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

  Left:  Brother and Sister Fifita, the couple responsible for missionary housing.   Middle:  Viliami and his wife, Lute.  We baptized Lute this week! Right: Me and Elder Vaioleti This week was pretty good. There isn't too much that had gone on but we were finally able to baptize our laumalie from Lavengatonga whose name is Lute. My hoa did the baptism and I had to do the popoaki (message) before the baptism. I did it in Tongan, obviously because I'm trying to get better at speaking Tongan. I hear from everyone, including my man Jacob Foni and even Palesiteni, that the best way to learn Tongan is to just SPEAK. My Tongan isn't where I want it right now and it makes me angry, but everyone tells me it takes time. I'm super impatient with stuff like this.  I always just want the results now, but patience truly is a virtue so I will wait while continuing to work.  We've been going to this one older lady's house who is a member but very inactive. We sh...

Elders from Vahe Amoni (District Ammon) This week was smooth but a little tough. We were able to witness the baptism of 2 of our laumalies on Tuesday and it was a good program. This whole week it had been raining all day and all week long. Every time we stepped out side when we thought it was good to go it would start raining again. For some strange reason every time we do laundry and hang it out dry it rains, like bruh wth 😂. We usually hang our garments in our own home and then our other stuff at the neighbors house where we do our fō (laundry) at. We were out doing our daily vilo and then it started to sprinkle and we remembered we put our clothes on the clothes line so we sprinted all the way home to grab our garments and hang them up inside. There wasn't enough space for our other stuff so we had to just leave them in the rain sadly. I went to sleep that night and I woke up because the wind and rain were coming down so hard and I also didn't close the windows so I wake up...

  "And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel,  two by two , in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a  trump , declaring my word like unto angels of God." ~ Doctrine & Covenants 42:6 Malo e leilei famili! Forgive me, this email is super long.  If anything, skip down to the final paragraph and read.  If you don’t feel like reading this whole thing— yeah, my bad!  I didn't realize I was writing the entire Miriam Webster's dictionary. Lol! This week has been super busy.  My hoa (companion) has been called to be the district leader and that means he has to take care of baptismal interviews and taking care of the district. I can tell he takes this job seriously. For P-Day we had it in Fua'amotu which, for us in Ha'asini, it's about an hour walk.  But for some of the sisters it's about 2 hours or an 1 hour and 30 mins.  My hoa had called the AP (assistant to the president) that picks us up (who is one ...

  Malo etau lava famili!  I hope everyone has had a good new years and good week. This week started off not too good if I was to be honest I was ta'elata which means homesick. I was a little homesick from New years and mainly from not being able to call my mom on her birthday we didn't have any data left and we were also a little to busy to stop by the api o siasi. My brother told me before i left that if I stayed busy then there would be no time for us to be ta'elata, but I was busy and still ta'elata. It wasn't until I got a bunch of emails from people who had read my last email, and also jus emails people had sent. I got an email from one of my uncles and I there he said to, "Never be satisfied; Always strive for a better tomorrow." This really helped alot becuase before the mission I had listened to alot of interviews from a music artist named J cole. I can't remember the specific name of the interview but in there he talks about comfort. He talks ...

 I'm doing okay it’s p-day but they somehow deleted Facebook and messenger.  A sister missionary said on zone conference we will figure out how to download it back or something. But this week is good, it’s hard but it's good.  I'm posted in Ha’asini over looking villages in Ha'asini, Hamula and Lavengatonga.  We’re at a church for p-day located in Fua'amotu. I can’t call, obviously, but I really want to because there has been alot of cool experiences already even though it's only been a week. My trainer is stuck in Vava’u and if you remember my friend Elder Holakeituai, his trainer is stuck in Ha'apai. So they just threw him in with me. So here we are 2 elders who don't speak Tongan or how to teach or how Tonga even works. They have a list for fafanga which we figured out means "feeding" in Tongan, we figured it out by reading the Book of Mormon. This is one experience. I read my patriarchal blessing the day before and it said that alot of ques...

  Wassup everybody it's the 3rd week of tonga now. I finally got my hoa (companion) who had been stuck in Vava'u for a little because of some problems with the traveling. I've been waiting for this guy for a minute and now that he's here, we hit it off real quick. We both love music and this guy can even sing opera too. Before my hoa though I was posted up with Elder Holakeituai and Elder Teaupa. Elder Teaupa is the zone leader for his zone which is liahona zone which is also the zone with the most baptisms I think. Me and Elder Holakeituai helped with a few baptisms that the sisters needed help with since the sisters don’t baptize and there's also no other Elders in that zone so we had to do it regardless. It was my first time doing baptisms on the mission and also in Tongan so it was dope to be able to participate in that. My hoa Elder Vaioleti is from Phoenix Arizona and he's been out here on a mission for 6 months and his Tongan is pretty good. He been helpi...

 Just finished up week 3 and sheesh it's been a crazy and busy week. We first started off teaching the gospel to a young girl named Ungatea who's 9 years old who lives with her grandpa. Out here in Tonga sometimes when there's problems with the kids' parents, they will send them to a family member to take care of them for a little while. Ungatea was sent to her grandpa's house and her grandpa wanted us to start doing lessons with her so we started that Sunday.  That was my first official lesson with a Laumalie (spirit aka someone interested in learning about the church) and it was also in Tongan. She spoke a little English but I wanted to learn Tongan so we just did the lessons in Tongan. We did her lesson then we started walking around to kind of meet the kaingalotu (congregation) and be familiar with where they are. I've noticed out here that if you are not kind to your kaingalotu they will not feed you. The pisope (Bishop) for our area who's last name is ...