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

Pictures of Tonga

Last week Levi sent a bunch of pictures from his trip around Tonga. Since there were too many to put on that post, we saved them for this week. Tonga has four island groups. 1) The Tongatapu group which is the most southern group, most populated and where the mission home is based.  2) Ha'apai group which looks like a ton of little islands and is just above Tongatapu. 3) The Vava'u group which is the next Northern group and has bigger islands.  4) The Niuatoputapu group that is so far North and where the conference was earlier this month.

 Two small islands from the Ha'apai group.

Vava'u

Levi in Vava'u

Vava'u, 3rd island group

Niua, the 4th Island group

Leaving Niua.

Tafahi, an island of about 20 people that juts out of the ocean about 6 miles from Niua.

Hey family and friends!

The island where Elder Groberg went to
pray and read the Book of Mormon.

These past 2 weeks have had some pretty crazy, memorable events. The main reason for that was the District Conference in Niuatoputapu on Dec. 11th. Backround: Niuatoputapu (or Niua) is an island in Tonga 800 miles north of the main island of Tonga, closer to Samoa than anywhere else.  It's super small, with maybe 500-600 people living there. It is also the island from "The other side of Heaven," with Elder Groberg. Every missionary in Tonga wants to go to Niua because it's so remote and it's like going back in time. Because there wasn't a plane going there until sometime in January, President decided to charter a boat for the conference, sell tickets to people who wanted to go to Niua and take the entire office, including us!

Before I talk about Niua I better talk about the boat ride,

since I spent more time in the boat than in Niua (dang). We took the boat "Maggie Cat," which was not a big boat, holding probably 200 people, but it was really nice and pretty fast too. Our schedule was to leave Friday, take the 6-7 hour boat ride to Vava'u, sleep there, then wake up early on Saturday to take the 8-9 hour boat ride to Niua, then come back the next day after the conference to sleep at Vava'u, then come back to Tonga. Haha.  I calculated it up and it was 35 hours on a boat. And this was me on the boat the entire time.

I immediately felt terrible for Elder Groberg who had to take an 8 day journey from Tonga to Niua in a rowboat. The 9 hour journey from Niua back to Vava'u was especially bad cause the sea was terrible. I never threw-up, thankfully, but I was laying down on the top deck in the fresh air the entire time. It was pretty awful, but it's a good memory to have and I know I will never take a boat ride that long ever again.

 

My first impression of Niua was that it's way beautiful, and waaaay small. The first thing we did was of traditional Tongan manner, EAT.  For one of the poorest islands of the world they prepared us a feast - pigs, lobster, crab, and a lot more. As you can see I took the liberty of taking one of the pig heads (side note: pig tongue is really good, but don't go for the roof of the tongue, it's gross).

After that we went to the Priesthood Session of conference. Attendance was about 20​ with probably about 7 from the island. The church is really, really small. I had heard that there were about 10 member families on the entire island, but it's amazing to see the faith and the strength of the members. One thing that really struck me from the Priesthood Session is that all of the members were very committed to going to the temple even though it's a once-in-a-lifetime trip to get to Tonga and to get to the temple.

That night we had a Holahula (dance) and invited the entire island. It was probably the biggest activity on the island in a long time. Probably 150-200 people showed up.  We brought ice cream and a speaker and a ton of people to participate. While the Hulahula was going on I was helping record patriarchal blessings with the Patriarch that came along. It was really humbling to see people that had wanted a blessing for so long and were finally able to receive it. I probably recorded about 7 blessings.

Lastly we had the Sunday conference which probably had 200 people there, a ton of them non- members. It was a really good conference and a lot of powerful testimonies were given about simple doctrines of the church. The entire mission presidency spoke along with the district president in Niua. 

In conclusion (oh gosh I feel like I'm writing an essay), it was super fun in Niua, I know that it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and though the boat ride was a little rough and it was a 4:30 wake up go to bed at 1:00 kind of trip, I was glad I got the opportunity to go. I could totally tell why Elder Groberg thought that this island was the other side of heaven.  It's such a beautiful island and the people are all so faithful. The word Niuatoputapu literally means sacred island and when I was on the island I could feel it. If this isn't really weird - you could feel the magic coming from the island.  I testify we have a God who's good and mysterious, and that he gave us the gift us his son.

Love you all,

Ofa Atu,

Elder Wilson

Another good week!

This week was the mission tour. Elder Haleck, the president of the Area Seventy Presidency, came to speak to the entire mission. He did four different sessions, 2 in Tonga, 1 in Ha'apai, and 1 in Vava'u. He talked about Baptism which was a good topic to speak about, especially for me. One problem that has occurred in the Tonga Mission (probably just a pacific problem in general), is the term Papi no ia, which means that there is no point in baptisms. Just go take some random person of the street and baptize them. Elder Haleck talked about the importance of baptism and making sure people are ready to make the covenants with God. He also mentioned the quote in the PMG from Elder Ballard that baptism opens the gate to Celestial Kingdom. His message and spirit was really good for the mission. 

One small miracle I saw this week:  Elder Cho and I went to see Solomoni our investigator. We went to the house that we usually teach him and it turns out that his parents (devout Wesleyans) had gotten super mad that we had taught him and wouldn't let us teach him anymore. After that bad news, as we were driving back to the office I saw this little road going to uta (bush). As soon as we drove past it I said, quote,"Flip Elder Cho." and we turned the car around and went down this terrible, awful dirt road. After following it for a little ways we found this tiny little house with a small family of three. We haven't had the opportunity to teach them yet but we will see what happens. It's amazing to see how God works.

In other news, Elder Cho and I are reteaching the lessons to Elaini, and continuing to teach English class. 

Sometimes it pours over here but it's maybe once every 2-3 days. But right now really it just getting HOT. Honestly, it's probably the best time to be in the office because of the heat.

Next week I might have the chance to go somewhere in Tonga and won't be able to email. Depending on that I may have a Tika (sick/ awesome) email to send  the next Saturday.  

I love you all and I love my God!

Church is True!

--

Elder Wilson