FOURTH WEEK IN TONGA, SOPU

Hey everyone!  Another great week here in my area!  It was pretty much the same as it's been so I'm just gonna mention some things that happened through out the week and attach some tika pictures!

We went on a lot of vilo hoa (splits) this week so that we could go and talk to more people and try to get more people to come to church and to share some poupou fakalaumalie (spiritual supports). That was fun but also pretty hard because I went with a member who knows pretty much zero English, so that was interesting.  Had a couple of discouraging moments sharing some spiritual thoughts.  I thought I was saying some good stuff and shared a good scripture but after I shared my thoughts this old lady was just like, "Ok... you want some ice cream palangi?"   I don't think she understood much of what I said.  That happens a lot.

Something funny about Tonga, when you go and buy some chicken or any kind of meat from a fale kai (restaurant) they ask you, "Do you want some sauce?" and then they will just pull out a bottle of ketchup and pour a ton on. Love that ketchup. 

We spent the night at 'Ataata again this week like we usually do.  This time the Zones came and spent the night too.  We taught a couple of lessons which went really good.  I think we have 3 investigators on 'Ataata that are going to get baptized!  Only hard thing is we can only go there once a week. But that's super exciting!

So Halloween is just starting to become a thing here, one of our wards had a trunk or treat.  I'll send some pics of that.

Gross things that happened this week, I was cutting some coconuts for a member with this big ax, and I hit open this one and all of this rotten coconut and worms went flying into me. That was unfortunate. 

Big news this week, we had Pizza like 3 times this week which is not common because it's super expensive here. But that was awesome. 

But the most exciting news this week, I had the opportunity to baptize 3 of some other sisters in our districts investigators! That was SO dang cool and I was so excited.  It made me even more excited to be able to baptize my own investigators, people that I helped teach and grow their testimony's.  But that was still an awesome thing to be able to baptize those 3 little kids.  Tongan names are hard to say sometimes though.

And later on that day, on our way home pretty late from our fafanga, and this man that was very drunk stopped us and requested that we talk with him.  So we pulled over and started teaching this man a short little lesson about Jesus outside this shack thing where people go when they are drunk.  And in the middle of this little lesson these 3 other huge drunk Tongans walk up and join in on this little lesson.  That was really funny. 

Well that's my week here in Tonga.  Love you guys, have fun!

-Elder Kalanite

P.S. I think I have a better way to share pics now.  Just request access to view the folder I'll share in this email, and then I'll put a new folder for that weeks pictures every week. Ofaa Atuu​

We have Donuts

 Hanging with kids at a shack

 I got to baptize the Sisters investigators

 They have creepy spiders

 Birthday celebration

 Trunk or Treat party

 Put and about

 Spider boy show his skills

 The Baptismal font

 At the Bptism

 The wrong coconut to open

 Tongan Halloween

 We're in boats a lot

 No one we knew came in 

 OUr sister Missionaries

 Pizza is the best

THIRD WEEK IN TONGA

​​​Hey happy Pday everyone!  Hope everyones week was tika!  Mine was pretty normal.  Starting with last pday, we ate a dog that we killed earlier in the da .  Sorry to be so graphic but that's Tonga for yah.  I won't attach the pictures!  Its pretty good though.  But yeah, Tonga is pretty crazy.  Most of our week was us doing what we do, teaching and preaching so Ill just talk about some of the highlights and stuff that happened.

We taught a lesson in English to a girl from Ukraine, in Tonga.  I don't really know how that happened but it was really cool!

I finally got my bike completely fixed.  I was riding without foot pedals for a while there which was messing up my sandals. My comp crashed his bike into some bushes because he was trying to talk to someone on the phone while riding. Let that be an example to you kids!

We did some ngaue ofa(service) and afterwards the man gave us some chicken that still had an egg in it when it died.  That kinda freaked me out. 

Had my first Zone Conference this week which was really cool! On the way back home, our ZL hit a dog. Don't worry, the dog is OK.

This week I had some Ota(raw fish), Octopus, and Lou. All of those were way good! Lou is a Tongan food that they cook in tin foil, and it's pretty much meat wrapped up in spinach.  It was really good but apparently it wasn't cooked enough, so it was making my mouth tingle and burn.  I thought I was having an allergic reaction or something and for a good 5 minutes I thought I was dying, but we are all good.

Like every kid that we come across somehow knows my name but most of the adults still just call me palangi.

The people here are homies and always give us food.  On our way out one morning we passed a store that is owned by a member I think and he just started opening a bunch of his products that he sells and giving it to us which was bomb!

We went to our fakasiasi which is where we go to the school nearby and just teach a short little lesson to a bunch of kids and then sing some hymns and play games with them.  That was way fun, a lot of kids still stare at me and whisper to their friends.  But I love all the kids, they are way funny. 

This week we spent the night at 'Ataata.  We spent the night at the bishops house there.  I think the ward on 'Ataata is 15 people strong.  That's how tiny it is.  But we taught a couple lessons.  One of them was to this family, we talked with the dad for a little bit and set up a time a little later to come back and teach.  We found out that he was born and raised a member and that his wife was taught a little while back by some other missionaries.  So we taught them the first lesson which went pretty good.  When I was baring my testimony to him I started talking about how I know that our families can live and be happy together again after this life and I could tell as I was looking at him, that he knew these things where true and the spirit was way strong. 

Well thats my week!  

                                                        A car flipped over in someones yard.

 After we hit the dog.

 Is anyone coming here?

 Beautiful coast line.

 Sunset.

 sharing a meal with the ZL's.

 Delicious food

 Guard dog or Garglyle? 

 Last P-Day

 Tag picture.

 This should be on a magazine.

Tonga Costco.

Hope everyone else had fun!!

'Ofa Atu Kimoutolu

-Elder Kalanite

SECOND WEEK IN TONGA

FAMILI MO NGAAHI KAUNGAMEA!

Whats up guys!?  I'm just chilling over here in Tonga. Things have been work as always this week!  Here's a basic run down of how it went.

Had my first District meeting and found out that my companion and I are DL's and we are the only ones without cars.

This week I asked two people to be baptized and they both said yes!  That was really exciting, except we found out that one of them has already been baptized so that was kind of a bummer.  But we have a couple of investigators who are getting pretty close, which I am totally stoked about!!

We spent a lot of the week just Vilo-ing (going around and visiting investigators/members) I'm still trying my best to understand what is going on, but unless we are talking about something lesson related, I'm pretty clueless still. 

I gave my first Priesthood blessing here on Ataata to a member who was sick. It was just in English though.

We fasted on Saturday for one of our investigators who has some..interesting..ideas on how to find out if the BofM is true or not,  I won't go into detail on that.

On Friday, it was the Isileli wards 21st birthday which I guess is a big deal here, so we had a Kai Pola(feast) which was probably the craziest church activity I've been to. So much food. It was ridicules. Like I don't think you could comprehend how much food!

Apparently there was another Elder Kalanite who served here a while ago so a ton of people ask me if we are cousins. I'm gonna start telling them yes.

Sunday was awesome! We went to the two wards that we cover and sacrament meeting was just like everyone said it was. They don't have a piano or an organ, someone just starts singing the first line and everyone just joins in.  And it is louder than any ward I've been to and there probably less than 100 people in each ward. They are dang good singers!! 

That was the majority of my week though!  Still focusing a ton and learning this crazy language. I'm trying my hardest to do and say what the Lord would have me do and to always have the spirit with me so that I can help people learn about this amazing Gospel!  It's for sure not easy work, but I'm getting better and better everyday.  I know that all of our trials are temporary and the we always have the Lord to rely on!  He loves us more than we realize sometimes.  He only want us to become better and to shape us into what he knows we can become.  He sees our divine potential and knows what we are capable of.  We just need to trust in him!

Love you guys tons, have a great week!!

My first coconut

Tastes great

Men in skirts on bikes

 

The most that I can go in the water

We don't know what these are, but we're going to eat them

Great place to ponder

Most food I've ever seen at a ward birthday party 

FIRST WEEK IN TONGA

FAMILY, FRIENDS!!

 Hows America??  Man, Tonga is amazing.  This week has been absolutey crazy!!  It started off by leaving the MTC which I thought would be easy but it really was hard saying bye to those guys.  I didnt realize how good I had it in the MTC.  It was so nice.  But saying good bye to our Tongan districts was hard.  We took some pictures, everyone started crying, and we sang one last Tongan song together.  Then those of us going to Tonga all left.  

The flights were actually way nice.  I slept most of our 12 hour one.  It was a way nice plane.  Then we had our 2 hour flight from NZ to Tonga.  We were so pumped to get here!  We all got to the mission home, had some lunch, and then we all got our new companions.  My trainer is Elder Nonu and he is the man!  We are serving in Sopu.  He's been here for 6 transfers so he knows just about everyone!  

So for the past week I have just been that awkward palangi that follows Elder Nonu everywhere. Nah but the people here are so awesome and way nice.  I still don't know what's going on half of the time because everyone talks so fast.  I had the same experience that I think every missionary learning a language has had.  I thought I knew stuff from the MTC... turns out... I dont know anything. It's been pretty hard and I try not to be too hard on myself, but I just wanna be able to talk to these people so bad.  Good thing a lot of them know a good amount of English, they just choose to never speak it.  Ah well.  

So, apperently I'm the first palangi (white) Elder to serve in the area for two years.  Some of the kids are scared of me!  They run off screaming.  A lot of them will run up to me yelling Faifekau (Missionary!) though.  Its funny. 

Our area is the only area in the whole mission that has bikes but.. they are broken, so we are working on getting them fixed.  And we are one of two areas on the main island that gets to go to another little island once a week.  Ours is called, Atata. We went on splits there with our ZL's to go and visit the people there and teach some lessons.  That was awesome!  I love it there. Got to share my testimony and say a couple of prayers cuz thats about all I can do!

Well besides that, not much happened this week. We spent a couple of days going around and inviting our investigators to come to conference annnd... none of them ended up coming. Soo that sucked haha but its alright. So yeah, thats been my week so far! I love it here!!!

Ok theres not a lot of time to email out here. Im doing really good tho and Im having the time of my life! Hope everything is good and happy! Love you all, let me know whats going down in the states haha!

'OFA ATU

                                                                          Yah......Laundry day.

We made it safely to Tonga.

 The island Atata, that we visit each week.

 Lunch in the back yard with  some buddies.

 My trainer is at my left, and some others he has trained.

 The Tongan District from the MTC.

Elder Pruitt and I on the way to Atata

 With the ZL's heading for Atata

                    My humble home.                 

                                      

Lunch on the beach.

-Elder Kalanite

MTC Last Week

Oh boy its here!  I leave for the land that I have been called to serve in 3 days!!  I have been waiting for this for soo long!  Time for all of my studying and effort to come through!  I' still a little nervous though.  In my mind I keep picturing this supper nice, old Tongan lady, and she walks up to me and says something in Tongan... and I'm not going to have ANY idea what she is saying, and I'm going to feel soo bad because shes so nice. Oh boy I hope that doesn't happen. When the Tongans here speak like they will in the field, I have a small panic attack every time because it's still hard to understand them, and then I think about going there and it's going to be like that 24/7.  But I'm so excited to rely on the Lord and have the confidence that I will be able to do what he called me to do.

Well, we've had a pretty normal week at the MTC this week! Me and my comp keep on teaching bomb lessons.  We are getting a lot better now though, we mostly just need a couple of scriptures that we want to share and then we can give the lesson.  We try to teach the person, not the lesson.  Sunday was a great day too the Tongan districts sang a Tongan song in Sacrament meeting, then I helped bless the Sacrament, the me and my companion gave the priesthood lesson.  Pretty normal day for a missionary except it will be like x4 that out in the field.  They keep mentioning about how we will be most likely be giving a 15 min testimony in our first area, I don't know how I'm going to talk for 15 minues in Tongan by myself, but it'll be fun.  I've got the First Vision down now in Tongan, so that's cool.

In one of our lessons, my companion meant to say, "My mom and dad..." but instead he said, "I am mother and father...". That was weird. 

Yesterday we had In Field Orientation which was a little rough because it was like 8 hours long but I learned some good stuff. I'm ready to GOO!

I don't think I've shared my mission plaque scripture yet so I think that's the one I'll share this week. It's 3 Nephi 5:13

Behold, I am a disciple of Jeus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.

I love this scripture!  Every time I read it, it gets me so pumped to go out and talk to people.  Sometimes as missionaries we can get a little scared to talk to people. Like, "why would they want to listen to me?" "They don't look like they want to hear about the gospel from an 18 year old."  But the message that we share, is one of so much happiness!  Its like we are giving away free gold. If you had a bucket of gold, would you be shy to walk up to someone and ask if they wanted it?  Heck no!  My favorite quote this week comes from Elder Lokotui in my district: "Because of this Gospel, I'm here and I'm happy!"

That's the kind of excitement I'm going to have going into Tonga! I want everyone to hear this great message!

The MTC has been such a good experience! The spirit here has been so frequently and strong, its going to be weird leaving it. I've learned so much about myself and this Gospel I'm going to be sharing.  Im so grateful for the teachers I've had and all the other missionaries that have made an impact on me. I'm going to miss my district here a ton!  We have become way close, and we have felt like family during our time at the MTC.  I love all of them and it's going to be hard to say bye. But I've got a whole 2 more years in Tonga and I couldn't be more pumped!

Love all you guys at home!  Pray for me and my 21 hours of flying!  Lots of study time I guess. 

Oh yeah! General Conference is this weekend!I hope everyone can take the time to listen to the Apostles and to feel the spirit and find how they can improve in their lives.

                                                                           Going to the temple!

                                                  Do you think that I have gained any weight in here?

                                                                        Great view from the temple

 

'OFA LAHI ATU FAMILI! TE U ALU KI TONGA PEA AKO'I A E NGAAHI KAKAI A E ONGOONGOLELEI!