TONGAN UPDATE DECEMBER 14, 2008 GOLD METALS

Tongan Update 14 Dec 2008 Gold Medals

I don’t like to brag, especially since I am a missionary. But…did any of you know that I have won two gold medals? I know…it’s amazing! And one of the medals I earned was for basketball, no less! Everything lined up just perfectly during the heated competition. I shot with exactness and with precision, and my foot-work was fleet. I was like a swan swimming on water. To the surprise of everyone, including myself, I won the GOLD. (You’ll have to ask my sister, Julie, for the details. She’s still in shock!)

This week we were again assigned to inspect missionary houses on the outer islands. As we were cruising along in the mission boat to our destinations, my mind wondered to my outstanding athletic accomplishments (I’m being facetious) including the winning of my gold medals which, by the way, was on a cruise ship. It wasn’t “Olympic gold,” but…hey, it was still gold! During the 2008 Chinese Olympics, reporters communicated the medal tallies (number of medals each country earned) each day. I’m going to record the island tallies (number of islands we visited during this five day span) each day instead.

ISLAND COUNT

GOLD SILVER

Monday 7 0

Tuesday 6 2

Wednesday 4 0

Thursday 4 0

Friday 3 0

TOTAL 24 ISLANDS! WOW!

MONDAY HIGHLIGHTS: The islands:

Tongatapu,

Lifuka,



Foa,







O’ua,


Nomuka,






Tungua,

and Ha’afeva

Monday seemed like a day of food-gathering. On O’ua the village people gave us bananas and pineapple. On Nomuka, the Saints brought two buckets of mango. Then on Tungua freshly caught ocean fish was brought for us to take with us. We stayed overnight with our senior missionaries, Elder and Sister Finau, on the island of Ha’afeva. It was on the island of Ha’afeva that we cooked and ate the fish (no raw for us this time, although Elder Thompson has learned to like a raw fish dish that has lots of spices and is soaked in coconut milk. He says it is awesome).

TUESDAY HIGHLIGHTS: The islands: Ha’afeva,

Matau,

Kotu,

Fotaha’a,

‘Uiha,

Ha’ano,

Lofanga,

Tongatapu

This day we were “fishers of men.” When we stopped at Kotu, we had two hitch-hiking Tongans sneak on board and hide out until we were well out to sea. (It’s against Mission Rules to carry unauthorized passengers on any of our boats.) You’re probably asking yourself, “Where would two large Tongans hide on a little mission boat?” They had help. There definitely was some sabotage going on. Our boat drivers hid the stowaways inside the cuddy-cab under the bow of the boat. By the time we realized we had unwanted guests aboard, we had traveled quite a distance from their island. We couldn’t throw them over so they received free passage to Lifuka. “Fisher of men” sounds like we hooked them. If so, we were the bait. Actually they were very helpful in managing the boat especially when we were docking with rough seas.

The two “SILVER ISLANDS” were Matuku and Fotuha’a. The ocean was too rough for us to dock at either of these islands. We tried, but the waves would just crash up against the rocks of the cliffs and push our boat away from the island. There were no man-made docks at either island, and both have steep rock approaches—no beaches. We couldn’t inspect the missionary facilities there. John has been on these islands before.

At Fotaha’a you wait and count the waves then jump from the boat to a rocky ledge at the right time.

The Tongans tell you when to jump. From the landing you climb stairs cut into the cliff to the top of the island. Once on top there is a small village of about 25-30 people, a small chapel, and a missionary house.

At Matuku you simple jump out of the boat and wade to the shore.

Because the water was so rough, we couldn’t control the boat so we couldn’t wade to the shore.

WEDNESDAY HIGHLIGHTS: The islands: Tongatapu, Vava’u, Pangaimotu, and Hunga.

On these islands we visited missionary houses and inspected the chapels.

Our list of needed repairs is getting long. The president likes to have John take these trips because he knows John has an eye for seeing things that need to be fixed. At night we had dinner with President McMurray, Elder Makaafi, Elder Pasi, and Elder Ua’asila at a little restaurant called the Mango.

The sun was setting over the Vava’u bay with its still waters and numerous yachts,

and the sky was electrifying.

It turned from shades of yellow and oranges to a deep red. The colors were reflected in the water. (Wouldn’t you know, this would be the time we forgot our camera?)

THURSDAY HIGHLIGHTS: The islands: Vava’u,

By boat we drove out to Hunga,

Nuapapu,

and Otea

On the island of Hunga we (the Thompsons, the Woods, Elder Makaafi and Pasi) were greeted by a working crew. Most of the villagers (men, women, and children) were laying cement and cinder blocks to create a road, with flood barriers, a hundred meters long. It runs from the edge of the ocean, up the steep incline, and into the village. The Hunga islanders are going to purchase a community tractor and use it to transport ufi from their fields to the wharf. The road will aid them tremendously in that effort. What a great sight to see all those people working together for a common cause and with such rudimentary tools! It was definitely hard work for these people. The house on this island is not owned by the church, but is used by the elders when they are assigned to the island. The house is currently being used by the local women for weaving mats.

FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS: The islands: Vava’u,

Okoa,

and Tongatapu

It was an amazing week! We dissented onto many islands and were greeted so heartily by the islanders. They were friendly, kind, and giving. We inspected both missionary houses and church buildings. Our fellow boating crew and Elder Thompson made repairs on many of the structures. It’s wonderful to see what great effort the Church has done to provide places of worship for so many of these island people.

IT FELT GOOD TO COME HOME TO OUR LITTLE APARTMENT IN LIAHONA!

We were greeted with the spectacular view of Moroni blowing his trumpet on the Nuku’alofa temple,

and the Office Elders, (Karratti, Lyon, and Haltli), had taped a “WELCOME HOME, THOMPSONS” sign on our windows. (At the bottom of the sign it said, “50 days and counting.”)

When we have more time, I can go into more details about winning the gold!

‘Ofa ‘atu, Sister Thompson and Elder Thompson

TONGAN UPDATE DECEMBER 03, 2008 WELCOME TO RADIO TONGA

Tongan Update 03 Dec 2008 Welcome to Radio Tonga

Were you listening to Radio Tonga, 540 on your dial, Monday night, 6:30pm? Live and on the air were Elder and Sister Thompson.

The Church sponsors a Family Home Evening program for half an hour every Monday night here. Elder Thompson and I were asked to participate on the program. One question the radio host, Iteni, asked John was, “What positions have you held in the Church?” Of course, the topic of scouting was mentioned. The whole radio thing was kind of a fun experience, and it led us to another teaching opportunity.

The Young Woman’s camp director of the Harbour Stake, Mele Nau, listened to our newscast, and she decided we were just the people she needed to help with their stake girls’ camp. (At least, I think that is how she found out about us.) John was asked to teach the 60 girls knot-tying and fire building; I was asked to talk about clouds and sanitation. (Yeah, like right…who got the better subjects? I mean… clouds and sanitation? Oh brother!)

John went to the local market and bought a box of wood and a roll of rope. He was set. So what do you do with clouds and sanitation? I thought back to our fifth grade science curriculum and decided, “Yes, the water cycle!” So with my white board in hand, we talked about the “states of matter using water as the example,” and tied that into the water cycle and types of clouds. For sanitation, I worked up a BINGO game. Any which way, WE DID IT! (The camp director gave us a watermelon for our efforts!)

Camp can be such a wonderful learning experience. Mele Nau’s, the camp director, heart was touched by the comments of a couple of the young women during their days at camp. One of the girls who comes from a very active family was watching the sunrise. She mentioned how she would like to be like the rising sun—warm and glowing—shining bright in the world by following the principles of the gospel. Another gal watched the nighttime sky. It was cloudy, and only one star could be seen. This young woman is the only member of the Church in her family. She compared herself to the one shining star. It was all alone, but it was still shining. She wanted to be strong like that star, holding true to the Church even without the support of her family.

TONGAN UPDATE 30 NOVEMBER 2008- THNAKSGIVING

Tongan Update 30 Nov 2008 Thanksgiving

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

TONGAN UPDATE 23 NOV, 2008 GO UTES/

Tongan Update, 23 Nov 2008, Go Utes

Way to gooooo…Utes! Score: UTAH 48, BYU 24! Whaaaahoo!

The game plan for football is for a team of eleven players to move a ball down the field, to get the ball across the end zone, and thusly, score a touchdown which; I might add, Utah did most effectively in the big win over BYU on November 22, allowing Utah to have an undefeated football season, and the chance to go to a BCS bowl.

Our game plan for this week was to move the office from downtown Nuku’alofa, across the island to Liahona, and thusly, score a new residency. The office-complex team (Elder and Sister Thompson, Elder Kairi, Elder Iketau, Elder Karratti, Elder Lyon, and Elder Haltli)

were on their own 20 yard line and ready to start their first drive down the field when the Office Elders were intercepted and had to rush to the airport to pick up a missionary who was being transferred to ‘Eua. So we had to bring in the secondary (back-up) team which was hired by the Church.

This team consisted of 3 men, 4 women, and 1 baby.

The father was the chief supervisor and did very little.

They brought with them their own moving vehicles—2 vans, a flatbed truck, and 1 rattle. On the offense this team was great. But on the defensive side, they kept breaking down. Every time the engine on the one van was turned off, it had to be started by compression. So the Tongan secondary team would hook up a tow rope from their first van to their second van, drag the van far enough to start the engine, and then they were on the move again. Needless to say, there were many fumbles and time-outs during the first half. But the team did score a touchdown by getting all the items moved from the living quarters of the missionaries to Liahona. We had only one casualty. Our quarterback (Elder Thompson) was side-lined with a pulled groin muscle.

During halftime we had quite the entertainment. The Tongan women move-team took turns picking lice out of each other’s hair.

The second half was very slow and uneventful. There were no long rushes, interceptions, or “Hail Marys.” However, we did score a huge touchdown—we DID GET everything moved over to our new accommodations!

For the after-game party, we still need to unpack and find a place for everything.

OH, BUT IT’S FUN TO WIN! (Go Utes!) (Yeah Mission Moving Team!)

‘Ofa ‘atu, Elder and Sister Thompson

TONGAN UPDATE 12 NOVEMBER 2008 " 24", PART 2

Tongan Update 14 Nov 2008 ’24’ Part 2 and Finale

This week’s episode: Bauer and the MOC operatives resolve the problems of Luther Finau and do everything in their power to mentor the MOC recruits (the senior couple) newly arrived from the states.

1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Police Task Office Falemai

strolled into MOC headquarters

. She insisted that all operatives (Elders Karratti, Lyon, and Haltli)

were present as she discussed the aftermath events with Luther Finau. Apparently he is a self-serving con-artist who is well known by the police force. He has many convictions for drug abuse, and according to Falemai, he was on drugs when he came into MOC headquarters to retain funds from us. There was no murder! It was all an elaborate scheme to elicit money from us.

While the operatives were being debriefed, Agent Bauer (Elder Thompson) and Audrey (Sister Thompson)

were out in the field on another assignment from their superior (President McMurray). They were to train the new recruits (Elder and Sister Wood).

In order to update the Woods in the workings of MOC, they were sent to research possible locations for attacks around the island of Tongatapu.

First they examined the site of Mapu ‘a Vaea (the blow holes).

Everything checked out satisfactorily there except for the missing “Minister of Tourism” signs that were recently installed for the King’s coronation. It was at the Hufangalupe Archway, known as Pigeon’s Gate, that imminent danger awaited.

The Operation’s Handbook (Tour Guide Book) described Hufangalupe as the site where the sea pounds through an opening in the coralline limestone and tears at 30m high walls to create a natural bridge and adjacent pit. As Bauer and the “green” recruits approached the archway, they determined that indeed, the information was correct. It was possible to climb all the way down to the sea in the gully, but it is very steep and the coral rocks are razor sharp.

The operatives decided “negative” to that idea, but all seemed satisfactory at this site also.

The MOC team

got into the Mobile 1 Tumbler (van)

with its scratch-resistant paint and see-through windows. They had just started plowing through the “bush” when their vehicle met with resistance. Oh no! They were being attacked on all sides by oozing mud.

The more strength the operatives produced, the more the mud flexed its muscles. There was screeching of wheels and flying of mud, but the sticky monster of the earth could not be extinguished.

The MOC team was overmatched!

Shell-shocked, Bauer called for back-up.

The assault team of operatives went into action. They grabbed their “rescue kit” and scrambled into Mobile Tumbler 2.

Armed with hand grenades, AK1s, and taizer guns, the team, wearing invasion clothing, came screaming onto the scene. There was grunting, groaning, snorting, but no cussing (we are missionaries, you know) as the combined forces of operatives battled this international crisis. The enemy slowly succumbed. The ultimate punch was the three-stranded lasso used to corral the Mobile 1 Tumbler. Once the vehicle was encircled with the twisted strands of hemp, Mobile 2 Tumbler yanked it from the monster’s grip. Once released from the mud, both tumblers navigated the terrain together returning back to MOC headquarters.

Bauer was satisfied with the safe return of all the MOC operatives and their assault vehicles.

(All this to say, “The van got stuck in the mud, and that the office elders had to come and pull it out.”)

2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

NEXT EPISODE: After the successful completion of two episodes, this series is temporarily being terminated. Two of the main cast members, Bauer and Audrey, are being replaced by newly-assigned operatives, Sperry 1 and Sperry 2.

‘Ofa ‘atu, Bauer and Audrey

P.S. Bob and Elaine Sperry are members of our own home ward in Salt Lake City. They will be joining us in Tonga sometime in January. As a lad, Elder Sperry served as a missionary in New Zealand. They are really excited to come, and we are really excited to have them be part of our Tongan missionary force!

WE ARRIVE HOME ON 10 FEBRUARY 2009!!!