Tonga!

Friday, May 2nd

I have been trying for two weeks to find a time to sit down with Ana and teach her how to use CHAS. She is going to have to close out a couple of our projects after we are gone and she needs to know her way around CHAS. The biggest problem is just getting her to sit down and work on it. We spent an hour working on it today and she took lots of notes but she is scared to death of it, so hopefully we will have time to go over some of it again. It can be pretty intimidating until you get used to using it.

We have booked our tickets to Vava’u for the 13 thru the 17th of May. We wanted to go up next week, but one of the planes had to do a belly landing at Eua this week and now it will be out of commission for a long time. As a result they are making most of the flights to Vava’u in the M-60 and we are not allowed to fly on that one. We had to wait an extra week to get a flight on a plane we are approved to fly on. The only problem is that this airline is so totally undependable and we won’t get back until the night of the 15th. Ana is leaving for her son’s graduation in New Zealand on the night of the 16th. We are praying that everything will go smoothly!
This afternoon we went out to the blow holes. I love that place! I never get tired of watching the ocean out there. I had asked a woman who sells Tongan crafts out there, to make something special for me. It has rained all week and they don’t sell in the rain. Today it was cloudy and humid, but not raining, so we went out to see if we could find her. Yep, she was there and she had everything I had ordered. She did a really nice job for me. I am happy with her work. I will show these things to the other senior missionaries and I’m sure others will want her to make things for them too.

We were able to have a nice calm evening at home tonight. We even did one load of wash so that we could get a head start on the day tomorrow. We have been running all week and we really have a lot to do tomorrow. We ended the day by going for a nice walk around the campus. There was a nice breeze and it was a little cooler. Perfect walking weather!

It sounds like there is a dance in the neighborhood tonight. They play the music so loud that it seems like they are across the street, even though they are actually at least a block away or more. We have had dances for the last 3 weeks. I think now that it is cooler they are picking up again. We went a long time without one. They go until about 11:00 so it will be a late night of reading a good book. We have to leave the windows open, so there is no going to sleep with all that music.