Dog, Chicken & Manioke

Sorry no pictures and kind of rushed but this week again was slow! We find out transfers on Wednesday so I don’t know what is happening! But we killed a dog earlier and we have two boxes of chicken and a bunch of manioke and we’re having a huge underground oven for p-day today! Lots of people are here so I am happy. First time in a long time doing p-day like this.  I am glad everything is good back at home! Sorry I can’t write much but nothing happened anyways.... really slow! Gotta go though. Love you!

Elder Mani

10/12/14 Unwelcomed Visitor?

Malo e lelei famili ofeina!

Ko e uike ko eni na'e kei tuai pe I he tafa'aki a e ngaue fklaumalie, ka na ma tokoni'i ki he teuteu mo fkmaau api na'e ai a ema kaungaapi koe'uhi na'e foki mai ha Sisita mei he'ene ngaue fkfaifekau. haha my Tongan is coming along!

So this week we didn’t have much work with investigators but we helped our next door neighbors set stuff up and cook food because their daughter was coming back from her mission. There was so much food there! haha They had a fireside for her last night because she couldn’t speak in church since it was conference week here. Yesterday and Saturday we watched Conference, in Tongan, which sucked cuz I could understand it, but couldn’t write any real notes cuz I had to focus just on what they were saying so if I tried to write something down I would miss stuff... Can you send me the November Liahona in English when it comes out? That way I can read it cuz it is the Conference issue!

Last night was kinda creepy! So our door is a bolt lock, not like a normal door knob. We got back from the fireside and take off the lock then undo the bolt and the door still won’t open!!! We go around to the window and shine the flashlight in and it was bolted and secured from the inside..... There is NO possible way that anyone can get in the house without us seeing where they broke in! Freaking creepy!! We had to call the zone leaders and they came over and we broke the windows off with a crowbar and a kid climbed in and opened it for us. it freaked me out cuz there honestly is NO way that anyone could lock our door from the inside, yet it was.... haha I prayed hard last night I guess you could say… kinda spooked!  The windows here are louvers, I don’t know how to explain but they are easy to take out and put back in, but the screen is locked into the window frame with a board and nails so we had to pry that off and rip the screen off but its fine not a big problem haha..... But ya that’s our week.  Still slow workwise.... but hopefully it will get better!

Ofa lahi atu kiate kimoutolu!!!

Elder Mani

Oh ya and our water was dead 5 out of the 7 days this week.... now shower feels awesome haha.

That’s how this village is! it’s dead right now.

So there was a sister who just came home from her mission and the
family was making these Kahoa Lole, candy necklaces, that
Tongans do for every celebration and it makes me jealous!
She has over 20 of them which is typical haha!

Helping cook food and set stuff up for the sister who just got home.

The kids who helped out with getting the house ready and cooking food.

Octopus! And yes I ate it haha!

CrEePy!!!  Locked out from the inside!

Breaking and entering!

Pictures I forgot to send from our Ward Family Home Evening.

Spam. Ramen Noodles, Bread, Pop and Chips...Yum 10/5/14

This week again flew by SOOOO fast! We got a new investigator who randomly started speaking English to us so we just taught her in English haha. She is a 16 year old girl and she bore her testimony before we even started! She says she is ready for any consequence that comes, even being kicked out of her house! It was a great lesson and we plan to have her baptized in a couple weeks after her tests are over at school.

One night our fafanga just gave us bread so we bought a bunch of other stuff to go with it and ate it with a couple of our neighbors who live right next door to us haha. But again it was another slow week here not much happening! It just sucks cuz this mission seems like there is so much expected out of us but I never seem to be one who gets those big numbers....The Ward Family Home Evening started an hour late and no one prepared their activities so it wasn’t very good..... but ya we get conference this week and I hope I can find a place to watch it English or at least listen! 

Oh in the next package can you send another CTR ring ha! I promise I won’t lose it..... that and pictures is all I can think of.

 Love you tons!

Oh another thing if you could send, some Gillette Fusion Proglide heads! I don’t use the electric anymore haha.  I got a Proglide in Vava’u and it worked really good but dulled out after about 2 months.

Spam Sandwich!

I Stink haha!

Hey so these weeks are honestly just flying by! We had a baptism this week but delayed it to next month for the primary program here... so that was a bummer haha but all is good! Still kind of slow right now but we are doing a huge Family Home Evening as a ward tonight in one of our wards and it’s all about inviting people to listen with us so we have already been promised 3 new investigators! So hopefully that goes how it’s supposed to!

Our water is dead again so I haven’t showered since Saturday morning..... disgusting I know!!! But we don’t have any water in our water tank and neither do our neighbors.... and the zone leaders are busy today so they can’t take us somewhere to shower! I feel disgusting cuz it has been hot the past two days! Hopefully it turns back on tonight!

Last week we had our Mission Tour with President Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy. We all met up at Liahona and listened to him speak. He spoke mostly about enduring to the end because there are too many missionaries who don’t continue with the church after their work. It was really good and he talked about how a wife isn’t enough, we need to seek after an eternal companion.

I really can say that even though this is the most stressful, disappointing, depressing, hardest time of my life, it’s easy to get through! I learn new things every day! I have started to try and see things in more of an eternal perspective rather than the instant satisfaction and happiness. It makes me want to be more productive, be smarter with my time, with my money, and just find ways to help others understand the same thing. It’s true this not the best two years OF your life, but FOR your life!

Just Pictures

Found another centipede in our shower

Our zone at our zone meeting

Tuakalau teaching kids English

Me, Tuakalau, Elder Lasalosi, Sister Pakalani
and Sister Folau going to our Mission Tour

All the kids that I came in with that are in Tonga right now

Me and some other Elders

Me, Tuakalau, Lao and Lotulelei
We all came in together.

Walking home from the night study class

Hanging out at a members house

Drinking otai at the members house 

Tuakalau taking a power nap haha

Fresh Air & Coconut Leaf Hats

I am kinda rushed today! But all is well here! This week we taught the girl who we had committed to baptism but her parents told us we can’t baptize her anymore.  So we are just gonna have to keep visiting I guess! We taught a family this week and the 72 year old lady's name is Fresh Air haha literally it is English and everything! We just call her Air! They are a very nice family and accepted our teaching and everything so we are going to commit them to baptism this week! Hopefully all goes well with that family!

So our water was dead from Wednesday to Saturday night so we didn't work Friday until we went with our kaingalotu to find a shower at someone's house in another village!  Our village pump was broken.  But ya it was disgusting! We are going to go make hats out of coconut leaves today so that will be fun! I forgot to write in my journal this week and it’s just gone soooooo fast I can't remember anything else...... so ya I don’t have much to write haha sorry! I'll try to find out about my memory card.  Love you!

Elder Huntsman

The view from our road one night.

My district.

My old slippers.

Us Sunday after church.

After church.

Us and our old AP who lives here in our area.

Mid-Transfer Transfer = Work!

Hey there! This week was slow again so not too much to write! BUT… I got transferred across the island haha to a new village here! Navutoka! It’s pretty big, two wards, and we have already started doing work! And my new comp is.................... Elder Tu’akalau again haha! The zones here got in trouble and were sent to work in the areas they came from so me and Tu’akalau got moved here.  Our first night here we taught two lessons and set up 4 more for this week! We have one committed to baptism next week so that will be exciting! We got here Saturday morning and have already started doing more than we had in Vaotuu. This area is big! It’s just hard remembering what ward is which and where people live cuz there are a bunch of little streets everywhere. I keep forgetting what’s what ha but there are a couple of guys here prepping for missions that will help us out and about 4 just got done working in the Misiona Tonga so we have a lot of help here! Hope to keep up with this good work that we have started!

Right now we are just doing laundry and netting family cuz we don’t know what else to do for p-day. We just got here two days ago haha!  Our next door neighbor is the Stake President so we are netting at his house right now. Church was good!  New ward and fast/testimony meeting so we bore our testimonies and introduced ourselves. The members seem excited to see us for some reason. The only people who worked here were the zone leaders so they weren’t ever really here in their own area that much. But I am excited! Except I don’t know how long we will be here cuz the real transfer is in 2 weeks.... But i just hope to do what I can while I can!

It’s nice here it’s just that our house is smallllll haha but we have  a fridge now so we can store food and we have a few weights so I have been working out!  Gotta get yoked haha!  I don’t know why I have been really happy the past couple days, always smiling.  Probably cuz I feel there is so much I can do here! Starting to feel the Spirit a lot more guiding us and helping us! We found 3 teachings just by knocking doors so we should be able to have more success! To answer your questions, we never get to go to the Primary classes and now we just stay for both wards’ Sacrament Meetings so we don’t get to all the classes.... But they have Mission Prep that we have been helping out with. I like it here cuz the teachers are all recent returned missionaries! Our class was just the High Councilman and they didn’t teach anything that was useful or from the lessons we would be teaching! So I like it here!

Glad you guys are having fun with football, the fair and all that fun stuff! All is well here. Mom, still haven’t got the package but maybe next week. We had planned a fireside in Vaotuu but I am gone now so I don’t know if it’s still on ha but ya all is good here! Love you tons!

Elder Mani

New Area