About an hour before church James took us to look at the city again. So Christchurch is (was) the second largest city in the NZ. The inner city was a mess! Construction warning signs with the bright orange cones and detours all over the place. We saw huge piles of rubble and buildings split in half. The famous church whose steeple tumbled off during the quake is held up by giant steel supports to keep the building from falling over before they are ready to either rebuild or fix up. There's a huge fence around it to keep people from going inside. It was really quite shocking to see so much damage 2 years later.
So our roommate Camilla is from Christchurch and her father is a bishop of one of the wards. Funny enough it was her ward that we ended up visiting without knowing beforehand. Her mum even gave a talk. Small world. In relief society we talked about building on a firm foundation and everyone laughed and joked about that not being the case for Christchurch.
After church we had a mini fireside while we waited for dinner. Erika had asked James if he would give us a fireside about the history of the church in NZ. It was amazing to listen to him talk about the early New Zealand pioneers and their faith and courage. Some even migrated to the states and helped to establish some of the Mormon settlements in Utah. The European Kiwis were the first to accept but then the missionaries started learning the Maori language and that brought the Maoris to the church in the hundreds.
The coolest thing that I learned is that there were missionaries from all different Christian faiths that came to preach to the Maori people and this began to cause contention because of all of the different sects. The Maori chiefs gathered together to discuss what they should do. They were confused because if Christianity was the right path then there should be only one Christian church. One of the chiefs decided to fast and pray about it and he came back to the meeting three days later with a prophecy. He said that the true church had not yet come to the Maori people but that they would know the right church when they see it because their missionaries will travel in pairs, they will learn and teach the gospel in the Maori language, and they would come from the east. How cool is that? The translation of the Book of Mormon was also a really neat story. It was the coolest fireside!
Afterwards we had the most delicious meal: chicken and lamb with salad and bread. For dessert they made us waffles with ice cream. We spent the rest of the evening sharing pictures and our adventures with the family. Before bed we had family prayer and scripture study with them. It was so neat. Tomorrow will be another early day as we drive down to Queenstown.
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