We have a very caring mission president, who feels like the senior couples need a break now and again, plus an opportunity to get together and socialize with each other. So, earlier this month (Sept 2012), we met in Wellington to attend our first rugby game. The All-Blacks (world rugby champions in 2011) were playing Argentina, and 14 of us (including the Kezerians) arranged to go. To assist us in understanding the game of rugby, we tried to learn the basics by watching some videos on YouTube, particularly one addressed to Americans who know football but not rugby! Anyway, it was a fun evening for all of us...here's some pictures:
Front row: (R to L) President & Sister Kezerian; our new office couple, the Freemans (St. George); and the Overtons (Family History missionaries from St. George). Back row (R-L): the McVeys (also Family History, Denver); Elder Beckstead (from Orem), Elder Hirschi (Brigham City); and Elder Farnes...their wives were roaming around taking pictures!
View from our seats--we thought they were fine, especially since the weather was good!
Flag ceremony with New Zealand and Argentina flags. Both national anthems were sung; we really enjoyed the NZ anthem because it has verses in both Maori and English.
The All-Blacks always do the Maori haka (kind of like a war chant) prior to each game. This is really fun to watch (and hear!), but the best picture I could get was from the jumbo-tron.
This is a "scrum" when the ball is tossed into the center, and the opposing teams push each other as hard as possible to get the ball out to the members of their team, who are standing in the background ready to retrieve it. Rugby is an amazingly physical sport with no timeouts, a short 15-minute halftime, and no helmets or padding to protect the players. It made us kind of look like "wimps" with all the protection we use in football...but that's okay, we still prefer football! However, this was a great experience, and we would enjoy attending more rugby games...they are so popular here in NZ.
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