Herds

Taught the Old Testament Book of Numbers in class this week. Some find it not the most exciting but we loved it. Moses was pretty amazing to “herd” that many (possibly 2 million +their “moo-ing bleating herds”).  
Took this picture just outside the Hamilton NZ Temple, herds on every side love the surrounding pastures there. 

Photo by Adventure.com
 NZ' Great Barrier Reef Island, the World's first Dark Sanctuary Island
The sands and the stars
And multiple scriptures talk about the seed of Abraham being as numerous as the “stars of heaven“ (Deut. 1:10) or the “sands” of the sea (Isaiah 48:19)…whew!  

We took a look at those "sands" yesterday and that’s a HEAP!!  The flocks and herds around here are in great numbers as well.

 Fascinating.  One of the great mysteries of God for us is how He keeps track of and deals with numbers, His children and His worlds, the math and science of it all, the time and places and where everything fits just right; and still hears and answer individual prayers, and knows us all by heart and name.

Speaking of NUMBERS, even though the NUMBERS look the same, it’s taken us a bit of time to learn the different measurements here.  My burned or underdone cookies are evidence that I’m still figuring out Celsius vs Fahrenheit numbers.  As for the weather, hard to get used to but 35 degrees C is the same hot 95 degrees F at home.   We get thinking we are driving so fast when the speed limit signs top off at 100 km/h (kilometers per hour)! Then we remember it’s really just 62 mph….NUMBERS!

An interesting opportunity at AIB. Another young man who stopped into the Institute when the Christus statue caught his eye. Not a member of our faith, he had many questions.  Vance and talked with him, he was a little guarded at first about himself but very interested in what we believed. He started the conversation with his goal of getting rid of all the cows and dairy farms in New Zealand...a bit interesting. (Numbers note: there are 4.7 million people in NZ, about 11 million cows and roughly 30 million sheep).

NZ web numbers

He said , speaking of NUMBERS, there are too many cows polluting the air and people don’t need dairy, but we would all benefit from hemp farms because “hemp is so versatile, not only for consumption but for its fibers to make rope and clothing, building materials, paper and even body care products,” (We were trusting he meant only industrial hemp and not the recreational drug kind of cannabis). It was an interesting conversation. 

2 NZ Dairy photos, their dairy is off the charts creamy and good here.

 It was an interesting conversation. We have always loved the hillsides filled with happy cows. We agreed with him that we may each have different opinions.

(A THOTL opportunity) After we finished his hemp quest we talked about beliefs. He had a fairly good background of the Bible and seemed quite interested in things we shared. But when we told him about Joseph Smith and the restoration and told him that there were apostles and prophets living on the earth today his eyes got very big! He said “Really! Just like Peter and Moses!? Wow!” Then he wanted to know all about living Apostles and prophets, just like the ones in the ancient church. He was also more than a little interested in other records and was eager to take a Book of Mormon to read another record and witness of Christ. A great opportunity.  His enthusiasm for apostles and prophets and the restoration of the ancient church was refreshing.  Reminded us what a great blessing it really is and the Lord's Hand in the restoration of His gospel. 

 YSA Sunday School class.

An activity at AIB this week with our "herd", played General Conference Jeopardy.  Let it be known that we acknowledge that because cows make a significant contribution to all the pizza and ice cream the YSA'S love so much, we will forever be indebted to cows.   They makes our job easier when it comes to food favorites for these hungry guys.

Our friend from Mongolia continues to come back to our Old Testament class to learn as much as she can about Christianity. She is pretty amazing, a young mother whose little family waits for her back home while she is here doing a pretty intense course in English before heading home in a month. She is hungry to learn and a delight to teach and be around.

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Its always a sweet experience when some of our little YSA “herd” at AIB come in seeking blessings and advice, or just to talk. Some of them face some pretty steep challenges (we hear of some of our young friends back home doing the same) dealing with disappointments and heartache and trials in pretty mature ways. It’s not easy when the world may see only the outside and pass judgement. These strong young people are willing to do hard, right things that maybe only God understands. Bless their hearts for being so diligent and noble.  They inspire us.

Well, back to the other kind of herds, cows...

Even though we have now found a few who would like other things gracing the hills in NZ, we still find the green hills loaded with cows very refreshing.  Until that changes we’ll keep enjoying hill’s full of healthy cows and creamy (noticeably creamy and good) dairy from the happy cows. As we drove through Morrinsville NZ we found another kinds of cow herd everywhere - they have art cows all around the city, like the fiberglass buffaloes we had in Davis County or the fiberglass moose art in Park City.

Pretty cool.  I think my favorite was this roses and lace cow.

 Some of photos are web shots from Morrinsville NZ.

This cow above was HUGE, ten times bigger than the rest.

Look like Rotary really is International.

Sometime we locate one of a former “herd”.   We walked into the Redoubt Chapel Downs ward last Sunday and heard, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it, Coach Downs!” There was Elder Cameron Allart from Farmington Utah! We had a great reunion with him and his companion Elder Rich! Two awesome missionaries in the Hamilton NZ Mission (our “herding” covers 13 stakes in both Auckland and Hamilton missions).

A sign that caught our eyes...This little old village church has served its herd, and was moving to other pastures...it was listed for sale.

We were invited to Sunday Dinner with the amazing and great family the Periere family! 

Larissa makes a great Chicken Curry, a hugely favorite dish here in NZ. 

Snapped this at our Doctor here in NZ (great lady, Doctor Fiona Shepherd) and we stuck it in because we thought it is so fitting of the Periere Family!

They have their “herd” (Keanu, Calvin and Dentzel) well trained to literally jump up and clean up without a word after dinner...pretty impressive!  What a treat to spend the evening with them!

A Maori carving in Middlemore hospital..  Took the picture when we visited one of our YSA. It’s the biggest hospital in “Australasia” it has 800 beds (the big U of U hospital has 425, UCLA has 530, Mayo Clinic Methodist campus has 794)!  Learning about same things as well as the differences in private vs. government health care systems.  Been interesting.  More later. 

web photo
Middlemore Hospital Campus, Auckland NZ

We’ve found NUMBERS don’t always dictate sizes of celebrations.  A small yacht club had a very big fireworks show in the harbor this week.  Looked from here as big as the New Years Eve show.

Visiting the Gannet Colony at Muriwai, a few stragglers (Gannets) who haven't flown to Australia for the winter yet on both rocks.  We will go back for picture of the "flock" (HERD) next summer.

Cove around the corner from the gannet colony on Muriwai

We’re just "two" but we are so grateful that God does deal so beautifully in NUMBERS and HERDS, whether they be in the bazillions + or just one or two.  How He hears and answers prayers and loves the big HERDS as well as the one we may not completely understand in this life, but we know and trust that He does.  Sure makes us grateful because we are both part of the HERD as well as the “one”. 

He lives and He is amazing!

Love,

Vance and Louenda

Elder and Sister Downs