Now I can't decide whether
I feel like I've been here forever, or else not very long and time is flying
by. I guess we only have 60 more days on the program so that seems weird to me,
feels like it should be longer than that! It was a good week though, and I got
a lot accomplished.
The Snapfish pictures I
ordered last week finally arrived and I put them up on my bulletin boards - above my bed and my desk. My room became so much happier and cute!
We had some really cool
stories and got awesome footage this week. We filmed and interviewed a variety
of people, including some street acrobats who are on a world tour, a crazy
talented rapper that can rap about anything and everything on demand, a
world-famous chalk artist who does his incredible work for FREE and then
donates the amazing final product to charities, and a very respected hip hop
instructor - the footage from that was sick.
Monday we went to the
Auckland War Museum. We got to see a
special Maori performance complete with a Haka :) It was quite a diverse
museum, with Maori history stuff, dinosaurs, a cool volcano simulator, even a
polar bear hahah. By the time we went home, it was pouring rain like I've never
seen it pour before. By the time I made it home, I looked like I had fully
immersed in the ocean. There was not an inch of my jeans that weren't dripping
wet!
Tuesday we visited
Hamilton, location of many church sites in New Zealand, including the TEMPLE!
Unfortunately we hadn't arranged far enough in advance to be able to go in
because of course this temple books up fast. People travel far and wide to come
here to go to the temple; it makes me so grateful I have had the opportunity to
go to the temple so many times in my life. I hope that I will be able to go to this
one before I leave though! When we got there we went to a church meetinghouse and
heard from the senior couple missionaries there many stories about the Maori
people, the church, and New Zealand. One
of which was Sister Parker... It was incredible. The more I learn about her, the more
incredible i find out she is. And the Spirit was so strong as she was speaking
to us. It was really neat. Here's an Ensign article about her:
We then got to go to the
temple grounds, take many pictures, and even got to interview some of the local
members there! It was a good day.
Friday night we went to
some night markets at Silo Park at the wharf. I got the best Mediterranean
quesadilla ever. Then a few of us headed out to another night market with some
locals. This one was in an underground parking lot underneath K-Mart and it was
a lot more... authentic? Haha we could
say this was the first time I felt like the minority. It was super fun though!
We had some dang good smoothies; I got two pairs of sunglasses for $20 (because
the guy got frustrated I could make up my mind about which ones so he let me
buy both for the price of one haha! "I bet your friends want to make it
home before midnight"). This is also where we met Tihei, the rapper I
mentioned at the beginning. He follows these markets around and people give him
a topic and he does a 2-3 minute rap about it. The more I listened, the more
incredible it became to me. It takes some SERIOUS talent to be able to do that.
He doesn't skip a beat. He did two raps for us. The first one he did about my
friend T and I, and how we are from the U.S. and everything he could fit in
about where we were from. The next one he added Sam in there. We interviewed
him, filmed the raps, and will probably be writing a blog post about him and his
story, so stay tuned. He is from a broken home, he is autistic, and he has been
offered recording in many respected studios but would "rather make $20 on
the street than $10,000 in the studio".
Incredible. After this, we hit up
a YSA Stake dance in Hamilton in the church parking lot right next to the MTC! It was way fun!
A little bit similarly to
Tihei, Pepe is the chalk artist. I don't even know what to say about him. Just
wait for the story on him haha. It’s pretty neat. After this, we headed over to
the Bishop's (of the YSA ward we go to) house. Turns out his wife, Sarah knows
Desley & Ron Innis (my dad’s cousin) really well and grew up with Lynda (their
daughter) in Sydney! We "played sports" for far too long
then finalllllyyyyy had our promised free lunch hahaha because that’s the most
important right? It was sausages on buttered white bread. We were so starving
that it was the yummiest thing ever. We had a good time hanging out with the
people from the ward and then headed back home. Once we got home, we had a
major girls night and helped the engaged girl, Emily, plan her wedding, bought LOTS
of chocolate, and watched The Proposal (movie).
Sunday was a good day,
although I got left behind for church because I was stuck in an elevator with
the cleaning crew, who stopped on every
floor!! (We live on the 10th floor...) At first I was a little panicked and a
little upset but I was able to figure it out, find the bus stop, and I made it to
church by myself during the opening song! So all was well. After church we had a linger-longer which we
were all sooo happy about. During 1:00 church we all get SO hungry and SOOO
tired. During Relief Society, we all smelled this AMAZING food and we were so
excited. We go into the gym, and guess what it was?! Hot dogs... haha... My
favorite-Not really but I enjoyed the bun!! Yay!
It was a good week and I'm
looking forward to next week which will be pretty busy!
This week’s fun facts about
New Zealand:
- They do not have as many trash cans around, and it’s so frustrating, I feel like I carry around so much trash because I can never find trash cans! That’s when I miss my mom ;)
- The styles are a little behind, sometimes I feel like I'm in the 90's or early 2000's.
- We are obsessed with a place called Tank which has the best smoothies and way yummy healthy food. We NEED Tank in the U.S.!
- Most of my money goes to Tim Tams.
- Because of the lack of space in the mini-fridge that 30 of us share & lack of kitchen facilities, we make grilled cheese and quesadillas everyday.
- The Aukland Sky Tower (out my bedroom window) lights up all colorful at night now! Pretty fun, pretty neat.
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