Hello everyone.  Today I am going to blog about our Self-Reliance Managers Seminar.

On Tuesday, July 14, 2015, we had all nine Self-Reliance Managers and the Area Office team join together at the Area Offices for training.  It was great to finally meet all them face to face instead of through email and WebEx.  We also had Trent over PEF from Salt Lake and Jared working with Self-Reliance from Salt Lake City here to listen and help with things coming from headquarters.

It was a great week.  We did a lot of great training, discussing and playing in the evenings.  Reed and I learned a lot and helped all of them understand the importance of the education side of all of the Self-Reliance information.  It was kind of like a light came on and everyone could see that this is the right direction we need to head at this time.

Tuesday night we all walked over to this really nice Italian restaurant called Al Fornos.  Everyone had steak except for Nada who had fettuccini and prawns.  The food was delicious and we enjoyed visiting with everyone.

We walked back to the area office and did Karaoke.  Renee was the DJ and did a great job getting everyone up to perform.  Most were great singers.
Reed with Ned as his backup singing "My Girl!"  Ned Taito is our Self-Reliance Manager from Fiji.

Arama Puriri our Self-Reliance Manager from Hamilton, New Zealand.  He loved performing and did a great job.  Verna, Renee and Ariel in the background.

Carl Maurer is our Self-Reliance Manager in Brisbane, Australia.  He sang a Neal Diamond song and surprised us all.

Ned and Paul Reid our Area Self-Reliance Manager singing together.

Johnny Leota our Sydney and Melbourne Self -Reliance Manager.  He was our Mission President when we served in Samoa and is also the Area Seventy.  He is a fantastic manager and a great singer and dancer.  He was singing "Happy" here with Bruce McCarthy our Self-Reliance Manager from Samoa.

Ariel Wetere and Renee Solomon.  They both work in the Area Self-Reliance office with us.  Ariel is over operations and Renee is over PEF.  Great girls.

Verna Tukuafu our Self-Reliance Manager in Tonga.  She is very sharp and our only female manager.  She was quite the performer.  She went to school at BYU Hawaii and performed for the Polynesian Cultural Center while she was at school.  She gets things done! 

Paul Reid and Reed singing together.  Reed loves to sing and wasn't afraid to keep doing it.

We all got up and did YMCA!  It was fun and everyone got up and participated.   Everyone participated, some more willing than others, but everyone had a good time!












On Wednesday, July 15, 2015, we had meetings all day.  Each morning we had a devotional and then a discussion about that topic.  Reed did Tuesdays devotional on Education, Jared did todays on Faith.  They both went really well.  This whole conference was pretty much run like discussion groups.  It gave everyone a chance to learn from each other.  We held the meetings in the main conference room at the Area Office where we hold Monday morning devotionals every week.  It was a great few days.

Carl asking a question while Paul is facilitating the discussion.  Carl has been a Mission President and is a very sharp man.  We really enjoy being with him.  As you can see we are wearing the Self-Reliance shirts we had made up for this conference.  Paul gave them permission to have dress down days every once in a while!

It was Bruce McCarthy's birthday so Bryson found a candle on his device since we cannot have any open flames.  We sang Happy Birthday and he blew out the candle!

We headed into downtown Auckland at 5:00 p.m. to work as teams at Escape Masters.  You compete against each other to solve clues, put puzzles together and open locks to get the comb to the locked door to escape before the Zombies wake up.  They give you 50 minutes.

The young men are giving us instructions.  They made Reed and I team captains so we could not be on the same team.  We had all four women in our group.

Reed's team won!  They got out before the 50 minutes were up.  We opened all the locks but did not make it under 50 minutes. They let us finish and we went two minutes over. None of us were attacked by Zombies thank goodness!  This is our team heading down the hall while the other team waited for us.  It was a lot of fun.  We will probably do it again.

Above is a picture of downtown Auckland as we were walking back to the Sky Tower for dinner.  Reed and Nada with the Maori mask behind us in the foyer of the Sky Tower.

We had dinner at a wonderful buffet.  Everyone enjoyed being able to eat whatever and how much they wanted.  Another wonderful successful day.  We did not take our camera on Thursday.  Trent did the devotional on adversity.  We had some more great discussions and did some wrapping up.  We spent some time with Trent on PEF with those mangers who needed to learn more about it.  It is not available in Australia, Tahiti or New Zealand.  Everyone left very excited about the new education push and had a lot of great ideas to get going on.  These kind of seminars are great to be together, support each other and get excited to keep going.  That night some had to catch planes early and wanted to visit family.  Some really wanted to go to KFC for dinner so we went with them.  Wonderful three days.

On Friday morning the 17th, Reed and I had to be at the airport by 6:30 a.m. to pick up Elder and Sister Bearce.  They are our new TVET couple for Tonga at Liahona High School.  He taught technical/vocational classes at a high school and was an administrator so he really understands what should be going on in the TVET classes.  It is so nice to have a couple who is hitting the ground running.  She is a musician.  Part of being the ITEP-TVET Coordinators is picking up these couples and taking care of them during their training here in Auckland.  It is wonderful to get to know them and then stay in touch with them during their missions and watch them grow.  The gospel is truly amazing.  You take ordinary people, who are willing to serve The Lord, and wonderful things happen, both for the missionaries and for the people they are serving.  We are so blessed.  We had an exit interview, via satellite, with Elder and Sister Decker finishing up in Fiji and then were involved with training all afternoon on Friday and Saturday morning with Elder and Sister Bearce.  Then we took them to the airport Saturday afternoon and they headed to Tonga.  Another wonderful, busy week.

We love you all and hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about what we are involved in with both our Education Specialist Coordinators and ITEP-TVET Coordinators missions.  We love it!!!

Until next time.  Love Elder and Sister Spencer (aka Reed and Nada)