YO family and friends,

Life has been kinda the same this week and this will probably be a short email. We have an elder with us from Ha'apai who has a gash in his foot the size mars so we can't really get out and do much. A lot of time was spent in the office this past week.

Elder Cho and I started with 3 new investigators. T is a 26 year old man from Vava'u, and the members referred us to two brothers ages 11 and 9. We taught them lesson one and they all committed to baptism. When I look back on this transfer I'll look back and think wow, Elder Cho and I didn't do a lot of work in our area and we still had 6 baptisms. It's a totally different place in Liahona than any other area in Tonga.  

This week I've been going crazy hard on Ch. 6 (Christlike attributes) in Preach My Gospel. It's the best chapter ever. I know that it really doesn't matter how much I know, or how good my teaching skills are, or my ability with the language (which really does help) to be the best missionary, but it's humbling myself and becoming more Christlike.

I love this Gospel and how family's are forever. We can continually be changed and become more Christlike through the Atonement of our Savior. 

Ofa Lahi Atu, 

Elder Wilson

PS.  Shoutout to Tanner Karp, AKA the best man alive with his weekly Blazer Emails. Dame for MVP.

Crazy fast week this week. 

On Sunday Elder Gardiner and I went to teach a lesson in English. It was pretty iffy jiffy in terms of our lesson, I think probably because we both haven't taught in English for a while, but it went well and we got two baptismal dates, two boys named Sione and Malolo ages 13 and 10. Their mom and sister are both members and they have good support around them. 

We had a Zone meeting this week and Elder Cho and I were teaching about pride and loto faka toki lalo (humility). I prepared to teach in English, but about 5 minutes before we were to teach in the zone meeting I kinda said to myself, "flip Elder I wanna teach in Tongan", so I did, and it went pretty terrible. Haha. I feel good about my Tongan but it's gonna struggle in the office. I try to speak it as much as I can but most things I have to do in English. I told my companion he can only talk to me in Tongan. 

Life has been good - going fast.  I'm just trying to become more Christlike and not gain weight. 

Ofa Lahi Atu,

Elder Vilisoni

                                        [Probably Father Hefa from last week's post.]

Here are 5 things about this week, (sorry I'm not super creative):

1. The  Liahona area in Nuku'alofa is like Provo, except it's one hundo percent Mormon.  So basically, people just bring us investigators from different parts of the island.  In our case this week we found M who is 16 years old and from New Zealand. She had been taught some of these lessons before but we still taught her all the lessons again.  It was really fun and good for me to teach her because she could understand some of my Tongan and life is better when I'm able to communicate in the lessons. We taught her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, interviewed on Friday and baptized on Saturday. 

2. We had a follow-up meeting with my entire intake group. It was super fun to see Elder Poulsen and Elder Manu and the rest of my intake again. 

3. I got to see FATHER HEFA. [The father of the family whose house Levi helped build last year when he was in Tonga on his humanitarian trip.]  One of the zones in Tonga went to the temple and I went to connect with the zone and I saw him walking out of the temple. It was so fun to be able to talk to him. He looked super good. We were both in a rush but he said that David is preparing to go on his mission and that Nephi and the Twins are still going to school at Liahona and are doing well. He said he might send them over to the mission complex one day, and hopefully I'll be able to talk to them more. 

4. I got my driver's license this week - $60 bucks and a flash of an American license and I was set.

5. I went to the blow holes this week.  Even though the pictures are super sweet it's nothing like actually being there. It's so beautiful. (This is a part of my "wear in the world" Blazer campaign, Ubi. I put you in charge of getting me there.  I better have some free Blazer tix when I come back.)

Lastly- I am 180 pounds! Oh my gosh I am so fat, It's honestly so scary, I might be fasting a couple times next week. 

I testify this work and this Church is true and we got a prophet and some dang good apostles on the earth right now.

OFA ATU  

Elder Vilisoni

Wow

These past 5 days have been crazy. Like I said last week I was transferred to the office and my companions are Elder Cho from Taiwan and Elder Gardiner from Vernal Utah. Elder Gardiner is training us and he's a cool and funny guy, but it really scares me that he gained 40 pounds in the office. Elder Cho is awesome too. He just hit his year mark and is SUPER CLEAN. Compared to Tongans I'm super clean. If you compared Elder Cho to Damian Lillard in terms of cleanliness, I would probably be somewhere around Gordon Hayward, but it's good for me.

Transfers were insane.  The office elders stay right next to the office in the "Dorm", and the 19 elders who were training all stayed with us in our room with 5 beds. It was crazy but way fun. Except for yesterday we've had at least 10 elders in the dorm with us. We also picked up the new intake which was so weird.  I've only been here six weeks and they're all asking me advice! Haha but it's fun to meet all the missionaries. That's the main thing I liked about this week, that I got to see a ton of missionaries and I make a lot of friends.

What I've done this week: 

1) Make flights.  Everybody going to the other islands, Vava'u or Ha'apai needs to go on a boat or a plane to get there and we are in charge of making sure that everybody gets there, hopefully with their luggage.

2) Get food for everybody.  We go to restaurants and buy food for everybody. Tongans eat a lot of food.

3) Normal office stuff, processing things and getting random materials for everybody etc. 

One skill I'm going to need to learn is a stick shift, and driving on the left side of the road, because I'm going to be driving as soon as Elder Gardiner leaves which scares me more than AJ twisting an ankle. Life has been good, but pretty stressful.  I don't know a whole lot but that's alright because Elder Cho, with his Chinese brain, basically knows everything.

Lastly conference, I just got back from the first session of conference. It was amazing! I felt like every speaker said something that was of great importance to me. I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk to start it off about finding joy in what we have and not taking doctrines or ordinances for granted. I think that's something that everybody, especially me, needs to know.  To take the sacrament more serious and find Joy in the plan of Salvation.

Ofa Atu,

Elder Wilson

Hiki

Well, the big news of the week is that I'm getting transferred to... the mission office. Wahoo! At first I had no idea what to think about this news, to be an office elder sounds so weird and I had never though about that before, especially this early on my mission. Some pros I've heard about being an office elder -  

1. I get to go everywhere and see everybody, all over the main island and maybe even to Vava'u and Ha'apai. 

2. First class. I get one of those... what do you call it? umm... Oh a stove.

3. I get to be close to president and his family.

4. BASKETBALL, President Tuione likes to ball and I'm gonna be balling with him every morning at five in the morning. 

Some cons

1. I'm about to gain weight, please pray for me not to get fat. The last two office elders gained about 50 pounds, not kidding.

2. I'm gonna be speaking a lot of English which is gonna hurt my Tongan.

3. Not the typical missionary work. It's really not that bad actually because I will have still have time to teach investigators that are sometimes brought to the office, so I won't be totally out of the loop. 

Pea has been interesting, and as the start of my mission was pretty rough and hard, but as I sat in church yesterday, I saw the two converts, two inactives, and two new investigators sitting in the back, so life really is good. The main thing I learned this transfer is to trust God and put your faith in him.  I would like to share a quote, "If you ain't got faith, you ain't got nuttin."  The only way we can get through challenges, is to put our faith in him.   

I love you all. Tonga is a week behind on conference, so I'm just waiting for next week to like no other. 

Ofa Atu

--

Elder Wilson

Yo,

Just a few things that happened this week -

The First Counselor (Simote) took my companion and I to dinner this week and we got in the car thinking he was going to take us to one of the local falekai  but instead he took us clear to the other side of the Island to the best place in Tonga, To explain my problems with eating let me explain this meal in detail:

Background:  before the dinner I thought that the Fafonga wasn't lava (not gonna happen) so I ate 2 bowls of some Tongan cereal and some top ramen so in American Terms I'm wasn't really hungry.

Introduction:  We order an appetizer, get a family size pizza, which in Tonga Means extended family as well. I have 5 pieces of of pizza to start, 4 Hawaiian and 1 meat lover.

1st body paragraph: Then the real food comes, pasta with meatballs, 5 meatballs the size of tennis balls. Currently my state is already full from the pizza.

2nd body paragraph: Manage to finish the meatballs, now I'm stuffed to Mars, Simote, tells me to eat the rest of the pizza,(three pieces) I drink a bottle of water in preparation but I'm currently dead.

3rd body paragraph, It takes me 15 minuets to eat one slice of pizza, I drink two more water bottles, I finish half of another slice and cover it up with my napkin, I currently cannot eat any more and think I just gained 30 pounds right there.

Conclusion: He buys us ice cream and cake, we take it home I lay down and am unable to stand.

Aside from that, the work is going alright. We have 4 new investigators that have potential. We might have 1-2 baptisms this week or next week depending on the progress of our investigators.

Church is true and Mormon 9 is a way awesome chapter

 

Ofa atu

Elder Wilson

P.S.  I finally have my Tongan name, Elder Vilisoni which means "vision" in Tongan.

Hey,

Life has been going in Tonga.  Just a few things that have happened in this last week. 

One, we had our two baptisms on Saturday for Asena and Mataola. It went really well, The Bishop baptized both of them. One problem I see in Tonga is a lot of people get baptized for the wrong reasons. But I really feel good about Asena and Mataola because they seem like they are going be really strong. Asena might be thinking about serving a mission which would be awesome. 

Two, I SAW A BLAZER SHIRT, HOLY COW. It was really good timing too! I wasn't feeling so good at the time but I walked into the house to eat and there it was, the best shirt in all of Tonga. (Picture attached below).

Three, right now my companion and I are just trying to find new investigators and try to strengthen the ward. I didn't really do a whole lot this week quite honestly. Tonga is a small country and these areas are tiny! I'm just trying to be the best missionary I can be and adjust to missionary work in Tonga.  

Ofa,

Atu