Tonga!

Monday, December 23rd,

I have been getting up early lately and walking before I take my shower. It is light at 5:30 in the morning so I can get up and walk without being out in the dark. I don’t like to get up that early, but I wake up when it gets light so I might as well get up and get some exercise. It really makes me feel better and is how I am used to starting my day. I have missed being able to walk every morning and there are so many nights that we can’t walk that I am happy to be getting back into a routine.

We left early for work this morning and did a little shopping on the way into the office. We needed to pick up the last of the food items that we will need for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners.

When we got to work we called Lisa. Today is her birthday in Tonga. We will be calling the family on Christmas day and we wanted to set up a time with her, plus we will be running in every direction tomorrow and we wanted to make sure that we talked to her, even though her birthday is tomorrow in America. She sounded great, all organized and ready for Christmas. We hope her family takes good care of her tomorrow. She is an amazing wife, mother and daughter-in-law. We are so grateful she is part of our family!
As we were getting ready to leave the office, the Breits called us into their office and closed the door. They told us that they would be going home on Wednesday! Evidently Elder Breit has been having some health problems that he is concerned about and when he went to the doctor here in Tonga, he was advised to go home. Everything shuts down in Tonga during the holidays. The Central Pharmacy is closed until the 6th of January, as are the clinics and all small pharmacies. You can’t get any medicine if you get sick until the 6th of January. If he starts to have real problems there will be nothing they can do for him. They have decided to go. We can understand that but it will be really sad for the perpetual education program here. It will take a long time to find someone to replace them. Tonga just hasn’t been a good fit for the Breits. They really didn’t want to come here in the first place and it has been hard on them. They have been here less than a month and we thought they were adjusting but they don’t seem sad at all to be going home. This is their 3rd mission so they have done a lot of good work in the past. They are hoping that if they can get everything taken care of they can finish their mission in the states.