One more trip to the blow holes. I just can't resist a picture of the blow holes.

Mamana doing her hygiene training. She is amazing and the training is going so well in her area.

Sunday, January 19th

Sister Mitchell and I went into church at 9:15 this morning. We are both in the Relief Society Presidency and we had a meeting at 9:30. Sunday is the only day that will work for me right now. The airport is closed on Sunday! Sister Matiali is planning two big RS events in the next two months. A social on Valentines day for the sisters and their husbands or friends and a dinner in March for the RS Birthday Party. That is going to be a lot of work but the Tongans love to party. Hopefully we can get good people to help.

Sacrament meeting was really good. It was all about the importance of education. The kids will be starting back to school in a couple of weeks and the Bishop had one of the youth, a teacher and a parent speak. They all did a wonderful job. I had a spiritual experience during the Sacrament. As they were passing the bread, I remembered a sentence in my Patriarchal Blessing. It says, “you will feed many with the bread of life.” I always thought that meant that I would help others find the truth of the gospel, but then I thought how we did that literally, yesterday, when we sent all that bread to Ha‘api. It overwhelms me to think about how the Lord knows such details in my life and so many years before they happen. I look forward to the day, on the other side of the veil, when I will understand all of this. But for now, it is very humbling.

I heard today that when Sister Maile, the returning missionary, got off the plane with the bread, a man came out to help her carry it. President Tukuafu was at the airport and he took the bread and gave it to the employees at the airport. They were over joyed and so grateful. Then the rest of the bread was given out to the people, members and non-members at the chapels. It was such a simple thing but it did so much to lift the spirits of the people in Ha’api. It is comfort food for them. Something they are used to, something that they can’t make right now and something that they love. It was so worth all we went through to get it to them!

We had a new member in our Sunday School class today. The man who was interviewing for a job so that he didn’t have to work on Sundays, got the job and he was at church today. It will be good to have him there with his wife. Peau was back today too. We were thrilled to see her, but Vincent came with her and we weren’t thrilled about that. He wants to get back into her life. We are really worried that she will go along with that and we know that he is abusive. He still has that hard, cold look in his eyes and it seems like he just endures coming to church to please her. She is leaving for New Zealand in May and he wants to go with her. We hope that between now and then she will make the right decision. They Reynolds also came to our class, so we had a great discussion on Prayer today.

Our first Sunday as a RS Presidency went well. We had a good group at church today and everyone was very nice about our accepting these callings. I think they will all be supportive.
We had our President’s Dinner tonight and it turned out super. The food was wonderful and we had a full room. Not only were all of the senior missionaries there, but we had 8 guests, our visitors from New Zealand, The Area Mission Doctor and his wife from New Zealand, the man over the TVET program from Australia and Sister Edwards has her parents visiting. After dinner Elder Reynolds told a little about what he saw in Ha’api and I had put together a slide presentation to show them the pictures of the devistation, the gathering of supplies to help and the arrival of those supplies in Ha’api. Everyone enjoyed seeing what is going on and what we have been doing this last week. It was a good night.

The days are all starting to blend together. There hasn’t been time to do anything but address this emergency. It has been such an amazing experience to be a part of all of this and to see how well organized the church is in an emergency. We have witnessed miracles and seen Priesthood leaders receive inspiration as they make decisions. The Lord’s hand is in our lives constantly and that is very humbling.

We haven’t had time to connect with our children except a quick email to let them know that we are alright. I MISS MY KIDS!! 

Saturday, January 18th

We slept in until almost 7:00 today and we were so glad to have a day off. WRONG!!! I did one load of wash and then we went into town to Office Supply to buy more supplies for the hygiene kits. We did some quick shopping and then headed to the office to continue the printing. Just when I got a good start, the phone rang. It was Ana. She was working at the fair and couldn’t leave her booth. She got a call from Howard Niu. He and the Reynolds and Steve went to Ha’api on the plane at 7:00 this morning. They were calling to tell us to put 500 loaves of bread and some butter on the 2:00 plane and send them up to Ha’api. We got the call at 11:30 and it is a 45 minute drive to the airport, let alone gathering 500 loaves of bread!!! Another impossible task. We called the largest bakery here and they started gathering bread for us. They also have cases of butter. They said they would call us back when they knew if they could meet the order.

In the meantime, I kept printing the hygiene kit information. Just as I was running off the last 3 pages, Ana walked into the office. One of her good friends, that often helps her at the fair, came to the fair and offered to help her. She didn’t know why, but she just felt that Ana might need help today. (She is a member of the church and thankfully she is in tune with the Spirit). That made it so Ana could come and help us with the bread. We got a call saying that the bread company had enough bread and butter and they would deliver it to the airport. We just had enough time to meet them and get it on the plane. (by this time my last 3 pages were copied)

We left immediately and stopped at a couple of stores along the way to pick up boxes that we could put the bread in at the airport. We all arrived at the airport about the same time and started assembling boxes and loading them with bread. I had taken tape and a marker so we could label the boxes. There was a young sister missionary going on that flight. She was returning home from her mission in Fiji. Her family does not belong to the church but by some miracle, their house was not destroyed in the cyclone when everything around them is gone. There was some damage, but it is still livable. She has already explained to them that it was a blessing because she was serving a mission for the Lord.

We had a few loaves of bread that we couldn’t get into the boxes. We taped them together and she took them with her on the plane. She held them on her lap for the flight. She was given the responsibility of making sure that the bread was delivered to the missionaries and no one else.

Once the plane was loaded we went back to the office, dropped Ana off , picked up the hygiene supplies and then headed back to Liahona to assemble the kits. We took everything to the Service Center and put them out on the large conference table. There are 6 lessons and all but two have at least 20 pages in them. We walked around that table at least 100 times, until we were not only tired but also DIZZY!!! Dr. and Sister Coons, the dentist and his wife, saw what we were doing and they helped us for the last ½ hour. We were so grateful! When we got home there were no leftovers to eat so I cooked some pancakes and eggs and we called it good. I made a cake for the President’s Dinner tomorrow night, we brought in the sheets that we had washed this morning and made the bed. While the cake was baking I wrote in my journal. Once the cake was cooled and frosted we FELL INTO BED ---- EXHAUSTED!! Once again I thought, how did we ever get all of that done?

Ana and our sister missionary, Sister Maile, packaging up the bread. Alan with the boxes of bread that were ready to be loaded on the plane.

Friday, January 17th

I got up at 6:00 so I could cook some more Macaroni for the salad. It didn’t seem big enough and I wanted to be sure they had enough. Seriously, like I don’t have enough to think about, my brain won’t turn off and I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about the salad! I also needed to cut up 50 tomatoes for them to put on sandwiches. As soon as I got that done, the phone rang. It was 8:00 and Ana called to tell us that Steve Stebbings and the Reynolds would be arriving on the 10:00 am plane from New Zealand. She went to meet them at the airport and we had to run into town to buy 30 bush knives, 4 large water filters and spare filters and a bunch of hammers. They needed to be delivered back to Liahona and put in a van that the FM is sending up to Ha’api on the ferry. That had to be done by noon. Then we got a call from the hospital saying that they had an emergency and needed wheelchairs ASAP. We stopped at the hospital on our way into town, picked up the boys that assemble wheelchairs and headed for the office. We also got calls from Leslie and Mamana who wanted to pick up wheelchairs that were already assembled and waiting at the office.

When we got to the office, the town officer was waiting for us. He had letters from the bishop, stake president and the Minister of Health, supporting the water project that they have requested. He has now done everything that we asked of him. Then to top it all off, when Mamana picked up her wheelchairs, she told us that she has her Hygiene Training set up for Monday morning at 9:00. She needs hygiene kits for 20 people, that is over 1,000 pages of information that need to be copied off and assembled!!!!! MERCY!! Does everything have to happen at the same time???

We skipped lunch and I started printing the kits. Alan helped load all the wheelchairs and took the boys back to the hospital. Then Howard Niu and the Reynolds came to the office and wanted to meet. We met with them for 3 hours and then while the men checked their emails, Sister Reynolds helped me assemble the first 2 lessons of the hygiene training. Elder Reynolds showed us the powerpoint presentation that the Area Office sent to the First Presidency. Part of it was my report and the pictures I took of the donations and the loading of the boat. Needless to say, that was very special to me.
At 5:45 we left the office and went to the Emerald Hotel to have dinner with the other senior couples. It was our farewell dinner for the Fakatous. They will be going home on Monday. We took the Reynolds with us. Steve Stebbings decided to go back to their hotel and work. We had a lovely evening, but we didn’t eat until 7:30. I thought I might starve to death!!! In the end we had plenty of food and I ate enough to cover lunch and dinner. All is well.

Today strengthened my testimony that the Lord knows us and is aware of what we are doing. There is no way humanly possible that we could have accomplished all that we did today with out His help. Somehow, every day we are able to do things that seem impossible. This is the Lord’s work and He is so much a part of it! 

Thursday, January 16th

We got an emergency call from the hospital this morning saying that they needed some wheelchairs. We stopped at the hospital on our way into work and picked up the boys that assemble wheelchairs and took them into the office with us. They put the wheelchairs together while we answered emails and wrote up more reports. This paper work is burying me! It is amazing to watch the church in action, how the calls come and the priesthood responds, but someone is always in the background, keeping records of what is happening and running all of the errands---- for this emergency, that is us. Even though it is exhausting and often overwhelming, it is such a humbling experience to be a part of all of this, especially to be on the inside and see how it all works. We sit in on phone conferences every other day where we talk to the Area Presidency and also people in Salt Lake City. The First Presidency knows exactly what is happening here and it is amazing to feel the power of the Priesthood as these men make decisions.

We snuck out for about an hour today so we could buy some groceries. We are running out of food and I needed a DIET COKE!!

I left the office about 3:30 today and went home to make a big macaroni salad. We are feeding 150 missionaries tomorrow and they eat a lot of food. Life goes on, even when there is an emergency situation going on. We are just trying to keep up with it all!

Because the phone wasn’t ringing with a new assignment for us, we went to the temple. Our temple will be closed for the next two weeks and we really didn’t want to miss this session. It was a little hard to stay awake, I haven’t slept well these last few nights, but it was very peaceful and calming. I love the temple!