Honey I'm home!!

Well 2 days ago, on April 13th I left. After 3 countries, 4 flights and 4 time zones, I got home! I was really tired when I got off the airplane. Holy man. And I fell asleep early that night. But then I woke up at 9:30 am, a normal U.S. time. I felt okay yesterday but last night I slept 12 hours straight! My body is still a little wacked, I feel.

I thought I'd catch up on Australia since I didn't get to while I was there.
Tuesday-We left our host families and friends at the airport and flew 3 hours to Australia! B/c of the time change, it was late when we got there. So we just had some dinner, unpacked and went to bed. The hostel was a bit alarming to us at first. I've never been in a hostel before! We had WAY more suitcases than everyone else. :)
Wednesday-We woke up and toured around Sydney Harbour and went to the Taronga zoo. Sarah and I were distracted by the aboriginee singers and we lost sight of the other girls!! So we looked around for an hour then caught the next ferry. Sarah kept saying, "I think they left us." I said, "Nah, they wouldn't!" We are at the zoo, and after an hour, we SEE THEM!! they DID leave without us, sarah was right. Man. Then we just went home. On our way home, we stopped by the grocery store. Juliet and I lost sight of the others b/c we didn't know there was an underground grocery! So we left and went to the mall. We saw a huge line with a red carpet! We asked people what it was for. They said that Van Diesel, star of FAst and Furious was coming. So Juliet wanted to stay. Then they were giving out free tickets. I won them by a rock-paper-scissors contest!!!!! It was awesome! So Juliet and I saw the premier of "Fast and Furious." :)
Thursday- We made a friend in the hostel, named Sara, from Denmark. She hung out with us this whole day it was so fuN! We took the ferry to Manly Beach. We went shopping, sat on the beach, eating ice cream. Then we came back, and went to Chinatown. We saw some cool restaurants and we sat down at one. It was fun! Then Sara and I stopped by the grocery store on the way home. I love and miss her!
Friday- Sara, our new friend, went on a tour to the Blue Mountains. We however did not! We decided to go parasailing on Manly Beach!!!!!!! It was so fun!! Then we rented bikes around the beach, I loved it!!! We went on a liesurely ride. Then the others got ice cream. Then we had met a really nice couple on the ferry who were like 90 years old! They invited us to go to dinner! It was so nice of them. We took a taxi there, ate dinner with them, then a taxi back. Such a cool experience! Such kind people. I hope to keep in touch with them.
Saturday- We went to the "Rocks" shopping place in the morning, at a market. A POSH market I might add. Then we walked the Sydney Harbour Bridge, then we went to an Easter orotorio inside the opera house! It was really cool. But I was really tired, I tried not falling asleep! hehe. Then on our way home we went shopping and we got kebabs!! Then we came back to the hostel.
Sunday- We met other LDS tourists and missionaries and went to General Conference at a local LDS meetinghouse. At break for an hour, we sat down with the missionaries and some Korean members and had a big feast. Then, we went back to our hostel and packed and talked to our hostel roommate, Shannon. We gave her a book of Mormon!! I hope she realizes the truth that holds..
Monday- we packed up and went home!!!! We got to see our poly friends at the Auckland airport at our layover. I miss them! They bought us our last NZ ice cream. It was so fun! I am glad we met them.

I am glad to be home! A week until back to Utah. Crazy how time flies eh?

Tying up Loose Ends

I found some pictures that need to be added.
1) As you know, jess and I have taught Primary in church while we've been here. Here's a picture of our class! With the missionaries. They came in as a "guest speaker" the last day. :)
2) Cherish, me and Jess. The young women of the family...
3) We had our last umu, gathering with all the families! The food was cooked in a hongi, an underground oven and it was YUM! I loved the chocolate cake the best.
Should've taken a picture of that.

Well we're leaving tomorrow. Can't spend too much time here have lots of other things to do like try to squeeze everything into my suitcase..:)

Torches..

Tonight, I encountered a cultural barrier. Our host family was sitting around and my host mom said, "Cherish, put that torch away." I thought, THERE'S A TORCH IN THIS ROOM?! I'm imagining huge flames coming from a flask, ready to angrily burn down a house or light a darkened corridor. To my surprise and relief, I see only a flashlight. I stared at it and said, "A torch? That's a flashlight."With a smile, my host dad said, "Amy, you're in New Zealand!" Yes, yes, I am. :)

Northland!!

Our last trip!! Before we left, Dr.J gave us tons of money leftover!!!! We took a picture relishing in the cash we will probably have again.

We left on Monday and when we got there, we saw the treaty grounds where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. This treaty has made New Zealand the bicultural place it is and played a major rule in preserving Maori culture! This sounds like an essay but I've seen the effects of this treaty!!, and we saw Cape Reinga and we saw the light house. It was a gorgeous day! And a long drive. Cape Reinga is where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet! Then we got the best Fish n' Chips place. Yummy!! Then we came back and a had a fun girl bonding night watching High School Musical 3..

went on a speedboat to see the Hole in the Rock! it was raining hard and I was soaked!! I spent the rest of the day with the heater on, curled in a blanket, eating noodles. Then we went shopping then came back and played cards with James.

Then on April Fool's we pranked the other girls! We stole their keys and at 2 a.m. turned all their furniture upside down! Then throughout the day we did pranks on Sarah, putting her stuff in another room and stuff. That night she retaliated! She stole our toothbrushes and we had to hold witnesses hostage to find out where they were!! She also toiled papered our hotel room...it was funny!! We then signed peace treaties. What a great April's Fools. I'm still in the prank mood...

Then on the last day of our trip we saw dolphins!! I loved it!! We also got to stop by this BEAUTIFUL island and have a free cup of hot chocolate.A fulfilling day. We drove back, surprising our families by being a day early and I crashed!!

4 more days til Australia. I love you all.

more pics!

This week we had to say goodbye to all our students at Ranui and such! It was hard! But they were so good to me. They all gave me a fairy costume to parade around the school with, with 2 fairy helpers. It was so cute! Then people signed a card, and Pani and I provided the morning tea food. We got NZ chocolate from our teacher friend, Chris! The kids all sang a Maori song to me and the school song. Margot read a book to me and gave me the book! I read the whole class a book I bought them. I will miss those kids so much! I loved working there. I can't wait to be a teacher even though somedays I came home discouraged and with a headache.

This weekend we went to Coromandel! It was fun! Beach, sun, glowworms, hikes, Cathedral Cove (where Prince Caspian was filmed)! Man I am sure going to miss NZ beaches. I got sunburned as usual. Hey, its a souvenir right? We stayed in a cabin that smelled like grandparents and had a huge scary deer head. haha it was a fun experience though!!

Today we had a friend from our neighborhood come with us to church. He asked us if he could come. He came to church then to the baptism. He is a druggie, does meth and drinks and all those things! He's trying to clean up. He's going to rehab soon. The missionaries are gonna visit him on Tuesday! They gave him a Book of Mormon. I love missionary work. And the missionaries here are really good missionaries. I feel like they've become our friends. They're way cool! We stole their cameras for a bit and took pictures of ourselves so they'll never forget us! haha! Then we came back and went over a neighbor's house with 2 cute Samoan girls that we're getting really attached to! But we came back and our host mom was upset a little I feel. She said we had stuff to do and we shouldn't favor some neighbors over the others and we shouldn't get too attached. I told her I don't mind getting attached. If it hurts when you leave somewhere, it means you left a bit of your heart. I'd rather leave bits of my heart everywhere then keep it all to myself...cheesy but hey its me!!

Teaching...is hard-as sometimes!

Teaching is great! I taught like almost all day today. Most of it was good stuff. But reading centers turned crazy somehow. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about and researching different teacher's suggestions on how to handle that kind of situation. But also today, a kid said, "I don't feel like playing." (we were playing a reading, word game). I said okay, your choice and walked off. I came back and he was CRYING! Now they cry a lot in 1st grade. So it's usually not that huge of a deal. I just say ok Wesley, I would love ot hear about it when you're ready, and continued doing other things. Usually after a couple minutes, they're done. No, Wesley cried for like 15 minutes straight, curled up in a ball, heavily breathing. I was getting worried. He has a medical condition, which name I don't remember, but I was wondering if this emotional outburst had something to do with it. He was really upset. I tried having him look at me, he didn't. I tried moving him, he wouldn't. Finally, the game ended, I sent the other kids away. I got him to get up, and the first idea that popped into my head was get him outside, take him on a walk. Luckily there was another teacher there. I took him on a walk, holding his hand. It forced him to get up, remove his hands from his mouth, clear his eyes, and we practiced breathing the whole walk as I tried to distract him. It totally worked! We got back I said, Wesley are you ready to go back to class? He said yes. I said what was wrong? He said, "I miss my mom." I said it's ok you'll see her later, let's go play. What do you want to do?" Anyway teaching is crazy. Don't you ever make fun of teachers again!!!

O Sabbath Day..:)

This weekend, on Friday, I had to decide between going to this thing called Polyfest, a big festival with schools doing cultural dances in a competition. My host sister was in it, doing Cook Island dance. I had to choose between that and this pretty beach trip with the other girls. Everyone said the beach was beautiful and a must-see. Needless to say, I felt like seeing Cherish would be more in line with how I want to spend my time, but everyone else wanted to go to the beach. The day turned out to be rainy and cloudy, and the beach was boring, no one else was there. I justtook a nap on a towel. We ended up making the best of it, but still. It's a regret I have to live with now! Oh well!


Today a boy in my Primary class got baptized. He's 10 and his parents are inactive members and live in the Cook Islands. He's staying here with his aunt and family, who are members. He's a great kid and he asked me to speak at his baptism. I spoke on faith and repentance. I compared it to a seed, and brought seeds in and a green bean from the Tararo's garden. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. But it's okay! Then the missionary gave a really great talk. I really do love missionary work. Doesn't mean I have to go on a mission to do it.

Every Sunday we go to a bakery with the ward's RS president and get free bread to give to the poor. Our family gives it to the neighbors and keeps some too. We were giving it to our one neighbor, who we are sure does drugs, he's a bit weird. Very small, long hair, thin face, wiry body, high voice. He's very talkative. Anyway he started to tell us he wanted to come to church and get out of the drug scene. We were like..okay? Anywayi it was kind a cool thing, so hopefully he does. Except he told us he was having drinks so he thought it was Wednesday. lol Anyway.

I'll write more later and show pictures about my weekend!!

Skytower,Museum, The Temple and Pasifika!

Wow, I'm sorry that I haven't wrote in a while! Basically during the week,I've been teaching and going to a Maori class. I should take a picture here next week. It's cool! We go every Wednesday night to Maori class and learn phrases and sentences in Maori. Last week we learned how to say how old you are.

The Skytower was fun! We went up on it and saw over all of Auckland. Too bad it was cloudy so we didn't see too much for most of our time up there. But toward the end, it cleared up. We ate a fancy lunch there, and then went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a cool experience! I enjoyed seeing the skeletons of insects and animals and fossils. There was some cool historical Maori stuff as well!

We got to go to Hamilton Temple on Friday! I really enjoyed it! i felt the Spirit very strong there, and it's been a while since I've been to the temple (December..) but I liked it. It's mostly the same as other temples. The fundamental gospel is the same wherever you go! :) Then we took pictures in front of the temple. Then we went to the Visitor's Center. This lady there, Sis. Parker, is the area expert on Maori church history. So she showed us a video and then talked to us about it. I learned a lot! The temple was built in 1958, that's when it was dedicated (Dad, wasn't that the year you were born? Cool-as!) She played us a song it was beautiful and made me cry. The people here are so kind and generous. The members are even more so. I learned a lot from her, even though we only interacted for about 15 minutes.

Then we stopped by Pokono and got ice cream! Apparently the Mormons returning from the temple are the Tip Top ice Cream shoppe's main customers. It reminds me of going to In and Out on the way back from Mesa Temple. It was yummy ice cream! I've become even more addicted to ice cream here in New Zealand. They have yum flavors. I had mint chocolate chip cookies and lemon cheesecake..yummy.

Then yesterday we woke up and went to the Pasifika Festival at about 9:00 AM. Most things were opening. The way Pasifika is set up, it has countries like Cook Islands, Maori, Tongan, Samoan, Nuian, etc. It was awesome! And in each country, they have traditional dances and music, costumes, food and jewelry and stuff. I ate some roti and ice cream in a pineapple. Our host dad brought home yum Cook Island food as well.. It was cool! it started to rain at about 1:30 pm. So we left! We went to the store, made dinner for the missionaries, had them over, and then went to a friend's house for her 21st birthday partY! I had 4 desserts yesterday...youch. Better run for a long time tomorrow..

Onnly about a month left til home time!! Only about 2 weeks left in Auckland. I will be sad to leave but I can't wait to go home either!! Love you all.

Ok i reaaaaaally should be doing my homework but I must report one thing. Jessica and I were in our room working on homework. When we saw a HUGE BLACK BUG JUMPING AROUND! We both screamed and I ran out of the room while Jessica, I think, was trying to one-handedly get rid of it since she is unofficially our bug killer though she's definitely very afraid of it. I went into the living room, laughing because of Jessica's dramatics. :) Then, Jessica came running out, crying and laughing, Then our host parents went in to try to get rid of it. They finally did, and they put it in a jar for us to say. We kept cautiously backing away. They diagnosed our intruder as a cricket. Then we were settling back into our rooms, afraid to get too comfortable, when our host dad came to the door holding another jar and said, do you want to have a look at a bigger one? I said, Okay, but only if you hold the lid very tight. Well as I got close, he TOOK HIS HAND OFF! I screamed, and saw there was a big ball in the jar. I looked closer, I laughed and said, "That's not a bug! That's an avacodo!" Everyone in the whole house laughed for about 5 minutes. Then our host dad threw it at Jessica on her bed and she still screamed, though by this point, we knew it was an avacado! It was really really funny. Jessica and I laughed so hard we cried for a very long time. We are still sniffling at the memories.

Lasagne (the legit Italian way of spelling it..)

So Jessica and I and our host mom were sitting outside of Primary School around 5 p.m., and we were getting pretty hungry when we started brainstorming what we could have for dinner..so then we decided to have lasagne! We went to the store, got all the ingredients. We started cooking about 6:20 and had dinner about 7:00 :) it was soooooooo good. We got our host dad to finally like lasagne..mission accomplished.

Here's the recipe, before we forget. Our host mom showed us how to do it...

1. Cut the onions into fine little pieces. Don't stand above them or you will definitely cry. Sit next to them, and there's a chance you might cry.

2. In a frying pan, turn on the heat. Put some oil in it. Put the onions in. Add a TSP of garlic in a jar, or garlic if you have it. A few minutes later, put the meat in.

3. Meanwhile, put some butter in a pot over heat. Start the white cheese sauce.

4. Add about a cup of flour, then, mix it. It'll be hard and clumpy.

5. Add milk. Keep adding milk and flour until it's the consistency you want, kinda thin but kinda thick. Like a frosting on a cake.

6. Add shredded cheese in the sauce.

3. Meanwhile, you stir the meat until it is brown and cooked.

4. You add Tomato Puree in a can. You only need one can.

5. Add one can of tomato paste. Need this, to make it thicker and more consistent.

6. You can add another can of Tomato Puree if you want to.

7. Then, You cut lasagne sheets to fit the pan. One big long sheet or strips if you want.

8. Layer the meat mixture on top, then cheese sauce. Repeat-lasagne sheets, meat, sauce.

9. Top with more cheese if you'd like..:) We put mozzarella.

yummmmmmmmy!

Goat Island, coconuts and more!

Well well. Nice to see you again. Or rather talk to you online on a blog..:) I have been pretty busy lately! But not too busy to drink straight from a coconut..I'm not a huge of coconut, to be honest, never have been. But hey it's cool to say you did it!

On Friday, our day off school, we went to Goat Island! it's a beautiful wildlife reserve there. I went snorkeling! A lot of the other girls though it'd be too cold but I thought it was refreshing! After 20 minutes I was a big cold I'll admit. But it was fun to be there! I like water a lot. I was scared of fish however..

Lately, I've just been doing lots of school. I've seen 2 movies in the theater this week..not a usual thing, but hey I'm in New Zealand, why not!

We got observed for the first time on Thursday. We got observed us teaching in the school. Mine went awful! Just so many things went wrong. She's going to let me try again. I need to implement more things I know in my head, but just don't remember to do when I'm in the class. I know I'm meant to be a teacher, it's the only real thing I'm sure of in my life right now. But sometimes it's hard. I'm learning a lot though! From the good and the bad.

I forgot to say that I went mini-golfing with my host family! It was fun-as. <3

Went to a missionary fireside thing last night and then the dance! it was pretty fun. I was tired and sick today though! For sure!

Miss you all!

Chief Jacobs, naked German men, V day with missionaries?

So we are finally home for good from our long 2 week vacation! That is why there have been no recent updates. But our trip was AMAZING!! Highlights of South Island:

MONDAY:
*skyline gondola
*shotover jet
*luges
most gorgeous place I have ever seen in the world
*Deer Hyde Park-Lord of the Rings sites

TUESDAY:
*Milford Sound

WEDNESDAY:
*shopping
*Beach and reading!

THURSDAY:
*skydiving-NOT EVEN THAT SCARY! I'm glad I did it. I can cross it off my life to do list now. I loved freefalling, though the air pressure was intense! It kinda hurts your face and also your ears! But I survived.
*riverboarding
*Minus Five Bar

FRIDAY:
*8 hr drive to Christchurch

SATURDAY:
*markets
*Christschurch cathedrak
*Michelle rang the bell
*awkward Chinese restaurant

SUNDAY:
*family ward
*fireside
*Bonding night

MONDAY:
*ran to Botanical Gardens
*punting on Avon
*Akararoa Beach-nasty water :)
*shops
*Sumner Beach-fish and chips and Deep South ice cream
*FHE

TUESDAY
*art museum
*Antarctic Center-cute penguins, simulated storm

WEDNESDAY
*home, did laundry, cleaned
*mall, got a library card
*Juliet's birthday! Went swimming with a bunch of people! We went to sleep at2 am and got up at 4 am to go to Rotorua

THURSDAY
*drove to Rotorua
*Waitomo glowworm caves, went on a 5 hr caving expedition! We rappelled, we swam with eels, we did the "flying fox" like a zipline, we climbed up twin waterfalls!
*Dinner Theatre, with a traditional Maori meal and also a Maori play. Two girls from our group were chosen from the audience!

FRIDAY
*Te Puia-a Maori culture center. We got to see a pre-European model of a Maori village. We got to see a performing group perform traditional Maori songs. Our director, Brother Jacobs, was chosen as the chief and got to be on stage with the performing group. As soon as I can download the video, I'll put it up. We got to see them perform the haka! it's so cool.
*Zorbing-you're like a hamster in a big clear ball filled with water. You are rolled down a hill! I'll put up pictures as soon as I can get them from the others.
*Natural spa! We went into a natural hot spring! We took the white clay at the bottom of the spring, put it on our faces, washed it off, then put honey on then washed it off. We gave o urselves a natural spa! There was a naked German man in there with us! lol. When he stood up to pass us the honey, I was a little shocked. We spent awhile trying to get that image out of our heads
*Chinese food and Movie night

SATURDAY (today)
*hike among the Redwood trees
*Flight simulator of Rotorua
*Went on a scenic drive
*Came home, ate dinner with our host family and the missionaries. Who can say they had dinner with the missionaries on V day? haha we can!!


Sorry there's just so much to write. I'll write more when I have time. I love and miss you all!