Week 45 in Tonga

This week has gone by as fast as any week that I can remember. Feel like I was here netting yesterday. This week was awesome though. It was the hundred years celebration of the misiona tonga mission, which was huge. The whole nation seemingly joined in. 

Stuff that happened this week:

- Was deathly sick for most of the week. Stomache upset and dead tired pretty much everyday until friday.

- Had to figure out clothing for all of the missionaries in the zone for the misiona tonga presentation to the king on tuesday, since for some reason none of the elders in our zone had black tupenus. 

- I broke my speaker on monday, so no more talks or speeches in the morning. Hoping to get another one soon from some store or another, but pretty much all stores sell here is bread and canned beef.

- We've driven 800+ kilometers in the past 15 days alone we've been so busy with everything for the zone. (800 kilometers on this freaking tiny little island is a ton, good thing the office elders said I was good for this month haha cuz we've been busy)

- We took care of the Eua Elders, who stayed in our northern MQ in kanokupolu for the week for the celebration.

- The Celebration at King Tupou's Palace: That was really cool:

          

          We drove to kolo with the Eua boys, and parked near the palace. Met up with all the missionaries in tongatapu and took pictures with my kau huu, and President Tupou and so on. Then we were directed by President Tui'one into the palace gates, where we unloaded tens of thousands of dollars worth of ufi (a starchy plant) into piles on the lawn. Then we unloaded massive pigs in crates from trucks, a tree plant thing, and woven mats and tapa cloths. After all of that we regrouped and sat crosslegged to the side of the lawn with everyone else that entered the palace gates. Everyone that goes to the palace has to sit cross legged on the lawn. Even the prince. President Tui'one gave the opening prayer. A crazy opera lady sang. The ufi and pig presentation was hilarious. Soooo weird. Tongan traditions are very different. Lots of yelling. "UFFF TAHA" "UFFF NIMAA" hahaha. I wish that cameras were allowed. I saw stake president Ma'u from Eua there. After the Ufi was presented along with the pigs and tree stuff and everything, the elders all got into a line and systematically took everything off of the lawn to the side, while the choir sang. Then after the ceremony we put all the stuff back into the trucks and took them to the kings storage buildings, where we formed an ufi chain and loaded up storage. I was the end of the chain stacking all the ufi. Cool stuff

- Beach resort meals with the Eua Boys. 

- Found out tuesday night that MLC would be on wednesday, and that we would be having an early morning temple session beforehand. Which was awessooommeeeeeeee, because... Eua's temple trip was in town. And so I saw sooooo many of my members in the temple and went through an endowment session with them all. It was soooo great. I saw Sona, and Sione Kauvaka, and President Ma'u, President Havea, Fane, Pele, a less active that Erickson and I reactivated, so many members from both tongamamao and ohonua and houma. It was sooooo awesome. That temple session was my favorite part of the week. Especially getting to talk to all of them from tongamamao who I hadnt seen in ages. 

- MLC was awesome. I love Prez Tui'one so flipping much. I aspire to be like that man so much. 

- Held a coordination meeting with our District leaders right after MLC.

-The nationwide feast for the celebration at liahona highschool: 

         Every ward and stake in the kingdom prepared a massive feast for themselves on thursday. Hundreds of tables were set up for everyone and the king and the prince and queen sat in the middle of everyone. Sooooo much food. Elder Tuha and I had a whole pig for the two of us, along with octopus and raw fish and fruit and so on. It was awesome. It was fun to be with all of the missionaries and to see all of my old Eua members too. Good time. Oh yeah I saw Sinai there. She gave us kit kats and recorded me for home. 

- Found out that the water filter we used in ohonua for four months had such great water pressure because there arent actually any filters under the cover. Awesome...

- I vilo hoa'd with my brother Elder Moala this week it was awesome. It was great to hangout with him again and talk about the old Eua days and Erickson and so on. We had some really great conversations. Talked until two thirty in the morning and didnt even realize it. Good vilo hoa, just really tired. Our fafanga that night treated us to the vakaaloa beach resort buffett. So that was awesome. We ate with President Loseli. 

- Running tons of missionaries in our zone from ha'apai around, andddddddddddd the most exciting part of my week... We had to take them to storage, and I asked Gardner "There doesnt happen to be a Ta'ovala wrapped up in paper towels lying around in storage by any chance is there?" There wasssss. My Ta'ovala wasnt stolen,, I got it back from storage. SO that was awesome. Made my week. The nicest ta'ovala in the mission from my loving members is back in my possession. 

- Got a package from the fam. Awesome. 

- Sister Vimahi called me and told me that she found Maile Si'i and Maile Lahi that Erickson and I set up baptismal dates for in Eua but who moved away without us knowing. Shes teaching them and they told her all about me and erickson. So that was awesome. Theyre going to be baptised in the next week or two. 

- Havent eaten a morning fafanga in over a week. Too busy, eating once a day. 

- Oh yeah, I stopped a house from being burnt down this week. I decided we should check on one of our fellowshippers, got to the house and everyone was asleep, turned the corner and saw that the stove was on fire. So we ran into the house and put it out, then we woke the family up. Haha that was cool. 

- Stake conference was had this week. Prince Ata is in our stake so we saw him on sunday. Also President Tui'one joined all four sessions of our stake conference and called me a lot to talk. He wanted to know what I thought the members needed and so on. Talked to him a bunch. Then saturday night he texted me about what I felt the members needed for sunday. All night long I was thinking about it and then I texted him my thoughts sunday morning. When the seventy spoke, he addressed everything that I texted prez about and told him I thought the members should hear. I looked at Prez on the stand and he gave me one of those knowing smiles cuz he knew what I was thinking. Haha so that was really cool.

Busy week. Today we are having zone pday at the beach in kanokupolu at the otuhaka resort. Should be fun. This sunday is probably going to be insane too. Its the transfer and AP brock goes home, as well as four other zone leaders. The whole mission leadership is going to be super new. Fun stuff. 

Love you all, Tay

Week 44 in Tonga

     This week has been good. Time is going by so quickly its crazy. I feel like I was emailing a couple of days ago. 

     This week we worked in the APs area until friday and got them two new investigators while they were in Vava'u. That was fun. Spent some time in the mission office on friday meeting with the APs after their trip to go over everything, and found out that we will be getting a new car. Heck Yes!, thats going to be nice. Tuhas dad flew into tonga for the kingdom wide celebration of the missions hundred year anniversary this week... he's been visiting us a lot lately. but its all good cuz he's given us tons of food and chocolate. Seriously a ton of chocolate, I'm sick of candy right now. We've given a ton of the chocolate away to the sisters. They're always very grateful. The sisters in our vahe are awesome. 

     Went to Houma's district meeting and taught them about planning and instituted the new zone wide planning program with them. Sister Vimahi flew in from Eua that morning and is working in Ha'alalo in our zone. So its been cool to talk with her again. Two favorite sisters from Eua are in our zone now. Thats cool. She gave us a bunch of chocolate.

     Been blowing our money on beach resort meals lately. Well worth it. Our fafangas seem to constantly be falling through, or we are so busy that we dont have time for fafanga, so we've had plenty of days this week where we plan fafanga as a back up plan in case teachings fall through. Actually most nights we have too many appointments for fafanga anyway. Haven't been all that hungry actually for some reason. Just really busy. The Kolovai sisters gave us fafanga on wednesday after the day because we called and were so hungry hahaha. They're the best. Its good though now. We are loaded with chocolate. 

     Saw and talked to President Tupou on Friday on his way back from Uta while we were in utulau. Good to see him again. Really weird seeing him wearing a byu shirt and jordan shorts. 

     Had a vilo hoa with one of the DLs, found out that the car I'm driving right now is the same one that Diehl from the MTC flipped over and showed us pictures of. 

     I love the office elders. Gardner and Carbone are by far my favorite missionary companionship in the mission. They are freaking hilarious. Love it when I'm in the office. They have the best p-days with the APs on saturday too. They went fishing for sharks two weeks ago. Sounds fun. I hope they stay in the office for a while because I want to work with em. They're hilarious. 

     On saturday we got up at five in the morning to drive to kolo and do a mission wide service project at the hospital in Havelu. We painted the fence. That was fun. Talked with Carbone and Gardner the whole time. It was lead paint, washed ourselves with gasoline to get it off. Was fun. I talked to President while there and he told me that he liked all of the ideas I was putting in place in the zone. So that was cool. 

     Yesterday it just rained alllll day long. Not a whole bunch else happened. I came up with some awesome ideas for after the mission though. College life is going to be awesome.

     Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, on friday we baptized two of our investigators in Kanokupolu. Then on sunday I confirmed the daughter. First time ever confirming someone before, also first time ever doing it in Tongan. That was cool. I was nervous but it was all good. 

     Internet kind of slow this week so not many pics. I'm doing well. 

Love all you guys and hope you're all well.  

Ofa atu, Taylor

Eating at Resorts

Baptisms in Kanokupolu

Another awesome view

Week 43 in Tonga

Whatsup everyone, 

This week has been awesome. One of my favorite weeks out on the mission. 

     Last p-day was kind of busy because we had to do a whole ton of things for the APs and the mission office, we also taught a lesson in Kanokupolu right in the middle of it, so that was that. Oh yeah I also hit a dog with the car on monday, just his head. I swear they're trying to get killed, so stupid. He's fine though I think, just knicked him.

Tuesday, President and Sister Tui'one joined in on our district meeting in te'ekiu, so that was awesome. We went over baptismal invitations and I basically taught them all what we need to be doing. How to get them to say yes after just having said no by explaining some things and so on. It was really cool. During the meeting President said "I have something to add, Elder DeSpain, Stand up." then he said "Elder Tuikolovatu and Elder Vailea, is there anything you notice about him?- This is how missionaries should look every day." Haha that was cool/funny. Then Tuha and I drove to another district meeting in the zone which president and sister Tui'one also joined. That meeting was great. I taught about the importance of teaching all five lessons before baptism instead of just the first four as the pmg says and as so missionaries do, and then also other ways for us to retain recent converts by going to the temple and so on. I also taught obedience. President and Sister Tui'one are the best. I have so much love for them. Afterwards, Sister Tui'one thanked me for conducting a great meeting and that she was grateful to learn from me today, and President told me that he wanted to interview me before the mission meeting wednesday morning. He also passed our car on the road back to fahefa with a smile after the meeting hahaha.

    So then the whole zone was supposed to have interviews with president before the meeting with all of the missionaries on tonga, but my interview with prez was so long that it didnt happen. It was awesome. Man I love Prez so much. The interview was awesome. He told me that he was really happy to see that I am a leader that "leads by example". It felt good to hear.  He also really liked what I'd been doing with the DLs. So that was all really cool.  President then gave me a ton of advice for the things I asked. He's awesome. Then, during the meeting President revealed to the mission his new vision and rules and standards and so on. And one of the big changes that hes making... is that the fifth lesson will always be taught before baptism. I was happy to hear that because I feel it's very important also and had taught that to the DL's on Tuesday. That was way cool. 

So I've taken my interview with prez seriously and as such have started to change a ton of things up in our zone. Specifically focusing on planning and obedience. Trying to get all missionaries motivated.  Every district meeting now we are going to be checking planners and comparing them to ours, and DLs. Another thing, ever since the meeting, every day this week we've gotten up at 6:10 and driven over to another mq to wake them up and exercise with them without them knowing. Every other night we are going to another mq and sitting in on their planning session to see how they do it. We ended up roleplaying with the Vaotuu boys the other night and we were able to help them out. Needless to say, we've been flipping busy recently. Its been great. 

    The weeks been really good. One of my favorite weeks so far. Last night we had to drive to the kolovai sisters to check on them because they lost their phone. Love those sisters. Theyre great. They left it in kolo during a teaching hahah. Then this morning we went and excercised with a pair of missionaries and during that the APs called me and asked me if Tuha and I could cover their area for the week while they are in vava'u. I know Kilary trusts me but that was kind of shocking. Coolio though. Might stay there Wednesday. Who knows, good week. 

     We were supposed to have a zone pday at the beach resort in kanokupolu today, but its been raining. So that stinks. Overall great week. Loving it out here. Love the work. Having fun. 

Love all of you guys. Hope this is a good update, Tay

sorry no pics

Week 42 in Tonga

Hey everyone, 

Life is good. We're really busy. Lots of Teachings. I'm loving it out here. 

Last monday after we finished some laundry and other planning we headed to the beach for the afternoon. We played volleyball with Tuikolovatu, Vailea, Betteridge and Bever, and then some 2 vs. 2 rugby with the other elders. It was lots of fun afterwards Vailea climbed a coconut tree for us and got us a bunch of coconuts to break open and drink. A littler later we got to go to a Tongan wedding celebration for an old AP in the mission, the one that trained President Tupou, so that was really cool. There were dancers and delicious food and the place was at a beach resort so the view was amazing too. Plus we got to talk to President and Sister Tupou again. 

     We had a family home evening this week at the Sitalekis. They have an awesome family. Leki is such a great head of the household. I have so much respect for this guy, he doesn't speak much but he is wise beyond his years. He's very quiet, observant, and humble. Great example and just a really cool guy.  We had lots of other family home evenings this week as well.

     We had a couple more lessons this week with a friend of Leki's. The lessons went really well. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Me'eki accepted our baptismal invitation. He will be baptized on August 6th. He's great! 

     We drove to the northern most tip of Tonga. We took some really cool pics, it was really pretty. You could see the Northern Islands from the tip, looked beautiful. 

Things are good. Miss you all. 

Love all of you guys, Elder DeSpain

P-day beach time. 

Coconuts Elder Vailea climbed to get for us. 

Pics from the ride to the Northern tip of the island. 

Week 41 in Tonga

Hey everybody,

This weeks been crazy. Really fun. Lots of stuff happened. I love it out here. I got my new companion Elder Tuha, he is from New Zealand, and has been out for 19 months. He speaks better Tongan than English so that should be good for me and help a lot. He's pretty cool, easy going. 

     We've been super busy all week long and its been great. We cover Kanokupolu and Fahefa now, which are separated by three other areas that the sisters cover, so we also have two phones and two MQs to choose from to use. Sleep in Kanokupolu when we are up there, and Fahefa when we are down here. I got my Tongan license and we have a car! I thought it would be weird driving on the opposite side of the road but everything feels the same. I forgot how much I missed driving. Having a car is way nice, and I love all of the things we have to do or coordinate or figure out that come up randomly to us. I'm loving it right now. Our new district is really cool, and the zone is pretty tight.      
     Yesterday it felt like we had a thousand meetings. We got to meet some stake leaders and so on. The Te'ekiu stake president is awesome. We got a new investigator with a baptismal date already set up. On Sunday we were both asked to talk and introduce ourselves to the ward. I talked about enduring to the end, spoke for about 5 minutes, spoke from the heart it felt really good, had the members smiling. Then Tuha got up and spoke and he gave an awesome talk. Met and visited with the members after the meeting. 

     Yeah, I'm loving it here. Not much else to say. Really busy. Today we are going to p-day at one of the beach resorts with our district, and tonight we are going to go to a wedding reception for one of our members who was the AP that trained President Tupou. So I'm hoping to eat cake and ice cream with Prez tonight. 

Life Is Good. 

Love all of you guys, Elder DeSpain

Pics my comp took of me talking to the AP's

Week 40 in Tonga

Hey Everybody,

This week has been fun. Bunch of really good lessons and so on.

On monday Elder Enos was able to save my flashdrive. A virus got downloaded onto it the week before from a members computer, and seemingly deleted all nine gigs of my videos and photos from the beginning of my mission. So I was super pumped to get all of those back, and super lucky to have an elder in my vahe that knows how to open up flashdrives with fancy coding computer stuff. So that was awesome. On tuesday we had a bunch of appointments fall through, but one of them was a teaching at the tongan sports hall of fame. Olympic medals and trophies from international tournaments all over the place. The cool thing though, was that Tongans I guess either don't understand the value of these items, or don't care, and so everything was left out in the open, no locks, no security, no anything. Literally an open building with no people and all of these medals just lying on shelves. 2008 Beijing Olympic Bronze medals.... You could say I was more than a little tempted to put one in my bag. I met the new mission President on Wednesday, and he's awesome. Super cool guy. 

On thursday I went on a vilo hoa with Pritt, and we found the Tongan national boxing team practicing behind the hall of fame building. So we taught the entire team for maybe thirty minutes. At the end the coach got up and thanked us profusely, with many tears haha. It was really cool. They left on saturday to go and represent Tonga in Fiji. 

On saturday we walked to the far end of our area called mata ki eua. You're supposed to be able to see my home island of Eua from there, but thats not true. However, the prince's palace is right there, and so we walked up to the side and got a good close look. I didn't think we were supposed to be there though, trespassing maybe, so we left quickly. That was cool though. 

Yesterday was pretty crazy too. The zones called and told me that I'm going to be moving to Hihifo to be the zone leader there... I just got to Tofoa, just started to get the ward excited with some new ideas and programs, got a bunch of new people to teach, some really cool investigators, and now, right as things look to really be taking off, Im leaving. Great.... Being a zone leader and having a car will be fun though. And my bro Elder Moala is in my new zone, and so is Sister Betteridge from Eua, so it will be good to see them again. Crazy week.

Love all of you guys, and hope you are all doing super well! 

Ofa Atu ka moutolu, Elder DeSpain

Elder Hau and I have lots of fun, going to miss him.

On our walk to see Eua from this Island, which is not possible

Week 39 in Tonga

Hey everybody,

This weeks been pretty good. Lots of new changes, lots of laughs, lots of things to get used to. Still miss Eua a ton, but making the most of this concrete world here in kolo. 

We've done a ton to help the work over here and since district meeting last week our district numbers have gone from 0 new investigators to 18 this week, and 3 lessons with a member present to 11, so I feel like we're doing something right and things are improving. 

My new comp, Elder Hau, is the best. I love this guy. We have so much fun and the days are going by so quickly. I feel like we spend most of the day just laughing at each other. 

We've also been able to lift every morning... with real weights, a bar, a bench, and so on. I cant tell you how nice it felt to do a powerclean again, or a snatch or overhead squat. So nice. 

Not much else exciting stuff, lots of cool pictures though. Climbed some trees. 

Ofa Lahi atu ka moutolu! 

Tay

Elder Hau my new companion.

Doing a little shopping

Climbing some coconut trees

                                                                      Ice cream break

Elder Tafoya really enjoying his ice cream

                                                                Some cool sunsets

Actually got to have hoagie sandwiches for fafanga! So good.

I buttered some toast and cut it into strips to dip in our milo, just like hot chocolate and toast back home.