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