NINETEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

'Oku 'i ai Fakalakalaka

You guys like that word in the subject??  Fakalakalaka.  One of my favs.  It means progress, and we are seeing a lot of that in our area this week!  We went from not having any investigators or anything to go off of in the area to a pretty good sized group of investigators and this week we got 6 baptismal dates set up!  4 just yesterday on Sunday!  Good stuff!!!

This week has felt pretty slow but thinking back we got a lot done.  For one, we figured out that crackers and ranch taste like croutons.  SO GOOD.  Shout out to my big bro for the ranch.  Last Monday I found out that they sell Peanut Butter and Jam at the store in our area and I just about freaked out.  Made some nice PB and J sandwiches.  DELISH.  I hope you all take advantage of whatever food you have access too.  For real, gratitude is key!

This week we finally watched that broadcast about the changes to the missions.  Almost had to watch it all in Tongan, but we worked our way around that.

The wind has been crazy here!  So much wind and rain the past couple of days.  Our ward mission leader was telling us about the hurricane 2 years ago.  He said that it pretty much leveled everything in Ha'apai in like 10 min.  It took the roof off of one of the Siasi Tonga buildings.  Flippin crazy.

Speaking of our ward mission leader, he is pretty much a legend and whenever he speaks in Sacrament Meeting, he gets up and starts yelling at everyone. He's a little enthusiastic about the work. Awesome guy!

Absolutely no change this week on the number of drunk people we run into.  They always love talking to the missionaries and for some reason, once they are drunk, they all of a sudden have like perfect English.  Its incredible. 

Had my first experience this week with one of our investigators deciding to feed her young child right in front of us in the middle of a lesson... yikes.

There's this church not too far from our house, I'm not sure which religion, but I swear, there's always people there singing.  I remember hearing them there at like 10:30 PM and also at 4:00 AM. That's some commitment right there.

Alright to finish this email off, I'm going to share some language mess ups from my comp and one of my zone leaders during lessons:

- "Na'e fai mana a Sisu" - Jesus did magic 

- "Te ke viku taimi katoa pe" - You would pee all the time!

- "Malo ho fakatomala, Palesiteni" - Thank you for your repentance, President. 

Have a great week everybody! Love you all!

-Elder Kalanite

EIGHTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Na'a Mau Kai Pisa

So transfers are in and I'm staying in an area longer than one transfer for the first time in my mission!!  That was good news, I like where I'm at, Hihifo is awesome and investigators keep showing up because these members are awesome and let me tell you, in Tonga, the members are the way you get anything done.  Gotta be in good with the members!  I'm really happy to see how many people we've been able to teach this last transfer and how we have been able to help the work grow here!  We think we will have a good amount of apostle come to Tonga!!  Not just that, a member of the Presidency of the 70, and also the Presiding Bishop of the Church, and the 70 over the South Pacific Area, Elder Hallek AND the area 70 over Tonga, Elder Tukuafu.  SOO, needless to say this meeting is going to be legendary!

Our mission is also making changes to the schedule like everyone else.  Except we didn't watch the broadcast out here in Tonga, we just found out about it from our Zones like 3 days ago.

So, not a whole ton happened this week because my comp has been sick, a ton of rain down here though.  There was supposed to be a Class 2 cyclone I think, a couple of days ago, but nothing happened.  Kinda crazy stuff,  2 years ago the cyclone that hit Ha'apai totally wrecked it and leveled all the houses and trees.  There are still some abandon houses throughout the island that haven't been repaired or anything. 

We were teaching someone this week, he was really awesome and believed in just about everything we shared him.  At the end Despain asked him, if he believes all these things (which contradict the things his current church believes in) and why he is a member of that church. He just said it's because his parents were apart of it, even though his parents have since passed away.  That kind of a Tongan thing that is kind of unfortunate.  A lot of people are apart of their religion only because that's what there parents are or where even if they don't really believe in it.  Our next lesson we are going to introduce him to the Book of Mormon and let that do its job!  Man I love that book, cant get over it.

Got some pizza with the zones this week. Blessings.

Quick shout out to our awesome bishop out here in Hihifo.  This dude is the MAN!  Despain says he's probably the best bishop he's worked with on his mission.  He is always calling us and telling us that he has set up another Fakafamili (Family Home Evening) with someone for us to teach. And then he will feed that family and us and always gives us Otai (Tongan drink) and he told us about how he fasts every week for the missionary work.  Such a stud!

Ran into some more drunk people this week. Ya know, the usual. 

Here's a little Tongan culture for you guys:  Every time you pass someone or say goodbye to someone, you say "Yo" so we say that like a billion times a day. 

Also, every goodbye feels like a competition of who can say the last thing to the other person, it just keeps going on, and then you eventually say "ok!" and that ends the conversation for sure.  I feel like I'm going to be a weirdo in the states, saying "Ok!" to say goodbye to everyone.  Ah well.

All yalls have a good week wherever you are at!  Keep on keepin on!

Ofa atu!

-Yah boi Elder Kalanite

SEVENTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Ice Cream!!!

Yoo everyone!  This week was once again, another very slow week.  It's really weird we have a good amount of investigators but they are always busy (as busy as you can get on an island 10 miles long). Big news though, we got to eat some Ice Cream this week which is not an everyday thing out here.

One day this week, we were out on a vilo (going around visiting) and we got 3 appointments with some new people which was awesome!  Met this really big family with like 30 people that live with them.  The father of the house is this large man who walks with crutches and is a little deaf, but he is the homie.  He told us he was baptized in our church when he was a kid but is now Siasi Tonga (Church of Tonga), but they really respect us so they let us come back and teach them for a little bit. Got 12 new investigators that day.  They have lots of kids.  And they've given us 2 bags of bananas. One day, we passed their house and they called us to come over and have lunch with them, they wouldn't take no for an answer, so we went and sat with them and had some fish.  She put this little sea urchin thing in front of me and every time I took a bite she would put another spoon full of the gooey inside stuff back in. It didn't end!  It's called Tuku Misi,  I put a pic of it in the pics.  Yikes.

We had to go do 3 different baptism interviews this week, some interesting stuff happened there..

One of our fafangas this week gave us a large sum of money which was super nice.  By that time of the day, all the restaurants were closed though, so we went a little crazy and bought 2 sodas and some bread! :0  Pretty good stuff. I've eaten so many noddles the past transfer it would blow your minds.

Had a couple lessons with some investigators and found out, they've already been baptized!  That's always a little interesting to find out.

We were teaching someone on Sunday, talking about prophets, we asked her what she knew about prophets and we found out that she thought that we were prophets.  Umm had to clear up some confusions there.

We continue to get melons like every 3 days from someone.  I don't think there's been a day this transfer where there hasn't been a melon in our fridge.

Sorry this email is full of just random stuff but it's been a slow week!  Hope you all are doing good! Hit me up with some updates of your guys lives! 

OFAAASSS!

 Bugs in our kitchen

 More noodles

 The goo that I was served again and again

Another of our sunests

SIXTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Malo e Lelei Moutolu!  This week has been very roller coaster-y.  We have had som​​e awesome teaching opportunities and can really start to see progress in the area, on the other hand, some days have been so slow with not much for us to do in this tiny place.

Ima start off with last Tuesday,  We had Zone Conference which was awesome!  Pres Tui'one and his wife as well as Pres Fetani (one of his councilors) and his wife, and also the AP's and the STL's all came down to Ha'apai for it.  Me and Despain were assigned to do a teaching in it, but they changed the schedule right before so we didn't have to.  Funny little Misiona Tonga fact for you: Pres Fetani always brings his hair clippers to Zone Conference and afterwards, if he sees a missionary that needs a haircut, he gives it to them right then and there at the end of the meeting!  Luckily I haven't needed one yet bcause he straight up buzzes the whole head.  Right now I'm 'meimei poko' (almost bald) anyway from my haircut from my Zone Leader smh.  At the Zone Conference President told us that whichever companionship gets 3 baptisms by the end of the month will get flown back to Tonga for a temple trip.  That sounds awesome so me and Despain are trying to accomplish that but I don't know if we will be able to :(

The last little while we have been teaching this lady and her family and we feel very confident that we will have the opportunity to baptize them within the next couple weeks!  Our last lesson, we left them with a Book of Mormon, and she told us she wants to get baptized, but first she wants to read and get an answer, which is totally fine!  This work is centered around the Book of Mormon.  My testimony of that book has increased so much over the past couple of weeks.  Probably because we started this 90 read the Book of Mormon thing.  But it is just awesome.  It is the best evidence we could ask for of Gods love for his children and for a restored and true church. LOVE IT!

We went to a house this week, and we thought we had talked to the people there before and they just said to come back another day, so we were coming back to talk to them.  We asked the lady inside (which we never even saw, she was hiding behind the wall, knitting) we ask if there would be a time we could talk and she yelled, "Ikai!!"(No!!!) Despain said that was the meanest thing he's heard anyone say to him, just asking if we could talk.  That's how nice the people are here though. That's the first outright objection I've heard my whole mission. Everyone says, "Oh, I'm busy right now,  I'll let you know when I have time to talk." That's pretty much us getting turned down. It's awesome how much they respect the missionaries though.

Oh by the way, we found a golden investigator this week!! It stared with our fafanga(the member that feeds us(dinner)) taking us to one of the 3 restaurants in Ha'apai because he is the Governor of Ha'apai(thats a big deal aight haha) So we ate there and it was so good. We end up talking to the owner which is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met! She grew up in America so her English is just as good as her Tongan. We talk for a little bit, she tells us to come back on Sunday for us to talk, and she will make us dinner... What investigator makes you dinner?? Haha soo awesome. On Sunday we go, we eat what she makes us(which was delicious btw. I havent had eggs in weeks.)  And we start to talk to her and answer her questions, and she was soo accepting of everything, she tells us about her sister who joined the church and she notices how much happier she is, and shes curious about why. Anywayysss, she wants us to come to her restaurant every Wednesday for her to make us food and to teach her the lessons. Safe to say.. we love her.

This week we were walking down a road and this guy stops us and hands us $20 which was a miracle haha cause we were pretty broke. But, we start talking to him and we find out that Troy Polamalu calls him up to make him pork whenever he's in the States. Haha the poly connections are hilarious!

Last thing: yes even Tonga is talking about Trump. We get asked our thoughts about it like every other day haha.

PICS:

The cloads and sunsets are insane, like everyday day, its so cool!

One of the pics you should be able to see Kao, and Tofua. Kao is a volcano that is huge! You can go all the way to Ha'afeva(like a 3 hour boat ride towards it) and it looks just as big.

​

Wooahh sheesh sorry for the long email! 

Ofaa lahi ats everyone!

FIFTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Vavvveee

Hey very quick email this week! 

This has been an awesome week!  A lot of random things happened though.  Including half naked drunk guys and dogs fighting, but we don't need to get into those!  Quick story:

One day we were trying to decide where we should vilo, so we took a look at our map and found a street that we hadn't yet met all the people on.  After we picked that street, we knelt and said a prayer to know if that was a good street to go down that day.  As soon as my comp asked in the prayer if that was the street that we should go down, the spirit hit me so dang hard and I knew that was the street. So we got up, grabbed some Book of Mormons, and headed on out. I was extra pumped to get there because we had had a spiritual confirming that that was the road to go down.  Met some people, all normal stuff.  We came to a house and it was my turn to start the convo, and told them we were new to the area and just trying to meet everyone, and if there was a time we could talk.  The lady looked very hesitant and said to come back later, but her husband was sitting in the kitchen without a shirt (lol) and told us to come and talk.  As soon as he said that me and Despain looked at each other because we both knew what he wanted to do... he had a bible sitting right next to him.  But we went in and started talking to him.  Find out that they are Pentecosts.  While we were talking to the man, the lady leaves her lalanga (weaving) to come and join the convo with her bible.  I truly think that the spirit prompted her to come join the conversation.  But while we were talking, they asked some questions about things it says in the bible.  The lady kind of tells us a bizarre story that I won;t go into.  She ends up bearing her testimony to us for like 10 min that the only book we need is the bible and that the only reason she let us in is because we were from muli (overseas) and to tell us our religion was wrong.  After she finished saying what she wanted to, we told them that we respect their beliefs, but we testified of the Book of Mormon and that it is the word of God and that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith.  They seemed to take it all pretty good, so we left them with a commitment to read 3 Nephi 11 and we left. 

Now, Im not positive that anything is going to come of it, or if they will follow through with the commitment, but talking with them helped me strengthen my testimony a ton and I know that we were meant to go and talk to them.  We are really hoping that as we go back to them this week that we can have the chance to share more with them.

Sorry for having to end really fast but we have to go to fafanga right now!!

Love you all, church is true!!  

FOURTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Hey guys! This week has been just about as normal as any other week in Tonga!

It is so dang hot here literally there is almost no point in taking showers anymore, it is ridiculous. This week we got some new beds and a new bed frame that we ordered the past week.  Just picture giant baby mattresses.  They're a little hard but I kinda like them and the bed frame that got sent us is too small to hold the mattress so we had to switch it out with one at the Pangai MQ.

We tried to help some guys with building their house on Wednesday because the work here is very slow so sometimes service is about all we can do.  We showed up ready to help but they didn't really have anything to do for 2 palangis, so they just fed us (dog and ice cream) and we just tried to be helpful, moved some wood around for them.

We discovered this week that one of our members has THE ONLY ice machine/walk in freezer in Ha'apai.  It is literally gold.  When we walk past their house, sometimes we will go stand inside and it is heaven.

Our Stake President showed us how to make Lu this week (Taro leaves, coconut milk, and meat) its what we eat every Sunday.  So when I get home, I can make some delish Lu for everyone even though I will probably be the only one that likes it because it's kind of an acquired taste.

We bought like 200 nails last week so that we could put our mirror on the wall and that's the least amount of nails the Chinese would let us buy, so we had like 198 nails and we didn't know what to do with them, so we kinda went a little crazy and started putting nails everywhere.  Now we have a ton of places to hang our shirts, we have some silver wear holders on the wall, and a key ring.  You can do so much with nails apparently.

This week we started teaching a family!  It's a mom with here 3 kids. We've only been able to teach them once, but hopefully this week we will get another opportunity and set up a baptismal date.  The mom seems really into it.  Teaching them was awesome!

Here are some random stats for this week:

10 - watermelons given to us

3 - conversations with drunk people

5 - Lu's eaten (that's a lot)

I think that's about it for this week though!  Sorry there are no pics, the internet here is dang slow!

Ofazz fam!!

THIRTEENTH WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO BOOII,PANGAI

Guys!!! It's been one good week down here in the Islands for sure!!  We started out last P-day having donuts at our man Fe'aos house, (he works for the church and takes us on the boats when we need to go to different small islands).  That was my last night being tokotolu (3 people) with the zones which was a little sad because I loved being with those fools, but being with Despain and having an area again has been awesome!  

On Tuesday, we dropped off all the Elders on Ha'apai that were getting transferred at the airport. While we where there, this plane landed and like 20 missionaries coming from Tonga on their way to Vava'u got off, and we were not expecting that but it was awesome to see Missionaries I knew from my days in Tongatapu.  I got to talk with the sister that replaced me and Elder Nonu in Sopu and she got to tell me a little bit about how our investigators and someone we baptized were doing.  That was so cool to hear that they are all doing good!  

Later on Tuesday me and Despain got dropped off in our new area!  Hihifo booii!  We spent like 5 hours cleaning the whole MQ. That's something I've learned from Despain so far..always deep clean your house when you show up to a new place.  So we did that, stole a couple of chairs from our church building because there was only one there.  And now our MQ feels like home.  Hung up a picture that my parents sent me which is awesome!  

Wednesday morning we got a call from the mission office asking us to run to the zones MQ because their phone wasn't working and they needed to get an elder to the airport in 20 min., so we started running in the rain at like 6:45AM.  Their MQ is like 2 or 3 miles away.  I know that sounds really close which it is, but on an Island, it feels really far.  The Tongan peoples idea of far is much different.  But luckily we got picked up by a member that was driving by.  

The next couple of days we spent trying to get to know our members and the people in the area.  We went to the church and got on google maps and printed out a large map of our area so we can mark where all of our members and everyone live which has been way helpful.  Friday, we ended up walking to the main city in Pangai to get some stuff for our house, on the way back we past a 7th day Adventist church and we remembered about a man we heard about who wanted to hear from missionaries for the last month and we knew he lived close to that church building.   So we walked by it, asked a lady that was sitting on her front porch if she knew where he lived.  Turned out he lived across the street, so we walked over there and luckily he was home!  We walked in and as soon as I saw him, I could feel the spirit and I had such a good feeling about him.  We talked with him for a little bit and set up a time to meet with him later in the week.  Unfortunately when we went to meet with him, his neighbor said that he was out on a different island for a couple of days. So hopefully we will be able to meet with him this upcoming week!

NEW YEARS! Man its so weird to be in 2017!  President asked us not to do anything special on new years eve, to remember the purpose we are out here,  and that if we were in the house by 9 and in bed by 10:30, than 2017 would be a great year for us.  So that's what we did!  Me and Despain have been listening to a lot of Truman G Madsen and John Bytheway recently in the mornings and nights.  Both are awesome speakers and I highly recommend them! 

Hope everyone is pumped for the new year and has a great week!

Another great beach

 Christmas dinner

 More simple meals

 These suit me well

Come and join me..... 

 Knock on every door

 Look what I found

 There are always new ones to contact

Ofa 'atu kimotolu!

-Elder Kalanite