Elder Huntsman: Off to Vava'u

So the Sunday before we came out here to Vava’u a man came up and offered to feed us after church! Turns out he is Jabari Parker’s (the crazy good LDS basketball player) uncle!!! Crazy haha!

So the Vava'u trip.... should have taken Dramamine sooner rather than after I threw up the first time haha. First one to throw up..... THIS GUY haha I was going to sit on my bed when we got into rougher waters, stupid idea haha. I didn't get sick when I was up top watching where we were going so I tried to either do that or fall asleep before it got to bad! It was nice cuz they got us business class so we all had beds! The usual 18-20 hour trip took about 27 hours... no bueno haha. We stopped in Ha'api but I could NOT eat cuz I knew I would just end up throwing it up an hour later if I did! All of us missionaries sat as close as we could to the front and just watched the water in front of us. It kinda felt like a roller coaster at times. I enjoyed it! Even got wet but the wind was blowing so we got dry in like 30 seconds haha. When we got to Vava'u at 12:30 at night we went and ate at a bishops house! Mom, you probably wouldn't have thought you would hear me say this, but I love fried fish haha! I ate 7 in two meals..... crazy huh! I have been eating a lot better here! Still wishing I had a Wendy's baconator or some Panda Express or some Café Rio or some Chili's queso dip or an Applebee's Lava cake but hey I’m surviving haha.

Elder Finau, my trainer, always tries to get me to eat everything so I think that has helped me with the food! and the language! He went to Liahona but still isn't FLUENT in the English so he just speaks Tongan unless I don't understand than he starts throwing in some English words. My district is pretty cool! But my area is pretty dead.... very small ward, only a few families are members, and the others in the village are pretty strong in their faith! We should have some investigators this week though! We have just been talking to a few members every day, studying a TON!!!! I never have any energy haha. This heat is DRAINING!!! I’m just drinking water as much as I can haha. Elder Finau knows soooo much about the gospel!!! He has pages full of good scriptures for each doctrine we teach! I need a book to do something like that with. We went to a baptism cuz the kid being baptized asked Finau to do it so 6 so far ;)

So this one family has a shark’s jaw just hanging from a tree! It’s pretty cool! I am RIGHT next to the ocean. It’s awesome! I can’t wait til we help people fish!!! We had our first little pig roast. It was ok haha. They like to eat the little pigs so not much meat! It was just weird watching them prepare it all! Yesterday, holy crap there was a lot of food! So when they have Ward Conferences they go ALLLLL out with a MASSIVE FEAST afterwards! There were about two hundred people there (not my ward) and there was not one spot on any table that didn't have food on it! It was insane! I brought home a massive cake haha!

So there is an awesome story about that lady I (tried) baptizing last week! She was super strong in the Methodist faith, her husband being a very high up person in their church, so she would NEVER listen to the missionaries. She had gotten a tumor in her brain that sent her to the hospital a few times. She was walking down the road one day when she fell and was struggling getting back up. The missionaries saw her and went to help her walking her to her house. She started just inviting them over (not for lessons) to talk because they were so nice. One time she was in the hospital, verrrrry sick with the tumor and her daughter held her head and said "God, please don't take my mom, please!" The missionaries then came over to give her a blessing and the next day she felt fine, the tumor pretty much gone! From then on she started talking lessons and set her own date to be baptized! And from the tumor she just gets headaches sometimes! Crazy how it all works! She was just ready and God put the missionaries in the right places at the right times!

Love you all! Hope all is well back at home! Ofa lahi 'atu!!!!

Elder Huntsman