For the past 2 weeks our stake has had the opportunity to go to Hamilton and participate in temple ordinances while there. The youth in Dunedin, Oamaru, Invercargill, and other places came up for the 2nd week with us. In our ward we have 3 young women (including me), 3 leaders, and 3 babies under the age of 2. So we had a blast!
We went to the temple every day, Tuesday through Friday. We did baptisms at either 10:00 am, 3:00 pm, 8:00 am, or 1:00 pm each day. Even though with the early morning baptisms it’s difficult to get up at like 6 in the morning, you feel the spirit throughout the day and I never considered falling asleep in the temple, even if I was tired before. It revitalized me, just being there. We got to do family names, temple names, and other people’s family names. It was amazing!
Even though this trip is focused on the temple, we aren’t in the temple the entire time. So when we aren’t in the temple, we got to do other fun activities. For example, attending another ward's mutual activity, shopping at the Base (the largest mall in New Zealand), going to the Hamilton gardens on a photo scavenger hunt, going swimming, and many other amazing fun things with one or two of our leaders. Even though one of the leaders is a temple worker and couldn’t spend much time with us outside of the temple, we still felt her love for us when we went about our other activities.
Another HUGE highlight was the food. We got to eat lots of food... lots of Asian food, and lots of chicken. That's pretty much all we ate, and it was amazing! Butter chicken, Thai chicken, noodles with chicken, spring rolls (with chicken inside them)... and pita pits with chicken... so lots of asian chicken! We also had donuts for breakfast!! YUM!! So you could say that food was a big amazing part of our time.
The biggest part of the trip was the people and the amazing experiences I had with them. We've already spent 6 months together, and now we got this final bonding together. It was so fun telling really lame jokes together (Why was the curtain on the wall? Because it was a vampire!!!) Having really spiritual experiences together (temple going, scripture reading, prayer saying, journal writing), getting hay fever together, getting injured together, and growing closer as sisters (together). I couldn't ask for a better new family here in New Zealand.
