It all started with the late bus...

Wow. I am still laughing about the events of tonight. Elder Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve is visiting NZ and giving a fireside tonight on the North Shore. Our ward YSA was meeting at the church at 6:15 where a bus would be waiting to drive us to the fireside. Earlier today we saw a bus stop at the bottom of the street of the church, and decided we would just take a bus from our houses to the church. Looked it up, found out the bus would pick us up at 5:50 and drop us off at our stop at 5:55, leaving just enough time for us to walk up the hill to the church. Perfect, right?

WRONG. We encountered many upsets:

1. The bus was late. Every time we have taken the bus, I always get so nervous that it isn’t going to show up—one of the first days we were here that happened to two of the girls in our group. We were deciding what we would do if it didn’t show up, when it finally pulled up just before 6pm.
2. The bus driver wouldn’t give us the student discount. When we ride the bus in the mornings, the driver is always so nice and always gives us the student discount ($2 instead of $3.40). Not this woman. Apparently she needed to see an X on our student I.D.s to validate them. So we paid almost twice the amount we would have to get to school for half the distance.
3. We got on the same bus route we always do, 090, but this driver turned into a neighborhood we have never seen. She turned this way and that, up hills and down, and got us very turned around. We were just hoping we would somehow get back to Triangle Road where our stop was. Eventually, we made it to Triangle, but she turned the opposite direction we needed to go!
4. At this point, I asked her if she was going back at all because she passed our stop. She said, “You never pressed the button!” To which I replied, “Because you never passed our stop!” She pulled off and let us out, but we were far from where we needed to be.
5. Fortunately, we knew where we were and how we could get to the church. Unfortunately, it was raining, we were all in skirts, and Christine was in heels. But, we only had a few minutes before we were supposed to be the church, so we decided to run. Please imagine four foreign girls in skirts running down a main road in the rain, one (Jessica) holding her long dress up so she doesn’t trip on it, and another (Christine) still holding onto an umbrella that broke and is now blowing backwards. Quite a site.
6. Another upset: Christine stepped on a piece of glass and cut her foot.
7. We finally made it to the church (hallelujah), but only to find an empty parking lot. It was 6:24, but we thought we would still be ok timewise because everyone is always late—not the case today! Maybe the meeting place changed?
8. The church is locked.
9. We don’t have a phone to call anyone.
10. We don’t even have Dr. Jacob’s number with us.
11. We don’t know the bus schedule.
12. It’s still raining.

This is where things begin to turn around. We walked across the street, picked the house that looked the nicest, knocked on the door, and asked to use their phone because we were just a little lost. The gentleman who opened the door was extremely nice, made us all come inside to dry off, and offered the phone, drinks, food, a ride, etc. So friendly. We first called Carol Anderton (our literacy teacher) to get JJ’s number, but she couldn’t find it. Next, we called Phyllis (after first dialing the wrong number), who had a hard time locating the number, but eventually found it. Finally, we got a hold of JJ, explained the predicament, and he was soon on his way to our rescue.

Quickly back to the family whose house we invaded. The dad came back into the room saying, “So, you’re not from around here are you?” This made me realize how the family must have been sitting at the dinner table laughing about the fact that four wet and confused American girls were sitting in their TV room frantically trying to phone someone to pick them up. Ridiculous. Anyways, he started asking us lots of questions and was so excited to learn that we were here studying to be teachers because they were a family of teachers! He teaches at Henderson Intermediate, and his wife teaches, too. Kinda crazy, huh.

JJ soon pulled up and saved us from this crazy night. Hooray! Luckily, we are able to laugh about it though because it really is comical. We just have to remember, "Come what may and love it." :) Quite a learning experience!

I wish we had a camera to capture this wonderful adventure...good thing Anna is such an artist and drew this to help us remember. Oh, and if you can't tell, Christine's umbrella is inside out at this point.