Tonga!

Saturday, May 25^th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN!!! --- in Tonga anyway. We will call him tomorrow when it is his birthday in America. I still can’t get used to being a whole day ahead of America, especially on birthdays and holidays.

We did the regular Saturday chores this morning and then went to a Tapa making and painting class. It was really fun. We learned how the bark is stripped from the tree and pounded out to make a thin mat. We also learned how the dyes are made and then we watched a video about someone actually doing it. Next, we went into one of the classrooms at Liahona and did it ourselves. Everything except letting it dry out and making the dye. That takes days. Mele, the lady that taught the class, had some tapa cloth already for us to paint and we each got a piece to work on. We used sticks from one of the trees behind the missionary housing to make into painting tools. Alan sharpened ours and we dipped them into the ink and away we went. It was fun and they turned out pretty well. It was a great experience and we all learned a lot.

The rest of the day was kind of quiet. We stayed home and worked on our talks and our Sunday School lesson. I was able to reach Lina, the wife of the man and mother of the family that we are trying to teach the gospel to. She was very nice and it is always good to connect with her. They are going to the Catholic church this Sunday because it is “Family Day”, but she said that they would try to sneak away and come to church with us next week. I told her that we teach the Gospel Principles class and invited her and Lisiate to come. We’ll see.

We were able to talk to Greg for a few minutes this afternoon. He was at our house! We had forgotten about Memorial Day. The whole family will be home tomorrow, except for Kimi. We will call then talk to all of them and then call Kimi and Mike.