Tonga!

Monday, August 5th

We didn’t have a devotional today because we are having a broadcast from New Zealand tomorrow welcoming the newest member of our Area Presidency to the area. He and his wife have arrived in New Zealand and this broadcast will introduce them to all of the employes of the church in the South Pacific. The missionary couples who work on the Liahona campus are invited too.

When we got to the office we had a wonderful surprise ----- a letter from Alli! It was so fun to read about her summer and what she is planning to do in the fall. I can’t believe that school will be starting up in a little over 2 weeks! Where did the summer go? It is her birthday later this week and we are looking forward to talking to her.

We also had an email from Tiff letting us know that they were home safely from Park City. Caden had a soccer tournament there last weekend and they came home the champions! He has become quite the little soccer player and he LOVES IT!!! It is so fun to know that our grandkids are doing things they really enjoy and having such a good time doing it. Tiff also asked us to call her when we had a minute.

We received an email from Pauline Esplin too. They were supposed to leave on their mission in September but she is having some health issues and they will now be leaving in October. We are hoping that she will heal fast and be feeling much better by then. She told us that they are going to release Bishop Pitcher, Tiff and Jake’s bishop, next week. Suddenly we knew why Tiff wanted us to call her. We left the office and headed straight home.

Jake and Tiff both picked up the phone at the same time when we called. We asked Jake if he had anything he wanted to tell us. They were both a little shocked that we were so ‘in tune’ to know that something monumental was happening in their lives, when we were so far away. Sure enough, just a few hours before our call they had met with the Stake President and he had called Jake to be the Bishop of the Smithfield 19th Ward. He is totally overwhelmed but we know this call came from the Lord and that the Lord will qualify him for the work He has asked him to do. We are not surprised at all. Jake is so capable and we know the ward members will love him. We also know that Tiff and the kids will be a great source of strength and support for him. We are so proud of all of them.

We felt just a little sad though. It is hard to be so far away and not be able to be there for such a special occasion. Heavenly Father is teaching us lessons that are a little bit hard to learn. Nothing is harder for me than not being able to be with out children when they need us and when these special experiences happen. I am working on keeping the faith and enduring to the end.

I met with the Mission President today to get a new recommend. I love that man. He is so excited about being here, about the mission and about his vision for Tonga. He loves to share his feelings and ideas and we had a great visit. He couldn’t find an English recommend book, so I now have a Tongan recommend. I am thrilled, it will be a treasure. It also only has two signatures on it, his and mine. A Mission President can give you a temple recommend and no one else has to sign it. I didn’t know that until today. I am so glad to have that taken care of. Since the day I first went to the temple, I have never been without a current temple recommend.

We had a game night for FHE tonight. We had two couples that were gone, so we met in the small conference room and played The Great Dalmoody. It is a fun card game and we all had a really good time. When we play games Alan always moans and groans because he doesn’t really like to play games, but even he had a really fun night. We all bring treats to share. I took some purple grapes. They were a huge hit. They are super expensive and very hard to find here but it was fun to share them and they were gone in a flash.