WEEK 45 IN TONGA, PANGAI, MOTA

Well HEYYY guys!!  Sorry its been so long since I've been able to send out a group email, sometimes the internet can be real annoying. 

Those of you who haven't heard from me in a while, Pangaimotu is great!  We are still trying very hard to progress our investigators and the very large list of less actives.  It can be hard though, especially when every single appointment we had ALL of last week, fell through :)  Gotta keep smiling!!  The Island is beautiful and I love these people.  There is nothing I'd rather be doing then representing the Savior here in this part of the world!

A major set back in all the Motus (Islands beside the main one) is not seeing the members help with the work.  It seems to be generally accepted by all the missionaries that that is just how it is, but we are starting to see some more improvements with it.  We got to go down to our other little tiny village we cover with a member family and got an appointment to teach a little family.  We have started to have meetings with the ward at the end of church every week so that we can report the work we've done and encourage missionary work to be more of a topic on the members minds.

We had another Musical Fireside yesterday that was fun. This time a nonmember and a less active lady came and that makes it all worth it to me!  Even if half of the members are 'le'o ua' (tone deaf) we got this old man named Talikavili who would hop in and just start singing from the audience.

It's funny reading other missionaries blogs in much bigger places who drop investigators if they aren't progressing at all... here our investigators are all we have if we dropped them we wouldn't have anything to do lolol!

We've been trying to start a Po Ako (study night) to help the kids with English and hopefully find new investigators that way, and we had our first one on Thursday and no one showed up! 

Our dog Peewee still follows us everywhere.  She came with us all the way to our neighboring village for District Meeting and then when the zones came and picks us up she had to find her own way back which was surprisingly fast. 

SHOUT OUT TO MY AWESOME DAD WHOSE BIRTHDAY WAS LAST WEEK! LOVE YOU SO MUCH TANGATA'EIKI!!!!!

Random things:

-One of our less-actives was reading a Jehovah Witness hand out book during 2nd hour at church

-I learned that Tongans think that braces (on teeth) are 'beautiful' and like a trend or style in America 

-As a blonde dog walked past a little kid said, "Sio, lanu tatau a Kalanite" "Look he's the same color as Kalanite" lolol Rockin the palangi image our here!

Hope everyone in the mother land is doing good! And all you other homies rockin the badge around the world! Love you all ki tu'a maamani!

-Eleta K-Nite✌

WEEK 44 IN TONGA, PANGAI,MOTU

Hey you two! Running a little low on time right now, so Ill send a quick update to you guys!

This week we got to teach the family of that sister who works in the Philippians right now.  It was way good!  The dad is pretty loto-fefeka (Hard Hearted) but it went way good and they should be reading the BOM before our next appointment tomorrow.  I can just feel his general dislike for the missionaries when he looks and talks to us, but I did my best in leading that discussion, to help him understand why we were there and the request that came from his own daughter for him to be taught. I know he loves his daughter so hopefully that will help soften his heart enough to except the message over time.  We will be fasting tonight to help with our teaching tomorrow. 

We had Stake Conference the last two days here which was way fun!  Elder Thompson (an Area 70 from NZ) came and it was way cool to listen to.  Forever love listening to a chapel full of Tongans sing hymns!  It surprised me to see how many people understand English when they would laugh at his jokes before the Translator would even say anything.  The Temple President was there, who is just a man who radiates the Spirit.  I think my favorite thing that the 70 talked about was his talk about Nephi building the boat, and comparing it to our lives.  He asked if we thought that God knew how to build a boat, which of course he does, and it would be a pretty dang good boat.  He compared it to the youth building their lives.  If we do it after the manner he has laid out, it will be a pretty dang good life!

Well, like you mentioned mom, we've been trying to do more service which has been somewhat of a success I guess.  I thought it would be pretty easy to just notice something we could do every night and then do it the next day. But it's a little harder with both of us being from overseas, people tend to treat us a little differently.  Wednesday morning, I wasn't going to walk back into the house for studies without doing something! So we vilod that morning with a rake in my hand.  People looked at me weird but I got some good tafi (sweeping) done around the neighborhood.

Man sorry, Pres Makai is coming right now to pick us up for Pday.  Tell Nonu and Despain I love them! Use those Tongan phrases I taught you!

Tell them this:

Eh, Ongo Ua, masi'i, mo alu o kai lelei mo eku famili eh? Te mau kai emau kuli ahoni hahaha. Tangata eiki, te'eki ke u lepa au i vava'uni o hange ko koe i Tefisi lolol. Sipeini, tokanga koe na'a ke to eh, manatu'i ae fale'i a Tupou, o "Liaki Kinautolu"  haha. Loi pe ia. Ue kataki, fiemau ke me alu na'a ita a Makai. Ofa lahi atu ke moua. Mo tali pe ke u foki atu ke tau vaivai siasi fakataha hahaha!

LOVE YOU GUYS!

-Elder Kalanite

 Pres. and Sister Makai and us

 Just hanging out

Hanging side ways

WEEK 43 IN TONGA, PANGAI MOTU

Whats Happening This'avy??

Hey guys! The last week has been good! Here's just a little bit of whats happened:

We gave our shirts to one of our members for her to clean them, and we get them back 100% BLUE. Tongans do that because they think it look better but for real though.. its kinda ugly.  Good thing it all came out during the wash last week. Phew!

Me and my comp were a little sick a couple of days.  Just kinda a weird cold thing not fun though.

We got a random email from a Sister working in the Philippians who asked us to go and teach her family here in Pangai!  We went to their house and took him a print out of her testimony and some pictures.  We set up an appointment but it hasn't been able yet.  I think it will be way cool though!

I continue to be blowing kids minds with my magic tricks (just a little rock trick that Chad showed me) . Now, where ever we go, the kids will stop us and make me do the tricks.  Not gonna lie its getting a little annoying but who knows.. its actually helping us meet new people, so I'm down with it!

We got to help during a little primary activity which was way fun. Taught the kids Red light green light and Sharks and Minnows.  I truly love these kids so much.  From the little kids that love playing little games with us up the the young adults.  We walked into the Sunday School class for the kids this Sunday and the teacher was just sitting there staring at the kids talking, so I totally knew what was coming and he asked us to teach the rest of the hour.  I love teaching so much!  We taught a little lesson about the Atonement that involved one of the youth doing around 200 push ups in like 10 min. Felt kind bad, but whatcha gonna do when you have no time to prepare a lesson!

We had an awesome Musical Fireside that not really anyone came to.  We tried to remind everyone to bring an invite, but not much success :/  It was way fun though!  Faleao sang a solo and we sang a song with some of the primary kids.  About half of the songs were VERY off tune, but we very much appreciated the members efforts and willingness to prepare songs to sing.  They're awesome!

We got transfers yesterday and we're staying!!  Happyyy newsss!

I might have mentioned an Australian couple we met in the last couple weeks.  These guys are so nice, we've eaten at there house probably like 4 times.  They have lots of thoughts about the Mormon church and its differences to the other churches here.  We've gotten about half way through one lesson with them but they talk SO much.  Literately every convo with them turns into like 2 hours long, but he has brought up some crazy random thoughts he has, but turns out, is actually doctrine that we believe in.  Like out of now where, he said, "Where to Polynesians come from?" and then started talking about how they could have only come from South America and how they resemble Indians so much and I was just thinking about Hagoth in the BOM the whole time.  I wanted to say something, but I realized we should probably teach them a couple other things first.  Some day hopefully we will actually be able to teach them about the church without the randomest of side conversations that take us up until our curfew!

Kinda got a slap in the face this week when we were talking to our excommunicated homie about our schedule and how we normally study at about 11 because that's when it starts to get hot out, and he started to talk about how back in his day that's when they would do a little service project every day and then study (He was Misiona Tonga too) and I realized that I should have been doing that my whole mission in the slow areas, even though I don't know a single companionship that does that, this week I want us to try it. That'll be the key to meeting even more people out here! 

Yikkess, we gotta run mom and dad! I love you guys! Thanks for your guys emails!  Hope you guys had fun on your trip! Have another awesome week!

-Elder Kalanite

 Beautiful lagoon

 Beautiful lagoon with Great Elders

 Me & Elder Faleao

 Crazy dog

More than a three hour tour

WEEK 42 IN TONGA, PANGAI MOTU

Hey mom and dad. Same thing this week. Not letting me send to everyone :(

Some mention able things this week: 

We had an awesome FHE with a less active/nonmember family.  It went way good and then we played a game called Meleni (Melon) with our 75 year old homie who came with us and it was so dang funny.  It rained like crazy Tuesday and Wednesday.  Put a little bit of a damper on the work. But hey our tank was maha (empty) last week and now its full.  Which means we back to our normal cold showers! Yuuppp!

We had an awesome opportunity to give someone a blessing this week.  Shes pregnant and was having a lot of pains.  I had the opportunity to offer the blessing and it was way cool.

We went on a vilo hoa (comp exchanges) so I got to go down to a village called Talihau, and man, I thought work in our area was slow... we visited all the members and ended up talking to their ward mission leader who served in California for a while.  Then it rained. 

Our 75 year old homie that I mentioned is named Talikavili.  He just barely moved back here from being in Utah for the past 15 years.  He's totally committed to help the missionaries in anyway, and will go with us to any appointment we might have. He helped us find a new investigator this week, who is this older lady named Lose.  We taught her about The Restoration that went way good.  I kept thinking how legendary it would be to baptize a 70 year old Tongan woman, that never happens. 

We've become more and more aggressive in finding things to do.  This week we were walking passed this crippled man named Aisake who was sweeping his entire yard by himself and then was going to move these big piles of grass over to a bigger pile, and there was no way we were about to let him do that by himself.  So we started helping him despite of his very old mother yelling at us from the house to stop.  "TUKU IA! (Stop it!)"  she was getting so mad, but we weren't about to let our dude Aisake do all that by himself.  Eventually she made it outside with her cane and took the tarp from us.  I love to serve others even when they yell at you!

Last night we were on our way to try and teach this white lady from Australia and her Tongan husband, but we ran into these kids who informed us that she had beat him with a hammer earlier that morning and they weren't home. Sooo... we did magic tricks for those kids instead.

Every Friday we do Ako Fakasiasi (Church school kinda) at the elementary school for an hour, for all the LDS kids.  I love it so much. we buy candy every week to take to them and then do competitions to see who knows the Bible or BOM story. 

Someone had a seizure during church yesterday 

Yesterday I beat my Lu record with 4 Lu's.  The goal next Sunday is 5.

We are keeping on, keeping on out here! Always trying to find new ways to get the work to were it needs to be. Sometimes it takes time though, and I need to learn better patience apparently haha. 

Ofaa lahi atu!

-Elder K

 Look, it's full

Our chapel 

 That's US

 Class is in session

 I'm digging onions these days 

 I get to look at this each day

My companion Elder Faleao

WEEK 41 IN TONGA, PANGAI MOTU

"E Ikai Te Te Teitei Tetetete"

Hey Mom and Dad, same thing this week! Not letting me send it to everyone, so here it is for you guys! The title is just random cuz it sounds funny. It means, "One would certainly not shiver". Love you guys! Plus I put more pictures on but it's not letting me add the link. Probably just go to the link from past emails.

So on Tuesday we went to the Wesleyan Church to have a giant sing off between the different churches. Everyone was definitely trying to out do each other and it wasn't fair because the Wesleyan already had their speakers hooked up in the church so they could blast their background music as loud as they wanted.

Ok, maybe it wasn't a sing off, but it kinda felt like one. There were 2 guys from BYU here making a documentary about the Faiths of Tonga, so everyone wanted the 2 palangis with cameras to record them. Some ladies will take things to whole new levels. They said it will probably air in between Conference sessions in about a year. And I found out that I'm related to one of the guys from BYU. He's family also with one of the first missionaries to Tonga. What are the odds!

We are still ever trying to get the work moving hear, and the progress is very slow, but coming along. Not gonna lie, the days are rough. 10-5 there is almost nothing to do, but wander aimlessly through the streets over and over again, trying to say Hi to someone or have a conversation. The nights, are about the same but at least people are home, so we can actually run into a lot of people, just not new people. We finally got to go and knock some new doors with one of the Pule Tapu (High Priests I think??) We definitely ran into a family or 2 that I have way good feelings about.

This ward really wants to build a new Fale Lotu (church building). The one they have now is nice, but small. It's been their goal for a long time to have a new, and actual sized one be built. The only way to do that though, of course, is to increase the ward membership, or at least ward attendance (because I'd say more than half of the place is probably already baptized). That is constantly talked about during Sunday meetings, and my companion has said it's been like that as long as he has been here, but we are yet to see the members get into it. I think a big problem in the past is, this area has only had pau'u (rule breaking) missionaries work here the past long while, so a big thing is having the members realize, that we are not like that, and we are here to have them reach their goal.

A big thing, is getting a close relationship with our Bishop. He is such a good man. We went to his house last night and ate Lu and talked about his Chef days, working at resorts for palangis, for a while.

Our water is out too right now, which means showering at bishops house and using our neighbors out house which has 3 walls(not 4) and those walls have large holes in them

 Me and my comp

 My city

 Common sight

 Group of members

 Another shot of the area

 My relative that's here filming

 Got to keep the meals getting fat

 My boy Paula

 Pee Wee

Beautiful rainbow

 Love you guys!

-Elder G

WEEK 40 IN TONGA, PANGAI MOTU

Hey Mom and Dad, Its not letting me send it out to everyone like normal, so I'll just send it to you guys and you can send it out to who ever!

Hey guys!

NGAUE KE IKUNA (Work to Overcome)

The funniest thing this week was hearing a Tongan describe to us drive-thrus from the time he went on a trip to America.

"We talked into a box, I couldn't see anybody, but there was someone talking to us. We drove up to a window and they gave us food! I asked my brother were it came from and he said, Its from the back!!" 

He was amazed by freeways too. Its crazy the things that seem to normal to us at home, but then you come to Tonga and you realize what the world is really like.

I met one of the most humble people ever this week. He's not a member but kept telling us, "This is not just my house, this is your house too. If your hungry, just walk into the kitchen and it there's food, then we will eat it, and if there's not then we will drink water together." He's the man and they made us To Pai (dough and coconut shavings in hot watery milk type stuff) this week. Its a pretty poor meal but I really like it. We are trying to teach their son who is the Stake Presidents nephew.

We are homies now with this couple from Australia who are way nice. The wife is from here but her white husbands from Australia. They gave us juice, Dorritos, and American sausages. They started to drink so we set up an appointment with them and headed out.

We see way more white people here than in my last area. It's pretty nice. This van of tourists past us and was yelling "Elderrss!! Work hard!!"  I think those are the first tourists I've seen that are members.

So it's been kinda hard finding stuff to do. Bishop told us that he wants us to only go knocking doors twice a week and to go with a priesthood holder in the ward which kinda makes going out complicated. We were kinda struggling this week trying to know how we can get members more involved in the work and get more of them on board to help us out. On Saturday the Second Councilor was telling us how he wants to go out with us every week and how he is going to fast every time, which was a BIG answer to our prayers, knowing that hes got our back and is going to help us out.

We made it down to the little village we cover, Utulei, this week. It is TINY. Got to meet a couple of families there, only 2 investigators there but we are hopefully gonna be teaching a family there soon.

We ate Nutela this week and I just about fell out of my chair.

Hopefully things will speed up a bit more this week! This area has a lot of potential but the members here are really not into the work, but Bishop is doing all he can to try and get them moving and we are doing our part. Just gotta keep on pushing through!!

39 WEEKS IN TONGA, PANGAI MOTU

Hey, not a lot of time this week AGAIN!! Smh, but it's ok, because not too much happened anyway. 

This week was Ward Conference for Ward Pangai Motu. Ward Conferences here are a much bigger deal than in the states. There was something going on almost everyday of the week and then after the actual conference they throw this huge kai pola (feast) were tons of non members came just to eat our food. The lady sitting across from us jacked a whole basket of snacks that they put on the tables smh.

Pangai Motu is cool cuz we see a lot of white people. Most of them are just crazy people from Australia but fun to talk to.

I realized this week that I have some pretty FOB English right now

I met this guy who is the Sculpting professor at BYUH and was born and raised here in Pangai. He is also a Tonga church history expert so we talked about my ancestor who served in Tonga. And his brother told me stories about Heber J Grant. All the old people get excited when they here my name and ask if I'm related to "Hipa J Kalanite"

We found 6 baby Molokaus (basically the most dangerous thing in Tonga) in our MQ one night.....

and our best friend here is this 50 yr old who is excommunicated but loves talking to the missionaries.

Sorry not so much time today but SHOUT OUT TO MY BROTHER ON THE NEW MARSHALLESE BABY. I'm going to teach him Tongan which isn't his language but he's gonna have to know some Polynesian ways!!

Love You AAALLLLLL!!!

-Ya Elta in the South Pacific 

that's right, IT IS Ice Cream

 Cloudy skies

 Elder Faleao and Elder Kalanite

 Ward Conferance

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