WEEK 82 IN TONGA, EUA

Been a fun week :) We've had a lot of ward programs that have really helped with the work! Last nights was fun. We did an Open House and had the other companionship on the island come and help us out. Soo it turned into like 25 kids being taught in 1 room and 2 adults being taught in the other and then we switched haha. It was a lot of fun and got some new investigators! 

Me and Elder Molei are doing our best to take advantage of every moment we have to serve on this beautiful island. The members are so great and nice to us and most have a desire to help with the work, just needing a little push to do so. The stake sets quarterly goals and once reached, all the members kinda take a vacation until the new quarter haha.

Trying my best to get the most out of my last couple of weeks in the Islands with the Pin. Im already feeling my heart strings getting pulled thinking about leaving but at the same time feel satisfied and ready. Actually dont know if I should say satisfied... a quote that Elder Ardern shared has stuck with me, "The Lord is easy to please but hard to satisfy." If it is hard to satisfy the Lord then I think we shouldnt be easily or casually satisfied when it comes to His work and our lives(which I guess is His work). I have found so much joy as we all do when I have felt that I am pleasing the Lord with my decisions no matter the less-effective or less-good choices that might and is bound to be sprinkled in there throughout life. I've said it before but it is something I have a strong testimony about: the small things.

Hope I and we can keep on doing that.. if we do we will be just fine :)

Love you!

-Elder Nite

An American home in Eua

 Bow

I'm the Pot of Gold 

 The Hoa

WEEK 80 IN TONGA, EUA

Well, here I am right at the beginning of my last month in Tonga, end of the first week in my last area... Tongamama'o and Ha'atu'a are both small in themselft, but having them together makes it a pretty big area which I am very happy about, only hard thing is there is basically not a soul in the villages until like 4 PM, making the days kind of a struggle but the evenings very fun. Its been a lot of fun getting to know these members and the people here in Eua, they are all so friendly. First thing I noticed here is how absolutely cold it is here... you would NOT believe it, I totally thought I was gonna die it was so cold at nights haha. People call Eua 'mini New Zealand' cause of it. All the members where laughing at me when I was complaining about it when I bore my testimony in our wards on Sunday. It seems a big way the missionary work rolls out here is through programs, so luckily we have a couple coming up. Always hard coming into an area with no investigators whatsoever haha.

In the BoM recently Ive been reading in Mosiah... I think the first couple chapters are some of my most favorite chapters in all of the BoM. There is so much to learn from them... Some of my most favorite are in chapter 4:10-12

10 And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them. 

(Daily)

11 And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel.

12 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.

I believe the essence of the gospel is contained in these verses. Its a happy and joyful thing to LIVE this message, but almost nothing can top SHARING it. We just have to make sure we do it in that order.

Repentance. Joy. Remembrance. Humility. Standing Steadfastly. Filled with love of God. Growth.

Dont you just love the gospel??

I sure do and will keep doing my best to LIVE and SHARE these things these next couple of weeks.

Shout out to my boy Elder Fairbourn finishing up the best ✌ Right behind you Elder!

I'm here

 It's cold here

 View from my bed

 sunset view

 Awesome view

WEEK 79 IN TONGA, EUA

Roller coaster ride of emotions as a left my longest area to come to my last area + make it to the final island grouping that I havent gone to yet (besides Niua): EUA. President and the Lord decided to bless me big time by letting me have one last visit to a 'lil motu(island) for my last 6 weeks. Ive been here for like 2 hours now. I love it so much. Happy to be back to the small island life. Its pretty simple. Haha a little too simple sometimes. I wish I had a little bit more time to tell yall about it and my last week in Ha'ateiho but P-day got cut really short with that boat ride. 😴 My area is called Ha'atu'a and Tongamama'o. My comp/killer is Elder Morley from Roosevelt UT, he used to be in my zone back in Tonga so its gonna be way fun!

I love you guys tons, heres some pics of my adventure this morning! 😘

-Elder Nite 

Closer look of last Tongan home

 On my way somewhere 

 Almost there

 Always a fun picture 

 Eua

 Getting there

 My last Tongan home

WEEK 78 IN TONGA, FALAHA

This is our dog Dirty Phil is he not the cutest thing you've ever seeennn??😇

Just a little update today... This Sunday I will be finding out where my last area is going to be....

MLC this week was wayy cool. President is making some big changes that I am way pumped for. Starting now we are doing daily reports as well as weekly. Its gonna be a big help to us missionaries to work that much harder. 

Me and my companion have been working our hardest the past couple of days and have had the absolute least amount of success possible I think haha. He's was getting real down last night because within an evenings amount of time, we had been dropped by like half our investigators(denied hard core) and it was just the worst. I feel grateful though for the hardships. Personally that is when I feel closest to Heavenly Father and Christ and feel the need to rely on them. I know that these hard times are meant to help humble us(especially me) so that we will feel that much more inclined to bear as sincere testimony as we can and help soften some of these rock solid hearts.

I think this week we will be going on our second our third round knocking the same doors with Lotoaniu haha. Who knows! Maybe someone new will answer the door this time haha :)

Yikes.. we have to go rn but heres a couple other exciting(exciting?) things that happened this week:

-our members ringtone is "What Does The Fox Say"

-As of last Tuesday I am a car murderer. (His fault for walking right in the middle of the road)

Love you guys!

-E Nite 

Dirty Phil

WEEK 77 IN TONGA, FALAHA

My companion turns to me 2 days ago and says, "Whats that guys name who has the house made out of candy? Willy McConkie...."😂😂 I just about lost it... hahaha.. His Enslish is way good but sometimes he says the funniest stuff. But at the same time he always drops bomb one liners, like one time we went to a house to visit a certain person, but a different lady answered the door, we ended up walking away without trying to share something with the lady. I told him I felt bad because I didn't say anything because I was the one who was handling most of the conversation and he said, "Hey! I have a mouth too and I didn't use it." Whata good example.

The work in the area is constantly picking up! We have been seeing a lot of cool blessings. 

Big help came when I felt it was about time that we met more regularly with the Stake Presidents in the zone. We met first with the Stake Pres of our stake(Ha'ateiho) with allll the bishops in the stake just about missionary work. We put together a report of whats going on in all the wards and the bishops were kinda shocked to see how much improvement is needed. Gave them a pretty good wake up call and ever since then most of the wards in the stake have had a big refocus on missionary work. Same thing went down with the other 2 stakes when we met with them. 

Soo since then the members have been helping out a ton. Nothin too close to baptism but for sure progress. A RM walked up to us and said she had a friend that came to the Mission Prep class that isnt a member and for sure felt the Spirit there and told her she wants to get baptized! We got way excited but I think a different ward is trying to steal her as their own investigator haha. These wards can get pretty darn savage about investigator stealing haha.

We had Mission Tour a couple week ago with Elder Ardern of the 70. Soo tight. We got to have MLC with him also right before hand. Just blowin my mind left and right. Firm believer that the most spiritual people are the most happiest and most of the time some of the funniest.

Had an opportunity last night to get to a vete aukai(break the fast) that the whole 1st ward did for one of my favorite members wife who is way sick. I felt so bad for him cause I can tell he's hurting with how sick his wife is that he loves so much. It was cool to see the ward come together and do that fast for him. Man love these people a ton.

Other fun stuff that happened:

For the first time EVER in Tonga, I saw a boy and a girl walking and holding hands.. absolutely unheard of here. They almost kissed too... Im convinced alarms would have started sounding if they had haha

All the members like talking to me about now is how Im finished soon and how I should mali Tonga(marry a Tongan) 

Got naasty sick for 2 days

Saw a mentally challenged kid charge down a rugby field faster than I thought was possible straight at the kid with the ball yelling "TUI'I KE MAHAKI" basically the equivalence of "PUT HIM IN A CASKET"

Lovin life... Lovin you all as well! 😘

-Elder Nite

#Lototaha

 Giving service

 Sick companion

 More of us sick

 This what Pday is like on Tonga

 Friendly neighborhood fire fighter

WEEKS 75 IN TONGA, FALAHA

Every Door!

I'm so dang happy in this zone right now! Everyone in all the areas in our zone is being so TEKA MAKA (pushing the rock (aka, working hard)) Everyone is putting in some serious sacrifice and hard work into their areas and seeing some divine help and progress with the work. Having been in this zone longer than anyone else it makes me really happy to see all the progress that is being made :)

I love my new companion. His name is Elder Loto'aniu and he is such a hard worker and a true example to me of someone who loves the work. The past while, we haven't gone door knocking very much(not the most effective in Tonga), but with this guy I have again received a strong testimony of door knocking. Even though our area is only 6 little roads (we walk the whole thing in about 30 min.) I'm learning the truth of the fact that God blesses us according to our efforts (common sense huh?) Just in the last couple of days we have seen and more importantly felt major blessings by putting in just a little bit more for the Lord.

I know that when we do that, we feel His presence, just a little bit more, everyday, and it makes me so happy almost to the point of tears.

We've been poking and prodding one of our bishops recently to try and get him to help out more with the missionary work, and a FHE with him and his family on Monday night brought some beautiful results!

Also... Our zone is short 2 missionaries this transfer, leaving a ward uncovered by missionaries, so we get to go do all the teachings in their ward! Also the missionaries left behind a nice pair of shoes in their abandoned MQ that had my name written all over it.. :)

I love this Island, love the Lord, and love all of yous! ❤😇

Annddd gotta run cuz it's one of the Sisters birthday today... gotta make it a happy one!

-Elder Nite

WEEK 74 IN TONGA, FALAHA

6th Transfer Same Zone

I'm staying again! 6th transfer here in The Vaini Zone // 5th transfer in the same MQ. I'm actually really happy to be here again, it truly is a great place. I'm dude Satuala is gone though :( Its gonna be so dang weird to be in this zone without him. Watching him leave kinda made things real with how little I have left in the Islands :/ Man my eyes were sweating real hard.

My new comps flight from Vava'u is almost here! I'm super pumped cause he will be my first official companion from Tonga! He's a new ZL, so even though I probably will never get the chance to train a greenie, it's kinda like training right?? 

So this whole week has just felt like a combination of saying bye to all the people going home and then figuring transfers out so not to much to report on... boring huh?

... just wanna say OFA ATU and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to my moma and all other motherly people back home!

I'm still here

 This one's name is Riker

When there's a name attached, they're not lunch!