Tonga!

Jan. 7th, 2014

We met with Howard this morning to go over the list of what we need to put in the emergency container. It was a very productive meeting and hopefully now we can get down to buying the supplies. He told us that it would be cheaper for us to go to New Zealand and buy the supplies and have them shipped over here than to buy them here. We could include the price of our plane tickets in the project and that would be a great idea. I don’t think the Area Office would approve it, but Alan and I volunteered to go. Dream On!!

He helped us a lot with what kind of things we need to be looking for and what people already have that we don’t need to supply. He has seen cyclones go through Tonga and he knows what needs to be stored in the container. We are trying to get the container moved to a shady place where it won’t get so hot inside. We can’t put water, hygiene kits or first aid kits in there because it just gets to hot. They don’t store well in that kind of heat and then you end up throwing everything away. We will have a phone conference with Elder Reynolds this week and then I will know how to write it up.
When we got into the office this morning we found a work crew there and they had already knocked the wall in the conference room down. It doubled the size of that room. It will take a little while to clean up the mess but when it is all done it should be a nice addition to this building. Sadly, it wiped out our ocean view office but they have painted a room on the other side of the building for us and installed a new air conditioner in there. They need to work on the floor in there and then we will move over.


We took Taimani in to get her picture taken for her visa today. She is getting everything ready to go so she will be prepared to go to the MTC in the Philippines. She takes a mission prep class every Saturday morning at 5:00am. She has been doing that since she graduated from Liahona. Her teacher served in the Philippines and at one point she was in the same area where Taimani is going. She is already starting to help her with the language. Taimani told us today that she has 3 older siblings that have served missions, one that is serving in Tonga right now, a sister that leaves on her mission tomorrow and then Taimani will leave in April. Her parents will have three missionaries out until 2015. Once again -- AMAZING! Then she told us that her parents have already served a mission. When they were a young married couple with a small daughter they were sent to an outer island up by Ha’api so her dad could serve as the Branch President up there. After serving 2 years they came home and then were asked to go back sometime later to organize a Stake. On the way home they got in a bad storm, the boat sank and Taimani’s oldest sister was drowned as a todler. HOW SAD!! Taimani was excited to tell us that she is going through the temple this afternoon. She just got her call on Saturday. She really has all of her ducks in a row. She is organized and ready to go serve the Lord.
This afternoon we went out to the village of Nukuhetulu to look at their water pump and engine. We were out there a long time ago but never wrote up a project for that village. We told them they would have to come up with $2,500 before they would even consider helping them. We left and thought that would be that, but the town officer came in last week and said they had collected the money and were now ready to proceed. We took an engineer out with us to see what size of engine and pump they will need. I will write the project up but we are afraid that they won’t pass it because we can’t finish it in the amount of time we have left. We will need to know that another couple is coming in order for us to get it passed.

We had our first cyclone warning today. It was a ways away from us and they said tonight that the warning is cancelled. It is the cyclone season so we have to be prepared for the possibility of one hitting our island.

We ended the day with a walk. We waited until it was almost dark so it would be a little cooler. We saw a beautiful sunset but still came home dripping wet from the humidity. I can’t seem to drink enough water to stay hydrated.