Saturday, May 14, 2016.

Today Reed and I decided we wanted to go and visit the Auckland Zoo.  We had heard that it was very nice and we did not want to stray too far today.  After getting all the laundry and house cleaning done we headed  to the Zoo.

The weather was clear and very warm.  A beautiful day to walk around the Auckland Zoo

They had three large giraffes and two babies.

The Zebras, Ostrich and Giraffes were all in the Safari area.

They had Meerkats.  We had never seen these except in movies before.

These African Love Birds were so colourful and fun to watch.  They had about 25 colourfully painted birdhouses that these birds kept flying in and out of.

They had large tortoises and very small tortoises.  Some of these little ones were about 2 inches long.  They were fun to watch. 

Springbok type of Antelope

Rhinoceros

There were two lions and they were laying down every time we walked past.  They had a lot of hiding places in this enclosure.

Pink Flamingos

They had a male and two female Orangatangs.  They said he weighed 99 Kilos.

This is a Serval.  A medium-sized African wild cat that has the biggest ears of any cats.  They said it's hearing is so good it could hear a rodent under ground.

They had quite a few Baboons.

They had two elephants.  They hung big branches with leaves from these trees and the elephants broke pieces off with their trunks and ate them.  They also had big blocks of frozen, colored water and the elephants would pick them up with their trunks and smash them on the rocks and then eat the pieces.  It was interesting to watch them.

We watched the elephant show and then we headed back to the other side of the Zoo to see some Kiwis.  As we did we walked back past the Giraffes.  This one was very close and eating hay.  The enclosure where the Giraffes and Zebras were was hard packed dirt.  There was only some green around the very edges.

This is a Red Panda Bear.  We had a hard time spotting him in the tree.  The camera actually picked him up better than we could see with our eyes.  We have never seen or even heard of a Red Panda Bear before.

The tiger was laying asleep in the shade.

They had a fenced end area that you could enter with Wallabies and Emus. They would let you touch the Emu. 

They had two pretty good sized Alligators.

Some of my favourite animals were the Ring-Tailed Lemurs.  They were climbing around and all over each other.  Their tails were fascinating to watch.  They had a sign by their area that was from the movie "Madagascar" with "I like to move it, you like to move it, we like to move it, move it!"  We had never seen these in real life before only in the movie.  We really enjoyed watching these animals.  We thought about the grandkids when we saw these Lemurs and knew they would love them and would be singing the "Move It" song.

We saw two Kiwi birds.  It is very dark in the Kiwi house because they are nocturnal animals.  This is actually a picture of the picture telling about the Kiwi bird.  We could not get one of our own to turn out but they looked exactly like this.
We also saw a Tasmanian Devil but he was asleep under some rocks and could not get a picture of him.

It is strange that here in New Zealand it is May but Fall time.  The leaves are changing, the days are getting shorter, and the weather is getting cooler.  In our minds it should be getting warmer, the days getting longer and the trees just growing their leaves and blossoming.

 

We hope you enjoyed visiting the Auckland Zoo with us.  We were very impressed with the cleanliness and the layout of the Zoo.  The Zoo was very busy today with families.  It made us wish our children and grandchildren were with us.  They would have loved the animals.

We have been staying very busy and have not been doing a lot of exploring the last couple of weeks.
Hopefully we will have more time to explore some of the things on our bucket list in the next five months. 

I (Nada) had to speak in Sacrament meeting on Mother's Day along with the other two senior sisters.  I wondered why they had the people in the ward who are mothers speaking but it turned out to be a good meeting.  I also was able to speak with all of our children and that is always a highlight.  We are teaching the Temple Prep class and have ten YSA attending.  A couple of them are getting married this Summer, a couple getting ready for missions and a few who just feel that it is time for them to enjoy the blessings of the Temple.  This is one of the highlights of our mission, teaching these young people about the Temple and then attending the Temple with them.  

We have been in New Zealand over 18 months now.  It is hard to send our missionary friends home that arrived after we did.  Reed and I are now the longest serving Senior Missionaries in the Mission.  Life is good.  We are grateful to be serving. We will continue to work hard and do what our Heavenly Father wants us to do.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true.

Until next time, love Elder and Sister Spencer, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Reed & Nada