We had a couple of “sweet” experiences this week. The first was the dedication of a new missionary house here on Tongatapu.
Because the office couple is over the housing of the mission, we were invited to attend this dedication ceremony. We drove up to the site of the new house which sits on a corner lot of a fairly busy street and saw about twenty chairs set up under the coconut trees. We parked the truck. It didn’t take us long to tour through the three rooms of the small house which smelled of fresh paint. Elder Thompson mounted three different pictures on the inside walls—Christ, Joseph Smith, and the Nuku’alofa temple. The place looked terrific. Then we settled outside onto our folding chairs and waited for the ceremony to begin.
Not many guests arrived. There was President and Sister McMurray,
the contractor with his wife and son,
the owner of the lot and his family,
the APs (Elder Makaafi and Elder Kairi), Office Elders (Elder Karratti and Elder Pasi), and us. Oops…I can’t forget Sister Vaea and Sister Masima. We sang an opening hymn, and it was followed by a prayer. Then the contractor gave a little speech.
He said that he had tried to do his best work because he knew servants of the Lord would be living in this house. He also said that he had prayed on a regular basis that his work would be acceptable.
The owner of the lot lives on the same property as the missionary house. In fact, his plan was to build a clinic on the corner of the lot next to his own home, not a missionary house. He has two children who have just graduated from school, and they were planning on running the clinic. When members of the Church approached him with the idea of using that prime property for a missionary house, he didn’t even hesitate. He said, ‘Yes!”
The lot owner was the next guest speaker. He humbly explained that he loved the Lord and wanted to do his part to help the missionaries. He said he was honored to give the land to the Church.
John gave a talk that focused on the three pictures mounted in the house.
The picture of Christ is a reminder of He to whom we serve. The picture of the restoration (Joseph smith in the grove of trees talking to the Father and Son) reminds us of how the gospel was restored and who was the prophet called to organize the church. The picture of the temple is to remind us that baptism, and church membership all point to the temple where sacred ordinances are perform. Our goal is to get every new member to the temple.
President McMurray gave the final message and gave the prayer dedicating the house as a missionary house—a "House of Worship."
The second experience was meeting a new missionary, Sister Lasalosi.
Elder Thompson and I watched her and her co-missionaries disembark from a plane arriving from the New Zealand MTC. After gathering her luggage, she rode with us to President McMurray’s home. As we were traveling, she told us about her decision to become a missionary. Sister Lasalosi has a younger brother. When he turned nineteen he wanted to go on a mission. Their father, who is a nonmember, was irate with his son for giving up a good job with TCC (a communication company) and leaving the family for two years. When Sister Lasalosi announced to her dad of her decision to go a mission also, he was beyond irate—he was furious. She was relinquishing her profitable job with a Prime Minister. (Both children were making a lot of money from their employments, and good jobs are hard to find in Tonga.) The father refused to talk to her and completely ignored her. Sister Lasalosi was torn between the love and wishes of her father and her desire to go on a mission. Well, you know her decision. She was on a spiritual high after leaving the MTC.
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