April 16th

Hi everyone: I will attempt to create a new email and add two pictures. I wrote before and then experimented trying to send too many pictures and it kicked me out. So you get a short messge instead of a book---you can be thankful. We are fine. Still adjusting to our new lives. We find the house very well equiped with everything that we might need. We are filling in with a few items. Bought a new heavy fry pan, oriental throw rugs for the entry and bathroom, new throw rug for the itchen, new door mat for the porch, new toaster to replace an antique one, new tongs for cooking, a pyrex for the microwave, summer fan on clearance for next summer here and a small coil heater. We will probbaly get a dehumidifier. Saw one at the grocery store for $150.00. Will take up to 10 liters of water out a day. Some days here with rain are very wet, in and out. My hair shriveled up great. Things just feel wet. We do't have any mildew but maybe the previous tenants did a good job of mildew extraction. Notice that our neihbors have a real problem on the outside of their blinds. We have stayed close to home the past two weekends due to conference and weather. We hit the mall in k"Albany which was good and found a new outlet mall near our home that was interesting but expensive except did find some cheaper cosmetics. One of the missionarys gave me her extra eyebrow pencil so now Ihave eyebrows to go with my new hair. Dild I mention that my dye job back fired and I am now blackheaded. All the natives here really like it and others say that they think its good too. I figure there are lots of very nice people here. I will have it done in a few weeks to see if we can lighten it without it breaking off. Lloyds, Barnes friends came by the office yesterday and the day before. It was good to see them. They know so many people here. They had a difficult time even leaving our floor. We invited them to stay with us==they almost did but went down south again to friends. They will likely stay with us prior to their departure. They both looked good. Chuck a little tired but doing ok. It rained the day they came here like I have not seen--probable never. The skies were so dark all day seemed like twilight and torrents of rain. Didn't seem to faze Lloyds. Guess that they are used to it. I am sending some pictues to you. If anyone can tell me a simple way to send more than two at a time let me know how. I am still learning new things. Our job here in the office is gettting more and more comfortable. We take reports and put together graphs for the area presidency monthly. Woody has to reconcile all of the expenses from the office through the accounting department. We order and ship computers etc. to the centers as they need them. Have to be formatted etc. before they leave here. So we get stacked up occasionally. Have six ready to go soon to Samoa. I am getting ready to update all the hours of operation for our 54 centers on the church web site. Just got administrative powers. Now I am dangerous. We are also taking our extra time to work on New Family Search on our own records. I hope to get all of mine fixed before the rest of the world gets to them. There are dso many duplicates etc. We have to really know the program so we can train and teach the islanders so this is a good way for us to learn. We are helping our counterparts with a conference they are doing for all of their area advisors in New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Figi. We will see how and what they do things and get ready to do one later for our area advisors in the islands. Our boss is also over the call centers here in NZ but has a wonderful lady as the coordinator for that. They are having a conference at the church college in May for all the people doing phones and e=mail answering here in this area. We won't have anything to do with that. After the big buildup we finally got an announcement that the new area to be called 'The Pacific" area is to be headquartered here. We had a three way vidio conference with SLC (Bishop Burton??, Quentin Cook and others , The Area Presidency in Sydney and ours here. We were in the meeting room downstairs. It was done very formally. Basically everyone was told to not panic and keep on doing what they are doing. They have had a hiring freeze here and in Australia so hope to have not many layoffs. Employees are nervous of course. The Auckland mission may have to relocate out of down stairs to make room for more area people to come here. They will name the new Area President later. Our president is planning on leaving about the end of July. It likely will have very impact on us other that seeing new people in the halls. Prices are wild here but probable in Sydney also. Food is bad. Don't know how the residents feed their families or clothe them for that matter. We did find an outlet for shoes that was not too bad. I am going to include pictures of me on Red Beach (Pacific Ocean) which is not far from where we go to church. This is one of Dad's favorite beaches. We were looking for shells on Easter weekend. The other picture is of Raglan Beach which overlooks the Tasman Sea. That is the 'ditch' between NZ and Australia. Taken from the bloff above. The sand is black and the surf can be dangerous here. Lots of surfers in wet suits. Would love to hear from each of you. Keep us posted on what is happening. I do have Skype turned on most of the time that I am at work. We are 6 hours behind difference the day ahead of you from Utah, 5 from Washington and Arizona, 7 hours from Kansas and Illinois. I also have symm time which lets me know what time and day it is for all our different islands and you guys. It is very helpful. Love you, Mom and Dad, Andrea and Woody, Grandma and Grandpa Wootton