Tonga!

Friday

We made a quick trip to the office this morning to check the emails. We got our contract back from the attorney in New Zealand!! YEA !!! Now we can get the Ha’utu water project under way.

At 9:00 we headed over to the gym to Liahona High School Graduation. It was a wonderful experience. There were only 130 graduates and the whole graduation was over in 1 hour and 30 minutes. They had one valadictorian, which they call a “Dux” in the Tongan language. She was one of the girls that helped us with our puppet show. The first runner up also worked on our show. She was recognized but she didn’t speak. Elder Tukuafu gave out the diplomas and gave the graduation address. There were prayers at the beginning and end and the ceremony and Heavenly Father and the Savior were talked about and thanked throughout the program. Elder Aland was sitting next to me. He was a school district superintendent and he said that of all the graduations he has attended, this was by far the best. We decided that it was because you could feel the spirit throughout. The graduates sang two songs and that was basically it.
When the program was over, everyone gathered outside and then people started piling lays on each graduate. Some were made of flowers, some of candy and some of money. It was fun to watch and be a part of. We are really glad that we were here for one graduation.

Next we headed into town to meet with the Beans and Ana to have lunch in honor of the Beans. We went to a Chinese restaurant and the food was really good. We will really miss the Beans when they go home but we still have two weeks with them, so we are trying not to think about it.

After lunch we went shopping so we don’t have to go back into town tomorrow. Then we spent a quiet night at home. It felt good to just stay home!