Tonga!

Saturday, April 26th

We went to the beach again today. We have been to the beach more in the last few weeks than we have in our whole mission. We just stayed for a couple of hours, but it was fun to see the land bridge again and then to wade in the low tide.

We had our Saturday night session of Stake Conference tonight. President Tupou was the main speaker and he was talking about missionary work. Right in the middle of his talk, the bench we were sitting on started to vibrate, then I saw the ceiling fans start to sway. Next the building really started to move A LOT! Then there was a huge jolt with a loud noise that scared us all. President Tupou had to grab the pulpit to stay on his feet. About this time we all thought about getting out of the building, but then things started to slow down a little so we stayed put. There was more wave like action and then more vibration and it was over. The whole thing probably only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was scary. That was definitely the biggest earthquake we have had since we have been here. We are kind of used to the little ones, but the big ones really get your attention. My first thought was about a tsunami, but people were checking their cell phones and there was no warning. The funny thing was, President Tupou didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t even mention the quake, he just kept talking. I don’t think anyone heard a thing he said for at least 5 minutes, I know I didn’t.

When we got home we found out it was a 6.5 earthquake. It wasn’t very deep and it was only 45 kilometers away from Tongatapu. That is a little to close!! We haven’t heard about any major damage.