Tonga!

We went into Ma’ufanga on Monday. We were meeting with a man that is here from New Zealand. He wants to bid on our water pump and engine. He thinks he can beat the bid. He works for a company in New Zealand and he said that he will send it to us at his cost, free shipping in his container and all we have to pay is for the machines and the taxes. We’ll see what his bid is. We have already submitted the project so if it is higher we won’t go with him but if it is lower we are free to change contractors at this point.

We also went out to Sam’s Workshop and took pictures of the stand that they are putting together for Lavengatonga. It will be a lot better than the one that they have now! We’re excited!!!

Ana has a Managers Meeting tomorrow, so we met today to tell her what we are doing. From the Humanitarian Missionaries she will report:

1. The Lavengatonga Project is moving toward completion and we are now planning a closing ceremony.
A) The Hygiene Puppet Show for the Lavengatonga Project will go into 4 Government Primary school in
the Halaliku Stake on October 17th. It will be presented by students from Liahona High School.
2. Dr. Williams and his wife are in Vava’u this week doing dental work for the missionaries and prospective Missionaries. Our Dental Visits to the Outer Islands project will close on October 31st.

3. The Pacific Pharmacy Painting Project has been approved and we will start working on the Pharmacy the week of October 14th - 19th. (We can’t start this week because of General Conference.)

4. The Ha’utu Water Project has now been approved by the Area Presidency and we are just waiting for the final approval from Salt Lake City before we can begin.

5. The wheelchairs have been shipped and are due to arrive in Tonga on the 20th of November. Because it will take some time to get them off the dock and then it will be close to the holidays, we will schedule our training of assessors for January.

6. The Area Presidency has approve a $60,000 US for our Vava’u Hospital Project. That is over $108,000 Pa’anga in Tongan money. The Dr. at the hospital is putting a list of his priorities together that will fall within that price range and then we will order the equipment from New Zealand.

Ana said she will be going into her meeting with a big smile on her face. Things are going well in the Welfare Department! We knew it would be like this. We have worked for months and months to get all of the ground work done on these projects and now they are all coming together at the same time. It would be nice to spread them out a little, but we aren’t complaining. We are just excited to see them starting to move forward. We want to help all of the people we can while we are here. We still have a couple more in the works, so we should be busy for a good long time!