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! 

WEEK 73 IN TONGA, FALAHA

Sooooo not a ton of time cause its legit Satualas last Pday! So I'm gonna be fast and just send a few pics...... 

Creeping on Kolipoki and his son

Got shake THE MAN's hand again. His Tongan

is still great! 

 Lunch

 Men to Men

 Our back up choir

 The new truck

 Our Boy Band got permission to practice all tranfer

to get as good as we could for the Kolipoki 2 movie 

WEEK 72 IN TONGA,FALAHA

Nothing better to report on than the baptism of Liongi! It was everything that we were hoping it would be! Basically the whole ward came because everyone loves her and has been waiting for this day since she first started coming to church. Somehow I got the privilege of performing the baptism and the confirmation! As we were walking into the water all the members started to sing up until the actual ordinance, so I felt like I was legit in The Other Side of Heaven. First time doing the confirmation in Tongan, super intimidating but it was an awesome experience. I didn't notice but Satuala told me about how after we did the confirmation, she was crying. As the Sacrament was being past right after, she took a piece of bread, held it in her lap for a second before eating it, with her eyes closed, as if to soak in the experience. She is such a special lady and I am so happy how everything worked out. Definitely the most special baptism of my mission! She is already talking about going back to Vava'u and becoming part of the ward in Taoa (her home village). She leaves this Friday.

But besides that the week was a blur! Zone Conference went great yesterday! Lasted a whole 6 hours, but it was very fun and very uplifting! As far as we can tell we feel like our teaching went well. We talked about diligence and tried to help the missionaries develop a stronger desire to love the people enough to work diligently for them as well as the Lord. Satuala gave his last testimony... hes been my longest comp on the mission and I am very much not looking forward to him going home:/

Nothing else this week seems to be very note worthy but just know it was straight up the best!

LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH!

Baptism

 Great day!!

 Random frame

Vahe fa'a kataki 

WEEK 71 IN TONGA, FALAHA

It has been a very fantastic couple of weeks!

Afaa/MLC:

Last Wednesday I didn't email cause we had MLC. We thought it wasn't gonna happen cause the day before, it was raining a TON, then we get the texts from President basically saying get to the churches as soon as you can, theres another storm coming. Not gonna lie we got pretty dang excited as the memories from last Afaa came flooding back. We have had SO many memories at the Ha'ateiho church building. So we got to the church building with our whole district and as the night went on, the less it was raining, we didn't think anything was going to happen. But when we woke up in the morning, that's when Hurricane "Keni" started to hit, but it was nothing compared to Gita. Almost got MLC cancelled but then President told us to start making our way down to Liahona. Good thing it's like a 8 minute drive to the mission house.

MLC was verry short compared to others. President talked a lot about faith, did some role plays with the APs, then like 2 hours of just different missionaries testimonies it seemed. I got to talk about conference and what I learned from it. Way fun!

Sela:

Sellaaa is our 1 investigator so far in our new ward! We had a very terrible lesson with her this last week. She did not seem like she wanted to be there and was very resistant to what we were trying to teach, she was able to come to church on Sunday and we taught her there. Luckily she asked us to re-teach what we had already shared, and this time went much better. It was great seeing her face looking at the whole Plan of Salvation mapped out in front of her and seeing her wonder and excitement at having this new knowledge that couldn't be found anywhere else. We are hoping she will get baptized next week :)

*Liongi*:

A miracle happened this week that absolutely humbled me to the core.. after 5 months of teaching and 2 baptism invites.. Liongi has committed to baptism! I've mentioned this investigator before, shes the one from Vava'u who was having cool experiences with the BoM and has come to church almost every week for the last 5 months. On Monday we had planned to visit her at some point, but through a number of 'coincidences'  we ended up there first thing after morning fafanga. We got there and we were all talking about how she was planning on leaving the NEXT day(Tuesday) to Vava'u. I don't want to say that we had given up on her, but we had pretty much accepted that she will be going back home and this wasnt the time for her to be baptized. The main purpose for our visit was just to share a thought from the BoM with her, and help prepare her to go back home with the hope she would continue talking with the missionaries in Vava'u. As I was opening my BoM to share a scripture, E Satuala leans over and whispers, "Lets invite her again to baptism" I looked at him like he was crazy. He was being much more responsive to the Spirit and less stubborn then I was which I am so grateful for. During the prayer, I had a prompting to change the verse I was going to share, followed it, and we started our conversation with her. As we were talking, Satuala asked her what her actual thoughts were about Joseph Smith. For some reason, she didn't answer the question straight on, but started going off about some other topic, but ended up talking about the Celestial Room in the Temple and how her less active brother had said something about it. We didn't know why she said that, but the opportunity was there, and the prompting was followed, my companion testified about temples and how much we hope for her to be able to go in someday, and then dropped the 3rd invite for baptism.. she started to laugh (that's what she always does) and then we literally watched the Spirit soften her heart and help her with her answer as she started to ramble off about her family and reasons not to. After a moment of silence, she said very quitely, "Oku ou tui te u talitali lelei homou fakaafe.." "I will accept your invitation.." At that moment it didn't fully hit me what had happened. Everyone started to cry and was silent for a whole minute or 2. We committed her to this Saturday. Her boat will be delayed so she can be baptized this week :) So so so so happy!

Ako Hivas:

We may or may not be practicing a missionary song that will be in Kolipokis(Grobergs) new movie..... I'ma be famous!!!

We've got Zone Conference again this next week! So much to plan for! I'm loving it!!!

This is Chevy, I could never eat him

 Just me

 Literally half a pig

 Look who's watching

 No big deal

 P-day pig

WEEK 69 IN TONGA, FALAHA

Transfers have come in! I'going to kill off Elder Satuala! We are both gonna stay as the Zones in Ha'ateiho, but little change in the wards, we lost H6th and now have H2nd. We haven't had too much of an opportunity to go around and visit it, but we hear it's basically 80% members and consists of about 2 half-side-roads and 1 half of the main road. Add that on to the 1st ward which we still cover which may be the smallest ward area-wise that I've covered. Should be fun!

Zone Conference was a total success! President said ours had a special spirit about it. I don't know if that's because ours was the last one and they were about to get a break or.. just kidding. But it was a really good conference. Felt our teaching went great, a little over time, but we felt very good about it. Our district sang and my comp and E Zundel sang a way cool song (Tell me the Stories of Jesus/I'm trying to be like Jesus)(got to play the piano again😏) We were way drained afterwards, but had some great baptismal interviews to do! Also as a Zone we had a Zone Ngaue Ofa (service project) which went really well, helped clean up a ladies house that was totally messed up from the storm. Zone P-day was last week too, hence the reason I couldn't email. So much to do for those days.

Highlight of this last week: One of the days this week I got to do 5 different interviews for baptism, 2 of which were in Samoan!! They took so long, both of them together took about an hour and a half, mostly because it had to be done with an interpreter in the room. Samoan is a way cool language and I'm way jealous of those that can speak it. These 2 Samoans are staying in Tonga for a bit because of family issues in Samoa and they have family here in Tonga, but they speak zero Tongan. Cool experience.

Another lady I interviewed was telling me about how its been hard since she decided to get baptized. Mostly because of her very close neighbors saying nasty things about her and her decision. But she shared a cool testimony about how whenever that happens and she is feeling down, she will go and read the Book of Mormon and feels re-strengthened with the strength she needs to continue forward. I did my best to strengthen her and comfort her about the future and how it may not be easy but will for sure be worth it for her and her family. Twas a cool baptismal service as well. 

THANK YOUS so much to all yall that wished me Happy Birthday! It was a great day! Feels so weird to be​​...21! 

                         

There are some rumors about another cyclone commin towards Tonga! The past two days have rained so much! Here is an example of what its like trying to visit people when it is raining:

*Walks up to door

"Hello, it's the missionaries!"

"Oh! Missionaries, what are you doing here?? You should go home it's raining dummies..."

Both members and non-members. Rain in Tonga = everyone sleeping at home and being very bugged if anyone interrupts. 

Very stoked for the new transfer and to hear conference on Saturday and Sunday! Everyone's been saying how great it was and I can hardly contain my excitement. I may or may not have downloaded a couple of talks from conference to listen to before we watch it. 

 Hurrah for Israel

 Random Pic

We found Elder Kalani (BYU) Dad's guitar

 Zone Amoni

WEEK 68 IN TONGA, FALAHA

I'd like to start off this email with a lovely picture of a real 'Hot Dog' (If you know what I mean😏)

So this week we did a vilo hoa (exchanges) to one of the most legit areas in our zone. I love exchanges always so much learned from these Elders in our Zone. I think I always learn the most from those who most recently came into the mission. They have a special fire and spirit about them that makes me so excited to get back to my own area. Also got to join in on that wards Relief Society aniversary celebration (is that even a thing anywhere else?? Cause it's pretty dang big here). We thought we were going to be teaching investigators at it, but that fell through so they made us stay to eat and watch the 2 Elders, Samoan investigators fire dance which was pretty dang cool to be honest. And also a Tongan lady sing a Whitney Houston song (don't ask why) which might have been even better.

Funny story for the week: Most of Saturday was spent doing baptism interviews for one of the DLs in our zone. I did 3, and that was supposed to be it for the baptism. Tonga has this bad habit of planning the interviews ON the day of the baptism, so it's always an awkward moment if the interview doesn't go to well. After those interviews we came home and started our weekly planning and then at 4:30 (baptism was scheduled for 5) we get a call from those Elders saying that they have another interview for us to do... Their area is about 10 min away from ours so we make for the door and speed down there. As my companion was doing the interview (by now it's 4:59 (baptism is still scheduled for 5...)) I'm standing there talking to the Elders, when all of a sudden he points behind me to a little girl in a white dress and says, "oh, she needs to get interviewed too" ...😐. I love Tonga!!

Another random highlight: Member walks up to us at church with a little boy and says, "Hey this kids parents who are members forgot to baptize him when he was 8 (he's 9) so you guys can teach him and baptize him." So we go to his parents, they tell us the same thing, but when his dad told us his birthday we did the math and realized that he was still 8. And then at a later visit when they pulled out the kids birth certificate we realized that he was still 7 lololol. Toonngggaa!!!

Another epic Sunday of speaking/playing the 5 hymns in sacrament meeting (without practicing before hand)/teaching the less-active class. I always feel so good after those Sundays were we get to participate so much.

Update on our old lady investigator: Her family often tells us things that she wont tell us straight up, and so they told us about how she always wakes up before everyone else to read the Book of Mormon and how she tells them that she feels her life is changing through reading that fantastic book. Such a miracle to hear of investigators having those kind of experiences, it makes me so happy and warm inside :)

As I said before, we live at the Area authority 70 of Tongas house, one night his son was fafanga (dinner) which also happened to be the same night when the 70's sister was throwing a party for having just recently found/met her 50 year old son that she adopted away at birth and hadn't met since. Pretty dang crazy to have witnessed that moment. So this man and his daughter got to meet all of there cousins and eat Tongan food, and we were awkwardly sitting in the corner. Coolest part for me was seeing this man who isn't a member get emotional talking about how much he admires this families commitment to family. He might not have known that that is because of the Gospel and the truth is it taught, but he sure felt it's power. Another very happy and warm moment:)

Yesterday had the lovely opportunity as Zone Leaders to figure out why random people were calling us, threatening to call the police on our missionaries... that basically took all day.... yeah I won't go any deeper into that....

Well... Zone Conference is on Friday! Super pumped always so much to learn at those things and even more to learn when you get to do the teaching!

Love you all! Keep me updated with the deets of your life so we aren't strangers when I get home!

2 Nephi 5:27 <----- a.k.a The Gospel! 😁

-Elder Nite

WEEK 67 IN TONGA, FALAHA

POST CYCLONE

Mann, so believe it or not, but life is boring right after cyclones hit.

Things are very much back to normal, maybe even slower than before, I don't know if I've said this but this area consists of about 5 streets that are each 200-300 yards long, gotta love it.

But we are working with some cool investigators that I don't think I've mentioned yet :)

We are teaching a 50ish year old lady from Vava'u who has come to church every single week for the past 4 months. Mostly because she lives at a members house right now, but she is basically a member except she has yet to be baptized which is what we are trying really hard to work towards right now. She reads the BoM everyday and really likes it, which is really cool to see, but conversion has not taken place yet, we are working for it though!

Another cool investigator is this girl named Teresa. She was a referral from some members. We've taught her a good amount of times which has been way cool, but her dad stops her from coming to church every Sunday which makes us way sad. We went over before church last Sunday so we could walk with her, but she said she couldn't make it this week again :( We are hoping to see a big softening of heart at some point with her dad.

I have become the 6th Wards official Pianist. The chorister calls me every Sunday morning, yells my name and tells me the songs I'll play.

Not too much more to add this week, just got some CRAYZAY action shots that I don't think went through last week:

 Things were flying everywhere

 Things were blowing everywhere

 Things were falling everywhere 

 We were serviing everywhere

 Everything changed

We got to wack at a lot of trees

Sorry for the boring email :/