April 4, 2014

It's been a while since I have written.  I'm not sure why that is at this point, other than I can't believe that it has been a couple of weeks.  Life is still hectic, we still have lots going on.  I did take some time this last week to start sewing again since I am so sick of my clothes and there are no clothing stores to speak of here in Tonga.  Of course their is the fair on Saturdays, but all of Tonga comes out for that social event and I am not good with crowds.  I do good to tolerate walking on the sidewalks at school between classes.  Sister Aland and I do love to go to the few stores in Nuku`alofa who carry fabric.  We both have to have a feel of the fabric, then daydream about what we want to sew when we have time.  We have to share a sewing machine, which actually belongs to the Home Ed department.  I am going to have to give it back in a couple of weeks, so it is sew, sew, sew for me, then Sister Aland's turn.

We had an interesting experience this last weekend.  We were invited to  the 60th birthday party for a lady named Olive Ramanlal Vallabh who we did not know. She is the mother of Mia who we worked with to get the TVET modules printed for school this year.  Mia was so funny when we got the invitation because she said her mother wanted to invite "those mormon missionaries" to her party. Mia's brother was just converted to the church this last year when he was attending BYU Hawaii and is currently waiting to serve a mission. This family happens to be best friends with the royal family and who own several businesses on the island, making them the second wealthiest people on Tonga.  There is a huge pay scale difference between the upper class and the commoners.  The theme for the party was lime green, black and white.  Of course we didn't know what that meant so we had to ask.  And what do you do for a person that you don't know, who probably has everything she could probably ever need.  We had to get directions to her home, and boy were we ever surprised.  You have to just imagine a mansion on the ocean front, with all the trimmings.  I don't even know how to paint the picture except that the mansion was beautiful and the view from their home was totally magnificent.  There was a huge tent set up with probably 300+ people present who were fed a Tongan feast.  We were seated with a group of ladies who did not speak English who loved their food.  As for myself, all I could think was, "oh no, I don't know what this is and I can't ask anyone what it is, is it safe, is it cooked, what do I do?"  I ate a little to be polite, but I can tell you I went away hungry. Mia would die if she knew that because she and her staff cooked the meal for all of those present.  The people present in most instances were dressed to the hilt, some dressed down to show it didn't matter to them how rich they were, so no big deal.  Now you have to understand, I was in my finest lime green blouse and home made skirt  that I have been struggling with trying to get the right color match. Uncomfortable was what I felt most of the evening.  I spent a lot of time just looking around, Steve dared to take some pictures.  We didn't smoke and we didn't drink anything except water, which I suppose is acceptable when making a toast to the princess who was elevated with the other honorables.   Luckily at our table,  nobody was drinking anything but water and not smoking.  We didn't find out until we were ready to leave after a 2 hour endurance test, that probably the others at the table knew about Liahona and were surprised that we had come so far.  We never did meet the birthday lady and never got to talk with Mia, Olive's daughter.  I was glad to go home.

Earlier in the day, we had taken a trip to a beautiful beach that we have been wanting to go to for some time.  It was a hike down to the beach through a jungle mass of trees and underbrush.  The trail was interesting because of the tree roots, the coral formations that we had to get down.  The view was spectacular going down, the sounds of the whatever was in the trees was almost a little eerie.  We have taken pictures from the top of the rock formations of this beach and knew there was a trail to get to the beach so it was time for a trip.  It got a little scarey in some places because my knees didn't like the size of steps that I had to take, I didn't have long enough legs.  The view at the bottom was well worth the climb.  We had to climb to that beach at low tide because of how high the water gets at high tide.  Lets just say, we wouldn't have walked in the sand.  The view from the bottom was as beautiful as the view from the top.  I loved the climb down though because the tree roots also became our rope to hang onto, going down and back up to the top.  What an amazing world we live in, we loved our climb down to this beach.  This is definitely a return item on our bucket list of things to do.

Steve is just finishing his first two education classes with the teachers, Pedagogy and classroom management.  He has thoroughly enjoyed the teachers and the amazing experiences he's had with them.  These are the kinds of classes that can only be had when the spirit can also be invited to attend.  He comes home pumped up and excited about their discussions, so much so that it is hard for him to settle down enough to get to sleep at night.  The fun part now is grading and reading papers, but so far, so good.  Most of the teachers are super good at their jobs.  A few definitely have problems with writing because of their language skills, but I can only admire them for the effort they make at teaching and taking classes after a hard day at school.  Of course, after we get to know them, we learn about all the hard things they have had to overcome to even become teachers.  They are amazing people.  We appreciate them more the longer we are here.

Temple night is always a treat for us.  We learn something new every time we are there.  The people who work there are so special, we look forward to seeing them each week.  It seems like our week flips from Thursday to Thursday, we aren't sure sometimes what has happened to the week.  We did have a returned missionary ask us if we knew Richard Smith from Rexburg who was her mission president.  She got pretty excited when she found out we had been in the same ward and that he was a neighbor.  We have been trying to find out his email address so she could get in contact with him.  So far that has not worked out.  It is so funny how many people have also served in the Pocatello, Idaho mission.  We are amazed a lot about what we learn.  One of the teachers here had David Goodliff as his companion when he served in the Philippine MTC.  We were able to get them in contact with each other.  The internet sure makes it easier for people to stay in touch. 

We are going to Vava`u on April 14 for 10 days, so we will miss 2 temple sessions.  That is kind of hard, since we have gone each week since we got here with very few absences.  We will be working with the teachers again in Vava'u.  The Edwards, who work with S&I will be going to Vava`u also on the 15th but they will be staying for 2 months to work with the seminary teachers there.  I think they may also do some in-services with the other teachers also.  Vava`u has about 500 students attending their school, but I think that includes enrollment from middle school and high school, I think.  I may have the figures wrong.  We are excited to be able to go there.  Supposedly we will have housing on campus, but I'm not sure what we will eat while we are there.  They don't even have the luxury of having markets there, just Chinese stores.  We may have an interesting adventure there this time.  We aren't even sure how we will get around, since they have 1 van for the school to get around in.  We may walk more than we know. 

We have spent an anxious week after learning about the tumor that Andrew has in his knee.  Being far away from home doesn't help either. Thankfully, fasting and praying has helped with the anxiety and we have had good news from Blake and Tristan.  Now we just have to keep praying that the doctors will have the skill and the knowledge to get to the root of his problems.  Luckily they are in the right place at the right time and amazing things have happened to them to lead them to the right answers.  We just have to have more faith.