NukuNuku

Letter from last week when the internet died on me:

Hey everybody, 

Life has been really crazy the past couple weeks, but it looks like it might start to settle down here in NukuNuku.  I was transferred here because an elder went home, and another elder who came back to the mission after injuring his foot went to Fatumu. 

I was transfered to NukuNuku on Tuesday night of last week. Then on Wednesday we set up 6 teaching and 3 baptism dates, haha wow. There are two wards in NukuNuku and they are really interested in helping the missionaries and the work. We have a ward mission leader in one of our wards that has been working like crazy to get us investigators. For the first time in my mission I hit the standard of excellence. We got 15 teachings and 20 new investigators in only 4 Days! 

We also baptized a 9-year-old, Lasisi. She had been taught for a long time but she couldn't get baptized because she was too shy to answer the questions in the interview, but we had another baptism interview and she passed! She was baptized on Saturday and it was rewarding to see how happy she was at the baptism and at Church the next day. 

In other news, I balled up with Elder Satuala today and probably have never sweat so much in my life. It is absolutely so HOT right now.  I am also way out of shape, barely got the W today, but Satuala gave me a run for my money. He's really good and quick, and I'm gonna try to ball a lot in these next 2 weeks.

Sorry the internet is really bad over here so I don't know how reliable my emails will be these next couple weeks.

Nothing else in terms of other news, trying to become Christlike and learn Tongan.

Ofa atu

1/29/17

This week was another normal week here is Nukunuku. In my last letter I said we had a ton of work last week and none of it panned out for this week. We had a lot of investigators go missing or parents who don't want their kids to be baptized  We went from 15 lessons to 2 lessons this week but that's the thing with Tonga. Weird fact:  as I have looked back on my mission I have only baptized people younger than 20 years old. All my investigators from this past week were also under 20 as well.

This week I went on a split with Elder Pau'u from Tonga.  Pau'u in Tongan means naughty or mischievous and he kind of lives up to his name, haha, but he is super funny and talked to me in English the entire time. It was a very interesting split.

My comp is a pretty amazing singer so the zones recruited us to sing at a musical fireside in their Stake. The prince of Tonga was supposed to come and give his testimony but he didn't show up. But we had the 1st and 2nd ongo tokoni in the Mission Presidency show up.  We sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing with the 7 missionaries in the Stake and it was way, way good.

Interesting facts:

- A little Tongan girl came up to the pew I was sitting on and stared at me for the entire hour.

- Started PMG over from the very beginning and decided I was gonna tear that thing apart.

- Dang, still don't know Tongan at all.

- I need to lose weight.

Love you all, have a good week,

OFA Atu

Elder Wilson

 

   

Well, this has been a super, super weird past 3 weeks! The first week we whitewashed [opened] a new area; the second week I got way sick; the third week I was transferred back to the office, went to the doctor, got some steroids to help me with my stomach, got better, ...... and now I'm getting transferred again! I'm getting transferred to the kolo (town) of Nukunuku, on the complete opposite side of the island. My new companion is Elder Satuala from Orem, Utah.  He's great (and he's a baller) and I'm pumped to be comps with him even though it might only be for 3 weeks. I'm also really sad to leave Fatumu, I made some good friends and was pretty tight with the Bishop and Branch President. I really hope I can go back and work there some day. 

Some side notes:

1) I have been with Elder Afu from Tonga for the past week who got is appendix taken out. Being with him has been way sweet, he's super funny.

2) Elder Afu has been in bed most of the time so I had A LOT of time to read scriptures.  I've read all of Mosiah, Alma, and Helaman in the past 3 days.  I never realized how much of those chapters are about pure repentance. I think it's very important in our lives to stay humble and never harden our hearts and always be willing to repent. 

3) With this weird transfer I have been in 4 out of the 5 zones on the main island of Tonga, and 4 out of 7 zones in all of Tonga. I'm gonna try to get to all the zones before I'm done with my mission.

--

Elder Wilson

[We're a little confused, because we got another email today that seems to be about last week; he must have written it before the p-day email but sent it later????]

Hey everybody, 

This week was a very interesting week. On Tuesday our entire district went down to Fua'amotu, where the airport is in Tonga, and did a Blitz of the entire village. It went really well and while there I ran into some of the Kaufusi family.  Elder Manu's family is from Fua'amotu so he got to meet a lot of his family down there as well. The cool thing was that we got an appointment set up to teach two investigators in English that next night. Since one of the missionaries in Fua'amotu doesn't know English I went there to teach the lesson with him.

 

We taught two Fijians, one named Tua and the other Nasi. Tua was 19 years old and Nasi was in his late 60's and both were working in Uta(bush). They both didn't know English well and Tua didn't know Tongan so it was an interesting lesson. The actual lesson went really, really fast, like maybe 20 minuets, but Tua said yes to being baptized and Nasi gave an eyebrow raise, so I'm hoping for good things. The cool thing was that after the lesson I felt kind of bad that it was super short so Tua and I started talking about the Book of Mormon for a while. I'm really excited to see his progress.

Other than that I got Puke (Sick) the entire rest of the week - fever, chills and a whole bunch of other things. Just as I started feeling better the AP's called me to come to the office to chill with another sick elder who is in the office right now, so I'm back chilling in the office again trying to get back to my area, which will hopefully be soon.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures I'll try to send some next week.

2 Nephi Chapter 4 hit me hard this week, read it.

Ofa Atu

--

Elder Wilson

Sorry for the short email, but P-day is a lot better here and we were super busy.

Elder Manu and I are doing really well. It's a pretty tight area and I really like it a lot. It's a lot of walking to get to to the different parts though. The work is really hard in the area but the people are great. I'm way tight with the bishop. There was a white guy in my area that had a really, really hard time learning and speaking Tongan, so everybody thinks that my Tongan is amazing, haha.

For P-day we balled, I played 21 with Elder Manu and gave him a game, he was at 19 and I was at 11, came back and gave him a Dame jab step from 3 feet behind the line to win it. We also went to this sweet cave in our area. I'll try and send pictures next week but I left my camera in the office and they just sent it to me, so no pictures now.

Love,
Elder Wilson

Hey!

It's been a pretty eventful past couple of weeks. Christmas was good. Really, the only thing I did on Christmas was go to church and call the fam, but that's all I needed. I also got the news that I was getting transferred! I've  moved to the kolo(town) of Fatumu and am companions with my brother from the MTC,  Elder Manu. So far it's been way sweet here. We actually cover 3 kolos: Haveluliku, Fatumu, and Lavengatonga. It's a great area with a cave that I went to when I here for HEFY, and a couple of really good beaches. 

Some of the really cool things about this area is that 1) All the basketball courts have rims

2) Everybody here plays tennis which I'm pumped about. I haven't seen the skill level yet but I feel like it will be really entertaining to play some tennis with the Tongans.

In terms of the work, we have a ward in Fatumu and a branch in Lavengatonga. There are a TON of less active people. Most of them have already been baptized but have just fallen away. One of our goals is to help the Lavengatonga branch become a ward even though it's been a branch for 36 years. I'm excited to start working here. My ward is sweet and I have my favorite senior couple, the Hafokas, in my area, so I got ball and tennis and a cave and two beaches and everybody loves me because I'm white and can speak Tongan. I really hope that I can stay here for a while.

Random things: 

-  Apparently everybody died last week. Funerals are huge in Tonga and there was 3 in this area.

- New Years was cool, everybody was doing fireworks. There is a Wesleyan church near us and they sang until midnight which was really cool.

Love you and have have a good week! I will try to send pictures next week.

--

Elder Wilson