Kiwi Summer Days!

The church is just as true in New Zealand as it is in Utah!! Our ward was great! We are one of the few white people in the entire congregation but as we sung the hymns together and listened to the bishopric speak to us.  You could feel of their strong priesthood. There are some of Heavenly Fathers choice saints that live here! The YSA (young single adults) class was really fun! I actually met a kid who served his mission in Boise and lived with the Schkrohowsky's during my senior year of high school. How random is that?! He looked kind of familiar but we were able to talk about the Alder Family, Bishop Smith, and the Boise area! I also ran into a missionary that is serving his mission in the Auckland area where I am living right now, that went to high school with me! His name is Taylor Moss, or Elder Moss. He is doing very well :) It is such a small world!

This week Phyllis took Christine and me on a trip to one of the black sand west coast beaches, Muriwai!

When we got there we walked up to the top of a cliff and we could see hundreds of birds and their nests. They are called Gannets. They are these beautiful birds that sore and glide across the sky and then dive down to catch fish from the sea. You could see their chicks in some of their nests.

The view of the ocean from on top of the cliffs was amazing!

Phyllis also had us try a real fish and chips meal! Not one of the healthiest meals I have ever eaten but it was pretty good! After this meal I really am going to try to be healthier :)

I learned how to take the public bus!!! Some of the girls, myself included, live to far away to our school to walk so we had to figure out how to take the bus. I admit I was totally clueless when it comes to public transportation. I’ve never ridden a public bus before. And for some reason I had it in my head that public transportation meant free transportation. So I was shocked when I learned I would have to buy a bus pass or pay each time I wanted to get on the bus. That was my first down fall. But we bought some kind of bus pass and then headed out bright and early Monday morning to try to find which bus would help us make it to school. We were walking to a bus stop where a bus started driving right by us. Christine and I started running after it in fear that we were missing our bus. Thankfully he stopped for us, but when we tried to ask him where he was going and if he would drop us off by our school we realized he couldn’t speak English. We got to scared that this bus would take us somewhere weird so we waived that bus on and went to the next closest bus stop where our friends Heidi and Anna were waiting. After waiting for about ten minutes we saw another bus coming our way. All four of us stand up right on the corner and this female bus driver looks at us and then without stopping drives right on by us. We were shocked. Why did she just leave us there with out stopping at all. So our morning attempt to use public transportation was a failure. Heidi and Anna’s host mom had to give us a lift to school. Luckily on the way home we had a nice enough bus driver that stopped for us at the bus stop out side of our school. But then our next problem arose. We had boughten the wrong bus passes. So the $70 we had paid for a bus pass earlier was not going to help us make it home. Luckily we had money to pay for this trip for the $2 student rate ride home, but we we’re a bit frustrated that this public transportation thing was so difficult. Hopefully tomorrow we can get more of the kinks worked out!

Everywhere I go in New Zealand they have this bug that makes this loud, constant, annoying noise. I always try to find it but it hides in the bushes and grass so well that I hadn’t been able to spot it. Then one day I came home from school and Phyllis had a surprise for me. She had caught me one of the noisy bugs. It was a huge monstrous looking guy! I was really excited about it though, so I took lots of pictures of him!  Its called a cicada.

Another activity that we do here in New Zealand is hang our clothes up to dry on a clothes line. I LOVE this chore! I feel like a real native Kiwi :)

Finally... New Zealand is known for their sheep. But Christine and I couldn't find them anywhere. Until... we drove to the beach with Phyllis and found a field full of our fluffy little friends! I was so excited that I had to be photographed with these cute little guys!