Week 55 in Tonga

List of stuff that happened this week:

Monday: We got a call from the APs during emailing to take missionaries to the health clinique in Liahona, and got to witness an animal looking thing come out of one of the missionaries ears. Drove to Kolovai to play volleyball. Started our vilo hoa with the Lakepa elders.

Tuesday: Ended up teaching a new guy at the bus stop with elder Harmon, taught him the plan of salvation. It was good. Harmon unloaded to me at lunch all of the crazy awful things his last comp did to him while they were together. Man, that made me feel really lucky to be comps with Leka. It rained pretty hard and we took a rest at the MQ. The rain made me want to go back to Eua sooooo flipping bad. I miss Eua so much. Its an entirely different mission over there and I really miss it. We talked about Betos and Chipotle to... I would kill for a burrito. After one of our teachings wasn't lava, we got back onto the main road and I got a text from Sister Tui'one that made my day. Lifted my spirits a lot. Sister Tui'one is awesome. She's like a second mom to me out here, way cool. She said a lot of nice things to me and it was just what I needed. She's the best, our President and his family are awesome. Planned the agenda for our zone meeting.

Wednesday: Listened to a talk about Babe Ruth and attitude, great talk. Made me miss baseball. We went and taught the Peace Corp volunteer named Megan. Leka doesn't speak any English really, so I taught the lesson. It was awesome. Over the past three weeks shes gone from Agnostic, to believing that there is a diety through our conversations. Slow progress but progress nonetheless. Since she lacks faith and "needs" evidence of things, I decided to talk about spiritual experiences. Shared a bunch of stuff and she shared personal stories and then I logically turned her experiences into spiritual "evidence". It was pretty cool. I shared about Joseph Smiths "spiritual evidence" and then committed her to try and get her own. It was pretty cool. 

Thursday: Thursday morning the clouds were dropping swimming pools to the earth. We started our zone meeting in Matahau and it went pretty well. Afterwards the Matahau ward came through big time. They provided soooooooooo much food for us it was insane. Good stuff. Later in the day I had to do a baptismal interview, and afterwards, Sulunga, my man from Tofoa called and told me that my referral to him wants to be baptized. So that was really cool. Later that night it started to rain while we were walking home. I loved it. Reminded me a ton of Eua. Made me feel awesome. Found out also that the dad of one of our investigators just gave the green light for her baptism, which is awesome cuz shes been trying to get baptized for like five years. Got back to the MQ, and then I decided to faka'uha and just enjoy the rain. Went out and just laid out and felt the rain. Was awesome. Favorite part of the day. 

Friday: We went to Fo'uis baptism, and the kid that got baptised over there.... dang. He had one heck of a testimony about tithing hahaha. He explained the principle to all of us, and then he proceeded to give maybe fifteen examples. "If you have this much pa'anga then you give..." It was starting to get a little unreal, and I started wondering what the heck was happening. Haha funny stuff. 

Saturday: Listened to a great speech about Brigham Young by Hugh Nibley. We ate donuts for fafanga at Te'ekiu, and meanwhile I looked through the liahona magazines to determine who was "Miss Liahona" found someone in the November 2013 won I think, she was flipping gorgeous. I've already decided I'm going to find her sister when I get back haha. Cant wait for college. Made the best corned beef meal ever. 

Sunday:  Pisopes dad started an impromptu song in the middle of a lesson... Ate octopus for fafanga. Delicious. Nancy and Sa taught us lesson 1. It was awesome. I loved seeing the scriptures that we bought for her all marked up and full of notes. Way cool. She's solid. Shes going to ask pisope to request to shorten her waiting time before she can submit papers for her mission, since she just got baptised. For Fafanga at night, we ate ota ika!!!! Every time I see ota ika prepared for us, its like its my birthday. Ota ika is my favorite Tongan food. Soooo good. Its basically just raw fish with tomatoes and coconut juice, thats it. But its delicious. Its soooo raw, pretty much they literally catch the fish and cut out the meat and just mix it up with tomatoes and coconut juice. I'm surprised that I've never gotten sick eating it, but by now I think my immune system is so strong, that when I get home, if we ever go fishing and I get a good one, I'm not kidding I might just flip out a knife and ota it. Will feel like Gollum but its so good. 

Pretty good week. Love you guys, Ofa Atu, Tay