Tongan Update, 24 August 2007, The Beginning in Tonga

Tonga 24 August, 2007

"Welcome from Tonga!"

Can you believe it? It’s been over a week since we left the mountains, Salt Lake, and all of you. Somehow it seems much longer. Needless to say, we are having a ton of new experiences and seeing many new things.

While we were at the LAX airport on the way to Tonga, we met a young Tongan named William. He is a member of the Church whose brother was coming home from his mission in the Philippines. We kind of befriended each other. It was nice to have someone “in the know”, especially when we had to go through Customs in Tonga with three suitcases full of illegal food items. (Hey, we didn’t know!) (Oh by the way, we did have a stop- over in Samoa.

We can only describe it as hot and humid, but at least we can say we’ve been there! Because of the time change , John just happened to lose his 62^nd birthday during the plane flight. In Samoa we did buy him a new t-shirt to celebrate his non-birthday.)

On Sunday we went to a Tongan branch with William thinking we were going to hear his brother’s homecoming. Instead they reorganized the Branch, and his father was put in as Branch President. So we listened to his father speak instead. The only thing we understood was “emeni” (amen), but we certainly could feel the spirit there and see the humility of the members. Wow, can they sing!

After that wonderfully long flight (13 hours from L.A.), the McMurrays (Mission president and his wife)met us at the little, tiny airport, took us to the Mission Home, and served us breakfast. They gave us a short tour of part of the island. It looks like Hawaii without mountains—but there are blue, blue oceans, lots of palm trees, lush ground cover, and beautiful flowers—Hey, I think we’re going to be alright!

Then they took us to the mission office where our home will be for the next eighteen months. From a satellite this is where we are in Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu, Tonga.

We are directly down from the warf you see in the ocean. There are two white buildings. One is a chapel and next to it is the Mission office. It is the rectangle building with a center court, kinda like a square donut as you look down on it.

We have a corner nook which will be just right.

(The shower is the only thing that is kind of scary. Black stuff seems to be growing in it.) We have a lovely courtyard in the center of the complex. It has a multitude of different types of flowers and bushes.

The senior missionaries brought a basketful of groceries, and it was waiting for us on the counter. What a very nice and good thing for them to do. You see, you do have to go to many different small market places to find your groceries—the vegetable market, the bread shop, the maybe- what -you -need shop, and then another maybe- what-you-need shop. It is quite an adventure just to see what is in these various little markets.

We’ve had to figure out the "food thing" and the "gas stove thing" pretty quickly because we also have young missionaries (A.P.s--Elders Lybert and Fine'isaloi and Office Elders--Elders Holloway and Lauaki) living at the Mission Office; and they "don’t know how to make pancakes." (Yeah, right!) So...we invited them to breakfast.

We had only been in Tonga six days when we had an investigator and the missionaries over for dinner. This investigator is a 27 year old Chinese kid who is very interested in the gospel, but he didn’t think my cooking was all that great. I love it when they speak English like James. That’s the kid’s name—a very nice and thoughtful person. We talked to him about eternal families and showed him pictures of our kids and grandkids. We also had a picture of our extended family at Strawberry Pinnacles. (What a happy group, and the gospel is happiness”.) We’ll see how it goes with James.

The senior missionaries have Family Home Evenings on Mondays. They are studying “Preach My Gospel.” They also have outings on Fridays. We hooped and hollowed it up with a real live square dance the first Friday. (If our kids could only see us now…)

The second Friday we went to a terrific restaurant (Kaatini) that served Tongan and American food. Most of the seniors ordered "swordfish", but I wasn't that daring. Courageous Elder Thompson went for the new delicacy and said it tasted great! The place is right by the ocean—very scenic. There actually is a few places that you might dare eat at.

My, I must be stuck on food because the next thing I’m going to tell you about is Zone Conference. Elder Baxter of the Seventies came and talked to the missionaries. (Sign him up as a great motivational speaker.) After the conference the members of the ward served us “lunch” (more like ten dinners in one). There was octopus, ‘ufi (yams), kumala (sweet potatoes), watermelon, sausage-like stuff, chicken, and stuff, and stuff, and fish, and stuff, and stuff that I had no idea what it was. The chicken was good!

Elder Baxter was the guest speaker at our own senior missionary fireside at the Mission President’s home. He said that about 53,000 Tongans are members of the Church, but only about 17,000 of them are active. Sounds like there is work to do!

This is getting pretty long, but I have so much to tell you. I guess we’ll save something for next time. So…

‘Ofa ‘atu (with love),