Dec. 23rd - 26th 2012
The sounds here are so different from what we are used to that we woke up off and on all night and tried to figure out what we were hearing. At 5:00 in the morning there was no doubt that we were close to a plantation that housed a LOT OF ROOSTERS! They really greet the new day with a lot of noise. About a half hour later the cows added their voices to the chorus and it wasn’t long before we decided to get up.
Today is Sunday and our church starts at 9:00. They have two English speaking wards here at the school and since the students have all gone home for summer break, from December to the end of January, they have combined the wards. We met a lot of wonderful people but I will never remember all of their names. Our meetings were great. The people are very educated and they speak English quite well but with a thick Tongan accent that will take a little getting used to. President Groberg held a fireside on Sunday evening and it was for all of the main island. They bussed people in from all over and filled the gym, the cafeteria and a huge tent that had been set up outside. He spoke in Tongan and his talk was really good, they just needed to cut the 7 speakers before him down a little and not let it go so long. We had been to church for 3 hours and then the fireside went for over 2 ½ more, all on hard chairs. My back was screaming by the time we got home. The sun is up early right now so I decided to walk early. If you start at 6:30 and walk for an hour you still come home sweating like crazy. It doesn’t cool off much unless there is a breeze, then it is doable. We got cleaned up and went to the Mission Christmas Conference at the Stake Center. President Groberg and his wife spoke to the missionaries. Once again he did a wonderful job. I was a little sad as we left there though. I didn’t see one missionary carrying any packages from home and the mission didn’t give them anything and no dinner was served. They just put them all on buses and sent them back to work. All of the senior couples had received packages from home so I know some things get through. If the mission president will let us, next year I want to give them some little thing. Even just some candy would be nice.
We spent the rest of the day unpacking and trying to get settled. Our apartment was really full of mold and mildew so we scrubbed and sweat our way through the day. We also wiped out all of the cupboards and then sprayed them with poison to help keep the critters away. You have to keep everything in zip lock baggies here, all your spices, flour, sugar, etc. I brought some with me but they won’t last me long. I hope I can buy some here.
After we ate and then took a quick run into town. There was so much we needed to buy! Alan said that the city had changed so much he didn’t even recognize it. There are more businesses now but most of them are run by the Chinese or people from India. We saw a few new buildings that have just been built but they aren’t up and running yet. Most of the stores are small shops and they are pretty run down. It was the day before Christmas so there were tons of people in town. Lots of them drive cars, pretty old, beat up cars, but Alan said that there were hardly any cars here 40 years ago. We were able to go to several shops and find a lot of the things we need to set up house. Mildew remover, toilet cleaner and a new shower curtain were at the top of the list! We also wanted to buy a fan but didn’t find one the first time out. It is really expensive to run the air conditioning.
In the evening we had a dinner with President Groberg and his family. It was another full spread. Then he spoke to the Senior Couples. This time it was all in English so we didn’t have to have it translated. It has been fun to watch Alan. He listens to the translation for a little while then he takes the headset off and tries to see how much he can understand. It’s slow, but the language is starting to come back to him.
President Groberg said that the Lord doesn’t really look on one people with more favor than another, but that he loves the Tongan people because they are humble and faithful. It doesn’t matter to the Lord how much stuff we have, how big our home is, what positions we have held, he loves humble and faithful people. He expressed his gratitude and the love of the Lord for Senior Missionaries, that they would leave their families, humble themselves and go into a strange culture and faithfully serve their Father in Heaven. He promised that our families will be blessed, as will we, as we humbly and faithfully do our very best. I felt the spirit testify that what he said was true and it made me so grateful to be here.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! We had a small tropical storm last night. Thunder, lightening, rain and lots of wind. It was really loud and a little scary, but the breeze going through our room felt so good that I had to be a little grateful for the change. I am having a hard time sleeping it is soooooo hot!!
We had a Christmas brunch at the office couples house today for all of the senior couples. It was great food and once again we had a chance to get to know the other couples a little better. We walked home. The Mission Office is about two blocks from our house and in between is the temple. It is so beautiful! And so close. The couples go every Thursday evening because they do a session just for us in English. I can’t wait to see what it looks like inside.
We spent the rest of the day cleaning and washing. We have a great little washing machine but no dryer. We hang things on the back porch but it is so humid they don’t really get dry. Tara and her family stopped by to see us today. She is a volunteer that works in our office. She was at the brunch today and we were talking about what we needed for our apartment. She and her husband and children are moving to Whales the end of January, so she loaded up a bunch of things that they don’t want to move and brought them over to us. It was a GREAT CHRISTMAS!! We were able to buy a really nice fan from her and she brought pans and spices and bowls, just lots of little things that we will really use. I love her already!!
We also had couples drop by just to visit and it was fun to get to know them one on one. The Beans, the Perpetual Education couple had us over for dinner. They work in the same office that we do so we will be riding into work with them for a few days until Alan can get a drivers license and we are issued a car. Driving will be expensive here, gas is almost $8.00 a gallon. We haven’t met with the Mission President yet, he has been really busy with President Groberg here, but he announced at our dinner on Monday that we would have an additional job with the mission, checking missionary apartments. That means we will be driving the whole island every month. The couple who did that before us spent about $240.00 a month on gas. Alan will try to reduce that considerably!
Now, MERRY CHRISTMAS to you! We celebrated yesterday and now we get to celebrate again with you. We were able to call all of the kids today and at least talk to them. Skype doesn’t work well here unless you have a really good connection, which we didn’t. We went over to the high school and used the internet in the seminary department. It was a dial up connection and we were able to talk to Tiff and her family, Greg and Bryan, but the video didn’t work well enough to see them. Then Elder Johnston came over and he knew the pass word to get us on to the wireless connection. We were able to Face time David and Kimi and Mike. That was lots of fun. We will hopefully receive a key to that building soon and then we will be able to call everyone again and see them all, since Santa was so generous this year and now every family has at least one device that will work with Face time. It was so good to hear all of their voices again and hear about their Christmases. There is lots of snow in Smithfield and lots of sunshine in Tonga.
We were invited to the Jensen’s for dinner tonight. They are the couple that works in the office. We met several of the missionaries who will be going home on Friday. There are 11 of them and they are all Americans. That is so different from when Alan was here. There were only 12 missionaries in the mission and only 2 of them could be from America. It was fun to visit with them for a minute and hear of their mission experiences. Our dinner was lovely. We had enchiladas with a fruit salad and veggies. Then topped it off with banana cream pie. You can get a lot of American food here if you can find it. They say that when you see it you have to buy it because it may be months before you see it again. When dinner was over Sister Jensen asked us to plan a party for New Year’s Eve. There was method in her madness, she fattened us up for the kill! They want some fresh ideas so we will try to come up with something fun.
