Hey everybody,

It's been a good week here in the true hood of Hofoa. This is probably going to be a very short email. Transfers were delayed one week which is good as we will finally have the blessing of baptizing our investigator Uenita this Saturday, which will be very rewarding. She was a very fun investigator to teach and it will be a privilege to see her get baptized. 

The biggest thing happening on the island is the Tonga Rugby Team (mate Ma'a Tonga). It has been doing super well and they made it to the semis of the world cup and played against England (Elder Ludlow). They had the ball with a score of 18-20 with 10 seconds left and scored, but the ref blew a whistle and England won. So, even though I didn't see it, literally every house I have gone to since the game has been talking about the call. The ref apparently was a Redcoat who had moved to Australia so everybody thought it was rigged.

I have been reading The Book of Mormon, and I have noticed this time around that it has become a page turner. I love reading it and learning the stories and different aspects of the Gospel. I know it's a true book that can help all of us out. We were at the house of Lavenia (our new convert from last transfer) and read the Book of Mormon with her. It's amazing to see how fast she has applied the Book of Mormon into her life and how it's helping her combat the trials and challenges she's going through. In other words, read The Book of Mormon everybody.

I love you all,

 

Elder Wilson

New Suit

Hey fam,

  

This past week our stake and another stake were split into three stakes, so we had a really big conference with all three stakes and met all the new Stake Presidents and their Counselors. Our new Stake Pres. was our old 1st Counselor. Unfortunately there was no feed after.

Cool story:  we were driving along and noticed some people on the side of the road having  a fair (a Tongan yard sell with products from New Zealand or Australia), and saw that they were selling suit coats. When we checked it out for church pants (which we are now allowed to wear), we found pants and a suit coat that was MY SIZE (insanely rare)! I asked how much the suit was and tried to pay for it but the guy gave it to me for free, which is a very common occurrence in Tonga. So, now I got this sick brown suit.

We had a couple discussions in English this past week and are working with a deportis [?] named Martin right now. He's a great guy with a hard past and we are trying to help him get rid of that and begin his new life. We've only taught him once but he's a really humble guy and wants to join the gospel.

For Thanksgiving some things I'm grateful for are:

1. Tight golden investigators.  We have continued going to our investigator Uenita and reading the Book of Mormon with her. After we're done reading she gives profound answers on what she liked. She's good for sure for our baptismal date on the 2nd of December.

2. Being a missionary in Tonga. This past week I was thinking about some of the little things that bug me in Tonga and I realized that literally everything that bugs me is because of how much love Tongans have. When they tell me to eat more or they do small annoying things to me as a Palangi, it's because of how much love they have for me as a representative of the Lord and a missionary in Tonga. 

3. A supportive family, a blessing that too many missionaries take for granted for 18-19 years of their life then realize how big a blessing it is on their missions. How grateful I am to know families are forever through the gospel of Jesus Christ

4. I have a Scottie Pippen and Damian Lillard Jersey.

5. Dang, I'm not trying to sound profound or whatever, but I'm grateful for the challenges I have had. This past week I had an experience that could have made me really mad (which it kinda did), but through the things I went through earlier on my mission it was a easy problem to fix. 

I wish you guys all a happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully we will be able to do something here in Tonga for it. Transfers in 4 days - we shall see what happens. 

Ofa atu,

 

Elder Wilson

Hey everybody,

It was a good week this week. Lots of crazy stuff happening.

-Baptism of Catherine -We finished  teaching Catherine and baptized her. She was a fun investigator to teach and she has a super good fakafeohi family. Her baptism was a wee bit stressful as the National Tongan Rugby team was playing at the time of her baptism, so we had to move it back an hour to accommodate. We were running around trying to make sure everything went to plan, but the baptism went well and I had the opportunity to do it.

-Speaking of the National Tongan Rugby team (mate ma'a Tonga) apparently they are playing insanely good and on the day of the game everyone did the Tongan version of a parade which was everybody getting in, or on top of their cars, going to town, honking their horns and yelling. WE arrived to our fafanga [meeting ?] at the end of the game and saw the last couple of minutes of Tonga beating New Zealand for the first time ever. Tonga beating New Zealand in New Zealand! Right after the game there was another pronto parade and everybody went to town again on top of their cars.

-We had two mission meetings with General Authorities - Elder Cardon and Elder Uceda.

At his Mission Conference Elder Cardon talked about the Holy Ghost and prayer, as well as the Abrahamic covenant. I learned a lot about  teaching prayer better at the end of the first lesson. 

- Then we had a super amazing privilege today to hear from Elder Uceda from the Presidency of the Seventy. He talked purely about prayer and it was, in my generation's language, like"fire." Like Elder Cardon he talked about what things we should teach and what things we shouldn't when we teach prayer. He spoke with a lot of energy and talked about how when we pray we are experiencing a little part of heaven. 

My stake is splitting this Sunday so it's gonna be a big day. Transfers are coming up in two weeks. 

Got to see The Big 4 from the MTC, Nasilai, Manu, Poulsen and me. I hope all of you have a good week.

Love you all,

 Elder Wilson

Hey everybody,

It was another solid, yet kind of slow, week here in Tonga. We had the conference in Puke to change our branch into a ward. Puke has been a branch for 32 years, so it was a pretty historic event, and huge with 500-600 people there, probably most of them for the food afterward.  haha. Funny thing happened, Elder Vaisa and I were preparing the sacrament and there definitely wasn't enough water. We had to rush and get more cups and water super fast and finish the rest of the sacrament. As we were stressing  about the sacrament, the counselor in the Stake Presidency gives me a note saying the Mission President wasn't going to be there and could I step in and talk! haha. I did my normal Tongan talk - made a joke about eating dog then talked about missionary work. The rest of the program was really good. They made the old Branch President the new Bishop so there  really weren't any big changes. After the conference there was the biggest kai pola (feast) I have ever seen. Unfortunately I don't have any pics.

In other things:

 - We were at our fafanga the other day when Tonga and Samoa were playing Rugby. We were there at the very start for the opening prayer and the Sipitau (haka). It was crazy cool and I would invite you all to watch it if you get the opportunity.
- Uenita has given birth, we are planning to baptize her the last day of the transfer.

- I was in Longolongo dropping something off to the missionaries when I saw a super old beat up Damian Lillard jersey on someone.  I walked up and bought it off him for 20 pa'anga. It was a very good 2-way deal.

- I have been really studying the Book of Mormon, and it is so good! I also love Alma. I invite everybody to read it. 

- We have finished up teaching Catherine and will be baptizing her this week.

- Other than that work has been pretty slow.  We've been struggling with what to do as we have already knocked every door. But trying to stay positive and find different ways to find people to teach.

Have a good week, 

Elder Wilson

Yup

Hey fam,

It has been another quick week. This past week we were able to have our baptism for Lavenia. It was a really good service where the Spirit was very strong. She bore a strong testimony of the church and the doctrine of Christ. It was a great experience for elder Vaisa and me to teach her. 

We have been continuing to teach Uenita and she still has not yet given birth! We are going on 3 weeks overdue and she is still walking around the house.

One of the best things to happen to you when you're a missionary is to go to a member's house and have them say, "oh we have an investigator to baptize." This happened to us this week which was super, super nice. Her name is Catherine and she is 11. She is a little shy but she has been fun to teach and we have a baptismal date for the 11th.

In other news, the Rubix cube has become a big thing in our district. I have learned how to do it and got my P.R. today with a solid 1 minute and 16 seconds. 

In Sunday school a man raised his hand and said that all the spirits in the spirit prison deserve to be there because they are so annoying here on earth.

I have been reading in Mosiah and really love reading the words of King Benjamin.

This next week we finally have our conference to turn Puke from a branch to a ward. It's going to be way fun, and then 2 stakes (including ours) are splitting into 3, so we'll be having a huge conference the last Sunday of this transfer.

Love you and I pray for you all,

Elder Wilson