Tonga!

Friday, January 17th

I got up at 6:00 so I could cook some more Macaroni for the salad. It didn’t seem big enough and I wanted to be sure they had enough. Seriously, like I don’t have enough to think about, my brain won’t turn off and I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about the salad! I also needed to cut up 50 tomatoes for them to put on sandwiches. As soon as I got that done, the phone rang. It was 8:00 and Ana called to tell us that Steve Stebbings and the Reynolds would be arriving on the 10:00 am plane from New Zealand. She went to meet them at the airport and we had to run into town to buy 30 bush knives, 4 large water filters and spare filters and a bunch of hammers. They needed to be delivered back to Liahona and put in a van that the FM is sending up to Ha’api on the ferry. That had to be done by noon. Then we got a call from the hospital saying that they had an emergency and needed wheelchairs ASAP. We stopped at the hospital on our way into town, picked up the boys that assemble wheelchairs and headed for the office. We also got calls from Leslie and Mamana who wanted to pick up wheelchairs that were already assembled and waiting at the office.

When we got to the office, the town officer was waiting for us. He had letters from the bishop, stake president and the Minister of Health, supporting the water project that they have requested. He has now done everything that we asked of him. Then to top it all off, when Mamana picked up her wheelchairs, she told us that she has her Hygiene Training set up for Monday morning at 9:00. She needs hygiene kits for 20 people, that is over 1,000 pages of information that need to be copied off and assembled!!!!! MERCY!! Does everything have to happen at the same time???

We skipped lunch and I started printing the kits. Alan helped load all the wheelchairs and took the boys back to the hospital. Then Howard Niu and the Reynolds came to the office and wanted to meet. We met with them for 3 hours and then while the men checked their emails, Sister Reynolds helped me assemble the first 2 lessons of the hygiene training. Elder Reynolds showed us the powerpoint presentation that the Area Office sent to the First Presidency. Part of it was my report and the pictures I took of the donations and the loading of the boat. Needless to say, that was very special to me.
At 5:45 we left the office and went to the Emerald Hotel to have dinner with the other senior couples. It was our farewell dinner for the Fakatous. They will be going home on Monday. We took the Reynolds with us. Steve Stebbings decided to go back to their hotel and work. We had a lovely evening, but we didn’t eat until 7:30. I thought I might starve to death!!! In the end we had plenty of food and I ate enough to cover lunch and dinner. All is well.

Today strengthened my testimony that the Lord knows us and is aware of what we are doing. There is no way humanly possible that we could have accomplished all that we did today with out His help. Somehow, every day we are able to do things that seem impossible. This is the Lord’s work and He is so much a part of it!