot about manuka honey, a honey made from the pollen of manuka trees, which are the New Zealand variety of tea tree bushes. It is very expensive—about $60 for a small bottle—to get the highest enzyme activity (actually rated by laboratory testing). This would be “hospital grade” honey. It’s not only eaten as a medicine for several conditions, but is actually applied topically to wounds and infections in hospitals here for its healing and antibiotic properties. Similarly, in the Bandaid aisle at the supermarket you won’t find rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide at all. Instead you’ll find tea tree oils for disinfecting. We know for ourselves it works on athletes foot!

One thing we’ve discovered we don’t like at all is the ubiquitous Wheatbix. The picture looks a lot like shredded wheat, doesn’t it? Anyway, it sure fooled us! Turns out they have no flavor at all that we could discern, and as soon as you put milk on, they turn into a slimy sludge. Bob tried to finish up the package by eating them dry like crackers, but finally gave up and tossed them out.

WheatBix: If you ever see it, don't buy it.

Our Easter Trip - 2011

Just two weeks after we arrived in New Zealand, we had a 5-day office holiday over Good Friday, Easter and Anzac Day. (Anzac Day is like Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day combined.) Another senior couple, Jack and Joan, suggested we split petrol costs and visit the northern tip of the island, so off we went to see all the sites along the way!

We headed up the east coast and our first stop on the outbound trip Friday was Piroa Falls, where we took a short downhill hike to the pool.

Bob at Piroa Falls

At Piroa Falls

Next we stopped to see the Waipu Caves, but after slipping in the mud at the entrance and seeing we’d have to hike in knee-deep water, we concluded we weren’t prepared and settled for rambling around the rocks on the hill near the caves.

Jan Among the Rocks Outside Waipu Caves

 

Our last stop that day was Whangarai Falls (pronounced “Fong-ga-RAY’). Bob and Jack hiked down to the pool despite the rain. 

Whangarai Falls

Whangarai Falls Pool in the Rain

 

We spent the night in a disappointing motel in the small town of Paihia, but it had the advantage of being just a few blocks from the Marai. A Marai is a sacred enclosure for Maori gatherings and ceremonies. Non-Maoris are not usually invited inside a Marai so we didn’t expect to actually go in, but there were interesting things to see on the grounds.

Bob and Jan Outside the Marai at Paihia

These carved poles commemorate various chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the British in 1840. Maori warriors traditionally make themselves look fierce and frightening by sticking out their tongues and showing the whites of their eyes. Combined with the tattoos (represented by here by carved designs) , it IS pretty fierce looking!      

Carved Tattoos on the Head Chief

Tongue and Eye Display on the Carvings

Paua (abalone) shells are always used in carved faces to represent the eye display.

Tongue and Eye Displays

Paua Shell Eye

 If you have a chance to see any of the World Cup Rugby games, you’ll see the New Zealand All Blacks (named for their uniform color) perform a pre-game Haka. (Haka is a ceremonial unison chanting dance.) The Haka usually includes the tongue and eye displays. Click to see a a sample Haka here, then back-arrow to our blog: Haka and read a good two-paragraph summary about Haka in the History section of this Wikipedia article: Haka History.

Next we went to the actual Waitangi Treaty Grounds. One of our favorite things at this beautiful historic site was the largest Maori war canoe in the world. It took 50-80 paddlers to drive it. I can’t imagine the dread of seeing something like this heading for your beach!

Maori War Canoe

Beautiful, Intricate Carvings in the War Canoe Tail

But if you REALLY want a measure of how fierce those Maori warriors are, check out what they had to sit on while they were rowing! These slats are only about 3” wide and they’d have to sit on them for all the hours it took to reach the next island.

Coach Seating on the War Canoe

 Here are the rails where the war canoes launch at beautiful Hobsons Beach for ceremonies.

The Launch at Hobsons Beach 

Hobsons Bay

Hobsons Bay

  

There was a Marai open to the public at the Treaty Grounds, so we got to see close up the intricate weavings covering the walls. These are made out of narrow strips of cane—the same thing used to weave a cane-bottom chair. These covered sections of the walls floor to ceiling.

Wall Weaving at the Marai

Wall Weaving at the Marai 

In the afternoon we took a cruise around the breathtaking Bay of Island. It was one of the most gloriously beautiful days in the history of the world! 

Bay of Islands

On the Bay of Islands

We saw several pods of dolphins playing alongside us and took many, many, many photos of the blank surface of the water trying to time it right to catch one of the spectacular jumps, but this, alas, was the best shot.

Barely Visible Dolphin in the Bay of Islands

At the far end of the cruise was the Hole in the Rock, one of the scenes in the film Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The entire formation is under water in some tides and weathers.

Yes, We Really Were There

Hole in the Rock

 

Almost Through...Without Being Dashed by a Rogue Wave

We docked at Russell, the original capital of New Zealand. Our dinner at one of the outdoor restaurants was indifferent, but see the sunset!  After dark we took the ferry back to Paihia and our motel.

Sunset in Russell

At dawn on Sunday morning, we were awakened by a bagpipe. It was a parade of about 30 men and women in uniforms of the various New Zealand armed forces. They were marching very smartly and solemnly behind a single piper. A few families were following them down the street. We didn’t know what it was about but it was far too moving to photograph. Later we learned this was a traditional Anzac Day dawn parade, honoring the horrifying losses of New Zealand and Australian troops at Gallipoli in 1915.

We went to church in the Paihia Branch and then for a Sunday drive in the afternoon. We saw miles and miles of green, rolling hills dotted with dairy cows, sheep, and sweet little white churches with red roofs—scenery so common right outside any town in New Zealand that it didn’t even occur to us to photograph it.

Early Monday we caught our bus tour north. It was cold and rainy so we were very glad we’d taken the Bay of Islands cruise when we did!

The tour cut across the narrow northern part of the island to the west side and we stopped at Ancient Kauri Kingdom. When the first explorers arrived, New Zealand was covered with dense primeval Kauri tree rainforest. Because the wood is unusually durable and very beautiful, and also because people wanted to clear the land for settling, the Kauri forests were almost logged out of existence. Today it is a carefully controlled crop and a highly prized and highly-priced wood.

By far the most impressive thing on display was the Kauri tree staircase. A huge Kaori trunk was found by a farmer in a salt marsh on his land. Estimates are that it had been preserved in the cold salt water for about 2,000 years and this tree was 4,000 years old when it fell. It was so huge that he cut a 10-foot section out of it and then carved a spiral staircase up the inside of the trunk.  And we aren’t talking about a staircase where your shoulders touch the sides, either! It was almost magical inside, polished to a high shine and like being in a spiraling chamber of amber, only with a beautiful grain.

Entrance to the Spiral Staircase Inside the Kauri Tree Trunk

Our bus drove for miles right up the sand of Ninety Mile Beach and stopped for us to enjoy the Tasman Sea, but you can tell by Bob’s picture that it wasn’t much of a day for the beach.

Bob at the Tasman Sea on Ninety Mile Beach 

By the time we reached the famous Giant Dunes our camera was so damp it quit, so we have no photos of Bob surf-boarding down the dunes. The wind was blowing so much he said it took a long time getting the sand out of his teeth afterward, too.

  

Cape Reinga—the northernmost accessible point of the island—is sacred to the Maori because they believe it is the departure point for their spirits to the afterlife. It’s traditional to sing a greeting song to the ancient spirit rulers there, so our Maori driver sang us in. By the time we got there the weather had deteriorated so much that he gave us some cautions about hiking down to the lighthouse:

• If you are wearing glasses, mind they don’t blow off your face.

• If you have small children, mind they don’t blow off the trail down the cliff.

Hearing that, Jan decided she wasn’t sure-footed enough for the hike, but Bob went down to the lighthouse. He said the rain actually hurt, and he felt like one of those TV reporters out in the midst of a hurricane. See how his rain-cape is blowing sideways? This was OUT of the wind! There was enough visibility to see the turbulent convergence of the Tasman and the Pacific, but not enough to see the Three Kings Islands.  

Bob in the Rain at Cape Reinga Lighthouse

On Tuesday we left the motel in Paihia behind and headed for Haruru Falls just on the outskirts of town. 

Bob on the Edge at Haruru Falls

Afterward we crossed to the west coast and started south, stopping at Wiapoua Forest. This is one of the remaining stands of Kauri rainforest. You can see it was cool, damp, and shady under the canopy. All the Kauri forest reserves have suspended wooden walkways because the root systems are very fragile. Treading on the roots can actually kill one of the great trees.

In the Kauri Rainforest at Wiapoua

Elevated Walkways in the Rainforest Reserves--for People and Ewoks

Waipoua is where the largest Kauri tree in the world lives. It even has a name: Tane Mahuta (TAH-nay Mah-HOO-tah), meaning Lord of the Forest. In Maori legend, it was Tane Mahuta who split apart the embrace of his father the sky and his mother the earth so there would be space in between earth and sky for people to live.

Bob and Jan Visiting Tane Mahuta

Part of Tane Mahuta Visible Below the Canopy. (See the Tiny People in the Foreground?)

We traveled well off the beaten path to climb the historic Lookout Tower and got briefly lost trying to find the beaten track again afterward, but the scenery was worth it! Remember how we said the sky is always beautiful?

View from the Lookout Tower

 A wonderful trip and a great introduction to the beautiful scenery in New Zealand.