Tonga!

Tuesday, Feb. 18th

We had an interview with the Mission President first thing this morning. At least that is what he called it. It didn’t really turn out to be an interview, he had a list of things he wanted us to do! When he went up to the Niuas, he found a water project that he wants us to tackle and he also wants us to work on some service projects for the missionaries, helping the very poor people on the outer islands clean their sema-vis so their drinking water will be cleaner. We talked about what could and could not be done before we leave, so it looks like we will be busy for the rest of our mission! We were really hoping he would tell us that he is going to replace us as the District Leaders, but he didn’t. Alan gently reminded him that we will be leaving and he hopefully will start to think about finding someone to do that job soon. We have been doing it for 8 months now and really, that is long enough. We need some fresh ideas and new blood. The sooner the better -- I say.

When we got into work things really started to go crazy. The boat to Ha’api decided to leave today instead of tomorrow and we needed to get a shipment of wheelchairs on it and more supplies for the cyclone relief. Alan needed to go get the boys from the hospital to gather the wheelchairs together and I needed to get all the paper work ready. That was fun!!
We had told Amberly that we would try to facetime with her today, so we had to pause a minute and do that. We couldn’t get her but we got Lisa so we were able to see her and those grandkids today. It was great! We haven’t seen them in a long time and they are all growing up. They looked sooooooo good to us. We miss them all so much!! When we finished getting the wheelchairs ready to go we stopped again and called Morgan. We got to see all of Tiff’s kids too, except Cade. He was at a birthday party. We are loving the fact that they have iphones. It makes it so much easier to connect with them and we love seeing the grandkids! Today was President’s Day at home, so everyone was home. It was perfect.

I needed to get the legal contract put together for our Nukuhetulu project, so I went to work on that. I can’t believe how quickly I did that today. The first one I did caused me at least a week of stress, today I copied the one we did for Ha’utu, changed what needed to be changed and called it good. We’ve come a long way baby! Of course the fact that Elder Reynolds told us to just go ahead and do it ourselves and not submit it to the legal department in New Zealand had a lot to do with the lower stress level. We love that man!

I did find something to be stressed about though. I have lost a receipt and I have no idea what I did with it. We have to have the receipt for everything we charge on our card, and there is one that I just can’t find. I searched everywhere and then decided, oh well, all they can do is send me home. I will look up all the information on the computer, the date and amount and then go back to the store and see if they will give me a copy. I’ll cross my fingers that the answer will be “yes”. If not, I’m going to be in big trouble.

Alan and Ana took the wheelchairs to the Warf and got them on the boat while I finished up in the office. Then we headed for home. We didn’t get here until 10 after 4:00 and we hadn’t had lunch. I was starving and already had a headache when we walked into an oven! Our house was unbelievably HOT. I checked the temperature and it was 97 degrees with 82% humidity. I don’t know what they would say that feels like in degrees, but to me it feels like I can’t breathe!! Everyone is telling us that this is an unusually hot year, but we heard that last year. All I know is that I’m MELTING!! It took almost half and hour for our air conditioner to make our little house liveable. I am dreading going to bed tonight.