Tonga!

Wednesday, January 29th

Tiamani is doing some substitute teaching at Liahona this week, so we went into the office alone. When we got there everything had changed. Verna Tukuafu, the new Self Reliance Manager had done a little decorating in our building. She had her Area Manager coming for a visit today and she really went all out to impress him. We had potted plants in every room, fresh flowers on the tables, new computers and desks in two of the rooms and new tables and chairs in the interview rooms. She even spiffed up the lobby by adding plants, a table and some new chairs. We thought it was a little over the top, since we have done without any of those things all these months, but it will be interesting to see how much of it gets used by the new Self Reliance team. We still have our same old desks and chairs in our office, but they have served us well so far so we will just keep using them.

Paul Reed was here from the Area Office. We have met him before so he came over to talk to us today. He was very complimentary about the work we have been doing in Tonga and with the Cyclone Relief. He indicated that the Area Presidency is very pleased with how things are going in Tonga, so that made us happy. We are just doing the best that we can do and the Lord is making up the difference. Still, it is always nice to be appreciated.

I finally got Alan and Ana to sit down and go over the list of items we need to put in the emergency container to restock it. I think we have a pretty complete list of items now and I will type it up and submit it for bids tomorrow. We need to get that container cleaned out and restocked as soon as possible.
We are having the closing ceremony for the Ha’utu Water Project tomorrow, so we needed to come up with an agenda for the ceremony and get the food ordered. We already have the paper products so all we needed to do was pick up the water. Ana will pick up the food on her way out to the village in the morning. The forcast is for rain right now, but the Lord knows this is going to happen, so I will pray for a little window of nice weather until we get it done. I can’t wait to meet some of the villagers and see how they feel about the water being back on in their homes and in the school.

I finished up the financial report for January this afternoon. JUST 4 MORE TO GO!!!! I am able to do them all by myself now, but I still stress over them and I really don’t like doing it. I will not miss that part of this job. ( Although I do feel good about the fact that I was able to learn how to do them. It’s good to know that I still have some brain cells left that work!)

We went to our office this afternoon hoping that the airconditioner had been fixed. When we got there the man was just finishing up the job. He said that all of the air conditioners in that area had gone off with the power surge we had the other day. Most of them are in class rooms. Those poor students!!! I don’t know how they stood it. I’m glad that he fixed the ones at the school first. We could go home but the kids couldn’t.
Today is Judy’s birthday in Tonga. I called her to wish her a happy birthday. We never could get the Skype video to work, but we were able to have a good visit on the phone connection. It was good to hear about what is happening in the neighborhood and in the ward. I miss our neighbors and it was really nice just to hear her voice and reconnect.

We haven’t had any time to shop in days so we are running out of vegetables. We needed some cabbage and tomatoes for dinner so we headed down the road to see what we could find. We ended up clear in town before we could find a head of cabbage. It is so hot now that good produce is getting hard to find. The cabbage is scarce and more expensive and so are the tomatoes. I remember when this happened last year, it will be awhile before we have a good supply again.

While we were in town we decided to go out to eat. We never do that so we stopped at the Precious Stone and had Chinese food. It was just ok, but at least I didn’t have to cook. That felt good!