Tongan Update, 16 September 2007, Little Old Lady
I have a little story for you today. It was told in Relief Society by one of the Sisters. Try to envision in your mind this little lady in the story.
There once was a little lady, and one day she looked into the mirror, and she had only three hairs on her head. “Oh my,” she said. “I guess I’ll braid my hair today.”
The next day when she looked into the mirror, she had only two hairs. “Well, I can part them down the middle.”
The third day she looked into the mirror. You got it—only one hair. “I’ll wear it in a ponytail,” she thought.
Yep, the next day—no hair. “Now I don’t have to worry about my hair!”
NOW HOW IS THAT FOR HAVING A POSITIVE ATTITUTE!!!??? (I thought the story was kind of funny. What do you think? Come on…)
Talking about stories…once a week Elder T. and I are going to a village elementary school, Fatai Elementary Government School. I’m going to read stories and do some art with the children, and John is going to pull out his hammer, paint etc.
At the public schools the students where uniforms. Red is the uniform of this school.
Who said we were retired? I was really surprised at how clean and neat the five rooms of the school were. However, the teacher sharpened the children's pencils with a knife, and there were very few crayons and paper supplies.
Each village on Tongatapu has its own school, its own set of churches (usually an LDS, Catholic, Seventh Day, and Weslayan),
and a series of little stands that sell a variety of interesting items. The people used to walk everywhere so every village needed to have schools and churches close to them. That isn’t the case now. There are way too many cars here, and they’re all being driven on the wrong side of the road.
I thought I was ready to “drive” to the post office in Nuku’alofa with its many crazy drivers.
Not good! Believe me…the Lord watches over His missionaries.
These are pictures of one of the round abouts. Some are just a pile of cement blocks like this one below.
I went around a round-about (a corner where cars can go straight, turn left, turn right, or flip U-turns, or go any other direction that they want to go), and I thought a bus was blocking the traffic. So I zipped out across the lane and whoa!! A car came from behind the bus, slammed on its breaks, and came to a screeching halt barely missing me. Sister Christensen (She and Elder Christensen work in the office with us.) says she’ll always bring her walking shoes to the office from now on. We usually walk to the post office to get the missionaries’ mail and send the mail. She hadn’t brought her good shoes, so thusly, the “Mad-Hatter” drive to town. See…it was all her fault!
So, the University of Utah’s football team is the pits! The word Utah (uta) in Tongan means “bush.” It’s where the farmers plant their crops, out in the bush (uta). So when you say, “Go Utah,” we Tongans think, “Go Bush!” (Ha,ha! This is a little political joke…get it?)
Here is a little info about our mission. We have about 176 missionaries in 6 different zones. Four of the zones are on Tongatapu which is our island.
They names the zones HAMM , which is Hilamoni, Amoni, Molomona, and Molonai. The other two zones are on islands further north of us. They are called Nehai and Lehai. When we go to inspect houses, we go every Thursday, which is your Wednesday. We inspect one zone each week which consists of about 12 to 13 houses. The “cottages” (that’s what we are calling them) are very small and quaint.
Don't be mis-lead, these are the better houses for missionary use. Other are the same in size, but the setting is not as nice.
They have no kitchens or eating areas. The missionaries are expected to be feed by the members. (The members call it “missionary feeding.” I think that sounds like feeding animals at the zoo.) The cottages just have a bedroom and a bathroom—now that’s not much to keep clean, is it? Well, the missionaries move (transfer) every six weeks so they aren’t exactly getting greatly attached to any one cottage. What it boils down to, is that the cottages are not very clean. We need to do a lot of training with the Elders especially.
Friday the Sister missionaries came to the office area for special training. They will be ushers at the Temple Open House. Needless to say, that is the big topic of discussion for the Church members here in Tonga. Everyone is hoping that President Hinckley will dedicate the temple, but we hear that his health is really failing. Many people have been working night and day to get everything ready. John and I have even done a little bit of cleaning. Oh, it is a beautiful temple, just perfect for Tonga!
This week was the Church’s school, The Liahona, 60th Anniversary. The school (middle and high school only) was organized 60 years ago. We were invited to go to their celebration on campus which is right next to the Temple. We wore earphones to interpret the Tongan speakers, and the Tongans had an interpreter to speak English for them. The meeting was looong, but at the end of the program some of the students performed some Tongan dances. The girls do little movements with their hand and take slight steps.
The guys, on the other hand, are jumping and knocking each other. They looked like they were having more fun.
A lot of people were happy here when the Tongan rugby team beat the USA. You could get free beer from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in Nuku’alofa to celebrate. Oh, brother!
We are doing well.
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