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!