Tonga!

Sunday:

Our bishopric spoke in Sacrament Meeting today. They did a really good job, especially our second counselor, Lopeti. I have written about him before, he is the man that told his dad to kill him if he wanted to, but he was going to join the Mormon church. Today he talked about his mother. She died when he was 9 years old. The night before she died, she called him into her room and had him lay down beside her as she talked to him about what she wanted for him in this life. She was a member of the Church of Tonga, but she told him to find the young men with the white shirts and ties and name tags and get to know them. She wanted him to be like them and she knew that if he would live like they do, he would be happy. He talked about how grateful he was that she had put him on the right path before she died and that knowing that was her wish for him, helped him stand firm against his father.

We continued to talk about the prophets in our Sunday School class today. Alan is telling a little about each of our modern prophets. Our class seems to really enjoy hearing about them.

I put a roast in the crock pot before we left for church. It smelled so good when we got home but it was a little tough when we sat down to eat. It still tasted good to us. It is the first roast we have had in over a year. I put the rest of it back in the crock pot and cooked it for 3 more hours and it did make it a little more tender. It will be good for sandwiches.

We went to the Liahona seminary building tonight to watch the Church Christmas Devotional. We hadn’t been able to see it and we were thrilled that they were showing it here. We really enjoyed it. The music was beautiful and all of the messages were good. It was different this year with only President Monson talking from the First Presidency but we enjoyed hearing from other church leaders and Elder Nelson’s talk was really good. I enjoyed the way he used pictures and music in his talk.

They showed the devotional at 6:00, so we were able to go for a walk afterwards. It was a lovely evening and the stars were so bright. That is one thing that I have loved about being in Tonga, there aren’t a lot of external lights here and the stars are bright and beautiful every night. We also are looking at different stars, so it is fun to learn about which stars we can see here.