Unique

After a year of writing blogs and in an effort not to bore you poor readers, I am often looking for something new or different…something unique. 

We have a two week semester break and found a free afternoon so we visited an aquarium in Auckland where we found some rather unique (unique to us, but if you live in the ocean or in Antarctica they’ll just be “old-hat”) furry and fin-ny creatures.   We found a face only a mother blowfish could love.

 Vance found it rather unique to be walking inside the tank with sharks swimming on all sides.

 We saw seahorses we didn’t know existed (we may have lived a sheltered life).  From squatty to skinny.   They all looked like they had arthritis…pretty stiff.  Poor guys.

We had never seen a “carpet” or “woobegone” shark before.  They are common to the Pacific and get their name from the patterns on their skin that resemble patterns in a carpet.  They most often hang out on the ocean floor, so the carpet pattern provides a great camouflage as they lie almost hidden on the seabed.  Pretty unique.

 The King penguin.  

These guys are the second biggest penguins and are superb divers - faster than a speeding bullet in the water, a bit slow and waddly on land.

 The largest of all the unique birds called penguins are the emperor penguins (the little penguins common in the NZ oceans are the tiny blue penguins).   Emperor Penguins are native to Antarctica (next to some areas of Chile and Argentina, New Zealand is the closest country to Antarctica). 

These guys can get to be almost 4 feet high, and live in  -76 degrees.  Yikes!  That seems pretty cold and unique.    Each of the penguins at the aquarium had a name and a mate, and if you look closely, there was something different and unique about each one (but you do have to look close).

Little "Nemo" clown fish, no one of them alike either.

Met a charming unique family from India.  Offered to take their picture for them…they wanted me to do it on my camera (?) but I came away with their photograph.  Not sure we understood what each other was saying but they were lovely people.  

Speaking of comprehending other tongues...we’re still having a little trouble with the "gift of tongues" and understanding so many unique languages and so many variations of "English".  Sometimes we have more trouble with Kiwi and Aussie "English" and accents than the French, Spanish or German versions.  But someone put it into perspective for us this week when they stopped us and smiled and said they like our "American accent" ??? Must be just as hard for them to understand our unique "US/Utah drawl" (I wonder what it sounds like?).

We were invited to a ward cultural night.  Many congregations are made up of multiple unique nationalities and cultures.  So what do you do?  You have a cultural night and invite the Tongans to sing and dance, the Samoans to sing and dance, the Maori to sing and dance, the Cook Islanders and Nuians...and anybody else who would like to sing and dance.  It was great.  Supposed to start at 4...2 hours late...but still wonderful.

Another UNIQUE:

Started the evening with a feast cooked above ground, called a Umu, the traditional way the Tongans and Samoans cook their feasts.  The Maori cook theirs below ground and call it a Hangi. 

Lots and lots of TARO (gray big round slices-pretty tasteless we thought but they LOVE it!) and the fish is pretty easy to prepare...just cook it whole and cut it in half. 

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An Umu cooking above ground

The first Sunday of September is FATHERS DAY in NZ.  That makes two of them this year for Vance (and he deserves both of them and more).  Cute Sister Beus and Sister Palu made sure he had cookies to celebrate!

Drove by a woman who has a unique way of “walking her dog”…the dog has a lovely view but doesn’t get much exercise.  

Dinner at Agnes Yangs is one "unique" you would never want to miss.  She is the cook extraordinare!  Her curry dishes take curry to a new realm. We shared it with YSA's Matt (Yang), Danielle, Andrew and Yi-Han.

We discovered a new hidden beach that comes out underneath the big harbor bridge.  Pretty unique perspective, very different view from the one we get as we daily cross the top of the bridge into the city. 

Boat with three sails from under the bridge, pretty unique.

Tree trunk along the trail to the bridge unique...wrapped around itself. 

Nina is from Nuie, she said her Nuian drivers license was beyond "unique".  Just plastic with simple white printing, colorful picture background that is a new colorful picture each time she renews it. 

Another photo of the "unique to NZ" farthest south palm tree in the world the Nikau palm...our favorite.

These little hill-mountains we've shown you before are unique and everywhere...former volcanoes.  We hope they stay "former".

FHE at YSA 2nd ward, lesson about how everyone is unique and worthwhile and we ARE (and should be) our brother's keeper and best mate.  "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

And for FHE we also celebrated National Hot Dog night.  You can't tell from the photo but the hot dogs over here have a covering or skin of  RED, unique and very red.

Otara (a south suburb of Auckland) is full of unique and wonderful people.  These few are the faithful institute YSA in Otara.  They are each one unique and one of a kind. 

And moving around a bit in South Auckland to Manakau, we have the unique and faithful in the Isaiah class at the YSA 1st ward Thursday night Institute.

Our YSA are all unique.  

 We're always looking for the “unique” on our beach walks.  

But as we gathered some shells to share on our granddaughter's facetime we noticed that ALL of the shells are basically UNIQUE!  Didn’t find ONE that looked like the other.  Hmmmm?!  

And the photo of the sun on the water is at least a little different everyday.  

And of all the heaps of ball-chasing dogs, not one is alike.  

So now we won’t be looking so much for differences but for uniqueness.

 We snapped some photos of the sailboats on a sunny day this week in the Auckland harbor to show you they are all unique, no one is alike…not one.

 Two unique old people walking at the beach.

 More unique sailboats

The world keeps getting smaller and more unique.  Three of our new YSA at Scotia Place ward on Sunday ...from Argentina, Taiwan and South Africa and one not in the picture from Nigeria.  They seemed to agree that it was nice to find church to attend so they didn't feel so "lost" in a strange new place.

THOTL this week in general seemed to come from being "lost" or "losing" something.  

What have you "lost" lately? 

 Even though it may hurts, is it maybe also a blessing from His Hand?  

Do you trust that He can help you "find" it?  

Or, with His help will you "find" something even better? 

Is the Lord offering you a new way to change and progress through your loss?

Have a little faith, look for His Hand and try it His perfect and unique way.

Our dear sister-in-law Cindy Green Hess lost her unique and beautiful mom Donna Green this week.   
Nobody in the whole world was, or will ever be quite like amazing Donna.  But nobody else needs to be...they just need to be who they are.

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We love our mission here in New Zealand and working with the people, God’s children.  As we get to know them and people from everywhere (you all included) it never ceases to amaze us each one's uniqueness.  EVERYBODY brings something to this world that is theirs alone, only they can contribute in the way they do.

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He knows and loves each unique one of us. In some way the world needs you! And you need Him!

We love you,

He loves you.

Elder and Sister Downs