Wow! What a wonderful week! Thanksgiving is a great time to be reminded of our blessings, to enjoy tasty food, and to spend time with friends and family. On a score of 1 to 10, this is our score card for this Thanksgiving season in Tonga:
10 Remembering blessings
10 Enjoying tasty food
10 Time with friends (on the island)
1 Time with family (our thoughts were with you though)
We had three different days of Thanksgiving “feasting” this week. At each dinner only “plangi” (American) food was served with the turkeys costing between $78 to $100 each. The farmers do not raise turkeys so the frozen birds are imported into Tonga, and the plangis are charged a lot of money to buy them.
Monday: Thanksgiving with President and Sister Shumway
and the Temple Missionaries at the Shumway’s home adjacent to the Nuku’alofa Temple
It was a surprise not to have Tongan food at this Thanksgiving celebration because most of the people who attended were Tongans. We had a delicious dinner with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes—a regular American traditional dinner. Then each couple shared one thing they were thankful for. John spoke about the blessing of understanding the importance of the temple. Because we love the temple, we were gathered together for dinner and sharing thoughts. We ended the evening by watching a rebroadcast of the 2006 Christmas program performed at the Conference Center.
Wednesday: Thanksgiving with President and Sister McMurray and the plangi missionaries with their companions at the Mission Home
About 40 missionaries snuggled together at the Mission Home for this great meal.
Elder Iketau, our AP, honored us with a thanksgiving pray IN ENGLISH. (Usually people do not get a round of applause for saying a pray, but Elder Iketau did. Because he speaks such a little bit of English, he had to work really hard to put the English words together for the prayer. It was awesome!) After dinner, the young missionaries finished their P-day by playing volleyball and working out at the Liahona High School’s gym. Elder Thompson and I went back to the work of moving the mission offices.
Friday: Thanksgiving with the Senior Missionaries, the McMurray family, and the Jorgensen family (teachers at Liahona) at the Pope’s beach home
It has been a tradition for the senior missionaries to spend Thanksgiving Day with Brother and Sister Pope. (The Popes met each other as teachers at Liahona High School thirty some odd years ago. These two plangis fell in love, got married, and eventually adopted four Tongan children. They live in Tonga full time.) This thoughtful couple share their home and food with the missionaries each year. They have satellite TV so that the men can watch the football game (Texas AM vs Texas this year), and they have a private beach so the ladies can enjoy the ocean scenery and seek out those precious ocean shells. (We’ve taken our snorkel gear three times out to the Pope’s place, and we still haven’t made it into the water yet.)
Our group was small compared to last year, but the two vans full of hungry guests arrived in Fatumu for the festivities.
After the pray, Elder Thompson shared his testimony with us. He expressed how grateful he was for his many blessings…and especially for the gift of LIFE. He then told us of how he was leaning over some boxes that he was going to relocate, when his tie got caught in “the shredder”. (I know, you think we’re into the next episode of “24”, but we’re not!) His tie really did get pulled into the shredder machine used to dispose of private documents. The machine kept pulling Elder Thompson closer and closer to its slicing jaws of teeth. John was laughing so hard he almost forgot there was a reverse.
He explained how thankful he was that the shredder had reverse, and that he knew how to use it. Then he pulled out his visual aid—taadaa--the shredded tie.
Our Thanksgiving Day ended with a telephone call from Dusty and Melissa, our son and his wife…
talk about an almost perfect Thanksgiving week! The only thing that could have made it better is if a few of you would have joined us in the feasting!
‘Ofa ‘atu, Elder and Sister Thompson
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