Wednesday, April 3rdWe left right from Liahona today to tour the island and look at projects. We started with a trip to Lavengatonga to meet with the Stake President, the Branch President, members of the village council and the water committee. Sione couldn’t meet with us, he had to go to work, but the rest of those men were there waiting for us. We showed the Colson’s the project that we have been working on and what this village has already done . He was very impressed and he was also able to ask all the questions he wanted of the Stake President and water committee. He is 100% behind our project now and we have decided to add a hygiene program to it. The church is very committed to hygiene programs in 3rd world countries and that should help us to get is passed. Besides, they really need that training here. Hopefully we can help the children to stay healthy.
We spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon looking at water projects that the church did here in 2006 and 2007. So far everything we have shown them has still been working. Some were well taken care of and others, not so much, but they are all still running. When we stopped in takatakatonga we were able to talk to the water committee about how they collect money to maintain their system. They collect money from every house and they have two bank accounts; one for money to make repairs and another that is 10% of all money collected. They call that one their “tithing” account. They have set that aside to replace the pump when it wears out. So far they have collected over 13,000 pa’anga and they have never had to make one repair on the pump. They know that the Lord is blessing them.
When we got ready to leave they gave us baskets full of food, onions, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, watermelons and coconuts. It was a great sacrifice for them and way more food than we could ever eat. We gave a lot of it to Ana and divided the rest with the other senior missionaries. I am always humbled by the love and gratitude of the people we meet with.
When we got back to Liahona we were all starving, so we stopped for lunch and then headed back to the school to keep plugging away at the project. We are determined to have it submitted before the Colson’s leave. Today we had all sorts of problems with the internet. It kept cutting out on us and just shutting down. It was really frustrating, and yet we were kind of glad that it happened so the Colson’s could actually experience what it is like here.
We ended the day by going back into town and meeting Ana Ika for dinner. The Colson’s and the
