BEFORE AND AFTER --- the VOLCANO

Remember the volcano in January?

We just had to get a closer look.

The world's newest island (we think) is the one in the center.

The scientists got to go ashore.  We observed from a distance.  Notice how the crater rim has already been washed out on the windward side.  The lee side is about 300 meters high.

This is the lee side.

The island is just gradually eroding away.  Those gullies are about 10-15 meters deep at the water line.  The waves on the shore line are more black than white due to the erosion.

We scored a souvenier anyway.  Yes, we are older than this dirt.

The Tonga stakes are sending one 20 ft. container of Manioke (potato, sort of) every month to Vanuatu.  The cyclone at Vanuatu  devastated almost all their islands.  It even tore up their root crops.  Each ward was assigned so much to peel and bag, and they began filling the container on Monday.

Nearly 1000 bags at 20 kilos each.  Those Tongan boys didn't even work up a sweat.

By Friday it was filled and ready to put on the boat.  These people know how it is and are ready and willing to sacrifice for their South Pacific brothers and sisters.

Remeber the Ha'apai Reconstruction Project and the 41 boys who signed up to learn carpenty and help build the houses for the members who lost their homes?

After the storm and before the project.  This and the following pictures were taken 15 months after the storm.

Many are still living just like this.

They have managed to clean up most of the debris.

One road on the island and it just happens to cross the only air strip in the island group.

This old house weathered the storm pretty well.  The new one is typical of the houses the church is building for 105 families whose homes were beyond repair or completely destroyed.

Many families are having to do with a tent and whatever they can provide for themselves.  The federal government is building a lot of homes with the aid of the World Bank.  But many are just plain left to fend for themselves except for the emergency aid they received right after the cylone (cyclone Ian).

Welcome home, outhouse on the left, shower on the right.  Accessable only from the outside of the house.
The main house is 12x16 feet.

We are very proud of the boys who stayed on the job and are getting the project completed.  Lots more to the story but that's for another venue.

Got to the air strip to find out the plane wasn't coming for another 4 hours so we headed to the beach to celebrate our 42nd anniversary.

A 42 selfie.

FAMILY TIME

Fua'amotu...where's that??
Ty, Sydney, Danika, Davin and Stacia arrived on time on March 19, 2015.

Exactly 3 hours later we were all in the water.  The grandkids just couldn't wait to snorkel.  They took to the salt water environment in less time than it takes to say Siasi 'o Sisu Kalaisi 'o e kau Ma'oni'oni 'i he ngaahi 'aho Kimui ni.

On another day we swam in a fresh water lake inside 'Anahulu cave.  

Here's how we got to the swimming hole.

We had to shop at the market for lots of food and some souvenirs.

Monday was school day.  Each of the kids attended school (all day) with the children of our Country Self-Reliance Manager.

Not exactly a Southern Utah slot canyon.  This is all coral rock and we are here at low tide.  At high tide we would be swimming through here.

The reef is protecting us from big waves coming in to bounce us around in here.  OK, Ty maybe one wave did get us.

Time for a temple visit.  Ty couldn't believe he was entering the temple in flip flops and a "skirt".

Coconut tree climbing 101

The land bridge.  Like a Southern Utah natural bridge.  The light behind them is white froth from ocean waves.

We spent a day at an island resort off the coast of Tongatapu ('Atata island).  Great reef snorkeling from shore and from this boat.

The off island snorkel included clams and lots of varieties of fish.  These clams measure about 1 1/2 to 2 feet long and varied in color and patterns. 

Sand castles are a must.  That is our ride back to the main island in the background.  They have to move it out there to keep it in deep enough water when at low tide. 

Well, he came, he saw and he conquered.  What else can we say?
We loved having them all for a week.

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.