A huge Ray. We caught it, and cooked it, and ate it! Not really











A little underwater shot

Cathedral Cove, Coromandel New Zealand

Road Trippin'

Our apologies for not having posted anything for quite some time now. In our defense, we've been quite busy for the past week and haven't stayed in one place for more than a couple nights. It all started last Wednesday when we made our way down to Hamilton, NZ where the temple is. Aunty Linda Wishart had done us the amazing favor of asking some of her friends, Uncle Ken and Aunty Naomi Strother, who live down there to let us stay with them. Upon arriving Wednesday afternoon and receiving the warmest welcome I think we've ever received, we sat down to some lunch. After a quick shower we headed over to the Temple which was 5 minutes down the road for the 2:30 session.

The Hamilton, New Zealand Temple

After our temple session we came back to the Strother home, where the family was starting to show up for the party that night. Once everybody was there, they performed their beautiful family song and the feast began. My favorite was the NZ treat pavalova- basically sugar and egg whites that are cooked and then have cream and strawberries on top. It was probably the sweetest thing I've ever tasted. After that we went down to the music room at the Church College (High School) where most of the family teaches. We had no idea that any family could have so much musical talent. Our favorite was the 9 year-old bass player/drummer who was a grandson of Ken and Naomi. He and the family entertained us with classics like "Brick House" and "I wish" by Stevie Wonder. They were amazing. Sadly, the party eventually had to end. Thursday morning we woke up to a great breakfast (and sack lunches to go) prepared by Aunty Naomi. Austin and I would just like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Strother Family as well as Aunty Linda for your kindness and charity. We said our goodbyes and headed down to Raglan, one of the most famous left point-breaks in the world. Luckily, we caught it on a good day.

No, that's not one of us, but it is the spot we surfed. The sets were much bigger- a little bit overhead- and you could get 20-30 second rides.

On the road again.

Bridal Veil Falls

Sweet Fireside

Just wanted to share a quick experiance we had tonight. We heard about a YSA fireside in Auckland City tonight and we also heard that the speaker was really good so we decided to go down. We took some BYU students with us who are studying abroad and got there nice and early to get a good seat. Well, he came with his wife, and she spoke first expressing her love for everybody. Then he got up to speak, and we were all shoked because he didn't have a talk prepared or anything. He just had a bunch of ushers out in the congregation with cordless mics and he said we could just ask questions, and he would teach and testify based off of our questions. He said we could ask whatever we liked, and he'd do his best to answer. It took a while for people to get up the courage to ask a question infront of a few hundred other single adults, but once a few brave souls got up the nerve people started to catch on. The ushers would just hand you the mic and once the person in front of you finished, you'd stand up and ask the question. It was amazing. I finally got the chance to ask a question. I asked. "As an Apostle of the Lord, you are a special witness of Christ. What is something that you learned recently in reference to Christ that you feel would be benefical for us to hear?" Oh, did I mention the speaker was Elder David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! We were sitting like 8 rows back and got to spend 2 hours with him, just asking questions and hearing him respond. He was amazing. So humble and meek, yet bold, wise, and powerful. Some of the questions asked I remembering thinking, how on earth is he going to respond to that, and then, as if he had already known what the question would be weeks ahead of time, he would deliver the most beautiful and exact answer. It was unreal. His humor coupled with his love, charity and infinite wisdom was out of this world. It was truley a sweet experiance to sit so near, and learn from the feet of a real life Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. No different than Peter, James, and John. It was a good reminder that this really is the church of Jesus Christ, set up the same way His original church was set up, led by Him through His Apostles alive on the earth today. I could feel His presence and knew that Elder Bednar really was a Special Witness of Him. . . . . Can this trip get any better? Seriously?

P.S. If you don't really understand what I'm talking about, or if I struck a chord of curiosity, Check this out! www.mormon.org

The GHOST SHIP

So the Crouches told us that we could take their kayaks and paddle around the harbour. We were stoked cause they said that the paddle was "absolutley beautiful". Well, the view was pretty, but because of our "Tongathathon paddle from heaven" it wasn't anything "absolutley beautiful". So after about 7 minutes we were pretty bored. So we decided, among other things, to see if we could paddle around and climb up some of the bigger boats and do flips and gainners off them without getting caught. From there, we couldn't believe what we saw. It was this huge old abonded ship. It was immediately tittled The Ghost Ship as we headed towards it to see how we could climb it and explore. After two paddles around the ship we decided the only way to get into the Ghost Ship was climb the anchor chain, pirates of the carribean style. So we tied our kayaks to the anchor chain and climbed. Rhett was the first up, while I stayed back to take some pictures. Once we got on, we spent the next hour climbing and exploring. It was so funny... while we were down in the second level, Rhett went off ahead, and saw a small doorway that lead to a room. While he was opening the door, he called back..."This is probably where they keep the dead bodies." Then, as he opened the door I heard him scream/laugh out and say, "Austin! Check this out!" I thought for sure he'd found a dead body! Not quite a dead body, but he did find a huge bottle of POISON! haha, for real, we got pictures to prove it! It was pretty funny. Who has bottles of poison laying around? A Ghost Ship, thats who. After a few more rooms we jumped off, and paddled back. Brad had let us drive his truck and trailer down to the harbour. It was way nice of him. When we got back we went out to a Joseph Smith Musical performance put on by the YSA. It was really good. A few of the kids living here were in it. We were really impressed. From there, just church and surfing, and the usual feasts, movies, card tournaments, and late night scripture studies. We'll keep you posted on our upcoming adventures...

A THREE STORY YACTH

THE GHOST SHIP

THE GHOST SHIP

THE GHOST SHIP

RHETT

THE GHOST SHIP

This is Papa Crouch, Mum, and Becky. Becky just got home from Japan for a year and got the fam some outfits. They are so funny. Brad spends most of his free time finding ways to make fun of Rhett and me. We love it! And he loves the witty insults shot back at him by US.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

This is how we spent our Valentines Day. Yeah, we have no girlfriends, but at least we have each other...and Dave-Ski!







The water was super cold, but it felt nice after we went numb










Pretty Nice, Huh?

Aucklizand

Well, Rhett tried for like 2 hours last night to upload some pictures and it just wasn't happening. I think he is going to try again sometime soon, so this will just be a filler to let everybody know that we are alive and kickin. The past two weeks of our lives have pretty much been one huge party. Let me give you a typical day. We wake up around 10 or 11 and eat breakfast, study the scrips, lounge around... Around 12 or 1 somebody will usually come pick us up, or we'll go out by ourselves for a surf at one of the local beaches. We'll get home around 5 or 6 and eat a feast with the Crouch Family. After dinner we'll have a pool party, and visit with all the random people in the house. From the pool we'll usually make our way to the pool table or the dinner table for our competative pool or card tournaments. From there we'll have our daily desert of pie and icecream and watch a movie until about 2 or 3 in the morning. After the movie we'll have family scripture study with whoever is still somewhat coherent. Then off to bed and up the next day for another day of who knows what. We've met some of the coolest kids ever that have really taken us into their little "group". The other day we went to some of the coolest waterfalls, and hikes we've seen yet. (I think Rhett will post some pics) We had a planning meeting yesterday and planned out the rest of our trip here in New Zealand. We honestly need more hours in the days and days in the weeks for all that we want to do before we leave. Surf trips and campouts and temples and lakes and dirtbikes seem to be our upcoming events, but don't worry.... you'll be the first ones we tell! Well, we love you. Yup...

Gayna Crouch says...

Thanks for sharing. Austin and Rhett are great guys and we feel really lucky that Brendon brought them home for dinner. They make us laugh so much!! We feel pretty special....Austin has the best pillow hair at breakfast. Which makes us laugh even more and Rhett has an infectious laugh which we really enjoy being infected with.Rhett and Austin bring laughter and happiness where ever they go. Heavenly Father knew we needed them.

Gainer off the Warf






Matt Vos, little brother of an Elder we met in Fiji! Crazy huh?











Climbing up the warf from the ocean








Piha (good surf beach)






-Jono! The funniest kid I think I have EVER met!

-You can't go wrong a Nissan SUNNY BABY! This is what gets around New Zealand for the next month!








-The Famous Crouch Mansion!
(Where we are staying)







-Our Room! Yea ya. I sleep on the matress and Rhett on the Bean Bags. We got our own T.V. and gamecube and everything!

-Us at Bethels, a long right hander! We scored some sick surf on some crapy boards! Hey, we match too...that means... the locals fear us and we rip. Well...Rhett does

-Teach him to snake me!

-This was like a river that led out to the ocean....

-Thats almost as good as the speedo shots eh?

Auckland New Zealand

Its kinda cool getting picked up from the Airport by a General Authority! Elder Baxter and his family has been SO good to us! They live in a condo that over looks a beach with islands and harbours all around. We had our own room and the amazing cooking that comes with a mother of several children. Our days have been somewhat uneventful as far as adventure goes since we've just been trying to track down places to stay and cars to rent. Lots of research on the interent and making calls to find the best deals. Sunday we started off with a nine o'clock chuch meeting with the Baxter family. From there we met a bunch of the young single adults that shipped us all over to the "singles branch". About 30 kids probably but real friendly and happy to see us. From that ward we went to yet another ward with a kid named Brendon Ahwong, (who served in the same mission as Will Younkin in Sydney). He is way cool and is living in Auckland with the Crouch family. We met Brad Crouch the father of the home at church and was invited over for dinner that night. Sunday dinner was a blast with this Crouch family! They are the best! They're as crazy as I'll get out, and its one of those houses where there are always things going on and tons of kids coming in and out. We were about to leave midnight sunday night, and got offered to stay in their home for a week or so. We were stoked cause they are the funnest people ever and was no way we could turn it down. So here we are in the Crouch mansion surroned by fun loving people! Their adorable daughter Chloe just turned 16 yesterday and we had a blast with all her little friends in the pool and in the house. They loved our American games like "sharks and minnows" in the pool and "the rap game". The only problem is their bloddy accents make it hard to rhyme off them! haha. But they loved the games anyway. Here's Chloe, she'll give you a shout out!

hey hey yo!!! well im chloe an az uz already no i turned 16 yestade. it was frikin mean azz wit deez grazy americans....uz guys have the badist games out! we ate a crap load o food an dammit!! i must have gained a tonne.. Austen iz a crak-up aye. an hes the man at that busta rhyme game thats so gonna carry on ova hea in kiwi land.ummmmm wot elz kan i sae. these wiggers r soft stumikd..but they do eat like a tongan. we all n-joyd cake for brekfast. ohhhh Rhett is tthe man at piano but i fully owned him in pop an like hip hop song's so u need 2 train him up if he gonna beat me n-e time soon. an this is for Cory......X........hahhaahhahaahahahhaa bro u no im jokin but aparenty u r the mann...... so keep up the good work!!!!!..peace out aiiit!. holla bak if uzz want cloclo_nutsprincess@hotmail.com.

HAHA That girl is so funny! I told her about you Cory. Anytime you want a New Zealand hunnie come on out! Oh ya, just so everybody is clear. In New Zealand they say Hell and Damn and Damnit like its nothing. Everybody at church was saying it and Rhett and I were like...uhh what? But they later explained. So she is innocent. But "pissed" or "bugar" are like pretty bad swear words. So when pissed came out of my mouth everybody freaked! It was soo funny. It still slips out every once in a while but they understand! We're just here then we're off to who knows where. Loving life and this Kiwi hospitality! Well, we love you all.

The view from Elder Baxters house

Me and Chloe

The Pool party, playing sharks and minows