Tonga!

December 27th

We went in to the office today because I needed to work on the end of the month report on our finances. Just 5 more to go -- I hate that thing!!! It took me all morning to get that put together. Before the Breits left, Elder Breit was working on his and he said, “This is a pain!” Now if an engineer who is brilliant and has been in business for his whole career says that, you can see why it overwhelms me.

We ran into town to meet Ateni Helu. He is a man that works at the temple that wants us to do a project with gardening in his village. Alan really wants to do that one so we took him a form to fill out so we can get it started. Then we did a little shopping before we bought two chicken dinners and headed to the hospital to give them to the elders. You don’t get food at the hospital here, your family or someone else has to take care of feeding you. They also do not have CLEAN WATER at the hospital. We had to buy bottled water to take to them. I can’t believe a hospital with no clean water! Scary!!! Elder King is looking good now and Elder Riddle is looking lots better. We are hoping that they can be released tomorrow. We can take better care of them at Liahona and it will be so much cleaner and more comfortable. Elder Riddle was in the bed because he was hurt the worst, and Elder King has been sleeping on the floor in his room this whole time. MERCY!! It hurts my heart to think about it. It’s a good thing that mothers don’t always know what is happening to their sons while they are on a mission!!

It rained off and on all day today and we came home in a downpour. After lunch we went over to the Edwards to ask a question and we ended up staying and visiting for over an hour. They are wonderful people and so easy to be around. We are hoping that they will get to stay here with us for the next 4 months. They are scheduled to go to Vava’u in February, but with the plane problems they might just leave them here.

We had to run back to the office for a little while to finish up the financial report. I have it all done, now we just have to go into town to print out the report so we can hand it in. We don’t have a printer here.

I had some tortillias left, so I made enchaladas for dinner tonight. Sooooo good!!

Alan went out to pick up the missionaries with Elder Berger tonight. That is his full time mission call. He drives the elders around the island. There are so many of them here now that some of them live on the campus. He picks them up in the morning and takes they to their areas and then goes back and picks them up again at night. Alan came home so grateful that he doesn’t have to do that every day. Those kids could drive you nuts. The Tongan’s are so loud and they are all so immature. It takes a lot of patience when there is a big group of them. Two by two they aren’t so bad. Bless Elder Berger, he is a saint!

I stayed home and worked on my journal.