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.

"Maori and Polynesians aren't 'inherently' spiritual, and their sometimes-humble circumstances aren't because they are 'wonderful, faithful' saints," Colvin said.

"It's because, at the dark heart of New Zealand there has been an historical core of racism.

"So don't romanticise the life of brown people who live simply - inequality is a political problem, not a lifestyle choice."

Colvin says missionaries need to get a sense of humour: "New Zealanders will punish you for taking yourself too seriously."

Learn rugby, she said. Being able to talk the game, the competition, the teams and the players was everything.

"I can't stress this lesson enough - and I don't care if you are male or female. Study rugby."

Colvin said New Zealand was diverse, except in Auckland's North Shore "that feels a bit more like Utah".

"It happens where you locate church offices and import Americans to run the show - cultural mimicry, and all that," she said.

Colvin questioned why the Mormon Church maintained its dogged insistence on white shirts and ties, to basketball courts in New Zealand chapels.

"Our buildings would look more marae than the cinderblock blah that we have now."

They should get rid of church recreation halls and instead build an external pavilion overlooking a rugby field, and/or a cricket pitch, she said.

"We'd drop the whole basketball thing - because unless you went to Church College, who plays the silly game anyway?" Colvin said.

"It would be volleyball for the Samoans, rugby for the Maori, and cricket for the Pakehas (if there are any).

"Only the North Shore Mormons, and one Mormon in Wellington, would vote for National, and try as they may to inflect this political habit into churched spaces, they'd be shunned and ridiculed by the rest of the country as being pompous and out of touch.

"The rest of the country would vote Labour, Greens and the Maori party. Our elderly would all vote for New Zealand First, which we'll forgive them for with an indulgent pat on the arm."