Tonga's Good Girls and Bad Boys

The dorm girls on our campus wanted to provide service for us by washing our car.....

But it got out of hand rather quickly with a lot of water and laughter.

Today was historical for us senior missionaries.  Siope Akau'ola, pictured above left, made arrangements to take a group of us to visit the Tongan Prison.  Tours have never been allowed in the 40 year history of this prison, and visitors are never allowed in the cell areas or on much of the grounds, but have to do their visits in a special building.  Siope is a miracle of a man who had an article written about him in the January 2015 Ensign--"The Road to a Forever Family".  He was an unhappy drunk who followed a happy, laughing loving family to church, watched through an open window and decided he could have a better life for his family.  They were eventually baptized, sealed in the temple and started helping others, taking in unfortunate children, converting them and helping them to find work, sometimes in his donut shop, sometimes odd jobs in the neighborhood to pay for middle school, high school and missions.  He now has 20 living in his small home, and 5 others who lived with him have gone onto school or missions.

One of the girls he took in (Ofa) has a father who has been in prison for 9 years for inciting the riots of 2006 in which much of downtown Nuku'alofa (the capitol of Tonga) was burned.  The father, who is pictured above on the right, was very appreciative of Siope's caring for and converting his daughter to the LDS faith.  The father is the only inmate in the medium security area whose cell is never locked.  He has become as a chaplain to prisoners who are spending their 1st month there and has gained the trust of the prison officials, and may have had some influence in allowing us to come in and visit the entire prison, where we were allowed to take photos of all except the interior of the maximum security building which is also in the photo above.  In this building there was only one inmate in a very small, hot cell, concrete floor, and no chair or bench.  the worst parts of this building were the "cages" on broken concrete with no roof overhead, just metal wiring, exposed to the elements, and no toilet or water.  When prisoners misbehave, this is where they are taken, and we were told that the public has never been allowed to see inside this building.  On the floor of one of the cells prisoners had carved, "only God can judge me".  On the walls:  "no repent,  never surrender".  The rest was in Tongan.

Inside Minimum security area, where they had a cable TV showing a violent machine gun shootout with Police.

Make your own checker game on the concrete floor.  All you need is some paint and bottlecaps

This prisoner actually lived in American Falls at one time.

Typical cell

This is considered the prison CONDO.  If prisoners have an excellent record of behavior, they have a chance to live in this lovely building, where they can sleep up off the floor on a foam pad.

Many of the prisoners are required to work on the prison farm which is outside of this prison wall.  They work to grow crops, which they sell at the prison market as well as the main market downtown.  The equivalent of US $150,000 in crops first goes to the government, then they are allowed to keep the rest for their personal food. 

THE HOLIDAYS IN TONGA

Christmas eve dinner, complete with a Christmas "tree".  You just have to improvise around here.  This is a photo of a tree printed on fabric brought from Utah by one of the senior missionary couples.  Then decorated by pinning on local lights, tinsel, and ornaments.  We visited a Tongan family who had a tree made from a bare tree branch that had balloons and candy and snack size potato chip bags hanging from it.  The children were excited to wake up and rip the treats off the tree on Christmas morning.  

The Liahona Service Center had a Christmas party.  One thing we did was to create a snowman out of the box they gave each department.  The box had a roll of  TP, two pieces of paper, the box and a bunch of ribbon.  We dressed up Milika, our volunteer receptionist and girl Friday.  (Most departments just decorated their box. ) Milika's headed out on a mission (Tonga) on January 16th.  We will really miss her.  She also is our Self-Reliance poster child.  She has a great story about herself that we will be telling in the next month or so.

No football to watch on New Year's Day so why not borrow and rent bikes and dip your rear tire in the ocean at one end of the island and ride to the other end of the island?  The couple with us rode bikes from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 9 weeks, and dipped their tires in each ocean, so this was a "follow-up" ride for them.

Needed to do a little bush whacking to get to the ocean at the other end.

So, 3 1/2 hours later here we are at the other end.  We took our time and survived it just fine.  We had the wind and sun at our backs, it was virtually level the whole way.  That was a good thing, since the bikes only had a high gear.  We are not even very sore, which surprised us all.  We stopped every half hour for drink and treats.  Got to wish lots of groups of people a happy new year as we passed them in their yards.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS

A truly Tongan version of a Christmas tree--made entirely of coconuts

Summertime

My favorite fish while snorkeling----the humuhumunukunukuapua'a fish, otherwise known as the Picasso Trigger Fish.
He likes to pretend like he is attacking and charges you, turning quickly to the right every time, then circling around to charge again.  I thought that he was doing a mating dance for my blue underwater camera, but others without a camera had the same experience.

This is the Tongan version of a raised bed garden, all done with coconut shells.

We attended the graduation ceremony for the local high school.  The fabulous students' singing was the major difference in the Tonga version compared to the US version.

Outside, after the ceremony was the outrageous part.  Everyone got leis from friends and family,  some more than they could put on,  some made of candy, some flowers and some money.

Even Grandma got in on the celebration

This is the Matahau Stake workshop graduation class for self-reliance.  The first priority for self reliance is returned missionaries, the second is leaders without education and/or work.  Can you pick out the stake president and his second counselor who never finished high school and are now going back to school to finish their high school studies?  They both need financial help via the Perpetual Education Loan Program because they don't have the money to pay for their tuition, books and materials.

Our in country self reliance manager training people who will be facilitators for their workshops in the Nuku'alofa North Stake.

Hangin' out after the Thanksgiving dinner.  We had most all the dishes with some variations due to the lack of a few ingredients.

Just us.

Boo ! Balls, Benz, Buddies, Beach

HALLOWEEN is not really a Tongan holiday, but we did some trunk or treating for the local community

................our elaborate costumes

Here we are at Tsunami Rock.  We keep wondering why it is called Tsunami Rock.  It is sitting all by itself about 1/4 mile away from the beach where the other coral rock is.

We spent some time Saturday exploring dirt tracks to the shoreline in a couple of areas not far from where we live, and included some photos of the beach, the tide pools and the rugged coral higher on the shoreline (looks like lava). 

This is the local Mercedes Dealership and this is their whole inventory

  The “walking” trees are Pandanus trees that people here use the roots for broom sticks and the leaves for weaving mats after soaking them in the ocean for several days and then drying them. The longer they are soaked, the more bleached they become and the more prized they are.
The flying foxes like to hang in them as well.

Every day required uniform at Liahona High School, girls in short skirts, boys in long skirts

Once in a lifetime attire at your Liahona High School graduation ball.

Who wore the most outrageous outfit at your graduation dance?S

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.