Tonga!

Thursday:

We drove out to Lavengatonga this morning to see if the water is hooked up and we are ready to do the closing ceremony tomorrow. It isn’t and we aren’t! When we got back into town we called Sione Tonga to find out when the water will be hooked up. He wasn’t in the office so we met him near the police station. It is easier to talk to him in person than on the phone. He was really upset. He had been working all morning to try to get the water hooked up because Ana was pressuring him to have it done by tomorrow. The Health Department has to send a man to the village to check the stand and tank and hook up the water system from the pump. There are only two men in Tonga that are qualified to do that and the one that was scheduled to go to Lavengatonga fell from a tower in another village yesterday and was badly injured. That will put our closing on hold for awhile. Sione was worried that we would be mad about that. We talked to him for quite awhile and told him that everything was fine. It took a minute, but we got him to calm down and hopefully all will be well now. We will close the project sometime after Christmas.

We had a conference call with Elder Reynolds today. We look forward to those calls because we really like Elder Reynolds and he is a great help to us, but I also dread them because I always have a list of things to do before we hang up. Today was no exception but I was expecting it. I have a lot of final reports to write now that all of these projects are coming to an end. We will start working on the emergency container as soon as Ana comes back from her Christmas visit with her family. He doesn’t want us to start any projects that we can’t finish before we leave for home. I can’t believe that we are talking about that already! They have put in for a couple to replace us but as of yet there is no news on a replacement.

We ended the day at the Temple. It is the first time since we arrived in Tonga that we have been in the temple without the Beans. We really miss them!!!