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

Back in the Hood

MALO TAU MA'U, Family and friends,

It has been a good week. I'm really, really liking this area, definitely my favorite one so far. 

This week we had church in Lavengatonga, the branch that we cover. Church starts at 10:00 and at 10:00 there were 13 people there! including 8 kids! Ummmmm....  More people came as the meeting went on but at it's peak I think there was about 25 people there. I feel bad for the Branch President and the Ward Mission Leader. They both gave talks and both gave lessons in the 2nd and 3rd hour. Elder Manu and I got to share our testimony's and bless the sacrament. We are really hoping to improve that branch. We currently have an investigator from named Noa that we were hoping to baptize this week, but she didn't show up to church. We have one other investigator named Rachel, a 10-year-old girl that moved to our Bishop's house, that is going to be baptized this Saturday.

In other news, Elder Renlund is coming this week along with Elder Lynn G. Robbins and Bishop Causse, which I'm way pumped for. They are going to talk to us on Saturday. After seeing everybody's email about the new schedule change it finally came to Tonga. It's not anything really big, we just switch planning to the morning and P-day starts at 8.

I think there was a hurricane this week. I heard that one was coming from Fiji. We had some pretty wicked rain and wind this week but it wasn't too  bad. 

Forgive me if I couldn't respond to everybody's emails, I'm way short on time. I love you all and I'm thankful for Jesus Christ and his Atonement and Gospel. 

Keep the commandments.

OFA ATU,

Elder Wilson

Gnarly

Yo Family and Friends,

It's been a good past week, and a SUPER weird last transfer. Haha, guess what? Surprise, Surprise, I'm back in Fatumu with Elder Manu! I'm actually way pumped to come back here. I really missed my ward here even though I was only here for two weeks.

Last week I was able to go on an exchange with the zones [Zone Leaders ?], which was really nice 'cause I got to go to Kolovai and be in a car. We went all over the zone so that I also have now been to everyplace is Tongatapu (main island) except for two small towns. I will continue my quest.

I had a good birthday. Thanks Mom, the package came on time. Unfortunately ants got into the cereal. Fortunately I believe that they are a good source of protein. So as Tongans say "sai ke tau ilo" (good to know).

In other news:

1. It's either been crazy hot, or raining like crazy.

2. We had a neighbor in NukuNuku, a deportis from America, who made me a cake for the B-day.

3. We sang at another fireside.  I always have to Hiva loi (sing lie) because my voice is absolutely terrible.

4. The W on this keyboard always brings a pop up on the computer, super annoying.

5. There is an Elder in our mission named Elder Kau, from Tonga. He was named Mr. Tonga which is a competition for who's the biggest guy in Tonga. We call him Captain America.

6.  Usually people make resoulutions on New Years, but I usually just do it on my B-Day

-Lose weight

-Eat as healthy as I can (get rid of chocolate)

-Learn Tongan

-Stay in an area longer than a month.

-Take more pics. This place is way beautiful.

Ofa Atu! Keep the commandments!

Elder Wilson

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