. . . the people that we meet each day!
OK . . . Yes, that IS the song from Sesame Street . . . playing in our heads!
Just thought we would show you a few of the "people in OUR neighborhood"!
First of all, we'll show you the neighborhood we walk through every day on our way to work!
You can see where Auckland is located on the bottom of the map. Takapuna is a suburb of Auckand, just across the harbor. The red arrow is pointing to just about where we live in the Shoalhaven apartment complex.
To the right, is the view as we walk along the outside breezeway on our way to the door by Anzac Street.
This is the door of the apartment building that we leave from every morning and these are the friends we meet in the lobby - Elder Collins, the Pinson's, and the Holbrook's.
Most days we walk the 12 minutes to the office, but when it rains, we all take the shuttle, driven by our favorite chauffeur, Allan Nonoa!We walk along the street and pass by the Mobil gas station which sells a litre (NZ spelling) of gas for $1.83 NZ dollars - which is about $5.00 US dollars a gallon.
Next we walk by our grocery store called "Countdown". It's quite nice and VERY close. We can take a shortcut out the back of the apartments for fast late night grocery "runs"! . . . AND you are allowed to take the grocery carts (trolleys) back to the apartments if needed - very handy!
Every morning we say "Hello" to Chris, the man who works at the construction site along our route. He is helping to build a 7-story apartment building.
We turn the corner and walk down to our favorite "round-about". New Zealand has HEAPS (NZ word) of "round-abouts". We love them because they always make the drive anywhere, much faster than waiting for stop-lights! (Notice the cute sign!)
We turn left and we are almost at the office which is just a few buildings up on the left!
Below, on the right, is a view of our building from up the street.
The dairy and produce shop across the street are two of our favorite places to visit!
Below, on the right, is a view of our building from up the street.
The dairy and produce shop across the street are two of our favorite places to visit!
The first thing we see before entering the Area Office are the beautiful trees, shrubbery, and flowers on the path to the office main entrance!
Here is June, our wonderful receptionist!
Our office is on the ground floor, which is the main floor of the building. The "first floor" is the next floor up, which is different than it is in the United States.
We turn the corner from June's desk and the lobby; through the double doors you can see in this picture; and we are in "our home away from home".
The first people we meet as we go through the doors are the Henshaws - Self-Reliance Missionaries.
Renee works in Self-Reliance too.
Here is Sam. He is on our Humanitarian "Team"! He works with FARMS, which includes all the church farms and gardening instruction and production.The picture on the right is the Area Manager, Hans - hard at work, as always!
This is Luisa! She is more awesome than we can say! We love to tease her and call her "The Face of the Area Office" because there is a picture of her on the main desk, greeting everyone who comes in the door!
This is our office - the "Hub" of Humanitarian Services in the South Pacific! Today, our team will have a "marathon" meeting on the Diabetes Initiative we are putting together. It's a big deal!
These are our desks . . . and here we are!
We work in the office from 8:00 to 4:30 most days.
Some days we stay later and are the last ones to turn off the lights!
These are pictures of our "break room" and some of the beautiful flowers out along the back patio.
We also hold our monthly Family Home Evenings here with all the Senior Couples who work in the Area Office and members of the Area Presidency.
In our neighborhood, we sometimes have lunch at our favorite places.
Don seems to have found his!
We leave this blog post with our FAVORITE billboard in the neighborhood!
(We just know that there is a Sacrament Meeting "talk" in there somewhere!)
Oh how we miss the neighborhood! Some things have changed, but there is so much that remains the same. Hugs to all in the office - Love the Face of the Area Office. We are preparing to train the Perrys and the Camerons. Keep up the good work.
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