Sunday on the south island

Sunday we had church at 1:00, because of the earthquakes two of the buildings in the area were not being used and a whole ward had basically moved out so they had to redo the boundaries. It was the first week for the new ward and everyone thought we were part of it until we explained who we were. We doubled their YSA class and had a fantastic lesson, the teacher was very good. Relief Society was hilarious. We basically did a lot of getting to know everyone and there were some phenomenal ladies in the ward. One of them is married to a professor that teaches in Washington for 6 months of the year and down here the other 6. She had short grey hair with a bright purple streak in the front, and she was full of spunk. There was also a family from Oregon that have lived has for the past 6 years and is working on receiving dual citizenship. There was also a missionary couple from Bountiful Utah, they didn’t know grandma though. After church we all went home and helped make a huge spaghetti dinner for everyone to share. We had a grand time eating and talking all together for a few hours. Then I went home and took a nap while others watched HP4. At about 8 I went down to the park with Mikaela, Brooke, Mandy, and Kirsten. There was a concert and fireworks for Waitangi day and we had a grand old time at the celebration. The concert was an orchestra and various solo opera singers. We didn’t pay much attention to them though, we played a few games and took a ton of pictures until the finale of the concert that had fireworks set off in time with the music, it was really great. Everyone else just watched the fireworks from the hotel and missed out on the cultural experience.