Kapa Haka Treat

This will be one of the highlights of our mission I am sure. I have been looking forward to watching Djahni’s High School Kapa Haka performance all year. I say ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ here because Elder Saunders just forgot all about it, whereas I never could. Those of you who are my facebook friends will know this story already. This is the blog version. Djahni is the daughter of the Branch President of Whakatane and as most of you know we just love this family. We were also hoping that her performance would be on a Saturday so that we could attend but it was scheduled for 9.30 Friday morning. So we said we would do our best to attend. We were blessed that 2 washing machines broke down this last week in Gisborne (poor missionaries). Plus the sisters who we moved a few weeks ago in Gisborne didn’t have a washing machine and that was due to a misunderstanding between the missionaries and Elder Saunders. So we HAD to go to Gisborne this weekend. And to get to Gisborne you have to go through Whakatane. We left after transfers on Thursday and stayed with the new couple in Whakatane, Elder and Sister Clark. We spent a lovely evening with them and in the morning we all went to the performance together.
This was the regional final and to go through to the nationals next year you have to be placed in the top three. Each performance lasts for about 20-30 mins and there are lots of different segments to each performance. The first group were brilliant and not knowing much about what the judges were looking for made me a complete novice. As I have just found out that that group were not in the top 3. Anyway after only a few minutes of Djahni’s group singing I looked at her mum and said that they were lovely and I got quite emotional. The rest of it was so so good. Hark at the expert here! We left after that and never saw the remaining 6 but the prizing giving was at 4pm. We went on our way to Gisborne and delivered the washing machines and had a lovely catch-up with the missionaries. We then had another super FHE outside by the camp fire with the Bellistons and their friends. All the while I kept checking my phone for the results. After we had part of the FHE outside and ate some food we came inside to watch a good video. About half way through the video the results came in. Naturally I looked at the message but didn’t want to detract from the spiritual message so just keep the disappointment or joy to myself. For Half an hour. I was in tears thinking about Djahani, her family and the other performers and families. Was it tears of sadness or joy.  After the closing prayer was said I calmly said do you want to hear the results and just to humour me they said yes, as if they had a choice. They Won. Can you believe it? Well of course you can they were the best but I was overjoyed. Hope you enjoy some of the photos and hopefully can see the video. Now back to missionary work!!!!!