On our walks, we have seen beautiful tall trees with pink foliage. They are Toona Sinensis, known as Chinese Cedar, although they are really Chinese mahogany. They sucker and form large clumps.
The leaves of the Toon Tree are extensively used as a vegetable paste in China. According to traditional Chinese medicine, the leaves are "beneficial for digestion and cough problems, and can help stop bleeding." The wood is hard and reddish and used in furniture making.
We were walking to the Mitre 10 MEGA, Rotorua's answer to Home Depot, which is across the highway from the Saturday Market, so we went that way under cloudy skies.
We weren't tempted by the food vendors. But I did see a steamed pudding for sale, so I brought one home. It came in handy when we had an impromptu Ward Missionary meeting with the Barbers and the Smiths. I am going to have to learn how to make these.
We stopped to talk to Grandma Lolo at her usual table of carved greenstone jewelry. I was admiring the light green adze, but ended up buying the not-so-long kawa-kawa-green earrings. Lolo made me a gift of the adze, which is beautiful.
Elder Rooks ran into Andre, his favorite Mitre 10 MEGA Associate, who always appears when we are looking for something and tells us funny stories. You can see that Elder Rooks loves being in a home improvement store.
Today we were getting bigger pots for the tomato plants, which have outgrown the buckets we had them in, and also something to keep the cockroaches away. All missionaries are issued a bottle of Permethrin and a sprayer bottle at the mission home, but when we told Andre of the few we had seen, he recommended RAID One-Shot, which we found at Pak'N'Save.
On the walk home, I couldn't help admiring this yard, with its beautiful Toon trees, which were suckering in all directions.
In the Stake Center, between Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School. I had to take a photo of Sister K., who is wearing diamond bling today--earrings, necklace, and open-toed shoes. She is accompanied by Sister Linton and Sister Pancheri. I will admit I was wearing two pairs of socks, since springtime in Rotorua is not all that warm.
Elder Rooks and a member of the ward were finally able to finish connecting the parts of Mary's gutter, at long last. We drove to the sister missionaries' house to return the ladder we had borrowed from them.
We spent an afternoon with Eddie Barber, making a visit to a ward member who turned out not to be home. We promised to come back on Saturday to try again.
Elder Rooks and I finished transcribing the 550 headstones we had photographed earlier at the Rotorua Crematorium and Cemetery, so we came back to photograph more. We were able to capture 400 headstones in about 30 minutes, so we walked around parts of the cemetery, including the oldest part in the very back. Graves here are over a century old, and crumbling.
Elder Rooks was interested in the cement which was laid down all that time ago. He mentioned that marble stone, which he calls nature's cement, lasts much longer and is still beautiful.
Rows of soldier's headstones from several wars
Friday evening we attended Leslie's baptism. Not only Sis. Ufagalilo and Sis. Cleverley have been teaching him, but also Sis. Martin and Sis. Nonu who were transferred to other areas in the past few months. They spoke to us via video. Leslie is a strong and curious spirit and is happy to have found a spiritual constant through having Jesus Christ in his life.
Saturday we drove to the Barber's again to visit people. The park on the way to their house was the site of competitive Maori rugby games, and it was hard to get through the cars parked on either side of the road.
Sister Barber and I visited this lovely lady, who is concerned about her children and grandchildren and how they will live when she is no longer here to care about them. We also visited a couple who have had severe health problems, but who still embrace life and live well.
Pictures of the Elders and Sisters doing service at Love Soup, a local soup kitchen
The soup kitchen has relied on their volunteer service and they are happy to do it.
I haven't seen Mr. and Mrs. Pukeko for quite awhile. I think Young Swamp Rooster has taken over the back yard. Here he is, running up and down along the silver ferns.
