Conference

I feel like I say this every week, but for reals, it was another good one. I'll give my random things before I blow up about Conference :

1. All dog lovers will cringe, but I ate dog twice this past week. It kind of tastes like roast beef, picture attached.

2. I got to go to the Scenic Hotel and ate a burger for the first time in 8 months. 

3. Elder Manu and I had 3 really good potential new investigators this week! Then 2 fell through because their parents won't let them be baptized. But we are going to check out another one today, so we shall see.

4. Built a chicken coup.

5. I think my Tongan is actually improving. What has been hard for me was speaking as Tongans speak and not like an English speaker speaking Tongan. But I think that a lot of people are understanding me a lot better. 

As Gavin Baxter and I used to quote,"Shasta is the best thing this side of the Mississippi."  As I was pondering this great saying a thought came into my head - Conference is the best thing on both sides of the Mississippi River. We went to our Stake Center, 3 towns over, to watch it and were lucky because we could watch it English.

Something that I did this General Conference that I haven't done before was go to it with 5 questions, some of which were pretty specific. It was crazy and a testimony builder that all 5 of my questions were answered, and answered well too. My favorite talks were probably Elder Bragg about the Light of Christ and Elder Ballard on Visions, Goals, and Plans. Also I loved President Uchtdorf and President Eyring in the priesthood session. 

10 Ma'ongo'onga(great) things from Conference:

10. Family History work is central to the plan of salvation - Pres Eyring

9.  A repenting sinner draws closer to god than the self-rightous - Elder Renlund

8. The light of Christ is as real as the actual sunlight - Elder Bragg

7. All Christlike attributes are intermingled. As we develop one we influence another-

Elder Hales

6. Elder Ballard - It's our duty to listen, also to have goals and vision to increase desire.

5. Pres Uchtdorf - Be Thankful but don't inhale it. You cannot get into Heaven by campaigning for it, In leadership, don't direct, let God direct us.

4. Elder Choi- One small thing I do on my mission and in life can make huge differences throughout generations.

3. Pres Uchtdorf- Don't use fear as a motivator. Look forward with faith, not fear. Perfect love casteth out fear.

2. Elder Bednar - Called to serve, labor in a country. Worthiness is the KEY to receiving  blessings.

1. PRES EYRING - God's work isn't to be super effective but to build people up.

My favorite line of conference was the above one by President Eyring.  I realize that trying to work extra hard and smart to find new investigators isn't the most important thing. I'm also here to build people up. Other than that we have Stake Conference and I think Elder Cardon is coming who is my grandpa's cousin. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to him.

The Church is true, The men who lead this church are inspired from God, We can learn so much from listening to there words. I invite all of us to listen to words of the Prophet and gain our own testimony and read the Book of Mormon.

Ofa lahi Atu

--

Elder Wilson

Hey Family and Friends,

It's been another great one here in Tonga. This past week was our Stake's "International Youth Night," where each of the wards was assigned a country/place, and they had to explain the country and do a dance. Lavengatonga's assignment was Texas and Fatumu's was India.  It was insanely funny and I took some serious pride in the fact that Fatumu and Lavengatonga, (the two smallest towns in the Stake, and where I work) definitely delivered. I really wish Tonga had good internet so I could upload the video.

We also had a mission conference on Wednesday that was really good. President talked on the topic I have been trying to study, which is diligence. He spoke about some specific things that we can do to be more diligent in our areas. On a side note, Elder Manu and I had to wake up at 5 to go to another town to catch a bus to our conference. Kinda stunk but the sun rise was way tight. 

Random things:

1. We ate some Tongan Piranhas.

2. Played 2-on-2 basketball this week.

3. Still waiting for General Conference next Sunday.

4. My Branch President just starting talking to me in gibberish for like 5 minutes yesterday. It was so funny.

5. We are eating dog today, they tried to make me kill it, YEAH RIGHT.

6. We might have an investigator for reals, hopefully.

7. Church is still true.

8. Went on this exchange with a new white guy who came in last transfer, Elder Cox. He's way tight   and his Tongan is pretty good for a new guy. 

9. TWO of our inactive families turned up to church in Lavengatonga. We also had 12 men that had the priesthood come to church, definitely a record in my time here. 

10. I don't think I was sick this week. Life is GOOD.

Ofa lahi atu kiate kimoutolu, I encourage you all to read and listen and reread and relisten to the confrence talks, One of the best times of the year is listening to the these great men. Just do it.

Elder Vilisoni

Sudup na sudup

Hey Family and friends!

Another transfer has come and gone and both Elder Manu and I will be staying in Fatumu! I'm really glad that we are still staying here. It's such a nice area and we're friends with everybody. I am kind of worried about the work though. We haven't had the opportunity to actually teach an investigator in almost a month. One thing about Tonga, in the areas that are really small a lot of people have already been baptized or are super strong in their church. One of the things we are going to do is make three maps for each of our areas and get know everybody at each house.

This week was our branch conference in Lavengatonga, so we had a lot of stuff to do over there. Funny side note - we had refreshments for one of the activities and I made Snickedoodles again, crazy hit. I was walking to the Branch President's house the next day and his wife looked at me and called me kokisi! (weird made up name for cookies). We now have two activities scheduled to teach the relief society and the youth how to make the cookies. I love the people in the branch so much. There is a lot of funny/crazy people. (Example: the branch president came in when we were teaching Sunday School and talked to me for 20 minuets about me marrying a Tongan)

Random facts:

- Our district changed a lot. We got 2 Elders WHO BALL. I'm so pumped. Our new district leader is pretty good too, I got to play with him when I was in the office.

- Speaking of ball, Elder Manu and I have gotten really good at playing basketball every morning.

- Crazy sunsets this week, got some good pics.

- A quote that I thought a lot about this week, paraphrased, is that behavior is changed faster as we study the Gospel of Jesus Christ and study his doctrine. Read the scriptures every day. 

Ofa lahi atu - Church is true,

          Elder Wilson

Hey Family and friends!

This has been another good week in Fatumu, but to be brutally honest nothing has really happened, so I'm going to give my famous random things.

 

1. A guy in our ward got this insanely nice Cannon camera off a drunk guy for 50 pa'anga (25 bucks), and we helped him take some nice picks. 

2. We ate pig twice this week - it's so good.

3. After the royal funeral nobody in Tonga could do anything loud for the next ten days, so that meant no basketball, for ten days. Finally the ban ended and Elder Manu and I got to ball again.

4. We have continually gone to the house of one of our less active families and read the scriptures with them and it's been a very good experience.

5. We got to go to a very nice hotel and eat really well, but I got sick from the food. HAHA.

6.  Elder Manu and I spoke in Sacrament yesterday. I talked about the Atonement and repentance and Elder Manu talked about the Spirit. It went pretty well for both of us. Hopefully people were looking at me because my talk was good and not cause that white person was speaking weird Tongan. We also taught Sunday school for the youth.

7.  Elder Manu has been obsessed with my glasses this week for fashion purposes. He has asked me to ask anybody who would like to, to donate a pair of glasses to an Elder in the Tongan Nuku'alofa Mission currently serving in the super small town of Fatumu.

8. Totally gonna win the bracket challenge

9. We have a Branch Conference in Lavengatonga this next Sunday and that day is Transfer 

day too. Hopefully we can stay another transfer in Fatumu.

10. I feel like everybody in this area is way tight and I'm really loving the people in this place. In my talk I used a lot from Elder Cornish's talk from last conference, which was a super, super good talk. I invite you all to read it. 

I testify of our Savior and his atonement. We can become as he is, and have all that he has, if we have faith on his name, sincerely repent and continue to keep our convents. 

OFA ATU,

Elder Wilson

Snickerdoodle

Mom this email is for you - I ATE 3 BANANAS. Absolutely insane. We went to our fafanga and they forgot they were supposed to feed us, so they came out with a huge bowl of bananas. [Mom: gotta love missions!] The other thing I ate this week was peanut butter. If there is one thing I can't eat it's peanut butter. When the person feeding us went back into the house for a sec, Elder Manu came in clutch and I gave him almost all of the peanut butter on my bread. 

This week Elder Manu and I have been working our hardest to reactivate a family in our branch town, Lavengatonga. The name of the family is Kilisimasi or Christmas. Their household is pretty crazy. There are the main parents, that are in their 60's, and 10 kids that are all married and have kids. So it's a pretty big family. We had a Family Home Evening with them on Monday this past week which went SUPER well. The grandparents both had a really big change of heart and said that they wanted to return to church. Every day since that day we have gone to their house to read the Book of Mormon with them. We are really hoping to get them to Church.

The other big thing this week was Snickerdoodles. I made them  for mutual this week and, Man, they were way good. Shout out to the Wilson cook book. The funny thing is that all the ladies in the ward have been asking me to teach them how make them. I'm gonna reactivate this area through Snickerdoodles!

Random things:

- We might be eating dog today. The family said I have to kill it. I said "yeah, right, I'll fast."

- My branch president said that we were going to eat cat. We shall see.

- We went to one of our towns with 3 boys from the area. We knocked every door in about an hour, and that is with us talking to everybody for like 20 minutes.

Choose the right. I love you all and I testify of the Savior and his atonement.

Ofa lahi atu,

Elder Wilson

Service

Hello Family and Friends! 

This week has gone by pretty fast and I still really like this area and the people here. It was a pretty eventful week in service because:

This past week the King's Mom, or the old queen, passed away which is a really big deal in Tonga. She is currently in New Zealand but will be flown back tomorrow.  To show support all the missionaries went to the Palace to do a service project. The thing was when we all went into the Palace it was literally sparkling clean. Like CLEAN clean. So we repainted the fence and picked up grass. Side note:  there are no lawn mowers with bags in Tonga.  That means you have to rake everything, but side note 2: rakes in Tonga are almost non-existent so that means we pick up all the grass by hand or use our slippers. 

We also had a service project this morning where we (all the missionaries) went to Kolo (town), and picked up all the trash everywhere. The senior couples just dropped us off and we walked for a couple of miles picking up trash. I learned that when the Queen's body is flown back everything needs to be super tidy and nice which was the purpose of the service project. 

Other than that work has been insanely slow in Fatumu this week. One of our old investigators went hola (fled) so we are back to square one.  Elder Manu and I started a Family Plan in the ward which involves the ward giving us a service project or an investigator every week which we hope to carry out this week. 

Random things:

1. Ate some sausage. Didn't leave the house the next day.

2. Made some French Toast for my favorite family in the ward. Apparently I take after Dad cause it was pretty bomb. The funny thing is when we were teaching in the grade school - something we do every Friday - the 11-year-old girl in that family said that French Toast was her favorite food.

3. Elder Manu and I woke up at 4 to walk to Lavengatonga (the other town in our area) to play tennis. It was a terrible idea to get up at 4 but the stars were insanely beautiful on our walk to Lavengatonga. Tennis didn't really work out that well but we will try again.

Ofa lahi atu kiate kimoutolu

--

Elder Wilson

Malo e leiei family and friends,

This past week has probably been the fastest week of my mission.  It was super busy and Elder Manu and I did A LOT of stuff. This week we had:  1) A Mission Conference with Elder Renlund from the Quorum of the 12 and Elder Hallstrom from the Presidency of the 70, and 2) Ward Conference in Fatumu which included two baptisms.

1. The mission conference: We got picked up at 1:00 on Saturday to go to one of the biggest LDS churches in Tonga right next to the Temple. Our meeting started at 3 and went for two hours. Apparently Elder Renlund and Hallstrom came straight from America to Tonga, then they went to Fiji, and Australia. It was a great meeting and I really liked what Elder Renlund said when he shared a story about being an apostle. After about six months he was in the office of Elder Cook (his Apostle trainer - totally didn't know that was a thing) and he said he felt terrible, like he was an impostor. He said he was spiritually reprimanded, from God, for saying that. But what I liked is that we all feel inadequate for what our specific calling is, and it doesn't matter if it's an Apostle, missionary, or whatever. 

2. Ward conference in Fatumu: Ward Conference was really good. On Friday we had a musical fireside and we asked the missionaries in our district to come sing with us. We sang Brightly Beams in Tongan and English and it was amazing. I had to give a "Welcome to the Fireside" thing which also went well.

On  Saturday we baptized a girl named Rachel and a young man by the name of Una. It went well and I got to conduct the baptismal service. 

On Sunday we had Ward Conference and HOLY HANNAH there was a lot of people there. There were about 100 people there, so over half the town and I realized why afterward. After every Ward Conference there's a huge feast. Our Bishop killed his pig in preparation. I had some weird sea shell things and some octopus.

As of right now Elder Manu and I have one investigator who is a little iffy jiffy but we will be working with her and trying to find some new investigators this week.

Random things:

-There is a kid here named HARRY POTTER, which is so funny - just this random 5-year- old kid, the youngest in a family of 12 or something. 

- We were going somewhere in a car and this Grandma, probably like 65, is singing RB in English in the back seat. It was great.

I love you all. Thank you for all you do. Walk in faith, keep the commandments.

Ofa atu,

Elder Wilson