Another week! Friday was “Release Day.” We had eighteen missionaries (14 Tongans and 4 American) going home. Most of the Tongans are from this island so they didn’t have very far to go.
Elder Thompson and I had to pick up 6 of the missionaries who were on this island and bring them to the office. Here they are interviewed by the President, given lunch, participate in a career class, eat dinner at the President’s home, and then have a testimony meeting at the church with all their parents and families. We were given a very detailed schedule of who we were supposed to pick up, and where, and who we were suppose to drop off, and where etc. The missionaries need to be with a companion at all times so if we were taking one missionary to the office, his companion needed to be dropped off so he’d have a companion. Whoa!
Well, we go to the first house...no one was there. We go to the second house…no one was there. We go to the third house, and SURPRISE...six elders are there, and they aren’t even awake. They were supposed to be ready for pick-up at 6:00 a.m. It’s now close to 7:30 a.m. We waited for them to get ready. We only needed two of them. Anyway, we were hunting for Elders all over the island, but we finally got them all and only an hour late.
It was a wild day having the missionaries around the office complex all day. We had to set up tables and chairs, get food, have centerpieces. (Hey, this sounds like a ward activity. We thought we were getting out of that job.)
After the testimony meeting, guess who got to clean up? Yep!!! LITTLE ELDER THOMPSON AND ME! The missionaries are given by their families three or four leis , and many of the leis are made with candy in them. The wrappers were everywhere. Some cute girls took pity on us and started to help us, then other people joined in. It was not so bad! We made it through our first “Release Day.”
This has been an incredibly busy week. Any extra time we had, we ran over to help at the Temple.
What a treat!!! It’s incredible!! We are so glad that we can do anything to help. We’ve done some cleaning, fixing, and our favorite was to hang the crystals on the chandeliers.
(That is a time-consuming job!) Next week is the Open House, and the king is coming on Tuesday. We are even going to meet him. (We have an orientation meeting beforehand so we don’t goof up in his presence. Also they are going to train us to help usher during the Open House.)
The Sister Missionaries are also going to usher. They were all rounded up and brought to the mission office for training. Elder Thompson and I had to take a group of them back to their homes afterwards. One of the sisters asked me about my family. I proceeded to tell her, and I mentioned we had two little dogs that we bathed and took to the beauty parlor.
This sweet, demure Sister said as a matter-of-fact, “We eat our dogs!” Yes, it is true! They eat them!!! Yep, they are a food source. They put them on the dinner table and devour them…their pet dogs.
One Elder said he (and three other missionaries) was on the island of Vava’u, and the members had not fed them. They were so hungry that they dared each other to ask a member if they could eat their dog. The member said, “You want to eat our dog?” The members were so excited that the Elders wanted to eat their dog. They killed it, skinned it, cooked it, and…..yuck….ate it. They said it was delicious, but not as good as horse. Talking about horse…remember the horse that I said was in the neighbor’s backyard? It’s gone!! What do you think? Someone’s dinner?
These senior ladies know how to find stuff and make wonderful salads and desserts. (Is Tonga the place I’m going to learn how to cook? Everything has to be made from scratch because there are few packaged or canned items.) We walked along the beach, but it was too cold to snorkel, and the water was too rough. I know…you’re asking, “Too cold in Tonga? It’s still winter.
Here are a few things really hard about this mission:
1. To remember to call John, “Elder Thompson”
2. Typing the Tongan New Member names (like ‘Amanaki he Lotu Lelei Sa or Esther Ashiel Litiola ‘I Loto Suva) into the computer
3. To remember to wear my name tag
4. Where’s our family and friends? We miss you all!
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