No word from Levi yet, but we've been following the blog of Senior Missionary Couple who, because of a generator, had/have electricity and internet. After the storm, the Kapps went around the island taking pictures of missionaries and posting them on their facebook page for parents to see. Below is the picture of Levi and his companion during clean-up. We also learned from their blog that transfers, which were to take place the Monday of the storm, happened a week later instead. We are looking forward to seeing where Levi is when he has a chance to write.

There will be miracles in Tonga.

A friend of ours has a daughter scheduled to go to Tonga this summer with an HEFY group. This is the letter and pictures the participants received from the director yesterday.

Hello Tongan Builders,

For the past few years, we have sent 4 HEFY groups to Tonga each summer. This summer, we felt we needed to do more. In October, registration filled up quickly for the 10 trips we will be taking to Tonga. Even though we didn't know how it was going to work having 10 groups go to one small island, we felt strongly that it was the right thing to do.

As some of you may be aware, a category 4 tropical cyclone catastrophically hit the main island of Tonga earlier this week. Forty percent of homes lost their roofs, there is massive flooding, and the majority of homes don't have electricity or clean water. To put this storm into perspective, it was stronger than hurricane Harvey when it hit Texas last fall. The country is in a dire state and will be rebuilding for the foreseeable future. 

I have been thinking about the HEFY theme for the year: There will be miracles. When we heard the news of this natural disaster, we were reminded of the inspiration we received so many months ago to increase the amount of groups going to Tonga. The Lord has perfect foresight. You are going to be miracles for the people in Tonga. You are needed there more now than ever. I am currently coordinating with our local partners to plan your projects for this summer to help rebuild their country.  

Thank you for your willingness to serve. We love you! 

--Catherine

PS. Here are some pictures so you can see what Tonga looks like right now:

Cyclone Gita

Parent note: Levi's mission changed, at least in the short term, when Tonga was hit by a Category 4 storm, Cyclone Gita, during the night of February 12th. We haven't heard from him yet and don't expect to soon, but we did receive this from the Mission President yesterday:


Dear Parent/ Guardian,

We do apologize for the delay in communications, which were a result of a power outage and subsequent internet failure.

Cyclone Gita has been an experience to remember and something that we will be talking about for a very long time. For some of us it was the longest night of our lives. The Cyclone has left our Island Kingdom of Tonga, and although much foliage, many trees and various houses were destroyed, I’m please to let you know that all the missionaries in the Nuku’alofa Tonga Mission are accounted for. Each of them are safe, healthy and pleased to be serving the people of Tonga in this time of need.

It will be a very busy week and month for us as we will take part in the cleaning up and giving of service to others in need. This will also be an opportunity to build our love for the Lord and others. Due to the major destruction caused by Cyclone Gita, the power on the entire Island has been shut down so please expect some delay in communications for the time being.

We will do our best to keep you updated as long as we are connected to these services.

Kind Regards,
President and Sister Tui’one


PN#2: Judging from the fabulous time he had in Tonga with HEFY, we're sure Levi is happy to be helping the Tongan people rebuild. Below is from HEFY 2015.

 

Hey everybody, 

The theme of this past week is same old same old. Not a whole lot is happening over here on this side of the hood in Ha'akame.  All of our investigators live in other places on Tongatapu, so don't live in our area and our "fellow-shippers" have been having a hard time getting through to them. But life still goes on in Ha'akame. 

It's been really good to be with my companion. It's pretty cool that I've learned to understand Tongan behavior and language so much better, so now it honestly feels quite normal to be with a native Tongan. Elder Mohulamu also gets the award for most funny English, not that it's bad but he will randomly speak in English at the most random times and says the funniest things.  

We had a program with the YSA and Elder Cox in my district and I were able to teach another palangi Peace Corps worker. It was a good teaching teaching experience, but it's weird to think how many white people believe so much in science. Teaching white people is strange because every Tongan has such a good grasp on the concept of God. It's always amazing talking to Tongans about other teachings because they are always confused when we talk to them about their concerns. 

I had a good birthday, My comp surprised me after our district meeting yesterday. He had his family get a tunupuaka (roasted pig) and this awesome cake. Dang my life is 1/4 over. 

I balled out this morning, I'm trying to ball out every Wednesday and Saturday.  Weight check 178.4.

Love you all and have a great week.

--

Elder Wilson

Hey Everyone,

Sorry about last week. We had a Mission Leader's Conference and I had to skip the big email again.
Life and work have been going  relatively well this past couple of weeks. Ha'akame is a very, very small place but it has a lot of members so most of our work is trying to go through the members.  There were a lot of investigators before I came to Ha'akame, but it seems as if the fakafeohi (fellowshippers) haven't been able to find times to meet with them, so it's a little slow.

In 2016 (2 years ago), I taught a Peace Core worker in Nukunuku and guess who I ran into at church this week - the same Peace Core worker named Darbie. It was really fun to talk to her and we were able to teach her twice this past week. She has a lot of questions about a lot of things and it's been fun to try to answer her questions. Especially since we don't usually get a lot of questions in Tonga.

Love you all and have a good week,

Elder Wilson

A couple of older pictures:

Hey fam and friends,

This past week was transfers again and I got the boot from Hofoa and transferred to serve in Ha'akame. Ha'akame is a relatively small town in the southwest part of Tonga with a lot of members. There are two wards in our small area and I believe there's a lot of work to be done. We already have a couple of investigators to teach. My new companion is Elder Mohulamu from Tonga. He's a really good missionary and came in at the same time I did. I'm super excited to be a companion with him and speak Tongan all the time, which was something I really wanted going into the transfer. We are still the zone leaders and I'm now driving the newest car in the mission, a 2015 Toyota Corolla, which I'm pretty pumped about.

  

I going to go back to the random things:

- We visited the ward members yesterday and when we went around, I kid you not, there were at least 5 houses that were eating dog. I've also heard that Ha'akame is the place to eat horse. 

- I balled out in slippers this morning. Liahona is in the zone so the basketball may be starting up again. 

- We also taught a kid named Hautau. While we were teaching him and I was literally inspired by the answers this kid gave. He's 13-years-old and giving inspired answers! Unfortunately we don't know if his parents know about him being taught so we will see if we can continue to teach him.

- I finished the 3-month Book of Mormon challenge and have started reading the epistles of Paul. I really like Kolinito (Corinthians) 2:4-5 where Paul is speaking on teaching, how when people are converted to the gospel it's not because of his way of speaking, but it's through the power of the Holy Ghost. I think that's something really important that every missionary needs to learn. It doesn't matter how deep your knowledge of the scriptures is or how good your language is, but how people feel the holy ghost. 

Love you all and have a great week,

Elder Wilson

Forgive me, I'm going to have to ditch the big email today. We are really busy with our zone p-day and other things.  We found a new investigator this week who turns out to be the brother of our other investigator and we are trying to get them going in the Gospel.  Here are some pictures from the Christmas Party. Have a great week!

The Big 4 from the MTC

The Hafokas, my favorite senior couple

Pres. & Sis. Tiu'one

 Elder Rosales from Provo.