Hola family and friends, wherever you all are! So I've been taking notes throughout the week so I remember everything I wanted to say.
First there's the food here. Everything here is crazy expensive, gas is $6 a gallon. Food's just as spendy but don't worry I have plenty enough. Instead of buying MY food and my comp buying HIS food, we just pitch in together. There's places here and there that we get free food too, I've gone to a Kabab place and a Fish n' Chips shop for free. My comp and I gotta find more. We have omelets pretty much every morning and top ramen for lunch most every day. I'm not complaining or anything, in fact it tastes so good! I guess I have the blessing of Lehi and his family- sure what I'm eating is junk but the Lord has made it sweet unto me! Oh, they have fast food places here but they're seriously twice as expensive as back home. I went to a Burger King and my meal was $10! I was looking for a dollar menu or something but everything on the "value" menu is $3 at least. It's actually really good though, the burgers look just like the pictures on the menu. Another weird thing about fast food in NZ- since the Maori people LOVE mayonaise they advertise their burgers as having more mayo than like McDonald's or something. There's pictures of burgers with mayo just oozing out, it's a little disgusting.
The one thing I probably miss most from back home is cold cereal. The cereal here stinks! They only have 100% whole grain healthy junk and no sugary kids cereal. My comp was tripping out when I asked if we had any cereal; apparently you only eat cereal here if you're trying to lose weight and I guess most every American he's been with asks for cereal. I've been craving fruity dino ites but dont send any mom and dad, its not worth $50 to send a bag of cereal.
As far as weather, we're at the end of summer here and the weather is really inconsistent. We've had rain one day and sweltering sun the next. I have a mean tan line from my watch.
The plants and stuff in New Zealand are pretty trippy. It's more jungley than forresty here. I heard that 80% of the plants here are exclusive to NZ, which is probably why everything nature like looks so weird.
It's not like I'm even in the jungle though. I'm in a suburb of Hamilton, where the temple is. If you want to check the place out it's at 42a Wake Street in Chartwell, Hamilton, New Zealand. It'd probably be easier to google Westfield Chartwell Mall and just look for wake Street to the just to the west. That's right, I have a mall sitting pretty much just outside my apartment.
Speaking of the flat as they're called here, it's like living in the McGlohn's house all over again. They're selling the place so we have to keep everything tidy all the time for when people come to check the place out. We're actually trying to use it as a missionary tool, we've strategically placed pictures and pamphlets all over the house to try and spark interest. Hopefully it'll work.
We already do have a lot of people to teach now though. We set everyone we teach with a baptisimal date early on so they realize what exactly they're working towards and a whole lot here stick with it. We just taught this lady for the first time yesterday and we got her from believing we were planted here by aliens anciently to believing she could recieve an answer to her prayers from God. It's cool guiding people from crazy beliefs to truth.
There's no way we could be as successful if it weren't for the members here. We can call most everyone and they'll pick us up and go to a lesson or they'll tell us about somebody who's ready for the gospel. There's a family in one of our wards, the Rototuna Ward, that had their 17 year old son just commit suicide. It hasn't even been a month and they're having us come teach 4 different people in their home. I know the culture may be different back home but we should have been better with the missionaries. President Porter gave us a statistic about new converts: 85% come from member referals and only 15% of new converts come from set apart missionaries. Our family as normal people have a way better chance of bringing people to the gospel than us guys on missions. The only difference is we do it all day, day in and day out.
Oh man, I forgot to tell you about probably the coolest thing that's happened on my mission so far. On our 1st day here we were taken directly from the airport ot the top of this landmark called One Tree Hill. It's this giant steep hill in the middle of Auckland with this obelisk at the top. From there I could see for miles and miles in all directions and I thought to myself "This is the land I will serve my mission!"
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