Monday, October 24th

Kia ora whanau!

     Its been another week here in kiwi-country.  Crazy how fast time is going here.  Two months from tomorrow and I'll be calling home for the second to last time.  Pretty mean, eh?  But I still have a lot of work left to do.  And this weeks been pretty average for it.  Well for this area.  I'm still adjusting from the city to the slower paced country.  Getting used to everybody drinking and using marijuana too.  I forgot about that one.  But the weathers been more polite to us this week.  Plenty of sun, a touch of rain, and heaps of wind.  Its really frustrating biking up a big as hill and the wind is blowing straight at you.  But its keeping my legs in shape.  And I'm finally back down in weight to how I was at the end of the MTC, 170lbs, and I'm still dropping.  It seems like all my companions want to get heavy while I want to maintain my weight. 

     The Rugby World Cup ended last night with New Zealand vs. France!  The final score was 8-7 All Blacks!!  This was the first time New Zealand has won since the first world cup.  Everybody here hated france too, because they've kicked us out of the cup for the past two cups.  We beat them through all the pool games, but then in the quarter or semi-finals they kick us out.  But we won this time.  Last night it kick off was at 9pm.  There was heaps of cheering and yelling and party's going on all night.  About halfway through the game I could start hearing some fights and yelling.  We're pretty lucky that on Sunday's we get back to the flat at 7:30.  I can't imagine what the city'll be like for the final. 

     Its finally the end of school holiday's for our investigators too.  So back to school and we can start teaching them again.  Norina, Chris, and Ngahuia were doing really good this week.  Norina had had only one drink for the week and only one session of marijuana each day too.  Much better than before.  But when we went over on Saturday night they were all drunk again.  She had her brothers over too.  She asked us to come inside and pray for them.  So when we got inside a couple of them went out the back.  We said a prayer and when we finished her brother walked back in and started getting in our face saying what was all that about bro?  Lucky they respect Norina when she stepped between us again.  And so we had to leave.  I think we might have to make sure we go by their house in the day time from now on. 

     Well I hope you liked the pictures I sent.  We are in a beautiful area and so you can expect more and some better ones too.  Thanks for everything!!

Arohanui! 

Sincerely,

Elder Sorensen