Week 72 in Ha'apai

This weeks highlights:

Monday- Ran out of ranch dressing. Sad day. No more crouton tasting breakfast crackers. Lots of teachings.

Tuesday- I got attacked by a vicious mother chicken, and yes indeed "the chickens have large talons." Went tracting around in the rain. Fun time. Lots of lessons. 

Wednesday- Met a crazy lawyer, ex-stockmarket conman from new zealand. Very very interesting conversation with him. He was actually a very smart guy, but also kind of crazy. Fun combination. More teachings. I freaking love our Bishop too, he is the man, so helpful. The family that we were teaching in his home this night, they've accepted the invitation to be baptized and they told us "we have been waiting for missionaries to come back for three years". That was awesome. 

Thursday- We went tracting in the rain again and at one point the rain started falling so hard that we hid under  a mango tree. Grant saw a fallen coconut and asked if I wanted a drink and I said yeah, throw it against the tree. So he did weakly and I picked it up and said "no grant, you gotta throw it hard like this" it was much more prepared to break than I thought it was, and shattered violently against the tree, pouring coconut water all over Grants shirt and tie.... hahah oops. One less white shirt for grant. Taught a minister of a another church just after that, and he asked us to come back. Also, we went searching for a guys house deep in uta (the forest/bush) and Grant started talking about how cool it would be to wander upon a tribe of really native tongan people walking around with loincloths around their waists and being super dark and all this crazy stuff, and then we both freaked out as our hearts stopped for a second and saw what looked exactly like the type of person we were describing staring at us. Turned out that it was a statue, loincloth and all. Super freaky. The freakiest part was that we walked another hundred feet or so and looked back at the statue... and it was turned around facing us! Freaking freaky tongan voodoo magic going on. Freaky.

 Later that day, we had fafanga at one of our members homes and the twenty four-ish year old guy there told us all about his time in Australia trying to learn english and being compounded with the refugees for overstaying, his iran refugee girlfriend and so on haha. At one point he told us that he didn't learn about the FLDS people (polygamists that call themselves mormons) until after a long while of people calling out "multiple wives eh!", and him not knowing english, yelling back "io!!!" (Yeah!!) hahahaha. 

Friday- Met a crazy breadman who told us all about his row team days. Fun church activity where we taught. Good food. Reminded me of the good old days when X and I would hangout and talk for hours while eating food on the couches in the church hallways at church activities back home. Good times. 

Saturday& Sunday- lots of great teachings. 

All in all this week was great. Things are going awesome right now. We have 8 baptisms set up for the next three coming weeks and are teaching 24 people. Its great. Nothing is more fulfilling. Its amazing how someone can change their lives so drastically by deciding to listen to the missionary messages. Its awesome. Love it out here. Hope you guys are all doing well too. 

Ofa Atu, Elder DeSpain

Week 71 in Ha'apai

This past week was great. Summary of what happened, plus the week before since I didn’t say anything last week. 

Tuesday 31^st- Got food poisoning.

Wednesday 1^st - Suffered from food poisoning, then at 5:30 pm I decided I was done with food poisoning and so I asked Grant to give me a blessing and “just heal me now, not eventually”. So he gave me the blessing and I felt better. But then later in the day I had to decide whether or not I felt well enough to go to a family home evening with Pisope. Still wasn’t feeling amazing, but I decided it would be a test of my faith in the blessing, and that afterwards I would most definitely feel way better, because that’s how it works right? Faith and works before results. I thought for sure it would work. Then I got home from the family home evening and experienced the most violent projectile combinations of sickness I never imagines possible at the same time. Lesson learned, not my will be done… 

Thursday 2^nd- Got over sickness eventually. That night Grant and I talked until 4:30 am about a bunch of stuff. Didn’t even realize it. Good talks.

Friday 3^rd- First day with the new missionary schedule. Pretty cool. That night we had to do a vilo hoa so that we could get to all of our teachings. I taught at our stake Presidents house w/ Elder Gardiner. It was an awesome lesson. Haha at one point I told our President “thank you for your repentance” instead of thank you for your explanation” because the words are so similar. Also in that lesson Elder Gardiner, instead of saying “na’e fai e sisu ha ngaahi mana” or “jesus did many miracles” he said “na’e fai mana e sisu” or “jesus did magic” hahahaha. It was a great lesson though. Afterwards Gardiner and I went back to the MQ to wait for the other guys to finish up and we just talked and so on, at one point he asked me what some noise was and I responded “The wind keeps knocking my thing off the thing” and he busted up laughing and said “you’ve been in tonga too long” hahaha. True true. (cuz everythings interpretive with things in tongan).

Sunday 5^th- Got out of the shower and found a little boy named Mosese clipping his fingernails at our table. What the heck. He just walked in out of nowhere. 

Tuesday – For fafanga we bought jam and peanut butter at the store so that we could make pb&j sandwiches! So we were really excited about that. Also, that night, we had to do another vilo hoa to teach two lessons at the same time. So Elder Hau and I went to Saia Taufa’s house (the dad of Xaviers mtc comp), and we taught their investigator the gospel of Christ. Haha, during that lesson, I messed up the joke I sometimes use when teaching enduring to the end really really bad. Instead of saying “kapau ko ia, mahalo pe te tau viviku he taimi kotoa” or “if that was it, we would always be wet” (talking about how being rebaptized is unnecessary), I said “kapau koi a, te ke viku he taimi kotoa” or “if that was it, you’d be peeing all the time” hahaha. 

Thursday – Discovered that ranch and breakfast crackers tastes like croutons. Delicious. 

Sunday – Bunch of great teachings and tons of new bapitismal dates set up. Good stuff. 

Great week. 

Love you guys, Tay

Week 70 in Ha'apai

Enjoy this Pig. Internet is really slow today.

Of a atu, Taylor

Week 69 in Ha'apai

This weeks been good.

Monday- Realized I've got six months until I fly home, so I started a more diligent workout program in the mornings. (and I stuck with it every day this week). 

Tuesday- Found three new houses to teach. The third we met because I was joking around with the kids about lifting the cement weights in the front yard. Had a great lesson with another investigating family also. 

Wednesday- Found out that Elder Taufa, Xaviers companion from the MTC, is from this area! I know his Dad, and we live on his sisters property! Pretty cool. We also taught a lady named Melaia and awesome lesson, and she gobbled it up. Golden investigator. Really fun. 

Thursday- A family with probably ten kids let us in and we taught them all about the atonement. That was fun. All ten of em were just lined up sitting crosslegged in front of us on the floor. Good stuff. 

Friday- Interviewed the zones investigator, who was mentally handicapped. So that was an interesting interview. Nice girl though. We taught another family the plan of salvation and then afterwards the family with ten kids that we taught on thursday had us come and eat fish with them. Really good fish. Even cut down two coconuts for us to drink. 

Saturday- Went to a house that stood out to me earlier in the day and ended up teaching the plan of salvation to two college aged kids there, that was fun. That night, Grant and I stayed up pretty late talking, and then I felt pretty weird and asked Grant if the door was locked. So he got up and locked it and then he said that he was thinking the same thing. Then the next morning Grant told me that he couldnt sleep for a good while cuz of a super loud swooshing noise like a huge gust of wind going through the trees at the same time outside. 

Sunday- Pisope asked us to speak last minute, so I spoke about the book of Enos and signs of true conversion. It was good. 2nd hour we taught a less active lesson one. 

We've done really well with the melons this past month. Over twenty we think. Thats more than one every other day. Everyone just keeps giving them to us. We havent gone a single day without a melon in the fridge or one on the ground because the other melon is occupying the fridge. Thats a good month for you. 

Anyway, good week. Hope you guys are all doing well, love Tay. 

ps. Sorry no pics again. Internet is super slow

Week 68 in Ha'apai

Good week this week. 

Monday- Found a room full of baseball bats and catchers gear at the stake center. Got some swings in. That felt soo good. Interviewed with President before our meeting Tuesday. Monday night we taught a guy named Sione at our Pisopes house. Interesting guy, and interesting questions.

Tuesday- Woke up to a phonecall from the Uiha elders asking me to do a baptismal interview for them an hour from then. So we walked to Pangai to the PPO to meet with the missionaries there before the interview. President Tui’one called us into their place and President Fetani pulled out a pig from the oven for all four of us to eat for breakfast. So that was great. I love President so much. He's the man. Our zone meeting that day was awesome too. At the end, President Fetani brought out his clippers and had all the missionaries whom he thought had long hair sit down and get a buzz cut. Only in this mission. Our Presidency is the best. Later that day we followed up with one of our new investigators, the cool story about the lotofefeka couple that we found last week that got deleted in the email last week, they kept their commitments, so that was sweet. Have I mentioned how awesome our Pisope is? He’s great, so helpful. Later that night, we had the opportunity to teach a family about the restoration. Sina’s family, I think I wrote about them before. Anyway, that was awesomeeee. I love teaching so much. Teaching people like this is one of the most fun exciting things I've ever done, If I could just teach the gospel to people like them and get paid… forget college, I'd be perfectly happy to just do this for a living the rest of my life. I love teaching so much it’s the best. 

Wednesday- Paita told us “I just don’t want you guys to go around tiring yourselves teaching about your church all day long, and then go to hell anyway” hahaha I love hearing people like that. Funny. We passed some girls around the church and I asked if they were going to the church dance later in the night, and one of the girls responded “if you guys will be there” hahahaha. 

Thursday- Talked to a boy at a door side, who was being the spokesperson for his mom in the corner out of view, I finally asked the boy what his moms name was and he turned to her for an answer and then responded to me “fefine” (woman) hahaha. So I said Hey, Woman, how are you? Would you like to… etc… and she yelled NO louder than ive ever heard before. Dang. We ate a really good fafanga at the Café in Ha’apai, and even got a new investigator out of the owner there. Shes a golden investigator, its awesome. What else is also awesome, she told us to teach her every Wednesday night, and that before we talk they will make us free dinner (three course meals!!!) so awesome. Haven't eaten food like that in a while. The appetizer was like sashimi. Delicious. The food I'm going to miss most from Tonga is ota ika. So good. On the walk back, I saw the guy that I talked to for forty minutes on the plane ride over to Ha’apai three months ago and talked to him again for a while. That was a cool run in. 

Friday- Met Troy Palamalus personal pig preparing man. He gave us twenty bucks. That was cool.

Saturday- Learned a ton about really cool revelation doctrine. Personal revelation and visions type stuff. Great talk. Joseph Smiths Prophetic Ministry has been regularly listened to this past week. Learning so much. 

Sunday- A little boy showed up to church wearing a “Help the economy, Legalize marijuana” t-shirt. Thought that was pretty funny. Our WML gave a speech on missionary work, and it was insane. Little bit crazy. We have a very very very passionate ward mission leader. His talk was loud, insane and very straightforward. Some people were laughing because it was so crazy and wild. We’ve got a great ward mission leader haha. Our pisope is the man. So awesome. Called us at 10:15 pm to tell us that he just finished talking to the stake president to get him to fellowship one of the investigators we just told him about. Great pisope, very good week. Love being a missionary. 

Love you guys,  Tay

Going to miss these Sunsets

Week 67 in Hihifo, Ha'apai

This week has been great. Brief overview:

Pday- I was able to put all of my pictures and videos from july to now onto the new harddrive last pday, so that was great. Finally dont have to worry about losing all of the flashdrives and memos I had gathered up. I put 68 gigs onto it. Then later that night, I cut Grants hair. I didnt tell him it was my first time cutting a white persons hair, then the clippers we were using sucked, so after taking off a chunk of his head, I had to finish the job with a pair of scissors and my own two hands. I'd seen mom do it a bunch so I figured that it couldnt be so hard. You wouldn't have been able to tell by my face that I'd never done it before, I just acted like I cut hair with scissors all the time. I dont think Grant noticed. It turned out pretty well. Grants head looks very nice right now. Later that day we ate roasted puaka at our fafanga.. delicious! and then getting back to the mq, I decided that my own head needed a haircut, but I didn't trust Grant to do the job. So I cut my own hair with just scissors and a mirror. Ended up cutting off a ton of hair. But it turned out really well. I'll include a pic if I can. 

Tuesday- Sneaked into our members massive walk in ice maker machine thing again because it was soo hot out. A girl in a nearby tree asked us "Hey! Whats your name?!" and then followed with "What's name your mom?!" -Becky. Kind of funny/interesting.

Wednesday- Here's the coolest part of the week, extract from my journal- sorry guys, just spent thirty minutes typing this all up and then the net crashed and can't get it back. All in all it was a really cool testimony experience with two people that just wanted to bible bash and it was awesome and we left being best friends. 

Thursday- We ate a whole cow leg on a plate for fafanga.

Friday- We witnessed a dog fight that was out of this world. They looked like lions trying to kill antelope, it was crazy. Found out from our Pisopes wife, that in Tongan weddings, the grooms uncle on his mom's side, He becomes the chair for the groom for the whole wedding. He literally sits cross legged and the groom sits on top of him for all meals and everything. Interesting/weird. So be ready Stan. Haha

I also got a letter from the Biermanns? thanking me for my service. I have no idea who they are, but apparently they just converted to the church back home. So that was cool. 

Saturday- Confrontation with a naked drunk man who wanted us to go and get him a small bottle of kava. I also found out that President Tupou had a rule that missionaries could only travel on steel or carbon fiber boats while going over the ocean cuz it can be so dangerous. So my trip to Nomuka on that tiny tongan wood boat was truly one of a kind, at least for the last four years. Thats cool.

anyway great week. Love you guys, Tay

Also sorry, internet is taking forever and dont think I'll get a pic out. 

Week 66 in Hihifo, Ha'apai

Hey Everyone,

Brief run down of the week. sorry, short on time and energy:

Monday: Had an awesome lesson with a small family of four in our ward mission leaders home. It was great. We taught the plan of salvation and the woman seemed to be consuming every word we spoke. That was really cool. That night we ate Lu puaka!! Delicious.

Tuesday: Made the goal for no more tv watching when I get home.

Wednesday: My packages came! with everything inside too! That was really nice. Consumed the Mike and Ikes and Beef Jerky and chocolate faster than I thought possible. So great. Mikes and Ikes are my favorite. Very grateful for that package. All gone now. We went to go and help this guy build his house, but we got there when they were having lunch break, Kuli ki ai!!! delicious. We had to leave after that though so we basically just went to a service project and ate great food... Later that day Gardiner gave me the Skinfills christmas card, that was nice to hear from them.

Thursday: Slept on a mattress that felt like it was made out of solid wood. Elder Tautua'a mixed up a real mattress for that stuff you put a mattress on top of... So thats nice... I don't mind it anymore though. Also thursday, we found a refrigerated shipping container on the road at the side of one of our members houses, crept inside and chilled in there for a bit, felt like heaven. It was pitch black inside though, then one of our members opened the door to get something out of it and was startled to see us both standing in the entrance hahah. That night we rearranged the mq to make more space. Grants bed is in the closet now hahaha. First closet I've ever had on the mission before btw, it actually works out really well as weird as it sounds, much better.  

Friday: President Tonga'onevai instructed us how to make lu. That was fun. Later that day I got sick, we got back to the mq and listened to the book series "Tennis shoes among the nephites" until around noon the next day when I felt like not throwing up. That book series is way good btw. Grant and I are listening to book #3 now haha. 

Saturday: Ran into the crazy viliami guy again. This time he walked with us to the intersection and then stopped and turned to us "Is it okay if I talk to you guys?" - "yes"- Then he stopped, took his hat off with both his hands and held it in his arms in front of him, looking down he said  "I, I, I am so sorry guys. I am just so sorry... I am so sorry because I have sinned. Sinned a lot."  Grant and I were happy to hear that he wanted to talk to us and tried to help him.

Sunday: Felt like my face was going to melt off. Sooo hot and humid over here. So hot that it looked like we just got out of a pool in missionary attire. At one point in the day I said "Grant, we are so sweaty I can see through your shirt. Thats your nipple right there, and then I pointed at it and grant looked down and was like yupp, that is my nipple indeed." Soooooo incredibly hot. Ridiculously hot. If people say that you get a more beautiful wife for working in the rain, I say I should get twice the beautiful for working in this heat all day. The rain would be nice. 

Oh yeah, another thing, we've averaged a watermelon a day since we've gotten here. Ten watermelons have already been given to us in under two weeks. Thats got to be reaching a record of some sort. We're going to see how far it goes. 

So thats life right now. Love you guys, Love Tay 

Sorry no pics this week, I'll try again next week.