Family and Fun Week

                                                                      Welcome to Tonga, Cody and Brandon!

Checking out the Tongan Temple

Dinner at Keleti Beach---to bad the whales have gone south

More of Keleti

Hiking down to Bob's Beach to find strange critters in the tide pools.

After arriving at the island of 'Atata, we headed out to a reef for snorkeling where the giant clams are.  Our original Tongan driver appeared to be about 16 years old, and when we got close to the buoy to tie to, the motor died, and the strong winds quickly blew us toward the open ocean.  He worked hard to restart the motor, finally gave up and tried to call for help on his cell phone.  As is typical for Tongans, he had no credit on his phone and none of us had brought a phone along.  There were also no oars in the boat.  The Tongan boy jumped in with a rope to try to dive deep enough to tie us off.  Meanwhile, we had drifted much too far for swimming to any island.  After many tries he tied our boat to some coral about 20 feet down.  We stopped drifting away from the islands, but how were we going to get back?----No water, no sunscreen, no food, no oars, no motor, no way to contact anyone.  Had we not been in Tonga, we would have expected the company  we had hired to be prepared.  Brando took charge of the motor and we were fortunate that his past experience wth boat motors saved the day!  He got the motor started and we headed back to the buoy where we had originally planned to snorkel.  We were afraid to stop, so we dragged the rope which was tied to a giant uprooted coral all the way back, jerking the boat along as it got hung up on anything in its path.  We did fianally stop at our original destination and had a fabulous snorkel, finding lots of giant clams and schools of fish.  Cody was excited to have a real adventure and live to tell about it.  After our snorkel, the motor restarted and our Tongan boy got us untied from the coral.  We all learned a good boy scout lesson---BE PREPARED.

Cody checking out the giant clams

Island of  'Atata

Feast and Tongan Live Show at Hina Cave

Beach and tide pools near the Natural Landbridge

A few of hundreds of blowholes.  Notice the guy sitting on the right.

Sick?   Puke is the name of a village, pronounced POOKAY.   In Tongan it actually means 'sick'.

The Ha'amonga is a structure which was built around 1200 AD.  and  is made of limestone slabs.   It is similar to the Stonehenge and no one is sure what it signifies, but it is in the area where the king lived.

HOLIDAY GREETINGS

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas caroling in shorts?

12 Senior missionary couples choose 12 needy families.

Deliveries were made the next morning 

Notice the front wall is made from woven palm leaves.

Christmas Eve dinner  in Tonga is not complete without the roasted pig.

Christmas Day picnic at the Beach

Attending a ward council to help bishops understand what Self-Reliance programs may be most beneficial to their ward.

BYU Idaho brought their Pathway program to Tonga in December.  These students are applying for the online program.

Our New Year's Eve included a 'coconut ball' drop at midnight.  Sitting next to the international dateline,
Tonga is the first country in the world to celebrate the new year.

Next year's Christmas dinner



WISHING YOU A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS  NEW YEAR!

Tongan Spring

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Right in our own back yard

The Tonga Self-Reliance Team
Our country manager is on the left, and the other 3 are volunteers

Liahona High Graduation
The boy was the student body president and the son of the woodcarver in the photos below.

We commissioned a wood carving, but needed some monkeypod wood.
Our carver found this tree way out in the "Bush"

Cutting a branch down to size

Rough cutting with the chain saw.....

Inside now for drying and sanding.
Sure hope it fits in our suitcase.

'MORE'

We have had 3 new couples arrive in the last week and a half.  This couple is from Clacton on Sea, England.  They will be working as Education Specialists i.e. working with youth (and their parents) from pre kindergarten to 18 years.  They are under the Self-Relaince umbrella so we have had fun getting to know them and orienting them to Tonga and Self-Reliance in general.  The other couples are medical and mentors to middle school teachers (ITEP).

Self-Reliance coordinated with Liahona High School and the Tongan government to do a first ever in the church educational system GED course.  The picture above shows the teachers, administrators, missionaries and the 13 students out of 43 who completed the nine month course.  Some very heart-warming and inspirational stories to be told about some of the 13.  One said:  "Tell BYU we're coming!"  Another sister said:  "I may be too large and too old (38) to climb over the wall  (lack of education), but I can break it down!"  There were significant sacrifices on student and teacher's parts for  this program to get this far.

It was a treat for us to get a visit from my (Dana's) cousin's husband, Willie Moala and 2 of his children.  Willie grew up here in Tonga, but they raised their family in Texas, and came to Tonga for a family reunion.  

The Liahona High School Graduation Ball 

Self-Reliance programs are being introduced in all 19 stakes here.  It begins with a devotional called "My Path", which helps people assess their level of self-relliance and decide which of 3 workshops they should take:  Education for Better Work, My Job Search, and Starting and Growing My Business.

The boy in the center, Clifton Neiufi, worked as a volunteer for us at our office,
and just left for a mission to Sydney, Australia.  

Every Saturday there is a "Fair"  really a flea market, where people sell the goods that they receive in containers from family or friends overseas.  There was a surprise waiting under this family's table.

Elder Tukuafu, the area 70 heard from President Topou that I had been in the laundry businss.  Well, the laundry at the only hospital on the island is in dire need of repairs, replacements and maintenance.  So Elder Tukuafu and I took a look at the operation.  It's true, you do not want to get sick and go to the hospital in Tonga.  We might be able to help some, but most machines are beyond repair.  Their maintenance men all went to New Zealand for a better paying job.
  

Wylie and Evelynn in Tonga

Welcome to Tonga, Wylie and Evelynn!

Traditional Tongan Feast, served in banana tree trunks and complete with roasted pig, octopus, liu, ect.  The traditional dancing and singing followed in a nearby cave near the beachfront.

Hiking the tide pools at low tide, with the protection of the reef,
except for the occasional spouting blowhole.
Note the waves crashing on the reef.

I wonder if we'll find any whales to swim with today?

YUP!

Quick!  Gear up!

Up close and personal with a mother and calf for almost an hour.
One of us kept saying, "This is the Best Day of My Life!"

She's huge!

No visit to Tonga is complete without attending the temple in traditional Tongan attire.

Happy 71st!

Way too short a visit!

Our Tongan Mission President Tupou and his family from Alaska.
The boys are learning to speak Tongan and are attending school here for 3 years.

Tonga Service Center employees and missionaries, people we live by and work with.  Our Self-Reliance Manager for Tonga is next to Dick in the blue dress.  She is an amazing, very competant woman.  The other caucasion missionary couple in the photo are from Inkom, Idaho and serve here as humanitarian/Welfare missionaries. The big boss (temporal affairs manager for Tonga)  didn't make it.   We passed him pulling his boat home from fishing as we drove to work that morning after the photo.