9th Prep Class/2nd Scuba Class

Hello Everybody!
This week in class we had more guest speakers, The Eckharts. Apparently they lived down there for quite some time, they even attended the ward we will be going to! I am so excited, the Ekharts had a slide show for us, they showed us pictures of our school, relief society president, branch president, and many of the beautiful landscapes! I can say this much, it is REALLY green! Everything is so beautiful and real, I can’t wait to experience it for myself. We had a bit of a discussion on presenting a positive American image. We will be seen as Americans with big flashing lights wherever we go, and issues will be brought up. We each need to acquire the skills to turn any perceived negative conversation into a positive. Topics that will likely be brought to our attention include: gun control, President Bush, the Iraqi war, nuclear warfare, etc. It is important to remember that New Zealand is a little bitter at the European and American countries. However, the attitudes of the average New Zealander make me believe that there won’t be too many issues. Everyone is very laid back and life moves at a lot slower pace. We will find ourselves speaking much slower in conversations, and taking the time to appreciate the experiences of life rather than rushing to the next one before we come home. In addition to my regular New Zealand class, I also had my second scuba diving class. It was still in the same ghetto shed, but we felt much less trepidation! The pool time went great, we went through our skills quickly and are all ready for our open-dive experiences. Unfortunately our instructor is going out of town for about three weeks, so we won’t be able to be certified for a little while. Still it is really fun to sit at the bottom of an eight foot pool with six other kids and learn how to fin pivot, hover, change air supplies, equalize, share air, use hand signals, and eight hundred other things we do! I am really starting to have fun with scuba diving, I can’t wait to do it for real! Tune in next week for another great update, we are getting close now, the weeks, days, minutes, and seconds are starting to fall away into the lower numbers! As of this second I am exactly 69 days 16 hours 23 minutes and 37 seconds away!