While in Laie they were working on roads, etc. The plans for the buildings had not arrived. Just a day or two before we left, Bro. Wilson handed me the plans for the main building and showed me the location and told me to put up the batter boards. A little later Bro. Muhlstein came and we worked together on it. That night we left for N.Z.

On Dec. 16 we crossed the equator. Father Neptune and aids came aboard and performed their ancient rites of initiation for those who had never before crossed.

There were several missionaries on board for Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand. We held a sacrament meeting on board Sun. Dec. 16, '55. We had no Monday as we crossed the international date line. On Dec. 20, Friday, we docked at Suva (Fiji). Some of the elders disembarked. We visited 4-5 hours and saw the tin shack on top of the hill where the elders live and where they are to build a swell chapel -- a most magnificent overlook.

As the boat was pulling into Sava, I saw, docked to our side, the launch "Joyeta." I had read a couple of months before how the launch had been found just drifting in the Pacific. No one was on board. It was towed to Suva and was under guard awaiting some resolution of the mystery. I have never heard any answer. The guard at the fore end of the pier wouldn't let us up to the boat. I told him I didn't want to eat it, I just wanted to take a picture of it. Then he let me in.

The Fijians were probably the last cannibals in the world. The business life of Sava is largely taken over by the Indians. They are sharp business people.

Dec. 21, 1955.  Today occurred quite a phenomenon in my life: the longest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. At 12:00 noon we were about exactly on the tropic of Capricorn. The sun should be exactly overhead. I stood a pencil on deck and the was no shadow even in bright sunlight.

New Zealand

When we awoke Friday morning early, the boat was almost sopped. We had been going slowly for some time. The morning was quiet and it was a real swell summer morning -- Dec. 23, 1955. There was confusion aboard, trying to get breakfast over and getting ready to see customs. A few miles to our west lay New Zealand, "The land of the long white cloud." We had no trouble clearing customs. After the agent shut his book, I said, "We have some guns with us. Does that mean anything?"

"Oh yes. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did." I replied.

He said, "Oh. I see. If you can't convert them then you shoot them."

I said, "Correct."

Our occupation was officially listed as "Official representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." 

The customs man told us how and where to register our guns.

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