Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

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 :)

Monday, February 9, 2015

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

Monday, February 2, 2015

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.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Keegan's Engaged?

This week was slow.... It was hard cuz there are so many stupid fights going on with the members that they had to move 3 families from one ward to another ward to try and help the ward out. We didn’t get out much cuz we had no area book, my comp didn’t know anybody they had been working with, anything like that.... so just starting over pretty much right now in this area. The last records in this area book are from my teachers in the MTC.... haha so it’s been awhile. Our district meeting was horrible cuz we had two missionaries just waiting for their plane ticket so the distracted everyone. Our meeting only lasted 30 minutes before I just gave up. So it’s been a struggle. I am hoping we can get some Family Plans set up, at least with the different auxiliary presidents. The members are cool, just have a lot of problems! Hopefully I can get something rolling here, especially since this COULD be my last area...... Love you guys! Keegan and Kenzie, Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sucks I won’t be their....... but OOOOOOO well haha Best of luck to you two!!!  
Ofa Atu,

Elder Huntsman

P-day last week

Stocking Kaylee sent me

Elder Berger, the single male missionary who is
getting MARRIED when he gets home! haha

The beach!!! Sliced my foot open................ haha sharp rocks!

Trying to look tough........unsuccessfull!!

My bestest friend ever, OLI :) She cries when I leave her..... haha.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Transferred to Niutoua

This week was ok! Another slow one but we found out that a family we have been working with is going to get sealed in the temple on the 27th of this month! So that was the high for the week! The low....... I got transferred haha! Great right?? No, it's good, but I hope President Tupou lets me go to the temple with them. I have never participated in a sealing session in the temple so this would be awesome!

So ya I got transfered but I am still in my same district, same stake so I am really close to my last area. Transfers are supposed to be next week but President did it this week for some reason.... that’s just how this mission is. We had a FHE with a family I got close with when I was here with Elder Tu'akalau and said some goodbyes yesterday. My bishop started crying when I went over to his house and told him.

My new area is Niutoua, the farthest east you can get on this island haha!  We have this thing here called the Ha'amonga 'a Maui, a big rock formation that sits in our area.  Google it.  It’s pretty cool. My new companion is Elder Vea from Seattle. Except his family moved back here to Tonga while he was getting his papers ready so he actually came from Tonga. I am his second companion.  My Tongan is better than his so we will do good! I have been helping him with his language before cuz his last comp wouldn’t so now that we are together I feel like we can do some good work and we can help each other out. He is pretty cool. I finally got someone to run with in the mornings. I hope I can lose some weight now haha! Gotta lose the pooch! haha

This week I just hope to get close with the new area, the members, and hopefully gain their trust and be able to work together with them. I have some good plans for this district cuz this Stake is really weak, especially the priesthood leadership so I hope it all goes good! The language of course is still a struggle, but hey this isn’t meant to be easy! haha

Love you all!!! :)  Ofa Atu!


Elder Mani

The Ha'amonga 'a Maui

Hunga Ha'apai volcano

Hunga Ha'apai volcano
This girls mom is the one that was murdered.
She always called my name and wanted to hang out with me haha.

Playing Ping poing here in Niutoua

Me and my old District leader

The family from our Family Home Evening last night

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Family Mission Plans

This week was again pretty slow! I was sick for a couple days so we didn’t get out much! We had a zone conference with President Tupou and we were able to get a lot out of it.  The main struggle is we can’t ever get anything running combined with the wards because they don’t ever have their meetings! Out of both these wards they have only had one Ward Council meeting all 5 months I have been here. So I never know how we are supposed to implement the things that President teaches us if we are never able to meet together as leaders in the ward and us two missionaries. So President helped us out a lot with focusing on teaching families instead of the leaders. To get into the houses and not ask for help but ask to help them, create Family Mission Plans with all the families and after that, they will begin to trust us. Get the Families to make daily plans, weekly plans, monthly plans, and yearly plans. So the plans go like this.

Daily:
1. Pray Always: Always having a prayer in your heart, and being able to pray at all times and in all places, no matter the circumstance.
2. Change: Be willing to change, and do it every day. Take advice, want to repent, listen to the leaders of the Church.
3. Believe/Have Faith: Everything starts with a belief, belief that something needs to be done, needs to change, needs to be uplifted, Believe you can be better.
4. Invite: Invite others to come unto Christ by providing a good example, being a light to the world, being willing to give service, go out of your way to do what is right.

Weekly:
1. Sacrament: Partake of the sacrament each week, and stay for all 3 hours of church.

Monthly:
1. Fast: Participate in the monthly fast, 2 meals on the first Sunday of every month.

Yearly:
1. Families: Work with 1 nonmember family and work with 1 inactive/part-member family.

So we are going to help all the families we can to have this game plan in mind so that we can all be on the same page. I encourage all of you to do the same! This isn’t just something that can be used here in our area, our mission, but in the lives of all the members of the church. Make a family plan that you can use, set goals as a family and work to accomplish them at all times.

So I think I caught a little food poisoning last week, woke up and threw up, then did some other stuff we won’t discuss hahaha but ya it was like that for two days with a migraine! Sucked but I got over it and I am good now! So this week we just hope to help out our wards with their goals for the year and help them understand that baptisms aren't the only thing people need here. They need examples, they need to be taught, they need guidance! I really hope that we can help them out! We have been reading the BOM in 30 days, then 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, and now we are on the 150 day challenge. So we just finished Alma! The war stories can be applied to now. We are at a spiritual war with the world and we need to hold our Title of Liberty up, not stoop down to the world! Fight for what we know is right, and not be afraid to share our beliefs and feelings with others! Hope all of you can be that light in someone else’s life. This church is true, it blesses all of our lives, so let’s help others gain those blessings!

Ofa Lahi Atu, Elder Mani


P.S. We are going to go eat a pig now that some members have been cooking! My comp’s family brought it...... it’s not hard here for the Tongan missionaries cuz they can talk to their family, see them all the time haha!  My comp’s family is five minutes away.

Kids make little explosives with toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil inside of plastic bottles haha

A spider the size of my palm in our shower.... good thing spiders here dont bite!

I made pancakes for 6 missionaries and our neighbor the stake presidents family :) haha


I am getting fat... haha

Cut my hand open on a bamboo stick that broke doing a stick pull with a member haha