Sunday, May 5th
The scriptures are fulfilled, angels have been sent to help us. For some unknown (to us) reason, our toilet started working again today. We prayed about it and today is Sunday, so it is all coming together. We know we are being blessed!
It was fast Sunday and today was another great one. The people in our ward bear such beautiful testimonies, I always come away amazed and up lifted. One man is preparing himself to go to the temple after living a hard life and the support the other ward members are giving him is wonderful to witness. There is such unconditional love among the saints here. What an example they are to us.
We taught our first Gospel Principles class today. There were 7 people in the class. Some investigators, some new members and some that are coming back to church after being away for a long time. We had a great discussion about the principle of honesty. They are willing to share their life experiences and testimonies of how the gospel has changed them. We are really having some great experiences. We love this part of our calling. We can feel the joy of doing the Lord’s work. I know we will feel the same way about the humanitarian work we are doing if we ever get to do anything!!!
The churches in Tonga a different from the ones back home. It isn’t one big building. Instead there is a chapel and then long narrow separate buildings that are for classrooms. They build them that way so there will be windows on both sides of each room and you can get a breeze to cool things off. The only problem with that is that the windows are always open and there are no curtains, so you can’t show videos and there is a lot of outside noise. Our class is going when the next ward starts their Sacrament Meeting. When they are singing hymns we can’t hear anything anyone says. There is a family that lives right behind the church that is not friendly to the Mormons. Today they played loud music all during our Sunday School time. It was really hard to deal with all that outside noise, but the spirit was stronger than the outside influences and we were able to teach and testify. The Holy Ghost is amazing!!
There is a couple in our class that have been out of the church for a long time and have decided to get their lives in order. They are really great people and they have a son that plays football for Utah State. I think he is #36 but I can’t remember his name. They are really sad about us losing our football coaches. Their son red shirted so he has one more year of eligibility but they don’t know if he will stay or not.
We called David today and had a great visit with him but we didn’t get to see Parx or Alisha. Parx was trying to go to sleep. We need to see our grandchildren so they won’t forget who we are!! How we miss them!
I cooked a fresh tuna steak for dinner today. I have never cooked tuna before but it turned out great. It really is a good fish, not like what comes in the can at all! We have three more steaks in the freezer so we will be having it again.
We watched the news tonight so we could see some of the church services where the children were involved. It was interesting. They had many children take part, like we do, only they were just the older ones. It was fun to see them all dressed in white. The Tongan children are beautiful! They did a good job and there was lots of music. It was interesting to see.
Today was Kimi’s anniversary back in Colorado, so we called and talked to her for a few minutes. She and Mike were on the road driving to Denver to hear his mother talk at the Sat. night session of Stake Conference. She was talking about being the daughter of a prophet. Boy, would I have loved to hear that. Hopefully Kimi and Mike can fill us in on what she said.
