October 20, 2014

I feel like I've pretty much been on vacation for the last eight weeks and I'm LOVING it, this never needs to end. Man this place is awesome.
Seems to me like there's always stuff that happens throughout the week where I think, "oh! I need to write home about this!" So I take a mental note; which quickly gets lost in the stack of imaginary paperwork within my mind. Maybe I should start taking actual notes. Almost like how I should be keeping a consistent journal every night. Speaking of which, I think I have like thirty entries. Not good.
One of the focuses that we've had since I've been here is on service. Considering that there really aren't that many people, you've got to be creative in what you do. So we've been making sure to serve the community as much as we possibly can. Our focus within that parameter for the last week was on gardens. Because of the First Presidency message about preparation, the branch decided to either get every member a garden, or get their current one up to snuff. I've never done so much gardening in my life, and we haven't even really gotten to working on actually growing anything yet. Turns out that the house we're in has a 10 x 5 meter section in the back for a garden. Only problem being that it hasn't been used in a few years, so it was just a giant weed section (Almost like that spot in the back yard back home where the trailer is now). Worst part though is that it wasn't just regular weeds. It was infested with this incredibly tenacious, vine-like grass. It pretty much looks like crab grass, but the roots are super thick vine things that go surprisingly deep and criss cross in every way imaginable. The things are so evil that if you pull it all out and put it in a big pile, it'll simply root in again and the entire pile will continue to grow. I'm pretty sure I've found the plant of the devil. Basically the first weed that came after the fall. But, with all of that having been said, we're almost through with ours, and should be able to start planting soon enough. Out of all the gardens we've done, ours was the worst. Everyone else's is pretty good, and we're looking set to have some mean veggies in the coming months. Turns out it's warm enough to grow Taro here as well, so I'm pretty stoked about that.
This coming Saturday the town is holding a little fair. My companion and I, one of the members, and one of the local Kaumatua are putting down the Hangi (a cooking pit) so I'll make sure to update you on how that all works. I'm really hoping I can remember how to do it so we can put down a Hangi once I'm back home. Mmmmm. Talk about some tasty food.
Well. That should just about do it.
Ka Kite! Elder Kurt