Tonga!

Monday was an interesting day at the office. Elder Reynolds called from New Zealand and had a couple of questions about the project we submitted. He wanted us to change something in the budget so he had to decline the project in order for it to come back to us and then we could make the changes. When I went in to make the changes, I couldn’t. Instead of coming back “declined”, it came back “opened”. That meant that it was approved, which also meant that I couldn’t make any changes to the budget. I called Elder Reynolds and he was stumped. It has to go through 10 levels of approval before it can be “opened”. I told him it was a sign. This is a really good project that we have worked on for months and it should be automatically approved. He laughed but said that it didn’t work that way. He had to get in touch with Salt Lake to find someone there who can fix it and send it back. We need this straightened out ASAP because if the Area Presidency doesn’t look at it this week in their meeting, they will be gone for 2 weeks for General Conference. That will put us into the middle of October!!! Good Grief! Nothing is easy in Tonga!!!!!
 
We had a very interesting FHE this week. We had a guest apeaker. His name is Danny Vaie. He ia a Tongan serviceman who is here of leave , visiting his family. He is serving in Kwait. He told us about the church in the Middle East. It was very interesting. He told us about a visit from Elder Holland to organize a Stake in that area. One stake would include wards and “groups” in different countries.

Danny joined the army in America. He is a facilities manager, not an important officer. He had a great desire to shake Elder Holland’s hand while he was visiting there and prayed that that might happen. When Elder Holland arrived, Danny’s Stake President , a high ranking officer in the army, approached Danny and asked if he could make arrangements to be available to be Elder Holland’s driver while he was in Kuwait. It was an answer to Danny’s prayers and he was able to spend a lot of time with Elder Holland.

He also talked about the Muslim people who love the church, but can’t become members. They will be executed by either the government or their families if they do. They will have the opportunity in the next life to make that decision. It was an informative evening.