Wed.
On the way into work today we stopped at a women’s clinic. It is for pregnant woman. There are no chairs there so they have to sit on the cement floor to wait their turn. We are trying to find some surplus chairs to help them out. It was sad to see. The nurse wasn’t there so we couldn’t get in and take pictures. We will meet her there another day.There is a community hall in the back of the center. The Noble of this village died last week and
they were having a Tongan Traditional Ceremony in his honor today. The tradition is that the people in the village bring food every day for 10 days in his honor. They divide the village up in sections and one section brings the food each day. They take it to a central place and give it to the Nobles of the other villages. The Nobles divide it up, take what they want (the pigs and all the good stuff), and then give the rest away. Everyone that lives in the village is required to give food. Many of them are so poor that they give all they have and then go home and eat nothing. If you don’t contribute the other villagers turn against you and the Noble has the right to kick you off your land, since you don’t own it, he just lets you live there. He really doesn’t own it either, the King does, but as the Noble he has control of what happens in that village. Being a noble is passed down from father to son, so you are born into that role, just like the King is. There is no chance for villagers to work their way up. We stopped in town and picked up some supplies for the MQ’s on the way to the office. Elder Jensen let us use his credit card, since ours hasn’t come yet. They are going home in two weeks. Sure hope ours gets here by then or we are in real trouble.
We were able to go into the distribution center and get our temple clothes today. Alan got everything he needed but they didn’t have a dress or slippers in my size. They ordered both and said that at the least it would take 2 weeks and at the most 3 weeks for them to get here. We’ll see. At least I have my own robe now and it is the lighter nylon, not the heavy, HOT cotton. I’m really excited about that.
The General Primary President, General Relief Society President and Elder Pearson arrived today. They were speaking at the stakes in town today and then they will be at Liahona tomorrow. They have a full schedule, speaking at the schools in the mornings, visiting less actives in the afternoon, going to feasts for lunch and dinner and then having training meetings in the evening. They will be in our area tomorrow. We are looking forward to hearing them. It has rained all day today and it doesn’t look like they will see much sunshine while they are here. That’s to bad. We were hoping they could see Tonga at its best. These poor people are exhausted from all the work getting ready for them and now they can’t even tell how gorgeous it really is.
