Sunday, May 26th
I think our talks went well at church today. The Spirit was strong and many people told us that they felt it. That is what is important, not what we say, but what the Spirit testifies to them is true. We had 4 palangi visitors this week. Three men from Church Headquarters and one man from New Zealand. They came to talk with the Itep teachers here and in Vava’u. They are with CES. It was fun to meet them and talk to people from Utah. Although we have 10 student nurses and their advisors staying at Liahona right now. They are here from BYU doing service in the hospitals, so we are surrounded by Utahans all of a sudden.
Sunday School was a joy again today. Very special people that we are falling in love with. We met one new man in our class today. He is from Denmark and has been living in Tonga for 7 years. He is brilliant! But also a real talker. We will have to find a way to shorten his responses.
As soon as we got home from church we went right over to Liahona and called our kids in Smithfield. It was Bryan’s birthday and we wanted to talk to him. He and his family had gone to Ogden to decorate my family plot for memorial day and then they went up to Smithfield to the cemetery there. The whole family got together at our house again for another picnic and to celebrate Bryan’s birthday. Greg was there and Tiff’s family came down so we were able to talk to all of them, see all the grandkids and sing to Bryan. It was perfect. We are so grateful for Dave and Alisha hosting all the family picnics while we are gone. We love seeing our family together --- but we sure miss Kimi being there.
Speaking of Kimi, we have called her 4 times and have never been able to reach her. I’m sure she is alright or we would have heard differently, but I hate not being able to get in touch with her, especially now that the baby is getting so close to coming. We have got to work out a plan!!!
I cooked pork chops for dinner today and they were YUMMY!!! They are expensive but we can only eat so much chicken! I bought a package of 8 so we will be having them again. I will have to take a picture of them. They are huge and over an inch thick. They are almost worth what we have to pay for them.
We went to a fireside at the Nauvoo Stake Center tonight. President Hamula and President Tukuafu talked to the church members over 55 about going on missions. There are very few Tongan couples from Tonga that go on senior missions. There are 3 Tongan senior couples serving in our mission right now, but they are all from the U. S. There is such a need for couples in the different islands of the South Pacific, so the push is on. We went to support the cause and we were glad we did. They had us stand up as an example for the Tongans. They said, if they can leave their families and grandchildren, so can you! There was a lot of talk after the meeting and hopefully people will answer the call.
