Tonga!

Tuesday, May 21^st

We had a mission Zone Conference this morning. Elder Hamula is doing a mission tour and he was the featured speaker at the conference. All of the missionaries on the island of Tongatapu and those serving in Aua were at this conference. We haven’t seen some of them for awhile and it was good to touch bases with them again. They filled the chapel and when they started singing I was in Tongan heaven! I love to listen to them sing. We started the meeting with “Called to Serve”. We sang it in English and then in Tongan. I still contend that Tongan is such a musical language. All the hymns are beautiful in Tongan.

Sister Tukuafu gave her farewell speech to these missionaries and it was very touching. She loves them like her own children and it is hard to say good-bye to them. President Tukuafu talked about the Holy Ghost and His role in missionary work. It was a great talk. We are glad that we will still be able to see him and hopefully spend some time with him while we are hear. Then Elder Hamula talked for 3 hours!!! Yes, he did a great job, but old people (and young people) can only sit for so long. We did stand up every hour and move around a little bit, but by the time he was done we were all ready to go home. That said, he is amazing and his presentation, which covered to many areas to mention, was informative, uplifting and spiritual. I’m glad we were here to participate in that meeting. The bishop of our Liahona ward was his translator and by the time the meeting was over he was exhausted! I felt sorry for him. 

One thing that Elder Hamula said that I don’t want to forget was that as he was shaking hands with each of the missionaries, us included, he could tell by the way we shook his hand and looked into his eyes, or didn’t, if our lives were at a point that we would be comfortable in the presence of the Lord. Because he is a special witness of the Lord, when he shakes our hands he is acting for the Lord and through the Holy Ghost the Lord can tell him who needs to make changes in their lives. Then he pointed out that no one is perfect, but that if our lives are not where they should be we need to make the necessary changes … NOW! We want to always be prepared to meet the Lord. I remember when I shook hands with Elder Robert D. Hales and looked into his eyes, I felt like he was looking right into my soul. Now I understand why.

After the meeting we came home, had lunch and Alan had a little nap. Then we headed into the office to meet with Steve Stebbings. He did a training session with us that lasted 2 hours. He did a good job but it was mostly the same stuff we saw in the MTC. They have just updated it so there were a few changes and now we know what questions to ask, so it was helpful. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the internet in our office and how it effects our work. His recommendation was, “We need to get it fixed or move this office to a better location.” YES!!!! We are hoping he can help us get some changes made. He saw first hand how bad it is and he doesn’t hold out much hope of fiber optics being installed in that building any time in the near future. Maybe if we work from the top down something will happen.

By the time we got home we were exhausted. We ate dinner, went to Liahona to check our email and then went for a short walk. There were 2,000 church leaders at Liahona tonight for a leadership training meeting with Elder Hamula. We didn’t go because Sunday School teachers weren’t invited, but we walked by and it was very well attended. I was kind of glad that we didn’t have to go. I don’t think I could have sat through another 2 hour meeting!