Monday, Feb. 17th

At our devotional this morning Howard Niu wanted to talk to the FM Managers about the upcoming visit of Elder Andersen. The only problem with that was, most of the managers weren’t there. Since the first of the year the attendance at the devotional has been dwindling. He was not happy today. There is so much to do before the Apostle arrives and they weren’t there to co-ordinate it. I felt bad for him. He is the one that is held responsible in Tonga and he isn’t getting the support he deserves and needs. Now he will have to talk to them at a different time and that is just one more thing in his busy schedule.

We went into the office and the Town Officer from Nukuhetulu was there to meet with us. He checks in every week to see if the project has been approved. We know that it will be, but it isn’t official yet because SLC hasn’t approved it. But they usually do if the Area Presidency approves it. Still, we can’t tell him that it will be done. I feel bad, he is so anxious about it. It seems cruel to make him wait. We encouraged him by telling him that it was approved by the Area Presidency so that helped. We will let him know as soon as we get the official approval.
Alan got a note today from our contractor that they have the engine we need for the Nukuhetulu project in stock. That will mean that we can get this project done very quickly if they don’t sell the engine to someone else while we are waiting for approval. Alan wrote to Elder Reynolds in New Zealand and told him about the engine, then asked him what he thought we should do. He wrote back late this afternoon and said, “Let’s gamble. Buy the engine.” We are excited to know that we can complete this project so quickly. We were worried that we might not get it done before we go home, now we should have it done in a few weeks, depending on the weather.

We are in the rainy season here now. We have had major rain storms every night lately. We hear really loud thunder in the night and see some lightning. The rain comes down in sheets and the streets and sidewalks are flooded all night. In the morning there are just puddles and in the daytime the showers are much lighter. All of that water goes into the ground. Everything is so green and lush. Now I know why my hips hurt so much at night. A lot of it has to do with arthritis and the barametric pressure.

We called John Pepin for his birthday but we didn’t get to talk to him. Hopefully he was out celebrating. We hope he had a good day and will have a great year.

This afternoon I spent some time at the Service Center posting some things on the blog. I am always so far behind on that thing. It will be good not to have to worry about that anymore, but it is a good way for us to show the family what we are doing.

Alan and I made a tin foil supper tonight and while it was cooking we called Bryan and his family. Bryan pointed out the fact that we haven’t talked to HIM since Thanksgiving. We couldn’t believe it. He was ice fishing when we called on Christmas and when we have called and talked to Lisa and the kids he hasn’t been home. We felt bad! We will have to do better!! Lisa said that she thinks he misses us, which was nice to hear, but we need to connect with him more often.

We went for a walk tonight. That felt so good. It has been awhile since we have been able to walk and I really need to do that everyday.

OOPS!! I forgot to post the pictures of the restrauant where we had dinner on Valentine's Day. The decorations were beautiful and the one table is where we ate. It was outside and the last on is our view of the ocean. I'm not sure we can ever top this Valentine's Day experience.

Sunday, Feb. 16th

Church was good today as usual, but it was so hot that we could hardly enjoy it. These last few days have just been awful! I am wishing February away. March and April are the rainy season and we will have to deal with the mold and mildew, but at least it will hopefully cool things down a little. I am worried about March though. They tell us that is the prime time for cyclones and this has been such an unusually hot year that the locals are really worried about it. There is just nothing left on this island to fill our emergency container with, so I am praying that we won’t get hit with any severe weather. I just can’t imagine what we would do.

Our Sunday School class was great and Relief Society was a lot better today. Not one person got up and walked around or caused any commotion. (This is if you don’t find mothers nursing their babies in class distracting.)

Our teacher today was Ungatea. She is in her late 20’s and the mother of one baby boy. The lesson was about families and Ungatea went through the temple for the first time last week and then she and her husband and baby boy were sealed as a family yesterday. She has such a sweet spirit and she did a beautiful job with this lesson. It really is amazing how the Lord put her in this calling, last month, so that she could teach this lesson that will be such a blessing in her life. She expressed how grateful she was for all she learned from it.

We ran home from church so we could get to our singing practice. We are learning two more songs that we can sing at the musical firesides. Having these choir practices every Sunday afternoon is hard for us. Everyone else goes to church at 9:00 in the morning but we go at 11:00, so we barely make it home in time to go.

Our President’s Dinner was really nice tonight. The food is always good, we have great cooks. The Cutlers, the new dentists who are working here for 6 weeks, came and introduced themselves. They are really wonderful people and they will be a great blessing to the people of Tonga. Before they leave, a missionary dentist and his wife will arrive. They will serve for 18 months and that means that we will have a full time dentist here as long as we are here.

President Tupou talked about what is happening in the mission. He talks about ‘Hastening the Work” at the musical firesides that we go to and he also has worked on that principle with the Stake Presidents and Bishops. They set goals in each ward of how many baptisims they will have. At the first of the year wards talked about maybe 25 baptisms. After being encouraged to “Hasten the Work” they now are going for 60 -- for each ward! It will be exciting to see the work move forward here in the next few months.
  

Saturday, Feb. 15th

OOOOH, we slept in until 7:30!!! That felt good, especially since I was awake most of the night with my hips aching. There must be a storm coming! I sincerely hope that part of my problem is this mattress. I hate to think I am stuck with this for the rest of my life. There just has to be a way to make this better.

We did the Saturday chores and then went to the prison to buy some cabbage. They have a huge garden at the prison that the inmates take care of and they sell their produce on the road. I needed some cabbage for a salad that I am making for the President’s Dinner tomorrow and there is no cabbage on the island right now. It has been so hot that the vegetables are not doing well at all. When we got to the prison they only had one head of cabbage and it wasn’t very big. I bought it for $2.00. Then we had to drive into town and pray that we could find another one. I found a stand that had 4. They were selling them for $6:00 each! Supply and demand. It about killed me, but I had to have it so I bought one. It looks like we will be going without salads for awhile.

We had a relaxing afternoon. Alan took a nice nap and I was able to put a little bit on the blog. It was nice to have a day off.

We had a musical fireside tonight. We sang two numbers and President Tupou and his family sang two numbers. Two new converts and one investigator bore their testimonies and the President Tupou and the bishop talked. They both expressed their appreciation for the senior missionaries and the sacrifice that we have made to be here in Tonga. The bishop said how much the people in his ward love to see the senior missionaries come to their meetings. They look at us and think, “I want to do that one day.” We sure hope that is true. These firesides are really just about the only missionary work that we get to do.

Friday, Feb. 14th,

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!

We met with Ana first thing this morning to go over the assignments that we received from the conference call yesterday. We always come away from those calls with a list of things to do. This week we had to buy 3 x 100,000 liter water tanks and put them on the ferry to Ha’api. Then we had the water truck go to Liahona, fill up with clean water and take it to the Warf and fill the tanks. The tanks go to Ha’api, the truck up there sucks the water out and takes it to the chapels to fill their water tanks. Then the empty tanks come back on the ferry and we do it all again. It is cheaper than buying water to send up and eventually the tanks will end up at the churches in Ha’api. We also sent up more chain saws and the files to sharpen them. We have sent up 23 now. Sure hope we get at least some of them back!! We know we will never see them all again.

Elder Reynolds called us today to thank us for all we are doing in this relief effort. He is so kind. He knows that we are the ones doing all of the leg work and he is really grateful. He was especially complimentary to Ana. She works with NEMO, the government emergency organization here and she has spent countless hours in meetings representing the church. She knows all of the important people and she has saved the church thousands of dollars by getting the government to pay most of the shipping costs on the items we are sending up. She really is amazing and we are so grateful that someone appreciates her, besides us!
We talked with Elder Reynolds about all of our projects and how to get them closed out. We are worried that we won’t have much to do that last month or so but the Area Office won’t let us start any more projects. It takes months to get anything done here and they don’t want us to leave things undone for fear they will never get finished. Then at the end of the conversation, Elder Reynolds told us that our Nukuhetulu Project has been APPROVED!!!! I can’t believe he did that. He was able to get the Area Presidency to approve it before the Apostles arrived. He started at the top and is working his way back. We don’t have all of the other signatures yet, but once the Presidency approves it, it is approved so he told us to go ahead with it. He knows we need to get the equipment ordered because it takes a long time to get it shipped here. He is amazing!!! Without him, this project would never have been completed before we go home. Now there is a chance! We are praying we can get it completely finished before we leave.

We had to make a trip back to town to pick up more things to send to Ha’api so we decided to make the trip count. We did some shopping and then we went out to dinner for Valentines Day. We went to Little Italy a really nice restaurant right on the shore line. We had a beautiful view of the ocean, there was a slight breeze and the food was wonderful. It doesn’t get any better than that.
We were supposed to have a Valentines Day Social in our ward tonight but it didn’t happen. Evidently SLC has put money in the budgets for the wards here, but it hasn’t come through. The bishop didn’t have the money to give the people to make the refreshment, so the party was postponed. We aren’t sure when we will have it. There was only one problem with that. I didn’t wait for the ward to give me the money for my cookies. I made them early in the week. Now I have 200 cookies and no party. Where are my grandkids?????

Thursday, Feb. 13th

We have more wheelchairs that need to be put together, so we stopped at the hospital and picked Siua up. We are really starting to enjoy the boys from the hospital because we spend a lot of time with them now. We are giving out a lot of wheelchairs, which is really good!!! The boys love to come and put them together. We have an air-conditioned area where they can work and then Alan always goes and buys them lunch. It doesn’t get any better than that in Tonga!!

I was working on closing out the Central Pharmacy project on CHAS today and got distracted. Alan wanted me to check and see if anyone else had signed off on the Nukuhetulu project. They hadn’t, but then I forgot that I had changed projects and I added the Central Pharmacy closing comments to the Nukuhetulu project, which hasn’t even been approved yet! Once you add something on CHAS and submit it, you can’t undo it, it is on the internet. I am so frustrated!!! I wrote to Elder Reynolds and asked for help but he can’t do anything either. He was so kind, he said not to worry about it. I hope he’s right. I hate to mess up our brand new project! I don’t multi-task as well as I used to.

Part of my problem was that I was stressed over the Cyclone Ian spreadsheet. All of the updates were due by noon and I still had two people who had not sent me their receipts. I eventually got one but I just sent it off without the other one. It was the mission!!! They are driving me crazy. Elder Hamblin, in the office, is the one I keep calling to send me the information and he was an accountant. I can’t believe that he doesn’t get it!

We had the conference call at 2:00 pm and our part went well. We still don’t have the final invoice for the chartered air craft but no one can seem to get that job done. Now the big guns are going to step in so hopefully by next week we can solve that one.

Elder Reynolds approved the Nukuhetulu Project today. There are still 3 more signatures that we need from the people in the Area Office before it goes to Salt Lake. Elder Nelson and Elder Anderson are arriving from the US tomorrow for almost 2 weeks, so it will sit in New Zealand for awhile.

We went to the temple again tonight. Love, Love, Love to spend the evening in the temple. We are getting excited to see the new temple movies. We have been watching this same one for a LONG TIME!!! 

Wednesday, Feb. 12th

It rained all night last night -- hard -- with lots of thunder and lightning. I didn’t sleep much. I think the thunder and lightning went on for at least 3 hours and then the rain was so loud on our tin roof. We are supposed to be a month or so away from the rainy season, but we are having a lot of rain lately. It is good to have the moisture but the humidity is killing us.

Alan went to the finance department this morning and had them pay the last payment on the Ha’utu project. Once all of the finances clear on it, we will be able to close that project. YEAH!!! Another one completed.

We went to President Faehoko’s shop to talk to him this morning. We got an email saying that we needed to send 8 more chainsaws to Ha’api. He does a lot of his carving with a chainsaw so Alan wanted his advice on what ones to buy and the best place to find them. He showed us some more of his art work and we ordered some souvenirs to bring home. His wife is making a necklace for me. I brought my mother’s wedding band with me and when I go into an air-conditioned room my fingers shrink and I have almost lost it 3 times. She is making me a cord necklace that I can put it on. I don’t dare wear it any other way.
I started gathering the information today to add to the spreadsheet for Cyclone Ian. We will have a conference call again tomorrow and it needs to be up to date.

When we got home I started baking cookies again and Alan had to go back to town to meet President Faeholo to buy the chain saws. That was good. I could get some baked and in the freezer before he could eat them!

When I was done, I called Tiff. We haven’t talked to her for awhile and it was really good to talk to her tonight. She told us that there is a lot of snow in the mountains now and they are expecting more this week. It seems like the Fast they had has brought the blessing of moisture to the mountains and rain to the valley. That is perfect! We are a little worried about her. She is stressed. It is hard to keep up with the kids and be the Bishop’s wife. I remember having 5 kids and Alan was gone all the time. It can be overwhelming. It will be good for us to get home and be able to help her a little.

I had a meeting in town tonight that I really didn’t want to go to. It was the ward council meeting. It is hard when they have it on a Wednesday night and we have to drive 25 minutes to get there. Especially when we have already been in and out twice today. I called the RS president to see what time the meeting started and her husband asked me if we could go to the temple and do sealings instead. I jumped at the chance. When we got to the temple I was a little surprised to see the executive secretary of the ward there. I wonder who showed up at the ward council meeting????? We had a good experience doing sealings in Tongan. I couldn’t remember all of the words in the sealing, but I got a lot of it and I know how to say “Yes” in Tongan, so we got along just fine. We did marriages and sealed sons to their parents.

We were home early enough to go for another walk tonight. We walked a little later, but it was still hot. It looks like we might have another thunder storm tonight. I hope not, I am really tired!