Coming Home July 13th

Well first things first, I am flying home July 13th so start planning whatever you need!!!! haha I want my homecoming on the 26th, if possible so that I can go to Elder Bunting's homecoming..... :)  Sorry...isn't much time. I PROMISE to write a bunch next week :) Gotta go! But tell Keeg and Kenzie to hit me up with all their wedding plans and stuff!!!!! I love you all!  Tell K4 to keep killing it up there with her rugby!

We went to the beach and the Ha'amonga today.

Walking on Water

Here are a few pictures.  Sorry I haven’t taken many! And sorry nothing really happened this week. It was really slow! But it’s transfer time and I am staying here and training a new Elder who I will meet on Wednesday! He is from Tonga haha but hopefully it goes good this time!!!! My comp is moving to another village. We don’t really know what is going on still though. It’s really unorganized....

We helped the Peace Corps lady again today with the library but she claims that since she is a representative of the US government she isn’t allowed to speak about religion so ya we will not be teaching her.

Thanks a bunch for everything!  :)  Love you! Write you next week!

Walking on water...

A hole in a cave.

Helping the Peace Corps

This week was good! Slow because of the Stake Conference and I had to companion exchanges to do so not much happened in our own area. We had interviews with Pres Tupou after conference and so that was good! The first thing he said in the interview was this....... "So Elder Huntsman, 4 months left for you and your back home!" Seeeeee! It’s hard not to think about it haha.  All he said was to make sure that I am serving a mission not just going through a mission then that was honestly it! 5 minutes max!  The General Authority at the meetings was Elder Jeffery D. Cummings of the 8th Quorum of the 70. He looks a lot like Glenn Beck......... always weird hearing the accents here haha. The best thing I learned from him was about the priesthood. He compared it to an umbrella and even though the men hold the umbrella, its blessings reach all who are under its authority. That was really cool to think about to me haha :) but ya sorry no pics or anything! We had dinner with the Peace Corps here and we are going to go to the school with her and sort the books in the small library they have! So finally getting to do some service! Meet the Mormons is a good movie, it just sucks that the Tongans didn’t understand pretty much all of it haha.   Karissa looks like she is enjoying rugby! I hope she sticks with it too! haha :) Tell her to stop pitchin the ball off and run people over haha! anyways hope all is going good there! Love you all!

Elder Mani

Birthday Kahoa

People really do shower in the rain haha!

A new friend we found in our yard!

A huge hermit crab!!!

Me and another Elder at our baptism Saturday!

Sorry this week was kinda slow, just getting ready for our baptism, going and working in Navutoka, my old area for a day, and interviewing my district’s investigators for baptism! This week should be busier. We are having Stake Conference and there is a Seventy coming from Australia! They have activities planned all week and Friday we all get to watch Meet The Mormons at the stake center so I am excited!

To answer your questions--we didn’t find anyone new this week. My language has gotten good enough that I can make people laugh haha so that happened a couple times :) The candy was amazing and yes I get enough rest. :)  This week was just kinda slower work wise but that’s just how the mission is.  :)  No I don’t really care for getting packages anymore. After this one don’t send anymore haha. If you want to send me one, send it to Sister Vaha’I or Elder Naeata instead!  So I guess my bishop’s daughter is in the Twin Falls Mission right now!!!! haha but my bishop’s wife lives in San Fran so she probably gets packages and stuff all the time haha.

Love you :)

My kahoa :)

My birthday dinner.  There was a pig that they bought for $150,
plates of fried chicken, sausage, hot dogs, chop
suey....the members who were fafanga that day made
 it for our dinner!  I made sure they sat down to eat with
us cuz families never eat with us.

My birthday cake.

6 of the 8 elders in my district eating cake for my birthday.

Good Week

Man was this week a good week! We committed 7 people to baptism!!! Our bishop is mad about some of the stuff we told him though with postponing days and stuff but I don’t care anymore what he thinks. This area was full of baptisms but not one is active! They just baptized to meet there yearly goals. So I think a reason I was put in this area was to make sure that these baptisms are real baptisms and not just doing it just for the numbers! I have more interviews today in another area so hopefully they go good! Tomorrow we have a companion exchange with my old area Navutoka so it will be fun being in my old area again!

So the Aborigine girl we are teaching has been progressing! It’s a little slow but she is doing it! She even told her Pentecostal mom that she was listening to missionaries and starting to come to church and her mom said that’s fine as long as she is praying to the same Jesus Christ haha :) But she is doing good and is liking it! We have a Family Home Evening with her later so hopefully she enjoys that! Her less active husband she even notices is starting to change with us helping them out! Seeing miracles in all that we do here!

A couple of our other investigators have been a struggle either getting to or it feels like their fellowshipper in the ward is just forcing them to be there. There is a girl here who just got back from Japan who has us teaching an 8 year old girl who won’t pay attention to us or say anything during the lessons. So she tries telling us how bad we are and that me asking "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" is too difficult for the little girl to understand..... frustrating haha! It’s not us if she is being forced to come and listen to us!

But ya this week was good! We had a couple of lessons today and have been finding more productive stuff to do on P-day than just email and sit at the church :) Anyways thanks again mom for the package! Your kahoa is probably the best lole one that I have seen here! (the candy necklace you made :) ) haha it’s awesome :) so don’t forget to do it when I get home ;) hahahhaahha jokes :) Love you all! Thanks for all the Birthday wishes last week!

Elder Mani

PS- Don’t worry about signing up to feed the missionaries again.  Just give them your number and say if you are every hungry or your dinner falls through, to hit you guys up! I am going to get super close to the missionaries when I get home cuz I avoided them too much when I was home haha. Plus you should get to know that guy Elder from Samoa.  Samoa is really similar but don’t act like it’s the same cuz it’s not, haha!

Sorry I forgot the adapter but I will send some pictures next week I PROMISE :) Thanks again for the candy necklace, kahoa lole haha :)

It's Already My Birthday in Tonga, I'm 20!

Sorry I couldn’t get on yesterday! Today is my Bday here (19 hours ahead of you) and I don’t have much planned. I had bread and butter for breakfast but hopefully get cake for dinner tonight! haha I have two teachings today and another meeting in front of the stake leaders tonight so we will see how that goes. It’s different now teaching because it’s me leading and doing basically all the teaching! It’s awesome though. My language has gotten a lot better because I am forced to use it again!

Having comp troubles again. He won’t ever talk to me and he acts super depressed so I just try to be happy and stuff but it’s hard. I knew I would have to be patient with him because he is a little slow. He has something wrong with his brain. He has random seizures and stuff but they don’t know why. L  So I have just been trying to push through, and be as happy as possible! I’ve been smiling a lot more lately just to hopefully brighten people’s days!  So ya struggling AGAIN with the comp but hopefully I can find a way for him to open up to me. He talks to others just not me…don’t know why.

Anyways today is my birthday here so happy 20 for me :) haha I still feel young though.... still feel like I just got here, when in reality I only have 5 months left haha! Time is flying! Love you all! Oh I started Studying the New Testament again and it is BOMB!!!!!  So many great things that our Savior spoke about and shared with all the people! It has helped bring more light and happiness into my life! I will share some stuff in the next email!

We had a district leaders’ meeting for all of the district leaders in the mission that are on the main island with President and it was really good! He helped us all think about how we expected the work to be before we came out and asked if we are still working like we had expected. So I have been pushing a lot with being the best example for my district! And the work has been improving too so I have seen the blessings coming from my obedience to the Mission President and trying my best to follow everything! Anyways I gotta go but I love you all so much. Thanks for the birthday wishes! :)

Elder Mani

Eleven Referrals :)

This week was a little better, at least Sunday was. We got 11 referrals and hopefully get to work with them all this week! I think the members see that unlike the missionary I just traded out, I want to work and help them out as much as possible! I am trying! They keep delaying our new district leader training meeting so I am still just going off of how I feel I should be doing stuff.  Not much else happened this week! Another SLOW one but ya I am just hoping it picks up this week! 

Love you all :)

Elder Mani

I got bored last week and started taking selfies........ I always hated selfies!

This is when we went to a beach. I got bored.

Got your picture with the Ha'amonga.