This week has been a good one. It's sure a lot different here than Fatumu. To be honest I've had a little culture shocked in this area, haha. A ton of things have happened in this last week so I think I'll go with the bullets.
- Companion. Elder Woods from Tennessee. Oh yeah! He's been out 8 months and has
been in this area one transfer before me. Super tight guy. At the end of
this transfer I'll know everything about Tennessee football, haha.
- Kolipoki. (Elder Groberg from the Other side of Heaven, was in the quorum of
seventy, one of the, if not the biggest, legends in Tonga) came to Tonga this last week.
We got to have a conference with him and all the missionaries in Tonga. He and his
wife are now really old, but he was amazing. He started out in English
then mid-sentence switched to Tongan and did his whole talk in Tongan. His
Tongan was still crazy good for being 83 years of age. He told some cool story's
about following the spirit and the priesthood. My favorite line was when he said
that we should have no fear of anything. We have the power of God with us. The
only thing we should be afraid of is being fakapikopiko (lazy) or not living right. It was a really good conference and the spirit was strong.
- My area, Longolongo. My old area was probably a little bigger in size, but
this place is like a town. There are people here. Comparisons between my old and new
area: In my old area there were a total of three 2-story houses. Here the 2-story houses are almost every other house. In Fatumu I would walk out of my house looked down the street and see nobody there. In Longolongo people are out walking and driving and actually going places. Fatumu had 2 shops, Longolongo has 6-7 walk-in shops, an ice cream shop and COSTLO
Costlo is the Tongan version of Costco and all the products are the
same but it's really small. I walked in and saw ice cream sandwiches and root beer,
my jaw dropped, walked down the tiny isle saw the bacon, started to tear up,
turned around and saw the captain Crunch, started to bawl. I definitely dropped
30 pa'anga for a 3 pack of Captain Crunch. I have been eating Captain Crunch everyday this week, maaaaan it's so good, (sorry
Mom).
-We cover 2 wards which are really big. At Church my last week in Lavengatonga there was
about 20 people. Here there are about 150 or so in each ward.
- One thing about last transfer was that I spoke Tongan all day everyday. With a Tongan comp in a small area where most people work in Uta (the bush), I didn't
speak a lot of English. Here EVERYBODY speaks English. It's insane. There are a
lot of people who have English as their first language. All the meetings and
stuff are in Tongan but if anybody says anything in English it's alright. It's been
hard because my comp and I are the two whitest guys in the mission. A red head
from Tennessee and a Blond (now almost white) kid from Oregon means everybody speaks
to us in English which is way annoying.
- Two downsides of the area:
1. An insane amount of dogs. We walk down the streets
in our area and are always having to fend off dogs.
2. Everybody goes to work during the day. My question is what do you do
during the day when everybody is gone to work? In my old area people just worked in
the bush and worked whenever they wanted. People here actually have 9-5 jobs, but the nights are way good and we get a lot done after
6.
- We have two investigators with baptismal dates on the 28th. They are both youth and both have really good fellowshipers. Nisi
is super smart. We kind of have to draw out answers of Leatu'u but he's great too.
- I'm only 176! I've been losing weight.
Life has been great. I testify the church is true and that the gospel
of Jesus Christ is how we find peace in our lives.
Ofa Atu,
Elder Wilson
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