PAUPERS, PARTIES AND THE PRINCESS

The face of poverty in Tonga

Elder and Sister Va'enuku are serving as MLS (membership, leader support) missionaries.  She is in the blue dress in the first picture.  They are Tongan but live in Hawaii and are here for 18  months.  They get people in the states to put together care packages, send the goods to Tonga and then the Va'enukus distribute as needed.  She also cooks lots of food for the needy.  We spent an afternoon delivering with them...a pretty humbling experience.

We were at a graduation ceremony for a Self Employment workshop and someone got wind that it was my birthday.  Some of the goods that they brought to showcase their business ideas and talents ended up as birthday gifts.
Those are real flowers and that is hand painted work on tapa cloth.

Of course it's a Mrs. Paxton's.

When royalty dies (a princess) it's a big deal.  This one was the only member of the royal family who has ever been LDS.  She lived died in San  Francisco because she had diabetes and there is no dialysis available in Tonga.  They brought her here to be buried.  So this is a first ever LDS funeral and graveside service in Tonga where the royal family was in attendance.  The first picture shows one of our stake choirs visiting the royalty at the wake.  There was an hour program where they sang and gave some brief remarks to the family.  The royal family responded at the conclusion by thanking everyone and what was really interesting was that the "talking chief" said to us that we may have lost one LDS royalty but that we just might be gaining another soon.  This was a reference to the 27 year old prince who is seriously investigating the church right now.  It blew us away that the royal family would actually say that in public.  I'm sure the King's clergy were not happy to hear it.  So the next day is the funeral in an LDS chapel with the LDS priesthood presiding and conducting.  That was huge and another first, EVER.  There were accommodations made for royalty and custom by building a platform for the King and Queen to sit on (to the left side in the picture below).  All but the last 4 rows of pews were removed from the chapel to accommodate the royal platform that was carpeted with tapa cloth and mats.  The platform where the casket rested was in the center of the chapel.  The entire chapel floor was covered with hand woven mats.   Oh, and the king and queen had to be sitting higher that the rest of us.  The Priesthood sat on the stand behind the podium.  A member of the area 70 presided, a stake president conducted.  The king's pastor opened with prayer, then there were talks by the mission president, the temple president and the area 70.  There was plenty of singing as well.  The Sr. missionaries were also invited to sing one hymn.  That gave us front row seats.  Mom had to sneak this picture as they did not want us taking pictures.  The cool thing is that all the royalty got a good idea of what the plan of salvation is all about from an LDS perspective.  Then, the area president (2nd counselor) gave the king a priesthood blessing in his remarks!  We are still waiting to hear what all the royal reactions were.  We hear that the princess that we had lunch with a few months back is also interested in the gospel.  Our self reliance manager has been best friends with her since the 5th grade.    

This is what we wore to the funeral.  We don't have to wear all black with the grass skirts and mats that all the Tongans wore.  The purple and black adorned all the LDS chapel fences along the route from the funeral chapel to the burial site. 

Note the person on the left with the mat going way up high.  The closer a person is to the deceased the more mats and the higher.  And the longer you wear them.  It used to be that if royalty died the whole kingdom had to wear black & the grass skirts for a year.  Now it's 10 days.  Commoners wear the same attire when one of their own passes.

The casket was carried the last few blocks by 30 men with the family and friends following behind.  Not too hard to pick out the Sr. Missionaries, is it?

All were require to sit during the graveside service.  The band played "taps", the flag was  retrieved from the casket, a short LDS service was held, the casket was lowered into the grave by men handing the casket down to men in the grave and then the grave was capped and  covered with coral sand.  All this before the attendees disbursed.  Of course no one stood up or left before the king left.  (Same at the funeral service)

So there you have it.... From Paupers to Princesses

SPRINGTIME IN TONGA

Elder Pearson, our Area 70 President came to "The Kingdom" to conduct business and train full time missionaries.  We were treated to a very inspiring session where he gave good counsel to both young and old.

A new Moroni arrived to replace the 1983 version for the Tongan temple.  

Where else should we be on September 6 besides on the golf course celebrating Dad's 94th birthday?  It's our way of joining the group gathered at Wasatch State Park for the birthday celebration.  We teed off at 11 am on a Saturday and had the entire course to ourselves until the 9th hole where the kids were playing a game of cricket.  We can now say that we have played every golf course in the entire Kingdom of Tonga ( all 9 holes).

 

It's whale watching season in Tonga.  

Thar she blows!  .......The humpbacks provide great entertainment.

A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING

This is the fine yacht club on one of the nearby islands "Pangaimotu".
The type of yacht in the center is pretty common around here.
There is a large reef here that has snared it's share of boats.

We're not very good yet at snorkeling selfies

People here are very good a recycling because it is so expensive to ship items here.
This is a school bell made from what appears to be an oxygen  tank.

We have "Planning for Success"  Workshops \at least twice a week.
4 of these classes are required for those who apply for Perpetual Education Fund loans.
We will start 3 new series of workshops in September or October,
2 of which will include a series of
12 classes.

The Police have a huge presence in this village a few miles down the road from us.

So does this company do construction and sell clothing out of the same office?

They say anything will grow here.  Put a stick in the ground and it will grow.
 Not long after they put up this new fence,  The posts were sprouting.

A WEEKEND IN TONGA

Had a cool experience yesterday.  We were invited last week from another ward to join in their ward welfare and missionary project.  They have a piece of ground on the edge of the bush where their chapel will be built some day.  In the mean time, they decided to farm it by having one active family team up with one less active or part member family or non members and work about 5 rows of crops together as a team. There about 20 pairings on about 2+ acres of ground.  It isn't too far out of our way to town so we will be watching it for the next year to see how their crops come along. They promised to give us a call when they harvest so we can be there for that too.   Mom has some pictures to give you an idea of what  I'm trying to describe. The harvest should be in March so, if Ty’s family times it right, they just might get to dig up some yams, taro, pele and ufi.  

 

Treats and balloons for the kids who were helping

We had our first real, all out, for sure Tongan dinner today after church.  They had about 7 dishes for the 4 of us.  It was all very good, actually, and mom even liked the raw fish (red snapper).  No roasted pig, however.  We did have one dinner w/pig last weekend at a live show we went to that is a very mini Polynesian Cultural Center production.  Anyway, the bishop was in to the center this past week helping his wife on the computer and they invited us to come to their ward and then dinner after.  We did have to "sing for our supper", however, in that we had to bear our testimony after the sacrament in sacrament meeting.  Cool family, he's a meter reader for the power co.in the village and she is applying for a loan to go back to school.  He's been a bishop for almost a year and their ward was really quite big for the small village they live in.  They don't live too far from Liahona.  About a 10 minute drive through the bush.  It just seems that every ward we go to there is some opportunity for us to make contact in some way that is related to our mission.  There just happened to be two missionaries who returned home to the ward yesterday from foreign missions.  Those are the ones we don't really know about and don't get the opportunity to approach about their future plans.  It was a sister returning from the Philippines and a brother returning from Oakland, CA. (Tongan speaking), yes, in Oakland.  Oh, and get  this, we had a recently returned missionary come in last week who served in the middle of Australia among the aboriginies!  They lived in a truck with a camper shell that was their home and transportation. I keep getting off the subject, we had a chance to talk with both of the RMs and commit them to coming in this week to talk with us about furthering their education to get a better job in the future.  Hope they do.

We also had the chance to talk about the self-reliance initiative and what it is all about before the Sunday school class lesson got started. This is all new to them.  They keep wanting to associate it with welfare, which is not all wrong, but not how we want to approach it. 

Traditional Tongan Dancing and Feast

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! ( It's actually a holiday here for the Prince's birthday)

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY
Hot dogs, sparklers, and American Songs on the beach

THE WEDDING PARTY
The bride and groom are in white wrapped with special wedding mats

TONGAN APPLE (very Dr. Suess like)
slimy and seedy, but makes a good smoothie

Flying Foxes (Macrobat)

The Flying fox is an interesting creature in abundance here.  They are fairly large, and can get up to a 5.6 foot wingspan, although we’ve never seen any that big.  At dusk and dawn, they can be seen flying just about anywhere on the island.  There is a Flying Fox Sanctuary here where you can seen hundreds hanging in trees during the daytime.  They have teeth to bite into and crush fruit, and they suck the nectar out of flowers.

They also have very long tongues that unroll when they are feeding.  When they aren’t eating,  the tongue rolls back up.  It is tucked away internally around the rib cage rather than remaining in the mouth.

Celebrate, Work, and Explore

The government sponsored a Council on Violence Against Women and Children last week and the Senior Missionary couples were invited to sing for it.  We were even televised.  It seems a bit unusual that we should perform when many Tongan singers are so strong and harmonize beautifully, almost always a’capella.  One of the speakers is dressed in her best in the photo, and note the bare feet------very common.

They have a huge parade here the day Parliament opens.  All of the schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges march through town.  Everyone through high school age has uniforms, girls always wear dresses or skirts to school and are required to wear braids.  They are always clean and well groomed.  

They march past the Parliament Building shown in the photo and end passing the King’s Palace,
where they bow or salute the King sitting on his porch.

This is a mysterious archeological site called Ha'amonga' Maui, a stone trilithon from around 1200 A D.
Each coral vertical rock is 30-40 tons, 

We found this amazing beach by accident and vowed to come back with snorkels.
Saturday is the only day we make time for exploring or the beach.  Most days we work at the office late unless we have something scheduled:  presentations, workshops, training Self Reliance Specialists and Stake committees, FHE,  group dinners and temple nights.  Sometimes it’s hard to find time for laundry and house cleaning.  That’s when it’s nice to have a small house. 

Dick is getting pretty good at retrieving coconuts

The word seems to be getting out that we can help the Tongan people to provide for themselves, and we are surprised at the numbers of people who actually are coming to see us and seem to be willing to work and to become educated.  It's not so common here.  Many are VERY comfortable sitting around, doing nothing.  We had a married couple in this week who said they wanted to further their education and came in a year and a half ago, but couldn't afford the monthly PEF loan payment of 5 pa'anga ($3 US) each while they were going to school, so they had to wait until one of them could get a job and then apply for the loan.  The woman was giggling with excitement to think that her dream of both of them becoming educated might come true.     They only have to pay $5 pa'anga monthly while in school, then after graduation they get 6 months to continue with that amount, then the costs rise when they  have finished their degree and likely have found a job. They and several others have signed up for our next series of 4 Planning for Success workshops starting Tuesday, one of many requirements before getting a PEF loan.   It's great to see people get excited about this kind of opportunity.  Some have called us 'angels'.  We are having fun being the 'good guys'.

THE PRINCESS AND THE PIG

The Princess 

 Dick, Verna,  the Tongan lady who manages our Self-Reliance Center, and I had lunch with the Princess today.   Our manager grew up with her since they were 5, and they are close friends.  When they are in private, they act like normal friends and laugh and have fun, but in public our manager has to walk behind the Princess, wear special clothing and follow all of the rules for being around royalty.  The Princess  may not look like a storybook princess but she was very charming and fun to be around and made us feel comfortable having lunch with her at a local sushi bar.  Lucky for Dick, he had just bought his tupenu (skirt), but still hasn’t gotten a tavala (mat) and rope to go around his waist,  and I still need to
find a kia kia for my waist to be more appropriate for
dress up.

Children delivering funeral gifts.  The lady receiving the gifts are dressed in black with a woven mat and grass skirt.

They say the little pigs are the most tender.  Who needs a fancy grill with an electric spit?

We are crazy busy here, worked an 11 hour day today.  Seems to be common now days.  We’ve been training for a couple of days this week by skype with the New Zealand area office for new PEF  (Perpetual Education Fund) software.  It’s very complicated and not very intuitive.  They gave us 67 pages of instructions with it.  In the meantime, we’re getting backed up with people wanting help to learn about and apply for PEF, scholarships, jobs, self-employment workshops and English proficiency tests.  Also BYU-Hawaii  has their I-WORK program to help Pacific Islanders work their way through school by working at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  We started some new Self-Employment workshops this week- one on Wed. and one Thurs.  Most people come thinking we’re going to hand out $, and find out they are going to learn about creating a viable business and how to run it.  In one of our presentations we have great video clips of a lady from Ghana carrying a sewing machine around on her head to get business, and a clip of a lady who couldn't sell her peanuts, so she started making paste of it and selling it in bags, jars and buckets, and found out people bought far more when it was prepared like peanut butter.

There are a lot of touching stories we hear from many of the people who come for help.  A Tongan girl I worked with this evening just got released from her mission in Tonga and wants to be accepted  to  the I- WORK /Hawaii program.  Her father quit farming 7 years ago and moved to New Zealand to try to earn more money for the family.  She hasn’t seen him in 6 years.  After he had been there a year, her Mom went to NZ and spent a year with him, and the girl took care of her 6 younger brothers and sisters while she was 17 and going to school.  The dad occasionally sends some money from doing carpentry and living in NZ illegally.  She had to get a bishop’s letter signed to verify her need for I-work at BYU-H, and it had to be emailed today, so I helped her write a letter, drove her to the bishop’s house for his signature, 50 minutes around the lagoon to the far corner of the island after she had spent 3 hours coming into the office by bus to use a computer for the letter.  Very typical, most people don’t  drive or have cars, and phones are not dependable.  Their numbers are changing constantly.  It’s very difficult contacting people.  Addresses are also non- existent.  Their village name is their address.  The buses don’t seem to be on any kind of schedule.  You just wait, sometimes for hours, until one shows up.  People own them individually (buy a bus and just start driving it where and when you want).  On the way to the girl’s house, we saw a procession of school children and adults (pictured) going to a house where they were mourning someone’s death.  The children had made several items to deliver as gifts to those who mourn.  There were flowers, food, hand woven mats (some can take months to weave and cost hundreds of dollars at the markets) along with quilts and other gifts.  Then, when we arrived at the Tongan girl’s house, 3 of her brothers were in the front yard cooking a pig over a fire made by burning coconut shells, which is in another of the photos.  I don’t know how long he had to stand there and turn the pig, probably for hours.  There is always something new here to experience.  We love helping these good and appreciative people.  The work is rewarding.