Tongan Update, 19 February 2008, Our first investigators
Last week President McMurray had conferences for the four zones of missionaries that are on this island, Tongatapu. Each zone had separate conferences held on different days. The theme of the conferences was “how to get people to listen to our gospel message.” Elder Thompson and I listened to about the same talk given by the president everyday for four days. After the first day I had a twinge of guilt that I was not doing my part. By the time the fourth day rolled around, I had a serious guilt complex. Even though we are the office couple, we could still be doing more to actually tell people about the gospel!
President McMurray used the example of the missionary technique that Jesus used when talking with the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4. He had a conversation with her, lead the conversation to discuss a principle of the gospel, then bore his testimony.
Now I had a couple of chances to try out that “approach”, but I wimped out. I talked to a few English people in downtown Nuku’alofa who had just gotten off a cruise ship. One even said to me, “You seem like a nice Christian lady.” Now that’s a pretty good comment for me to proceed to talk about the gospel. But I said nothing. Another day I was discussing with my Tongan neighbors about our houses getting flooded. Somewhere along the line, the uncle mentioned something about our Church being a world-wide church. Here was another opportunity, and I failed again! In both incidences the people had lead the discussion for me to have a great chance to talk about the gospel. Where was I?
Hey, it’s up hill from here. We do have our first investigators. The previous office sister, Sister Evans who has returned home to New Mexico, left a note about a Catholic friend who she would like us to meet. We had earlier asked this 93 year old lady if she would like to go to the Open House of the Temple. She politely said, “No.” We had asked her to lunch a couple of times, but something always came up and she couldn’t come. O.K. This was the time to muster up a little courage and ask again. This time she said, “My daughter from Australia is in town, and I won’t be able to come.” “Bring your daughter with you. We’d love to meet her,” was my reply. She said, “Yes.” So Otuangu and Robin came to lunch, and what a delightful couple of ladies. We talked about many things—children, families, USA, Tonga, funny experiences, and religion. Robin mentioned she’d like to know about our church’s policy on families and women. “Would you like to come back next week (they had already been at our apartment for two hours), and we’ll talk about the role of the woman in our Church and how important families are?” (Does that sound like a “real” missionary?) They said, “YES.”
We’ve met with them several times now. They have shared their lives with us—divorce, death of a child, loneliness, unhappiness, looking for something more in life. We are hoping that through the principles of the gospel, they can find some peace and happiness knowing that God loves them. Robin returns to Australia next week, but she has some Mormon neighbors that she is going to contact. Otuangu is a 93 year old ball of fire. She is a feisty little thing with her own ideas, but she says she would love to continue meeting with us. We think she likes our company and the little change of pace we give to her life. That’s OK. We think she is terrific.
Elder Thompson and I are also helping the young Elders teach an English speaking Chinese professor, Pong. (No one in Tonga is called “Mr.” or” Mrs.”). His name is just Pong. He says that he has a testimony of the gospel and wants to keep learning more. His problem is that he has to go back to China at the end of the year. He says he is not a free man, and at this point he doesn’t dare join the Church. I’m not sure how things work in China, but he is very reluctant to get baptized due to his returning to China. He says he needs to wait to truly embrace the gospel until he moves to the United States or somewhere else. So…we’ll just keep teaching him.
Hey, we’re trying! ‘Ofa ‘atu, Diane and John
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