Tonga!

Monday, May 13^th

We had a conference call with New Zealand today. Elder and Sister Reynolds called to discuss the humanitarian work we are doing. It was good to get to know them a little bit and they were very helpful with some of the questions that we had. Elder Reynolds is going to be really good at helping us get our projects approved faster. He has worked for the church at Welfare Square and the Humanitarian Center in SLC and he KNOWS PEOPLE! Sadly, even in the church that seems to help.

While we were talking to them I noticed that my computer shut down. It was windows doing an update so I didn’t pay any attention to it. Not that I could have done anything about it anyway! But when it came back up EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT!!! I hate it when Yahoo changes everything on the home page. I couldn’t find anything, all of my “Favorites” were GONE! No more tool bar! It was terrible. That pretty much stopped me dead in my tracks for the rest of the day. Even when I got to Liahona I couldn’t send my emails because I couldn’t copy and paste them onto the email.

With every trial there is always a blessing. Today I learned about ctrl-c and ctrl-v. I know my kids will laugh their heads off but they should be ashamed that they didn’t teach me that long ago. How did they expect me to know that????? My life could have been much easier all this time. Who knew?

With my new found knowledge I was able to get 1 email off today and then Poula came in and fixed my home page for me so now I am hopefully back on track. Thank heaven for Poula, he is so patient and kind.

Alan spent the afternoon working on the MQ’s. He will be so glad when these filters are all changed.
 Sister Johnson taught the FHE lesson tonight. It was on Ministering Angels. She did a great job. She had some wonderful quotes and she gave us a lot to think about. She quoted Elder Dallen H. Oaks. He said, “Through the Aaronic Priesthood ordinances of baptism and the sacrament, we are cleansed of our sins and promised that if we keep our covenants we will always have His Spirit to be with us. I believe that promise not only refers to the Holy Ghost but also to the ministering of angels, for “angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, wherefore, they speak the words of Christ,” (2 Nephi 32:3)
So it is that those who hold the Aaronic Priesthood open the door for all church members who worthily partake of the sacrament to enjoy the companionship of the Spirit of the Lord and the ministering of angels. ( Ensign, November, 1998)

I know that is true. I have experienced it in my own life many times. What a sweet experience it was to ponder on that great blessing tonight.

We did have a sad side to the evening however. Elder and Sister Fellows, the couple from Australia are going home. They have really been frustrated on this mission. He is 78 years old and they didn’t sign up for this mission, they did it because they were asked to come. The shop program, which he came to straighten out, is beyond repair for this year, out of money and no qualified teacher. He can’t see any reason to stay and his health has really taken a hit since they got here. They came one week before we did and I bet he has lost almost 20 pounds. He has diabetes and now they wonder if there is something else going on too. It is just best that they go home and take care of each other but we will miss them so much. They are such a lovely couple and we love their Australian humor. We were blessed to have them for as long as we did.