Tonga!

Jan. 13th, 2013

Church is always good, although it is hot during Sacrament Meeting. I bought a fan and that really helps. It was High Council Sunday and our High Councilman is Howard Niu, our Service Center Director. He talked about the importance of education and supporting your children in their education. Evidently the Tongans are very supportive of their young children but when they get to be teenagers they are on their own. His parents didn’t even go to his high school graduation. The church is trying to change that philosophy.
When we were through with our meetings, Alan told me that the bishop had called him out of priesthood meeting and called us to be Sunday School teachers. We will teach the 17 year olds. We don’t know why he didn’t call me in too, but he didn’t. Oh well, when in Tonga do as the Tongans do. That should be a good calling for us. We can do it on Sunday and then not have meetings during the week. It will be fun to be a part of the new program the church is starting. We just pray that we will be able to get the information that we need from the internet during the week.
After dinner Elder and Sister Fellows came for a visit. They are the older couple from Australia. He is really frustrated with the Votec program here. He will be working in that area and they were shown pictures of all the new equipment that was purchased to start the school year in 2012. It is all gone! And the classroom was a disaster area. The students -- or the teacher --- who is not here anymore, took everything! He will have to go out and buy everything again and it will cost over $8,000.00 to replace all of the equipment. The school doesn’t want to pay for it and the church won’t pay for it because they paid for it last time. If somebody doesn’t pay for it he said that he is going home. There will be nothing for him to do here. It’s a mess! We love this couple so we are really hoping they can sort it all out but they will have to hurry, school starts in less than 2 weeks.
There was a Stake Relief Society Fireside tonight. It was wonderful but also kind of shocking. It was all about saving the family. The Stake President talked and he was pretty blunt. He told us that he is having to excommunicate at least 1 person a week. If that keeps up we will lose the equivalent of one ward soon. He said that the husband is the head of the household, but the woman is the neck. It is the neck that turns the head and he needs the women to be faithful and righteous and turn the men from drinking Kava, a strong drink here, to the temple. He also talked about saving marriages. When young people get married they should cleave unto one another. The tradition here is to live with the families after marriage. It is how they survive because they are so poor, but there is too much interference from the parents in the new marriage and then there is trouble. The church is trying to get the members to follow the council of the Lord instead of the traditions of the culture. WOW, that is a steep mountain to climb!!! It was a very interesting and eye opening meeting. It was all in Tongan, so we had translation. The best part was the music. It is so beautiful, I love to sit in the chapel and just let it surround me. It’s heavenly!