Tonga!

Monday, March 18^th,
After our devotional at the Service Center we had a meeting with Ana Ika, our Welfare Director. She is such a blessing for us. She knows people all over the island and she wants to work. She has been making phone calls to the people that we couldn’t communicate with and now we have appointments to go out and see some of the projects that were done years ago. We want to see how the people have been taking care of what they were given. Elder and Sister Colson will be here the first week in April. He is a water specialist for the church. We will take him to many villages so he can help us decide which ones to help and what the best way is to meet their needs. He also knows what the church will approve and what they will turn down. It’s good to be busy, the days are flying by!
The roads in Tonga are just one big pot hole after all that rain. I can’t even describe them they are so huge. You never see anything like them in the states, if you do they call them sink holes! It takes us 15 minutes longer to get to work in the morning because one stretch of the road is so bad. Well, all that bumping around has taken a toll on my back. For some unknown reason I let Alan talk me into going back to that Chinese man for another massage. The last one actually helped me once I recovered from the pain. Well, when we got there he and his father had decided that his father, ‘the master” would work on me because he knows more than his son. That presented two problems, his definition of “gentle” and mine are hugely different and he doesn’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak a word of Chinese. The situation went from bad to worse very quickly and the miracle is that I survived an hour of TOTAL TORTURE. When I tried to tell him he was hurting me he didn’t stop. He was trying to open up circulation in a part of my leg that has been numb since I was had my accident at age 16! It wasn’t going to happen and now my ankle is black and blue! He also worked on my back until I literally couldn’t breath. When he finally quit trying to drive his elbow through my body, he put some kind of suction cup things on my back to improve the circulation. They hurt even worse than what he had already done and I now have the black and blue marks to prove it! My whole body went into revolt. I seriously have never in my life endured such pain for a solid hour. Needless to say, I AM NEVER GOING BACK!!!!! Alan wanted me to keep an open mind until we could see if it helped me, but my mind is firmly made up. He has changed his mind too now that he has seen all of the bruising appear. Really, that man should be arrested! I have learned my lesson. 1^st time, shame on you. 2^nd time, shame on me. 3^rd time --- you deserve what you get!I came home, took some pain pills and a muscle relaxer and went to bed.