Journal Prompt #9

Have you ever met a prophet or general authority?

If so tell about your experience.

One day Jared and I were sitting in Atlantis Burger with his Mum and Dad when Elder Richard Hinkley walked in to the restaurant and sat down to eat at a table about 5 feet from where we were sitting. I do have to admitt to being a little "star" struck. I really wanted to go and talk to him, but kept reasoning that the poor guy was there on his own, on his lunch break, and probably would enjoy a little piece and quiet and time to sit to a meal on his own. So I just sat there like a total idiot and stared at him. I think I probably made him feel more uncomfortable with my staring than he would have been if I had just gone up to him and said hello, because as he left the restaurant he smiled at me and gave me a small wave as he walked out the door.

Richard G. Hinckley

Sustained to the First Quorum of the Seventy April 2, 2005, at age 63. Former temple sealer, president of Utah Salt Lake City Mission, stake president and counselor, high councilor, bishop, and elder's quorum president. Received bachelor's degree in economics from University of Utah and MBA from Stanford University. Formerly executive and owner in private business ventures. Served in U.S. Army Reserve. Born May 2, 1941, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Gordon B. and Marjorie Pay Hinckley. Wife, Jane Freed Hinckley; parents of four children. Information courtesy of LDS Church News.

Journal Prompt #10

Tell a funny story that has happend to you.

I think I must have been around 7 years old when this happened to me. I know I was at Waterlea Primary in Mangere Bridge, and it was before we moved to Mototapu Island, so my powers of deduction tell me I must have been around 7 years old.

There was one piece of playground equipment at school that ALL the girls wanted to play on, but it was first come, first play if you weren't out of class early you didn't get to play on the bars. I was going through a stage where I always wanted to wear a skirt to school, but flipping around on the bars in a skirt wasn't exactly lady-like. My friend Jenny and I had come up with a plan to be able to get to the playground first and insure our place to play, while still being able to wear a skirt to school. We would keep an eye on the clock in class and right before the bell would ring for play time we would slip a pair of shorts on under our skirts and take our skirt off and leave it in our desk. We had been doing it for weeks and had always managed to get a space on the bars. This one particular week I had been wearing shorts under my skirt everyday so as not to get into trouble from the teacher when I struggled into my pair of shorts. It was much easier just to slip off my skirt and run out the door! Unfortunately for me one day I had been running late for school and didn't have time to put shorts on under my skirt. I was so anxious to get out and play that I didn't remember not having shorts under my skirt and hurried and took my skirt off only to be standing in my underwear in the middle of class!! Totally embarrassing. I don't think I've ever moved as fast as I did trying to get my skirt back on. I think that was when I decided that wearing a skirt to school was highly over-rated and that I would be better off just wearing the shorts!

Journal Prompt #3

What was your neighbourhood like growing up?

We moved around quite a bit while I was growing up. I'm not really sure why. I do remember Dad "fixing" the houses up before we moved on, so maybe that was his thing. He liked fixer-uppers. We lived in some REALLY cool neighbourhoods for kids to grow up in though.

2/50 Muir Avenue, Mangere Bridge, Auckland

This is the first place we lived in that I have memories of. This is the place that Mum and Dad and I moved in to when I was just under 1 year old. It is a little two (or maybe three) bedroom unit. It had a long driveway with a single family home at the front and another unit attached to ours at the back. The first neighbours I remember being in the front house were a couple. He was REALLY tall and thin and she was short and incredibly over weight. I remember Stephen and I called them fatty and skinny and we thought it was hilarious when they got married, to us they were an odd couple. Then there was a lady Lillian and her son Damian who moved in. Damian was a few years older than me and I remember thinking he was SO COOL!! He was allowed to be home by himself after school and rode a bike with an awesome seat. He even let off firecrackers ... which caught a pile of newspapers in the garage on fire! I'm pretty sure he thought we were a nuisance. I witnessed some crazy things living in this house, things that made my dad a hero in my young eyes. Damian started an oil fire in the kitchen and my dad rushed in and put it out and saved their house from burning down, I'm pretty sure that Dad got some nasty burns too. Then another time I was over at another friends house, I think her name was Nicole, she was a lot older than me too, she kicked a glass door shut, missing the door frame and put her foot through the glass and then her wrist when she tried to steady herself, Dad came rushing over and saved the day on that front too.

Mum tells a story about me when we lived in this house that sometimes really disgusts me. She was out weeding the vege garden when I was about 18 months old. I was tottering around playing in the dirt. Mum said that at one point she stopped what she was doing to check on me and saw something hanging out of my mouth. She came over to where I was playing and reached out and pulled, and pulled, and pulled the "thing" out of my mouth to find that it was an enormous WORM! Disgusting!!

I remember loving Saturday mornings when I was a kid living in this house. We would start at the top of the driveway and ride our bikes down the hill all the while giggling and screaming as we went. It used to drive our back neighbours NUTTY. Mr. Hayes would almost always come out and yell at us to be quiet, he was kinda weird and gave me the Hebe jeebies. I did ask mum one time what time it was that we would go out there and I'm pretty sure she told me it was before 8am. LOL! It's no wonder Mr. Hayes went nutso at us.

We also had a really good friend who lived up the street from us. Our families were super close, so close in fact that we called her mum and dad Uncle Pete and Auntie Perina. I'm still in contact with Katie to this day. Her family was an important part of our family growing up. We loved to go to Katie's house and play in their pool, or with their dog. Almost every Summer I would go away camping with their family, in fact when they moved away to Devonport I memorised their phone number and address in case of an emergency and still know it to this day.

On one side of the driveway was an enormous hedge. We used to pick off the big orange flowers and suck the honey suckle out of them. It's also the hedge where I lost Mum's wedding ring and spent hours looking for it until it was found.

I made some really great friends living in this house and my first years at school were full of fun times with these great kids. I am still in contact with MANY of them. It's so great to have life long friends. We used to go and play and play at the skateboard park - an open park with concrete sidewalk that went down into a skateboard bowl. It was a great time. Then there was Mangere Mountain that we would go and slide down inside cardboard boxes. Then there was "the pond" and Ambury farm where we weren't allowed to play, but boy was the pull great. I never did go, though it was certainly difficult to be obedient.

Mototapu Island

When I was about 8 years old my dad got a job working as the caretaker of a camp on Mototapu Island which is just off the coast of Auckland City. The camp was open for school groups to come to. There were all sorts of amazing activities they would do; Confidence Course, Repelling, Sailing, Swimming, and so on. It used to be an army camp so there were bunk houses for the kids to sleep in and a mess hall as well, which was turned into a dance hall on the last night of the students stay. Our little house was just off the beach and I remember being able to listen to the ocean as I fell asleep at night. It is an amazing and really soothing sound to me.

There are a few things that really stand out about living here. First, there weren't any stores on the island. Mum would haul my brother, sister and I on a ferry to town do her grocery shopping and then haul us and all the groceries back to the island on the ferry. As a mother now, I honestly don't have a clue how she ever managed to do it!! It must have been a CRAZY experience for her.

There wasn't any main's power on the island either, everything was run by generator power. I remember a couple of times the generator running out of fuel or breaking down and not having any lights or power to be able to do anything. Mum would light candles and we would have a flashlight each. I remember coming home from somewhere one night and it being really dark, and there was a possum in the house. It had pooped all over everything and was hiding in the bathroom cupboard under the sink. I can remember screaming and running around while dad chased it out of the house with a broom stick.

Going to school on the Mototapu Island was pretty cool too. I don't remember much about it except that it was a one room school house with kids from New Entrants all the way up to High School. I remember the teacher was a guy. I also remember that we had an army jeep or an army truck as our school bus. Mum or Dad would drive us up to the top of the road from the camp where we waited for the "bus" to pick us up. It was never on time which always gave Stephen and I ample opportunity to get into trouble. Because it Mototapu Island was used predominantly as an army base, there were plenty of training bunkers and the like around the island. There were a couple right where we waited for the bus. Stephen and I would always climb on and around in the while we waited. A couple of times we even hid inside and waited for the truck to go by so we could walk back down the road and skip out on school. I specifically remember one time we were waiting for the bus and Stephen was tormenting the bulls in the paddock across the dirt road from where we were supposed to be waiting. He had a stick and was running along the length of the fence line, clattering the stick against the fence posts. The bulls were getting really annoyed with the noise and started charging the fence. Steve thought he was pretty well protected by the fence so acted the tough guy and kept tormenting the bulls who were running up the fence line with him, until he and I, AND the bulls realised that the gate was open! We both ran towards the bunkers as fast as our little legs could carry us, followed in close pursuit by the bulls. We were in the for so long! The bus didn't even stop to look for us, the driver saw that we weren't where we were supposed to be and just kept on driving. We had to wait for the farmer to come and put the bulls back into the paddock before we could walk the long and embarrassing trek home to explain to Mum what we had done and that we weren't at school again!

I remember Dad going out fishing really early in the morning and coming back with piper and flounder which mum would sometimes cook up for breakfast. Mum also used to make the most incredible homemade Ginger Beer from scratch!! It was divine! I can still remember the smell and the taste. I have never tasted anything like it since then.

Victory Road, Laingholm, West Auckland

This was another amazing place to live. Laingholm is a quiet little community nestled in a little valley amongst beautiful native bush. As a kid it was so much fun. We had really great friends and an incredible yard to play in. Summers were the best time because all the neighbourhood kids would come around to our place and we would play Go Home Stay Home or Spotlight until really late. Man it was fun. Dad also hung a rope swing from this huge tree that swung out and up really high. We had an aviary with 15 zebra finches, 2 quails, and a dove. In the middle of the aviary was also a fish pond that had 24 gold fish in it. Outside in the yard were Pat and Marge our two bantam hens ... who were visited by a gigolo rooster ... and ended up producing little chicks for a total of FIFTY-FOUR chickens at one time, and our dog Barron and two cats. We were a five minute walk from the beach and the rock pools and mangroves where my friend Tania and I would spend all summer kayaking and exploring. I do remember one time Tania and I kayaked to the end of the mangrove trail and one of our or's broke and we ended up walking through the sludge pulling the boat behind us. We didn't think it was so much fun after that. We did spend a lot of time playing in the bush and going for bush walks, in fact we walked up the bush trail in the warmer months to get to school. I had another really close friend Sarah (Ed) King. She was always more quiet and subdued than everyone else in the neighbourhood, but I loved hanging out with her at her place. I would often go to her place after school. I remember one time she was locked out of her house and was so tiny then that I managed to squeeze my way through the cat door to unlock the door from the inside. Her mum was a teacher at the local primary school. I remember being a little intimidated by Sarah and her intellectualism. Her place was always so calming and welcoming. I remember Sarah's brother always bugging us and teasing us about silly things the way big brothers do.

So these were my three favourite places to live as a kid, it was great being a kid and playing the way we did. I really wish my kids could have the same opportunity, but I think lifestyles have changed too much and kids aren't the same as they used to be ... at least not here in Utah. Life is so much more fast paced now, and kids aren't kids for as long. SAD!! I think growing up I lived int he best neighbourhoods, and I feel so lucky to have had the experiences I did.

Journal Prompt #2

What were your talents growing up?

What are they now?

I'm not really certain that I had any specific talents growing up. I think I was pretty well rounded as far as talents go. I know for certain that I was good at talking, my mum always told me that I could talk the handle off an iron pot ... pretty mean feat if you really think about it! AND I've been told I was pretty dramatic, but didn't really do anything with that. I know that I had a natural inclination towards babies and children. I have had jobs as a nanny, in a daycare center and kindergarten, and as a primary/elementary teacher. I guess the two talents that sticks out the most to me though are teaching and photography.

As long as I can remember I have loved taking pictures. As a teenager I took photo's of my sister Samantha for her modelling portfolio. I have rolls and rolls of film sitting in a box and Mum and Phil's place that have never been developed, it was always SO expensive. Being a part of the digital age in photography is incredible, I love the ability to see my images right away, to be able to share them with others, and print as many copies of those images as I want, whenever I want. It is incredible. I love being a part of portrait photography and I think I have a pretty good eye for it most of the time. I love working with people, especially kids, and making people smile and being able to capture that moment in time, I think I do that well. I have a pretty good eye for capturing people at their best, for finding the most flattering angle to take a photo and composing a lovely image. I have a fair amount of patience, which is a definite requirement when it comes to working with kids and babies especially. Sometimes when I see someone or a situation I see it in my mind as a photograph. This can be a good thing and a bad thing; Bad because if what I see in my mind is REALLY amazing and I can't recreate it as I see it I get incredibly frustrated, Good because when it works out the way I see it I LOVE my work and get a real sense of achievement from it. Better still if the subject loves the image it makes it all the more worthwhile.

I loved my job as a teacher. I had the best year of my teaching career here in the US. I think teaching kids is definitely one of my talents. I relate well to them and know how to get down on their level ... maybe it's because I'm a HUGE kid at heart. Who knows!? I love it though. I really love all aspects of teaching; The planning and researching of topics, Assessing the kids and seeing their growth and potential, Celebrating the achievements with them and commiserating with them over their failures, Lifting their spirits and making them feel welcome and a part of in my classroom family. I am in contact with students who have told me that "Hands Down" I was their favourite teacher and the one who inspired them the most. THAT is an amazing feeling!! To hear words like that is something that would lift the spirits of any teacher and make them strive to be better.

Anyway, those are the two talents that stand out most in my mind as I write this. I'm certain that there are other things in my life that I am good at that could develop into talents if I practiced hard enough, who knows, maybe as my kids get older and I have a little more time I'll find something else that I am good at.

Journal Prompt #1

Where were you born?

What was it like at that time?

I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in February of 1975 to Angela and Peter Olding. My Mum went into labour with me while she was doing her secretarial duties, taking the minutes, at a meeting at the Central Soccer Club where my Dida was the club president. Mum's initial thoughts were that she had eaten something that had disagreed with her, but nope, it was just me! She was in active labor from 8pm until 5am the next morning. I was born at The Mater Hospital, which at the time was run by Nuns, I weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 2oz, I was born at around 5am. I was born on my due date, which Mum think is quite significant because I've hated being late ever since! When I was born I had LOTS of black hair, when the nuns at the hospital brought me to my Mum to be nursed they had tied ribbons in my hair. I'm pretty certain Emma got her dark hair from me. My mum delivered me practically drug-free, just a little laughing gas was all that was offered to her. This alone makes my mum a hero to me, not only was I a BIG baby, but I was a forceps delivery to boot. I was named Evette Suzanne. The spelling of my name was a compromise; Mum wanted Eve and Dad wanted Yvette, and I got Evette! Fairly good compromise I think. I've only ever had one issue with it which was my first day of school when a girl named Yvette told me repeatedly that I spelt my name wrong, to which I responded by punching her in the face. I was given my middle name Suzanne after my cousin who was a twin, she passed away not long after she was born. I feel honoured to share her name. I went home from the hospital to my Dida's house where we lived him and my Uncle Ivan for about 8-9 months. My Dad, at that time, was a boat builder and after having the use of a boat he had built for only a single summer, he and Mum decided to use the boat as a down-payment on a brand new flat in Mangere Bridge. My Mum stopped working doing admin work in New Market, Auckland for The Motor Corporation after I was born to be a stay-at-home mum to me. I am Mum and Dad's first born as well as the first grandchild on Mum's side of the family. It is funny that our Emma is in the same situation, first child and first grandchild. I am the oldest of three children, my siblings are Stephen and Samantha.

 

Auckland City around the time of my birth was the "bustling metropolis" in a country with just over 3 million citizens. It was, and still remains the largest city in New Zealand. One of the great things about being a Kiwi born in the 1970's was the influence of the Environmental groups. One item of importance in the year 1975 was the development of The Maruia Declaration, which called for protection of New Zealands native forests. The declaration attracted more than 340,000 signatures by the time it was presented to Parliament in 1977.

The year before I was born the well known environmental group "Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand" was formed. Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand still, to this day, campaigns against nuclear weapons and nuclear power, deforestation, the release of genetically engineered organisms into the natural environment, climate change, and toxins. It uses non-violent tactics, and direct action to draw attention to what it considers to be significant threats to the environment within and around New Zealand shores, and then lobbies for solutions. Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand gained a lot of attention in the 1970s and 1980s with its fight against nuclear testing in French Polynesia, and because of the French bombing of the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985. Their ongoing campaign against whaling has had the full support of New Zealand's government since the 1980s.

So, around the time of my birth New Zealand was a country with internal struggles which was trying to find and define itself. Now, I believe, we are a country of people who are vastly aware of the demands we place on our environment, and we strive to preserve the natural beauty of our home land so we can enjoy it's beauty and unique nature for generations to come. I am now, and will forever be, a kiwi and a citizen of my beautiful homeland of New Zealand.