31ST WEEK IN TONGA, TU' ANUKU

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Hey gonna keep it short because I'm about to talk to my mom🙊🙉🙈!! I don't know if anyone saw the picture of my foot last week but it's all better and we were able to do some work this week. We were SO close to getting our little family on date but she still has some concerns for some reason. We also had Zone Conference this week and President came up. It was so dang cool and learned a ton from him, President is the man.

I just wanted to get on and say HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to my beautiful Momma! (as well as Momma Fairbourn and Momma Caron) 

Love you all SO much!!❤❤❤

And here's some random pics from the week!

 Some terrible infection

IFound some vines

In the back of a truck in Vava'u

28TH WEEK IN TONGA, TU'ANUKU

It's been a long time!

MANN!!  It's been so dang long since I've been able to get out a group email guys!  The internet is dead in our area so we have to come up to the area next to ours and then it's hard cause these Elders have to net too.

Anyways.. transfers were yesterday and I get to stay!!!  My comp E Hosea is getting transferred back to Tonga though smh. That guys is such a stud and I learned so much from him.  Especially about loving the members and the people that you serve.  His goal is to go home with nothing in his suitcase.  He wants to give everything he can away.  So dang cool.  My new comp is Elder Harmon!  I new him from my Ha'apai days, and he is a way good missionary as well!  I've been blessed with studs for comps!!  Way pumped to be staying in Longomapu though, only downside is we don't cover Tu'anuku anymore (the little village we would visit like everyday, it's like a 45 min walk from Longomapu).  The members there were so nice and so willing to help out.  I'm gonna miss my man Spencer!!!  Spencers the man from NZ that would give us fruit everyday and always make us food and take us for safari rides in his jeep through the back roads of Longomapu.

So, right now we are working towards this little family that I mention earlier, It's a mom with 3 little girls.  We have taught them a few times and they accept and believe the message, the only thing is, the moms boyfriends doesn't want her to be baptized.. smh.  So we are trying to help build up her faith enough to want to make the decision to follow her Savior or at least to let her kids.  Other than them, we have about 3 little kids who's parents are willing to have them baptized, we just haven't had to opportunity to teach them yet.  Literally, that is how we get teachings down here in Tonga.  The village is small enough, just about everyone has had an opportunity to hear from missionaries, so we meet with members and then every once and a while they will say, "Hey, I talked to Mele and she said it's ok to baptize her son." So than we will teach him. That's how it's been the last transfer.  SO, with having a new comp and I myself not knowing everyone in the area, I think we are going to go and talk with EVERYONE.  I'm pretty determined now, I'm going to make sure that everyone has had missionaries talk with them.  Especially... a white missionary.  PALANGI POWER BOY.  If people won't accept us for the message, they accept us because we are 2 white people from overseas.  Everyone here is pretty dang nice though.  They let us down easy, by saying "Oh, we are busy right now" we will ask about tomorrow "Oh, we are busy then too" what about next week? "Oh, very busy then also" It's pretty frustrating.

Here's a little Tongan culture for you all:

Kai Po (kind of like selfish eating) Is literally an abomination here.  There is nothing a Tongan hates more that if people are eating something and they don't offer to share it or deliberate try to hide it for just them to eat.

SO, I'm going to tie it into the Gospel:

We have the biggest blessing to know of the Gospel and to be able to partake of the fruits that come from it!  Let's not "Kai Po" and take all the blessing for ourselves.  Share it like a Tongan shares his food!

I'm going to have to work on that analogy..

Hope everyone is still kicking and happy as can be wherever your at!  Love you all so much!  Sorry to anyone I haven't been able to reply to,  I'll try to do better this coming transfer so shoot me an email so I can know how everyone's doing

Connor in some car

Connor with his dirty laundry 

 Get this thing off my tongue

 I love these skies

!

OFA LAHI ATU

-Elder Kalanite

25TH WEEK IN TONGA, TU'ANUKU

Week 2 Vava'u

Hey guys! Vava'u is tika! Not gonna lie,  I lost my planner which is where I had written down everything that's gone on this week so I'm going off the top of my head this email!

So that one area that we cover, Tu'anuku.  To give you guys an idea of how many people there are baptized.. yesterday we were at the ward council meeting and we were going over a list of everyone's records that we have and I'd say its about 90% of the village. We even had some preachers for other religions on the list...  But 90% is not 100%! We will keep working!!!

We met this little family of 3 little girls and their mom. The little girls are so dang cute and remind me so much of my nieces.  We would go and visit them and take them candy, then we finally got the opportunity to teach them.  We taught them the first lesson and it went awesome!  We asked them to just read the Introduction of the BoM.  When we came back, as soon as the girls saw us, they ran and grabbed the copy of the BoM that we left them and came and sat down ready to learn more.  We have high hopes with them!

We taught a lesson this week to 4 people that we are pretty sure were high the whole lesson...

Man the work is still very slow though.  We plan every morning to go and talk to all of these people and then most of them turn out not being able to talk to us, then we get home at night and feel like we did all this work and walked a ton of places and realize that we were only able to meet with 2 or 3 people.  It's definitely a little discouraging sometimes.  But I know there is a purpose for me serving out here of all places!

DANG! So cool to hear that there is going to be a temple built in my home city!!!!  That is such a huge blessing for us!!

Love you all and have an awesome week!

-Elder Grant

24th WEEK IN TONGA, VAVA'U / LONGOMAPU / TU'ANUKU

FIRST WEEK IN VAVA'U

Guys!  Vava'u is so flippin cool.  When I said I heard there were mountains, that was kind of an understatement.  There are hills everywhere!  So different from Ha'apai which is so flat.

So my first day here,  I find out that we cover another little town called Tu'anuku which is like a hour and a half long walk.  My comp tells me he knows a shortcut lol.  We go down it and end up walking that whole hour and a half in mud up to our ankles. We were feeling a little adventurous.

Longomapu and Tu'anuku are so dang cool!  The people here are awesome and they are all homies. We have a homie in Tu'anuku, his name is Spencer and he's from NZ.  He's the man and gives us fruit everyday.  He lives in his home with his older brother Ngongo, who's like 80 I think. He has a ton of land that he grows fruit on that he doesn't even sell.  He grows it for him and to share with the missionaries.  Such a stud.  He gave us some bananas that he said would cost $50 each in the states because they are organic! Getting organic fruit for free boi!

Had my first warm shower in 5 months.

So everyone here in Longomapu are homies like I said, but pretty much everyone who isn't a member, hate the church.  There's this guy named Felengi(Franky) and he's a teacher at one of the schools.  If he sees any of the kids talking to the missionaries then he will either hit them or not let them come to school.

That ticks me off a little because these kids are the BEST.  My favorite thing to do here is show the kids magic tricks and give them candy.  And for some reason they love my hair.  I don't know how many times I've been told, "Oua, oku tika aupito ho'o ulu masi'i." Translation: Dang, Your hair is way cool man.!

My first Sunday here was good.  Sometimes in Sacrament Meetings here, people will sing a song in there talks, its straight awkward. 

I forgot to mention!  In my last area we met this very old lady.  We were talking with her and find out she's from Niua (an island were Kolipoki served(Other Side of Heaven)) I asked her if she knew him and she did!  She said she was way good friends with him.  What if shes that girl from that one scene in the movie!? 😱

AND My moma told me that I'm related to one of the first three LDS missionaries that came here to Tonga.  What the heck!?  How cool is that!?!  Tongas in my blood!!  Juat know I'm as palangi (white) as they come.

My B-day today was lit as always!  Spent the whole day waiting in our MQ for Pres to come and interview us!  Got ZC tomorow here in Vava'u.

The views here would blow your minds, these pics don't do them justice.  I'll try and take more to send next week when there's more time!

Love everyone so much! Hook me up with the deets on how all your lives are going!

Ofa ATUUU😘

23rd WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

OSI EKU NGAUE 'I HA'APAI

YUPPP I'm getting transferred!  Heading to a whole new island grouping.  VAVA'U here I come!! Apparently where I'm going there is actually mountains!  Not your everyday sight on these islands. I'm serving in a place called Longomapu and I'm going to be comps with Elder Hosea who was the last AP here in Misiona Tonga.  Apparently the fafangas (feedings) in Vava'u are BOMB (aka PUAKA KI AI) so time for me to gain all that weight I lost here in Ha'apai (20 lbs). 

Anyways my last week in Hihifo has been a little uneventful :(

A lot of our appointments this week fell through which is always a big bummer.

BUT we got to teach that one guy that a couple emails back I mentioned and said that me and Despain thought was very prepared!  We taught him about the apostasy and the restoration.  The whole lesson he kept telling us about how much it makes sense and he believes that the church that Christ established was lost and he has been looking for the right one the past while.  GOLDEN.  So we brought him a Book of Mormon and showed him a couple of places to read and he was like, "Ok, I hope that Despain and the next Elder keep working with him because he is the man!

AND we finally got to teach that lady that I mention forever ago that owns the restaurant again.  Such an awesome lesson!  We also taught her the Restoration, and afterwards she explained how she felt so different and warm when we shared the first vision.  The spirit was doing its job!!  Despain was telling me how he's never heard someone here in Tonga explain so clearly that they were feeling the spirit like that.  Probably helps that she speaks English.

Man to bad that I'm going to be leaving these awesome investigators but I've got a new area coming up and I am pumpeed!! 

STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK FOR CRAYZAY PICS OF VAVA'U

Big ofas and 'umas to all you guys!

-Elder 'Nite

22nd WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

Not much to share this week! We got 2 more baptisms on Friday and I baptized a little 8 year old named Tamafua.

We've been blessed these past couple of days to meet a lot of new people and this one little family that we feel are very prepared! We are teaching them on Tuesday.

Lovin the work, hope everyone is lovin life! :)

If you have time, read D&C 136:31. Adversity is a part of life!

Ofa lahi mo'oni ka moutolu

-Elder 'Nite

 One of the fallen trees

 A great Baptism

 Oh no, I'm going down

Beautiful skies

21st WEEK IN TONGA, HIHIFO

John Tonga From Samoa

Hey everyone!  That name up there in the subject is the name of the
kid we baptized this week!  Sione Tonga Meiha'amoa.  This kid is the
man!  My comp first taught him while we were on splits one night, he
set up the baptismal date right then because he was prepared!  He was
telling us before he got baptized about how his friends keep coming
over and trying to get him to smoke again, but he has been strong, and
sees the joy this gospel can bring.  What a stud!

Unfortunately this other mother and son that we had set up to get
baptized with Sione, weren't able to, because her husband said he
didn't want them to.  That was a really big disappointment because we have
been teaching them since we first got here to Hihifo.  We went over one
day to try and talk with her and they weren't home, so we went to her
neighbors, who happened to be her husbands moms house and we got
yelled at pretty good by her.  She told us she hates us and all we do
because they are bad things, and that she is going to call the cops and quote,
"I never want to see you two on this land again!"... That was a little uncalled 

for especially because the ward had spend all morning cutting and cleaning 

their huge yard/field that their house sits on.  But you know what they say, 

kill them with kindness!  From now on we are going to be so dang nice to her 

she cant do anythings about it.

In other news.... there was a pretty crazy storm on Tuesday, knocked
some trees over (Ill include some pics)

We got some free bread this week!!  It only took listening to an old
man for about an hour trying to tell us a whole ton of stories in some
pretty bad English.  Totally worth it.

So last week we heard about how this man that we had had a family home
evening with, had died and was buried, and we were totally shocked and
it was crazy.  BUT THEN.. he showed up to church this Sunday!  We were
like, "what the heck paulu, you died?!"  We still dont know the whole
story, but just so all you at home know,  PAULU LIVES haha

So as of right now we are friends with and have been talking to 5
ministers from other religions.  We were talking with one of them, he
told us how he respects us a ton and asked us if we could meet some
time and if we could share with him ways he could help the youth of
his church make better choices with the Word of Wisdom.  So we met with
him and talked for about a half an hour.  At the end he asked us if we
will speak to all the youth of his church some Sunday. That's gonna be
sicckkk!!

We found out this last week that the Stake President of Ha'apai, who
lives in our ward, told everyone in a Stake meeting that he is going
to call President Tui'one at the end of this transfer and ask him if
we can stay at least another transfer in the area because of the work
he's seen us do in the area so far.  That was so dang cool to hear!

One day while we were out doin our thing, the Stake Pres's wife
invited us in to eat some left over food, so we went on in and were
just talking for a little bit.  After a while she told me about how me
Tongan has gotten a lot better and when we spoke in Sacrament, even
though it wasn't perfect, she could understand the meaning of
everything I was trying to say.  That was really helpful and a huge
Tender Mercy because Ive been a little down on myself the past bit because
of the language and that was a huge reminder to me of who's work this
is, and how I am just a tool in the Lords hands.

Have an awesome week everyonee :)

Ofaas!

-Elder Kalanite