Tonga!

Friday, January 10th

We had a conference call with Elder Reynolds this morning. Ana came to Liahona to sit in on it with us. He told us that there is about a 50-50 chance that anyone will replace us in the near future, but not much of a chance at all of anyone coming before we leave for home. He wants us to finish up everything that we are working on right now and not start anything that we can’t finish or that Ana can’t handle when we are gone. Ana begged him to extend our mission call but instead he asked her if she would be willing to extend hers for an additional 6 months, in order to help a new couple get started whenever they can get one to come. She agreed to think about that, depending on her health.
We talked a lot about the emergency container and what we need to purchase to get it up to date. We already have a list of what we want to put in, we just needed to know what kind of a budget we will be working with. We discussed all of the ongoing projects and he seems pleased with how things are going in Tonga.

After we hung up we just sat in the office a little while and talked to Ana. Her daughter is here visiting her from America. She told us a little about her daughter. Ana has one older sister and one younger sister that have never married. They live in California. Ana has 3 sons and one daughter. When she had her daughter her older sister came to the hospital to take the baby home with her and raise her. It is the Tongan way, the oldest sister has the say in the family. Ana didn’t want to let her only daughter go, but she resigned herself to the fact that it was going to happen. He husband would not allow it. They kept the baby for 6 months and then the sister insisted that she be sent to America. Ana’s husband took her and left her with her Aunties until she was 6. Then he went and got her and brought her back and raised her through her school years. When she graduated from Liahona High School she was sent back to America to live with the Aunties again. She is now 21 years old and on this visit she asked her mother how she could give her up to her sisters. It about broke Ana’s heart. She cried as she told us about it. Her daughter doesn’t understand the Tongan traditions like her mother and her aunts do. It has been hard for her to be separated from her mother, especially since her father passed away 11 years ago. Some of these traditions are very hard to live with.

I came home from the office and made a banana cake to take to the High Priest party tonight. We went into town early because we needed to check on the floor at the Central Pharmacy. It still isn’t finished. Alan could go crazy before we close on that project! We had some extra time so we did a little shopping so we won’t have to go in again tomorrow. Then we went to the office because that is where we were having the party. It started at 6:00 and we received a call at 5:50 telling us that it had been cancelled because of the cyclone warning. That was fine with us, but a little more advanced warning would have been nice. Since we were already in town and we were planning on having dinner at the party, we went to the Precious Stone and had a Chinese dinner. It tasted really good to both of us. By the time we left for home the wind had started to pick up and it looks like we were in for a good storm. When we got home we made sure that everything was secure before we went to bed.