This past week we went on a stake temple trip up to Hamilton, NZ. It really was awesome going to the temple every single day. The Hamilton Temple was built in the late 50’s and it is really beautiful and has a great spirit. I liked being in this sacred place with many youth from New Zealand.
The camp we went to was on Church property and all of the locations (campsites, pavilions, and amphitheaters) had Book of Mormon names. We stayed in Camp Alma which had multiple cabins and a kitchen. We had about 10 youth and 3 leaders. The Young Women had 3 youth. I got really close to all of the YM, especially the leaders. It was really awesome going with brothers that I got to know very well and will miss.
In addition to the temple work we did a service project around the camp. We also did some other fun things. We played Touch Rugby a lot in the Captain Moroni Pavilion. It helps that my leaders are good rugby players. We ate in the Temple Cafeteria twice while we were there. I’m going to have so many memories from this trip like eating pizza (my favorite food) once on the first day, and then on the last day. We went to Waterworld and had a great time swimming, diving, and going on slides. We got rained on almost every single day and sometimes got soaked. We mostly ate out with take-outs and restaurants. I can remember going to an all-you-can-eat buffet called Valentines. We also went to the movie The BFG. These were some cool activities and we were able to do them because of a fundraiser--a sausage sizzle and car wash. We had great support from Ward members and the community. It helped that the day of the fundraiser was the Saturday of the All Blacks game in Dunedin and was pretty busy.