Tongan Living

Hello Family and Friends,

It's been another good week in Tonga, but I totally forgot that this week was Thanksgiving! Obviously nobody celebrates Thanksgiving over here in Tonga, and it was around 7:00 on Thursday and I turned to Elder Cho and said, "wait, today is Thanksgiving!" Some things I'm thankful for are: water, a roof, the opportunity after my mission to post up AJ, the opportunity to serve in Tonga, friends, and family. 

Our progressing investigator, named Elaini, is going to be baptized today! We set up her baptismal date for next week but since she is ready now and is going to be out of town next week we decided to have it today! Pretty rushed getting everything together, but I'm excited for her baptism today and her confirmation tomorrow.  

Things I feel like I should mention:

 

1. Tongan family terms. I figured out why everybody in Tonga is family. They don't have the term "once removed, " so therefore everybody is either a cousin, Aunt or Uncle. There is no such thing as a 2nd cousin or a cousin once removed.

2.  My comp Elder Cho is the bomb. He's From Taiwan and has such a funny personality. He takes everything really seriously and it's pretty funny when President gives him crazy tasks to do or jokes around with him. His personality is such that you will never forget him. The senior couple that live next door to us don't even know my name, they just know Elder Cho, haha.  I got to used to that a while ago.  

3. We drove to the other side of the island this week. Got some good pics. 

That's pretty much it for this past week. This next week in the office we are preparing for the mission tour that will happen the following week with Elder Halick of the seventy and his wife. 

Ofa Lahi Atu, lau 'a e ngaahi folofola, lotu, alu to lotu, tauhi 'ae ngaahi fekau, ko ia pe. 

Thank you for your prayers and support, love you guys(especially the fam) very much!

Elder Wilson

Hello Family and friends! 

This week was transfer week, which brought more stress than anything in the world. But things went smoothly. Some things we do for transfer week:

1. Host the missionaries in our dorm - we had 14 elders in our living quarters this week.

2. Get all the flights/boats. It's crazy to get everybody from island to island, especially with the large amount of transfers we have and last minute switches.

3. Take missionaries to the airport. We woke up at 5 every day this week to take missionaries to the airport (about a 30-40 minute drive). 

4. Make sure everything is good for the arriving missionaries. It was nice that we only had 6 this week.

5. All of our regular office duties on top of that. 

So this week was super crazy and way tiring, but it went well and I'm glad it's over.

In other (better) news, we had a baptism today for Sione and Malolo Lealiki. These boys are absolutely brilliant and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to baptize them. I know that they won't just join the kingdom of God, but they will contribute to it. It astonishes me how smart these kids are, especially Sione.  He knows the gospel better than I did 5 months ago! 

When we went to do the ordinance, surprising I wasn't super scared, even though it was my first time. The first baptism for Malolo went really well. But with Sione it took 3 tries to get his baptism correct because he was too tall and it was really hard to get him down and back up in the water. I felt pretty bad. As a 14-year-old teenager that would have crushed all of my confidence. But right afterward Sione gave a powerful testimony of the gospel and of it's truthfulness. 

We also are progressing well with our investigator Solomoni. We have a baptism date for December 3rd. He comes from a family who are Wesleyan and he travels from the other side of the island for us to teach him.  He asks a lot of really good questions and understands my Tongan which is nice. I'm just scared if he asks me to baptize him because he's a regular Tongan. HUGE. 

I love you all, the Church is true,

Elder Wilson

P.s I got a sick Haircut.  

Transfer Week

The weeks before and during transfers are really busy in the office. We have to get everything ready for the departing and incoming missionaries. It's really nice because it's not the summer months so we only have intakes of 6 instead of 30, like my intake. A lot of stuff we have to do for the new missionaries is visa stuff which is super fakhela (annoying) because nobody's application is ever completely filled out. But it's really fun to send off the old missionaries and have the new intakes come in, which will happen this Wednesday. 

Since most of my time was spent in the office this week, here are some random tid-bits that have happened to me in Tonga,

While I was eating at a member's house, I started chanting at my companion to keep eating (my 5'6' 125 pound Taiwanese Comp) and the member who was feeding us, a 60- year-old women, started chanting with me, kai Cho, kai Cho,(eat Cho) and then started giggling. It was so funny. There are so many times where I feel like Tongans who are 10-years-old are way more mature than I am, and times where I feel like I'm more mature than older people.

Our fafanga [the person feeding them] dropped off two chickens.

My favorite food is Tongan Pineapple. There is nothing like it in the world and I would eat it lunch, dinner, and breakfast,

I just realized that I have been out on my mission 4 months. It's so crazy how time flies. I testify that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that as we become like Him we will see more Happiness and Joy in our own life. Love you all, please read the scriptures, it's absolutely pointless not to read them because they're true. 

OFA ATU 

Elder Wilson



My brother, Elder Lasike, from Australia who can literally do everything.

Well, it's been a pretty interesting week here in Tonga and especially in the office. I played basketball three times this week at 5 in the morning. It's funny how a person can be motivated enough to wake up at 5 and ball. It's not very competitive but it's pretty dang funny. I also got to see the Busbys, a senior couple from our new ward in Pleasant Grove.  It was really fun to talk to them.  Then we had a crazy lightning storm that blew out the power and the phone network here in Tonga, hence why I'm emailing a day late.

This week we had planned for three baptisms on Saturday.  The kids we were teaching weren't lava (able to) because their parents don't like the church, and our other investigator went hola (kinda of like fled or ran away) on us. Sooooooooooooooo...... that kind of sums up our week. But the work is still progressing and we will for sure have our other two investigators be baptized this Saturday. 

Elder Cho and I also taught a man at church today named Solomon, he seemed very interested and it was a good lesson by the spirit. We got another appointment to teach him this Saturday. (P.S I understand everything that is being said in the lessons but I still have very little ability to communicate my feeling and my thoughts.)  

Last thing is gratitude.  I'm grateful for electricity, a bed, pens that have ink in them, basketball, education, Skippys cereal, Fijian Sugar, New Zealand Chocolate, people named Freddy, Dame Dolla, but the most important is my family.  Families are the only unit that you take with you through eternity - you don't get no class, no club, no ward to come with you,  But you have something a billion times better, family.  Family is the best thing ever and I love my family on earth and the one in Heaven. I know we have a heavenly Father that loves us so much, even to tear us down so we can be built back up, and that through the atonement, the grace and blood of Jesus Christ, we can be with him, and with our families that we have here on earth, for eternity.  "Because of him"(The best Mormon message ever)

I love you all. I have been studying Ether 12 a lot this week and I would invite you to all reread it.

I'm a proud uncle.

Ofa Atu

--

Elder Wilson