A Mormon missionary has produced a striking guide to serving in New Zealand, describing Kiwis as “earthy, raw, straight-shooting, irreverent, hilarious, and caring folk”.
Missionary Gina Colvin, in a blog on a major Mormon website, also took shots at her own Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and the way Americans see the world.
She said New Zealand was a secular and morally liberal nation.
This didn’t mean we were “going to hell in a hand-basket”, she said.
“Few people will bat an eye-lid at gay marriage, many will swear like troopers, wine-drinking is an important cultural institution, and pre-marital cohabitation is the norm,” she said.
Colvin, who is a Kiwi but is in Utah teaching missionaries, said they shouldn’t freak out because she would rather be with a “group of cursing, wine-swilling, gay-loving, cohabiting New Zealanders than any other people in the world – because, in my decades of experience, New Zealand has a habit of producing the real deal”.
She said American missionaries should get used to the fact that New Zealanders did not live in “McMansions”.
“On the contrary, that modest bungalow that doesn’t sport a ‘rest-room’ for every bedroom in the house and a basement the size of a football field probably cost more than your McMansion – even with the exchange rate,” she said.
“New Zealand is an expensive place to live – period!”
Colvin said missionaries should eat the food they are served in homes and be grateful.
“Food doesn’t come in bucket-sized portions for the price of small change.”
“It’s expensive – so eat that meal that has been prepared for you by that large humble Mormon family in their three-bedroom bungalow – because it represents more than food, it also represents sacrifice.”
And after the meal help clean up.
Learn some Maori, she added. Continue reading
Sources
- Stuff
- Image: LDS Church Temples