Hello world from windy new zealand! Hope life is well, heard the vikes pulled out a good win so that is excellent! man we had a great week last week, capped off by a fantastic weekend.... Last week we had a new speaker, mary, who was really great and really just challenged us all to thinking a new way, her husband is speaking this week and he is awesome, i'm really excited to learn new stuff this week... but last week my small group went out for burgers with them and just talked with them forever, they have some crazy stories and some good advice so it was really good to sit and talk with them.... last week was such a blur, its incredible i'm sitting here asking people all around what happened last week because it went so fast... one thing that i loved about last week was a bunch of us watched Newsies, no one here has ever seen it except me and our DTS leader... we were amazed that such a crime could be committed as never seeing Newsies... so we indoctrinated all of them with the fine art of Disney musicals... my flair the musical seems to be catching on here at base... Newsies and the high school musicals seem to be crowd favorites! On thursday we had a going away party for a Finnish couple, Emmi and Matti, that were volunteering here. It was sad to see them go they were awesome! and Matti would talk soccer and hockey with me, so i'm bummed, becuase he was the one person that really knew sports well enough to talk with me... They were in their mid twenties and just came over to new zealand and cooked for us and worked around the base for the first month and half, it was really great to have them here.... but the party we had for them on thursday was a blast, and we played many fun party games such as pin the tail on the unicorn and "past the parcel" ( a regular household kiwi and aussie game)... On friday 6 of us got a ride down to auckland to spend the weekend in NZ's unofficial capital... let me just tell you auckland is awesome! i loved it... there were so many cool places to see and it, and experience it never disappointed... on friday night me matt and nadine went to go look for a place with some live music... after being lost and very disappointed at our shortcomings of finding music, we asked some kids for some help... they were like 'actually we're going to go check out some bands right now, wanna come with?' and we were like OF COURSE! they were really really nice kids and made us feel right at home... it was a really fun night and we got to take in some local new zealand music, which was really cool... on saturday our group split up during the day and me and isaac went our own way (the rest of the kids went to underwater world, MOA has that i didn't need to go) but maybe i should of cause i kinda bought some things, oops sorry mom and dad... dont' look at my bank account! but we had a really fun day just walking around downtown auckland and checking out the whole city.... at night we went to the famous Eden Park to watch a semi-final rugby match between auckland and hawke's bay... it was POURING out and we just froze to the bone but we had an awesome time watching our first live rugby match... it was the national rugby league play off game as well, so it was a really good professional game, the weather discouraged some people from going i think, but we made the best of it... we pretty much cheered for whatever team didn't get us beaten up, although i was sporting my new Auckland jersey (underneath my jacket and a trash bag)... its a sweet jersey tho... sunday morning was incredible... we got up early for breakfast then headed over to the sky tower so i could base jump off the top... i know, i know but it was awesome! i loved it, it was a 192 meter (bout 650 or so feet i think? 65 stories) controlled free fall/ basejump without a parachute... heres the best part, i got to the bottom and the guy was like there isn't really a line for jumpers, you wanna go again?... so of course i had to jump again, for free! Two for the price of one.... it was awesomel i was pumped, the rest of the day the guys and girls seperated and each did our own thing but we had a good afternoon eating at this sweet restauarant on this patio over the street, then us guys had some time to kill, so we went and saw "the nanny diaries"... it was like the only option that worked, don't judge us... but ya it was a great weekend! auckland is a really cool city, you all need to check it out! well this turned out to be entirely too long, but i hope everything back in the states is great.... much love

korey