Tuesday, April 15th

Holy Cow! April is half over all ready. The days are flying by. I started to close out some of the projects this morning. Then the internet went off. When I work on CHAS I am always on the internet and if it goes off, you can’t save anything. After I lost everything I had done 3 times, I gave up. I will have to finish that up tomorrow.

We went out to President Fae’hoko’s today to check on some of the items they were making for us. We were hoping to be able to ship some things through them, but they only ship to California. Then we would have to find a way to get everything to Utah. We will keep looking to see if we can find a way to get it sent straight to Utah.

This afternoon we went to the village of Nukuhetulu to check the sign that has been put up on our project out there. The sign looked good, but they weren’t using the new diesel engine. When the water master came out to talk to us, we found out that their water pump is not working now. They are waiting for someone to come and fix it. Thankfully it is a small fix, but it is a great reminder to this village that they need to save some money so that they can buy a new one on their own, when it can no longer be fixed. We won’t be going back to replace that pump.

This is a slow week at Liahona. All of the kids are participating at Game Days. For 3 days this week, every school in Tonga will be competing in track and field events at the stadium in Nuku’alofa. Then Friday is Good Friday and it is against the law to go to the beaches or do those recreational kinds of things. It is a very sacred day here and everyone observes it. Monday is Easter Monday, so we will have a 4 day weekend but we won’t be able to do much.

We had a relaxing evening, we went for a walk, worked on our journals and then sat down to read a good book.

It is good to see the sign in place above the new engine that we gave the village of Nukuhetulu. It would have been nice if it had been a little bigger, but it will do the job.

This is what it looks like up close.

Monday, April 14th

Ana was gone all last week and we were looking forward to seeing her today, but she called this morning and said that she was not feeling well. Then she called back later and said that she will be going to Ha’api tomorrow to meet the shipment from Samoa. We were not invited to go! We were really hoping to go up with her when she went but now it looks like we won’t be going again. We wanted to see it one more time, especially since Cyclone Ian has been such a huge part of our work these last 3 months, but it is expensive to get there and right now it doesn’t look like it is going to happen.

Lapo came to get 9 more wheelchairs this morning. We are running out fast. It won’t be long until we are closing that project out.

With Ana not in the office, we left a little early today. We needed to stop at one of the stores in town and check on the hams that we ordered for our Easter Dinner. When we got there, Vili, the manager that we talked to, who promised that he had hams for us, was not there. The other man that works in the meat department said that they haven’t unloaded the whole container yet, but they haven’t seen any hams yet!!! We planned our whole meal around those hams. If they don’t have them we are going to have to scramble to come up with another plan for dinner. SERIOUSLY, can’t someone else have this job????????

We got home and had lunch and then while Alan took care of some things on the campus, I made another bread pudding. It smelled sooooo good! I had to try a little --- just to make sure it turned out alright. YEP! It did! Grandma sure could make great bread pudding!!

For FHE we talked about Ukraine and showed pictures of our mission there. We showed them the Crimea and explained why it is so important to Russia to have that area back under Russian control. We are just sick about what is happening over there. They are so close to war that we hate to turn on the news. We can’t bare to see that country torn apart. A lot of our mission is gone now and most of the Donnesk Mission is too. It is so sad. The missionaries have worked so hard over there. We are praying that the people are now strong enough to carry on without their help anymore. We know the Lord will help them and protect them. The Lord put a temple in Ukraine. He will protect it.

The bread pudding went over very well. I don’t think I have ever made that pudding that people have not loved it and wanted the recipe. We felt really good about how the evening turned out.

Elder and Sister Edwards are leaving early in the morning for 2 months in Vava’u. They will be working with the Seminary teachers at the church school up there. We will be gone before they come back to Tonga. It was hard to say good-by to them. They are a wonderful couple and we really enjoyed the time we spent with them. They live in Kaysville, so we will be seeing them again when they come home.  

Saturday and Sunday the 12th and 13th of April

We spent the weekend watching General Conference and it was wonderful!! We were able to watch it at home this time. Elder Hamblin downloaded it on his computer and then put it on my flash drive. Going over to the Seminary wing and sitting in those desks all those hours really kills my hips and back. Sitting in our living room in a soft chair with a coke nearby was very nice. It was a quiet and relaxing weekend. The students are all gone for spring break and everyone else was watching conference, so there was not much activity on the campus this weekend.

Saturday night we invited Elder Berger over for dinner and to watch the Priesthood session. I think he was a little nervous about me being there to watch it. But right off the bat, Elder Oaks said that it was OK for women to watch or read the priesthood session. We were really enjoying it until it just quit in the middle of President Utchdorf’s talk. We will have to try to down load it again and watch it later.
I loved the Sunday morning session. There were so many good talks and the Spirit was strong. The music at all of the sessions was beautiful. The whole thing was just what I needed to refill my bucket for another 6 months.

In between sessions I made a bread pudding. We are in charge of FHE tomorrow night and I needed to make one today so I could make another one tomorrow. There are 25 of us now, if everyone comes and then 29 when President Tupou and his family come. It’s a big group but a great group of wonderful people. We have been so blessed with really outstanding people serving here. These friendships will surely follow us into eternity.
 

Friday, April 11th

This was a LONG DAY!! We took the Van Den Akkers shopping. We went to just about every store downtown and we walked miles!! They were so grateful for our patience and we were happy to do it for them. The Beans took us when we first got here and we were grateful too. After almost 5 hours of shopping, we met the rest of the people from our office at Café Escape for lunch. Alan and I are so done with that Café, but it is the only air conditioned one in town so that is where we always go.

While we were eating lunch we had an interesting experience. Two black cars with tinted windows drove up outside, preceded by the police and followed by a white van. Men in dark suits got out of the van and escorted a Navy Admiral and some other officers into the café. They had walky-talkies and they stood guard as the officers checked out the rest room and then the Admiral went in. We talked to one of them and he told us that they are here in Tonga working on a partnership with the military here. He was very nice to us and as soon as the Admiral came out, they all went back outside and got in their cars and drove away. No one bought any food or drinks, it seemed to be just a bathroom break. I didn’t know that Admirals traveled with body guards, but this one did. It was kind of fun to see it all happen and then we watched the coverage of their meeting with the Prime Minister and the head of the King’s Army on the news tonight. Very interesting!!

After having such a big lunch we weren’t hungry tonight. I just had a bowl of cereal but Alan wanted some soup. I told him to go ahead and fix it, which he did. Seriously, fixing one can of tomato soup, mixed with milk in one pan can’t really be that hard. But somehow it must be. When he was done, there was soup all over the stove, down inside of two burners, down the side of the stove and on the floor. Really!! How did that happen??? Alan has got to learn to cook. If I die first, he is going to be in a real mess --- literally!

We were able to go for a nice walk tonight and then we sat down and picked out the pictures of Ukraine that we want to use when we do FHE on Monday night.

Thursday, April 10th

We decided not to go in to town to work today. We stayed on campus and worked in our office until 11:00 and then headed out to the airport to meet the new couple flying into Tonga today. Elder and Sister Van Den Akker are the new PEF missionaries. They will be working in our office, replacing the Beans. They are from Boise, Idaho --- I like them already!!

We didn’t have as many couples at the airport to meet them as usual, because there was a retreat today for all of the teachers and the missionaries that work with them. But we did have 10 of us and the mission president and his wife, so it was a decent showing. They are a wonderful couple and they are going to fit right in here. Really nice people. What did we expect?? They are from Idaho.

We went back to Liahona and I spent the afternoon putting some more information on the blog. Slowly but surely I am catching that thing up.

We went to the temple tonight and had a delightful surprise. The new movie has arrived in Tonga! They showed it for the first time tonight. I’m sure that by next week our session will be packed! They are going to show it on Tuesday at 5:00 AM and then on Thursday at 7:00 PM. They don’t have it translated into Tongan yet, so everyone who speaks English, will want to see it now. We really enjoyed it. There are several things in the movie that are Tongan and the people here LOVED that! It was fun to see their reaction. I will love having that constant reminder of Tonga when I go to the temple.

The Van Den Akkers with President and Sister Tupou. This couple will work in our office. We look forward to spending some time with them.