Elder Tuha Vimahi: Nuku’alofa, Tonga Mission 🇹🇴

Artist credit:  Teleita Alusa   Alma 36:17-21 “I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!”  He was eating old manioke and kumala out of a bag.  This guy was like maybe old 50s or early 40s but he was just sitting on the ground and we said "yo" and he was like "yo" and we kept walking.  But then he says "mo fefe" and we replied "Sai ‘aupito. Fefe?" We talked for like 2 seconds more then he goes (translated), "I have too many sin.  Please forgive me missionaries.  Please forgive me, please forgive me.  I'm not the good husband I should be.  Please forgive me."  He then just...

 Alma 31:5 “And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.“

  Elder Teaupa and Me   Greetings ya'll. Its been a little while since I've sent an email and, yes, I'm still alive. Not too much has happened.  I'm still on the same island but I do have a new hoa. My hoa, Wolfgramm, transferred down the street to Ohonua and is comped up with the district leader and I have a new hoa named Elijah Teaupa. He's from Cali and has pretty clean Tongan. He's also almost done with his mission, finishes this December.  I was sad to see Wolfgramm leave as he is one of the hardest working missionaries I have seen, but I'm glad he can go and share his example with other missionaries. My Tongan is still a work in progress but its way better than what it was in the beginning. I still haven't gotten a baptism in this area yet but we   have   been working. The hardest thing is that our laumalies are all interested and would like to join the church but can't because of someone in their family telling them that they can listen to the...

  Malo e leilei famili! Sorry I wasn't able to send an email last we had gotten super busy but I've been good. This past week we were able to have a zone conference with  Palesiteni  Kaufusi his wife Sister Kaufusi and 2 office sisters and one AP Elder Teikanoa.  My brother, Elder Foni, had texted me a couple days before saying “Grandson, I'll be there on Wednesday" and come Wednesday he's not here. When I asked  Palesiteni  what had happened he said that there was too much going on in Tonga so he had to leave Foni there. Which was okay because Elder Teikanoa is super dope too. We learned so much from listening to  Palesiteni  and his wife taught us.  Palesiteni  talked alot about "what goes on in the MQ" because what goes on in the MQ will reflect what goes on with your work outside. We came to a point where Palesiteni had cookies that he was handing out. To be honest I heard about this cookie story from people before.  Palesiteni ...

  Malo etau lava famili! Sorry this email has been late, we have been actually pretty busy with service projects these past couple days but nevertheless it is here. As you all have known before, I was working in Ha'atu'a a pretty small village towards the edge of the island of eua. The village is extremely small and its entirety could be walked around in probably about an hour or 2. Finding things to do were hard but I knew that there were for sure things to do out there because kolipoki or John Groberg an old missionary who used to serve in Niuatoputapu, served on a small island for almost a whole year and said, "there is always work to do." But on one day I got a call from my district leader telling us we would be getting transferred to Pangai Eua. Pangai eua is alot bigger with more members and I also have a couple RM friends who live there which it would be nice to see them every once in awhile. But if I am being honest I did not want to Ha'atu'a. We were ...

This past week was smooth sailin'  . We tried our best to get out more and talk more especially to random people. I realized that I'm coming up to about 6 months as a missionary, and I most definitely want my Tongan in somewhat decent fluency by the time I'm at 8 months, which would mean 6 months in the Kingdom of Tonga  . As of right now my Tongan has its days of being super good then has its days where it's almost as if I've never heard this language before. I want to have my  Tongan  at least to be close to Jacob Foni's level by the time I'm at my year mark. Out of all the missionaries out here from muli, meaning not from Tonga, Jacob Foni has the best  Tongan . There are still some people who are at their year mark and they still cannot speak Tongan. Then there's people like E.Heimuli (04 -A ) and my old hoa Vaioleti who's  Tongan  was crazy good by their 6 month mark as a missionary total. Anyways tho, this week me and my hoa finally went to Uta...