featherston

Hey everyone we've been in a little town called featherston for the past week. After visiting Edward and Auriga for the weekend, we headed off to church in the neighboring town, featherston. After deciding to fast for work, we showed up and realized it was the week they all bring a dish and have a huge pot luck after church. Classic, of course we choose this day. After taking a few plates(10) to go, we asked around for work and were invited for dinner at the branch presidents house. We quickly accepted and headed over to the Coldicutts, a couple in the ward, for some much needed patch work on wileys pants. Sister coldicutt must have patched 5 pairs of trousers and a shirt by the time we needed to be at dinner. She's a powerhouse on the sewing machine. At dinner, we were healthly fed and played games with the Bennets 4 kids who are really really awesome. We were invited for the night to stay and quickly took up the offer. In the morning after breakfast we decided it was time to pack up and head out to the spit again for a surf trip. We showed up mid afternoon and were packing to hike into the spot when i realized the minor ding i had in my back up board had turned into a cavernous hole...After considering my options, 1 get really mad and throw the whole board into a nearby rock, 2 hike in and bodysurf the grinding right pointbreak, or 3 break out the big wave board and work on my soul arch bottom turn, i decided to go with number three and grabed my heafty 6'6 board for the trip. Once at the spit, the waves were good but the wind was bad so we had a rock war and found other ways of entertaining ourselves until it got good. i would compare this time in our lives to that of the lost boys....We were throwing logs at each other and banging on pots and pans to make music. Basically anything destructive, negative, and dangerous was accomplished along with reading our scriptures...weird right? THe waves never got good that night so we went to bed with better hopes for the next day. We awoke to pumping seconds, the point wave, and were on it. After a few hour of wiley and taylor ripping and me finally getting my bottom turn down we were worn out and headed in for a food and sleep break. We decided to paddle out for another session mid day and then wiley and i had the bright idea to surf the spit (a wave that breaks a half mile out to sea) as the sun was setting. We were met half way walking there by the farmer/land owner frank who in a not very nice way told us to get off his property...aka heres my gun and my really angry rabid dog and well i'm kinda angry too look. Wiley, who had met him before tried to convince him we weren't any trouble and somehow convinced him and we were allowed to paddle out....all the way out to the spit...yay!!!! The next morning we were greeted with rain and good waves. After an all day surf we packed up for the hike back to the nice dinner that awaited us in featherston at the Coldicutts. We, along with the missionaries enjoyed a nice indian style home cooked dinner and were invited to stay the night. The next morning we attended district meeting with the missionaries and enjoyed some fresh and well needed American cooking from the missionary couple in the area. Featherston had truely been a blessing to our poor famished bodies as they were from our loop around the south island. That night The coldicutts asked if I would sing with them in their singing group which would be performing in a local bar and singing I will survive... How could I say no? It was the funniest thing I've ever done and I think wiley and taylor really enjoyed my singing with the group. We were able to get work out of the whole thing and were set the next two days with some work around the area. We spent plenty more time out with the missionaries and the families around the area who we are very greatful for. THey helped us save up our money by feeding us and giving us a place to stay. It was like a little bit of home was in featherston. We made the long drive up to gisborne the other night which ended up with wiley puking all over the road, (taylor and i had already had the same experience earlier that week) there must've been something else in featherston....but we all survived and now we're back in good old gisborne! Tonight we're cooking dinner for the bishops family and we'll be off to the northland. Hope all is well at home!