On the way home we stopped at a monument up on the hill that had a beautiful view of Auckland for more great pictures. By the time we got home grandma and grandpa were all tuckered out so we dropped them off and went to Reece’s house to watch HP7 pt 2. I voted for anything else but it was Iraes last movie before his mission so he had the last word. Sunday was a beautiful day, they came to church with us and the Stake Patriarch spoke the whole meeting. After church we made dinner and sat around and talked until 5:30 when we all went to Iraes setting apart. Here those are more like a baptism, everyone comes and there is a program and everything. The family all came home after the setting apart but the YSA in the house (and Reece) stayed for a fireside that immediately followed. the fireside was all about dating, again reminding me of Provo hardcore. It was a pretty entertaining evening.
After our first day of school we went and played tennis with our friend Reece. Sarah and Reece planned that outing, followed by him asking her out the next day. They are so cute! The first week of practicum went by smoothly and we all loved it. That Thursday evening we had a game night and had Reece, Marin, Jershon, and Dom over to hang out with us and Cheyenne. We played crazy uno and apples to apples. Most of them left at about 11 but Reece stayed to play a few more games and then watch Ever After with us. I love that movie! Sarah and Reece got pretty comfy during the movie, wink wink. We don’t have school on Fridays because they are reserved for adventures and fun trips. That first Friday we went to Tawharanui beach with all the BYU girls and James. We left pretty late though because Ramona’s kids went to school Friday morning. The Hobbits met us there again, it was their last day in NZ. They got lost though so by the time they got there they had to turn around and go take their van back to the rental place. The highlight of that beach trip was Brittany Babcock teaching me how to do a cartwheel. Anyone that knows me well knows that was an impossible task. I did improve a bit though. We also played volleyball and just chilled on the beach, it was super fun. After the beach we all went out to eat in a small town and then Sarah, Brittany and I split from the rest of the group for the rest of the evening. Everyone went to see “The Vow” but James took us to a chapel for a farewell dance for Irae. That was a blast! The decorations were huge missionary name tags with all the missionaries and soon to be missionaries in the stake on them and the flags of the countries they are all/will be serving in. We had a lot of fun, especially Sarah and Reece J. sorry there aren't any pictures, my camera was dead and I haven't gotten any pics for anyone else.
The day that grandma and grandpa left to go work was our first day of teaching. Grandma insisted on getting a picture of us at the school. We have been at Pomaria Primary school for two weeks now, only four days a week though. We love it! My teachers name is Whaea Janet, she has the reputation of being the mean teacher in the school but she is really a softy and I can tell how much she loves her students. There are a lot of things that are different in schools here than in the states. First, hats are required whenever students are outside, and shoes are not worn indoors out of respect. I love walking everywhere barefoot, the first day I walked the 20 minutes home the ground was super hot and I got heat blisters on my heels, but they are fine now. We also say Maori prayers when we arrive, before lunch and morning tea, and before we go home. Morning tea is at 10:30 every day, the students are required to eat at least a piece of fruit and then have time to play outside like a recess break and the teachers all go to the lounge for 20 minutes. Every second Tuesday a group is assigned to provide a big feed for everyone, last week it was soooo good! Our school has PLGs (professional Learning Groups) made up of a class of each age. Within those PLGs there are house captains and deputy house captains and the whole school has a head boy and head girl. We just missed the assembly where they announced who all those children were this past Friday, but I was there to hear all the speeches the students wrote and to vote on our house captains. I’m in a year 5-6 class, the oldest, so all of our candidates are in my class, I voted for Steven because he had the funniest speech, everyone vetoed it though because they would have to deal with him the rest of the year. I understand now, that kid is a handful! I really do love all of my students though, they are so cool. A lot of them have been through more than I can even imagine. I have students form Tonga, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Solomon Islands, Fiji, India, China, the Congo, and South Africa at least. Most of them speak at least 2 languages, some 3 or 4. They are all surprised that I only speak English. Almost every student has asked me if I know Justin Bieber or any number of famous people, they don’t seem to grasp hos big America is. The school is really cool because they focus first and foremost on the values of the school, everything they teach somehow connects back to Respect, identity, or something else that helps the community of the school. It has really worked too, everyone at the school is conscious of everyone else and there is a feeling of family. The principal, Kevin Coromanski is from is really cool. He is from South Africa and has been at Pomaria for 7 years now. Apparently, before he got there the school really struggled, no one wanted their kids to go there, but now it is a really good school. I am really excited for the next 4 weeks that we have in the schools, hopefully I will get some pictures so you can fall in love with my kids too!
The weekend after we got back from the south island my grandparents came to Auckland. It was so exciting! They got to come for a business trip a few hours from here so they came early and left later and spent time here with us. They arrived on Saturday morning, the flight came in at 5 so I woke up at 6 to go unlock the gate for them (unfortunately I had gone to bed at 4) but all that accomplished was me getting eaten alive by mosquitos while I waited in vain for half an hour before giving up and coming back inside. They didn’t get here until about 8 because they didn’t have a gps and they got turned around on their google map a few times. They were so funny, we went and drove around looking for something to do and they argued about grandpas driving the whole time. My favorite was when he turned on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker, that happened quite a bit. When we finally gave up and headed back home we made it just in time to follow the Josephs to Orewa beach. That was really fun, Cheyenne was the only one not here so the whole family got to hang with us. We also met up with a bunch of girls that got a ride with Reece (Erins nephew). It was kind of a gloomy day but we still had a blast on the beach before we headed home to get ready for stake conference. Only grandma, grandpa, Brittany and I went to conference, Cheyenne came separately too. It was a fantastic meeting! We loved every second of it, so glad we left early to go. One of the speakers talked about Jimmer and living the gospel in the “Jimmer-range”. It was a pretty sweet talk and made me laugh because not many people here know who Jimmer is. After conference grandma and grandpa went home to sleep- they stayed in the little sleeper outside that Erin recently built- and Brittany and I went to see the vow with Cheyenne and a bunch of other girls from our stake. Hanging out with all of them was super fun but I dint like the movie. Sunday morning we left early for stake conference because Cheyenne, Rose, Erin, Sarah, Brittany and I were in the choir. That choir was amazing (I didn’t contribute at all). I loved listening to everyone sing, and the closing song is now one of my favorite songs. The Song of the Redeemed, it is beautiful!
After conference we came home and made dinner and sat around talking for hours. It was a great conversation, grandma and grandpa and Erin and Rose got along famously, they continued talking all night while we went to the YSA discussion at the Sorensons house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Josephs know more about my family than I do. The discussion was fantastic, it reminded us of Provo hardcore because it was all about dating. Apparently the problem here is that the mindset is if a guy asks you out you are committed to that person, there is no such thing as just going on a date or casual dating. Its all or nothing. I think they did it while we were here so that we could add our American perspective of what dating really is. Sarah and Reece talked all night at that discussion, they are so cute!
Tuesday was our last full day in Christchurch, the first thing we did was visit Castle Rock, the site for the final battle scene in Narnia. It was well worth it too, the hillside was amazing and we did a lot of hiking and climbing around and taking pictures, it was beautiful. I charged down the hill “for Narnia” and had Ramona take a picture for me, it was great. Most of us took a picnic lunch and we all ate around the rocks before heading off to the caves. That was honestly my very favorite thing that we did on our trip. It was incredible. Some people in the ward told us about them so we were the first group of BYU girls to go. We had to stop and buy flashlights at the dollar store on the way, we got the little keychain ones that looked pathetic, but they actually worked pretty well. We hiked down to the entrance and were met by some people coming up who corrected us, we were heading to the exit so we had to turn around and go the other way. They also told us to get more jackets to wear because it was freezing, I wish I hadn’t though, I took it off and hung it around my shoulders most of the way through. The cave was an underground river that took about an hour to hike through. It was amazing. We had to start at the other end so that we could walk against the current of the water. The water level got pretty high at some places, Tiari and Ramona got completely soaked. Most of the time it was only about knee deep on me but it got up to my chest a couple of times. The cave itself was pretty high, I never felt trapped in it. We had to climb up a few little waterfalls, and the rapids got pretty rough in a few spots. I absolutely loved it. The cave walls and ceiling were incredible, formed by the water into awesome shapes. In some spots there were minerals that we learned about at the museum that glow in fluorescent light, that was really sweet too. I kept hoping that it would never end because it was soo cool. The end was a little scary, we had to climb up and out of the hole. Someone had put up ladder rungs so that we could get up the sheer wall, but the scary part was the little ledge we had to crawl along to actually get out of the cave. Scarier than actually crawling along it was watching everyone else crawl across, knowing that if they fell I could do nothing about it. We went through the cave with Ramona and Chris while James took the other girls and dropped them off at the obstacle course and then he picked up the hobbits at the airport. There are three BYU students that created a project/social experiment to come over here and be extras in the Hobbit. They have been fundraising and emailing Peter Jackson and other people involved and they flew out here to drive around and find the set that they are filming now. We saw them again this past weekend when they left, but they wouldn’t give us any details, we have to wait for the documentary they made to come out.
Wednesday we spent a lot of time waiting around to come back here and then we slept a ton to recover from the craziness that was the South Island.
