Matariki arrival

Arrivals: In mid June, about the time of Winter Solstice in NZ, the star cluster Matariki (known by the Greek name Pleiades) makes its appearance or arrival in the night sky just before dawn, a sign to the Maori that it’s time to bid the old year farewell and welcome the arrival of the new. It’s a time to mourn ‘te hunga kua whetūrangitia’ – those who have become stars, and  a time to start letting go of grief and begin afresh.  It's the New Year.

The celebration is also the arrival of a feast like a “New Zealand Thanksgiving” celebrating the recent harvest of plants, seafood and birds stored up for the winter as well as flying of kites, because, according to ancient custom, they flutter close to the stars.

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This week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also celebrated an arrival, the birth of her baby girl.  Congratulations to the PM!  The baby arrived during Matariki!

Another arrival this week: We had a break between semesters and got to make our first "arrival" in NZ’s capital of Wellington for a few days.  

But "arrivals" in and of themselves are just brief.  They get you to a point where you pick up your next adventure...moving to another arrival of sorts.   

Arrival at the Wellington airport (the "home" of many HUGE "Lord of the Ring" creatures) was the beginning of another adventure... 

...the first being a rental car mix-up, and we had to figure out how to cancel a rental.  That's where Nime Burgess and THOTL stepped in.  A friendly Nime behind the counter helped out when we hit a dead end in the process.  She worked her magic, got things going for us, and we found out she was an inactive church member who wanted to talk about her family and her desire to get back to church.  By the time we left she had determined that now was going to be the time to take her little family back to church.  Sometimes mix ups happen so you can meet and talk to great folks like Nime.  We made sure we talked to her coming to and going from Wellington. 

A cargo ferry arriving in the Port at Wellington on the Cook Strait.  

The Cook Strait is notorious for its killer winds and foul weather.  One museum listed something like 160 bad shipwrecks in the past 150 years alone.  It's New Zealand's Chicago...their "Windy City".

Arrival every night at our Copthorne hotel provided this sweet view of the harbour outside our window.

 The streets of downtown Wellington are walker friendly and beautiful.  It was a cold blustery week but still beautiful. This was the area our friends Alecia and Randy Osburn served their mission.

The NZ National Capitol and Parliament buildings.  The Parliament is loving called the BEEHIVE.  Our arrival was too early for parliament to be in session or we might have stopped in for a listen. 

Across from the NZ Capitol is the Old Government Building.  It originally housed all of NZ Government services.  It is one of the world's largest wooden office building and the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere, today it houses the Law Faculty of Victoria University.

The Beehive and NZ Government/Parliament offices

The Wellington Cenotaph, or Wellington Citizen's War Memorial, a statue on the Capitol grounds honoring the military dead of WWI and II. 

Turnbull House and original Library near the Capitol now dwarfed and surrounded by skyscrapers.  

New Zealand Parliamentary Library

Library entrance

Wellington Harbour and Cook Strait

The Trolley.  The City of Wellington is built on very steep hills.  There were many homes high on the hills with garages built on the road below and small gondola's going from the garage up to the home.  This trolley was originally built to take people up to a subdivision above the city center.  Now its also access to some destinations like the star observatory, botanical gardens and the bird enclosure ZEALANDIA.

Whats a good trolley without a light tunnel?

Arrival at the top of the trolley looking back at the harbour.

TePapa Tongarewa (Our Container of Treasures) is the NZ National Museum.  It includes the National Art Gallery, Pacific Cultures & Maori exhibit, Natural History, History of NZ (Treaty between the British and the Maori) as well as an amazing exhibit on WWI and the Anzac's in Gallipoli the Scale of our War by Sir Peter Jackson.

These are pretty stirring figures 2 1/2 times the size of a human being (Vance in the shadows is dwarfed).  They are incredibly real looking, complete with hair follicles, sweat, scars and blood, skin pores...you name it.  We had never seen anything like it!

Even the flies on his corned beef can looked like they would buzz and fly away.

Visitors have filled the cavity of this soldier's exhibit with red paper poppies...

The arrival of these soldiers at Gallipoli was ill-fated as far as many of their mortal lives would go, but the journey they made has deeply impacted a whole nation.  Was it worth it?  This country and the survivors say a resounding "Yes!" 

Globes outside the museum

Matariki and winter here just mean arrival time to plant the primrose and spring flowers already.

We thought of our granddaughters who are fascinated by, but hate "da sharks"...a whole building of them.  These are all "nice sharks".

Expensive but still just replica's of the crown jewels

There was more rust than metal on this anchor but it has been a staple on this working crane ship that is still in operation after nearly 100 years.  If you have any life left in a harbour they can and will still use you, rust and all.

Matariki and Maori legends (there are HEAPS of legends and folklore) told at the Museum of Wellington in Disneyland style by Tinkerbell sized folks.

Told by the YSA's to be sure to eat at the Famous Green Parrot, where heaps of film and music stars have dined.  It was the site of the final celebration dinner for "Lord of the Rings" cast, the Cup winning "All Blacks"  team celebration and scores more.  Nostalgic.

A mural of the famous guys...

From the trolley and star observatory look out point.

Arrival of sunset...lasts for just a moment and then the night keeps coming.  Happened every day and it was beautiful.

AIB Institute Student Council Semester Break training.  Love 'em.

So, we treated them to lunch...

And some bowling.  Elder Downs has cleaned house on the high scores every time...but for most this is their first time bowling.  

Amanda Henry is on the far right.   She is one of our great YSA here in NZ who came from Washington State to study. She arrived in February, graduated, and now departs today. Oh how we’ll miss her but she’s on to her “next arrival” moving to Arizona for an adventure.  We find that, though it seems we arrive and depart at all different times, we’re all better because we spend some our journey together.

Arrival at Red Beach to pick up a few little conch shells and some fresh ocean air.  We managed a "selfie" as well.

Our Beach friends the Stosich's shared with us another mission THOTL:

An amazing Elder from one of the Islands here in Auckland (we wrote about in an earlier blog, with one leg about half the length of his other leg- broke his leg as a little boy, no good medical help on the island, the leg was never set right and never grew with the rest of his body), has recently been going through a process to qualify for surgery on his leg.  He never spends time in the mission office but just “happened” to be there when the qualifying committee called Mary Stosich in the Mission Office and said they HAD TO HAVE not just a head shot but a full body picture of him right then as they were meeting in order to determine if he would qualify for the surgery and funding.  Perfect timing.  Looks like now he will qualify!

Some "arrivals" take a long time, seems like forever even.  Most of our “arrivals”  will be brief.  Arrivals bring you to a new point where you disembark, make a quick collection of your thoughts/things/companions, and then continue on your journey to the next adventure and arrival. It’s not meant that we completely stop. Even death doesn’t stop the journey. 

My brother Larry understood that and had a favorite quote inscribed on his headstone: 

“Be careful never to arrive, always keep coming”. 

Matariki is not an end, it’s a harvest, and a finish of one chapter for now and the beginning of the next chapter in the book of years. Birth and death are the same. So is an airline flight, a get away trip, a career, a mission, each day at work or school, childhood, parenthood, or even life.  Stick with the Lord and He will be there on your journey, your arrivals and departures and everything in between.  

Psalms 121:8

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Greg Olsen web photo

Whether your arrivals and departures are light and joyful, or painful and hard, don't let them stop you...it's the journey that counts.  Keep moving, keep trying, keep smiling and keep on!  

He's with you, we know it!

All our love,

From our journey to yours,

Vance and Louenda

Elder and Sister Downs