January 27, 2014

"Kai-Kae-Mate Eh?  (Eat Til you Die)

Malolele!!

This week has been quite different that's for sure. It has been I guess you could say a culture shock. Haha! Who knew that I would have to learn how to speak Tongan right? Well I don't have to fully learn, just like how to say key words. So I know have a language study in the morning to help me learn some words. It's weird going around and not seeing people in military clothes. Instead, the people that I see are in flip flops and relaxed. Haha! My new companion is Elder Ramsey. He is actually going to be going to Kenya instead of Ghana. I guessed wrong, sorry. He just got done getting trained by Elder Weaver. He is going to be with me for the whole transfer. If his Visa comes during this transfer, than he will leave at the end of it. If not, he is here for another 6 weeks. He says that he does like Texas, but he is excited to go to where he was called originally. He is from Tampa Bay, Florida and actually played baseball for UVU last year. He turns 20 next week, so he is older than me by a few months.

So the work here is a lot different than any other area in the mission. Our boundaries are the mission boundaries. Haha! But we don't really travel too far out from our appartment. We have an appointment tonight and hour away in a car. That's about as far out as we go. We usually just walk because where we are at, there are a lot of families that live around us. Most of the Tongans here go to the LDS Church, a methodist church, the tongan church, and I think a baptist church is the other one. So everyone here is religious, and love to talk to us. There are actually a lot of members who have gotten baptized into another church because it is closer than the LDS Church. Which is weird to me. The reason why though the work is different is because we literally work through the members only. We can go door to door, but it's not as successful down here. Plus over half of the members here are less active. It the 5 days that I have worked here so far, we saw 14 less active families! So we have been working with them to get back to church.

The highlight of this week though by far was church! I had only heard about the sacrament meetings here at church but I didn't know what to expect. The whole meeting is in Tongan, including the hymns, so I couldn't understand anything. But every hymn that was sung, was awesome! The Tongans know how to sing loud and good at the same time. It was something else! You couldn't even hear the piano at one time. It was the coolest thing ever!

The youth down here are really awesome as well. All of them speak english so I understand them better. Haha! A lot of them go to Trinity High School, which is really big down here. They have an awesome football team. A lot of them actually play for Trinity too. There is one kid named David, who graduated last year, he played full back and he is huge! He is going to Ghana on his mission in March. So he comes out with us every week.

I am really excited to start working this area. I am looking forward to speaking some Tongan getting to know a different culture. As far as I know, I haven't gained any weight yet (Key word is yet). I hope that y'all have a fantastic week this week! Thank you so much for the emails! Love you All!

Elder O'Brien