Shopping Day

Following are some pictures of our shopping days on Saturday, the fresh food market and the Fair.

This is the little Chinese girl we usually always buy our vegetables from.  She is very generous and is always giving us extra items.  Her name is Yo.

This is some pictures of the inside of the fresh food market.

This is the front of the fresh food market building.  A very busy place on Saturdays.

These are some of the green beans that we like that we get from the fresh food market.

On to the Fair.  Here we are hoping for items from America.  In this picture they always have chicken and other things cooking to sell to people.  It is just an old pick-up bed they build a fire in and roast the meat.

The Fair is a huge place with a lot of booths filled with all kinds of things.  It is kind of like a giant yard sale.

This is the covered part of the Fair, more booths with all kinds of product they are selling.

More Fair and more people.  It is very busy today because of the Holiday that is coming up.

These are manioke.  I showed a field of them growing earlier and this is the result of the harvest.  It is kind of like a very bland potato.

Here is a bunch of bananas.  They are usually picked green.  They are very tasty.

"God has been good to us.  No people in the world have more reason to be grateful than we. ...we can well pour out our souls to him who is the Author of our being, and remember with love those, who under his watchcare, made it possible for us to enjoy the things that we now have."                                                                                                                                                               George Albert Smith

Christmas Events 2014

We had many events leading up to Christmas.  We have done firesides, and decorating our apartment, if that is what you want to call decorating.  Here are a few of the pictures of the events that we had up to Christmas.

This is a Christmas tree made out of coconuts in front of a restaurant.  This is their decorations for the season.

This group came Christmas carolling to us at our Family Home evening.  There was probably 30-50 people and you should hear them sing.  They about blasted us out, but it was beautiful.

This young lady and her daughter is from Idaho, around Meridian.  She also has a little boy as well.  She is married to a Tongan and for some reason he was deported back to Tonga.  In Idaho they had their own home and was doing well, just getting ready to go to the temple to be sealed and in one day their life changed.  They were living with one of his Aunts here in Tonga, but they are now in a little lean-to with no power, but they do have running water from a faucet.  They made a make shift shower that they hook the hose to to shower at night.  No hot water, no stove, and no fridge.  They go to the market each day to buy the food they will eat that day.  I have talked to her for awhile and she said she is so happy for her little lean-to!  You all need to be thankful for your homes!

This is a flower arrangement that one of the ladies makes to put on the stand through the Christmas Holiday.  The Sunday before Christmas she came to our home and gave it to us.  It certainly made our little apartment look more like Christmas!

If you look real close you can see the red balls hanging in our windows, the new kitchen towel we received at a Christmas meeting, the one Christmas card from the 1st Presidency, and the beautiful flower arrangement.  That is the extent of our decorations for the season!

This is a Family Home Evening Fireside we are doing with two ward youth choir.  They were amazing to listen to, so beautiful was the music.

Here we are waiting to have our turn at singing.  I doubt we out did them.  They really can spread the cheer!  The attendance was far less than we thought it would be.  That was sad as it was a very beautiful night.

"As we sing in choirs, families, and classes, and as we listen together, the carols of Christmas remind us of our shouts of joy when we learned that we could come to this world and be given a Savior to redeem us.  Someday we will sing those songs with the hosts of heaven."    Henry B. Eyring

Christmas Holiday Events

Following are some sights of our Christmas Eve activities and Christmas day activities.  It was very eventful and very busy, but it just did not seem like Christmas with the weather the way it was, very warm and beautiful.  It is so dry here we are all praying for rain for the Kingdom.  Hope you enjoy the following photos.

This is a home that we drive by every day on our way to work.  We watch the little family living in this place and we wondered what kind of Christmas morning will the little ones have.  So we went to the store and bought bread, some canned meat, oranges and little candy for the children.  We also bought a Merry Christmas cake that is big her in Tonga.  When we arrived only the Grandmother was there and she did not speak much English.  We just told her Merry Christmas and she said the same.  Such humble circumstances!

This is another view of their home.  We all need to be thankful for our beautiful homes!

Elder and Sister Moon had this for their Christmas tree.  Her daughter made it and sent it to them.  They then added a string of lights and tinsel.  It looks so real and was so much fun.  She brought it to our Christmas Eve Dinner.

We all had to have our picture taken by it.

This is Elder and Sister Wood, our fellow snorkelers!

This is Elder and Sister Beckstrand, our dentist here in Tonga on Liahona Campus.

This is Sister Wood  and Sister Burbank.  Sister Burbank is single and is our Nurse here in Tonga.  She is from Canada.

These are some of the shells that Sister Murdock found on the beach on Christmas Day.  A big group of the Senior Missionaries went to the beach together.

Through the Holiday week we did various things, one of them was to all go to dinner together at Keleti Beach Resort where they have the best fish and chips and the view is wonderful as you are eating dinner.

Another view out of Keleti Beach Resort at the beach below.

This is as the sun is going down while we are having our dinner.

Another view from our dining table.  It was so beautiful.

This a tree in front of the temple.  It is so beautiful in full bloom.  This is why we have a hard time remembering it is December and Christmas time.  The weather is so warm and the flowers are beautiful now!

The red flower is from the tree in front of the temple.  We also have these trees on the campus of Liahona, some right out our back door.  The other flower is off the tree in front of the Woods apartment.  It is very beautiful as well.

More Events in December in Tongatapu

The first event is Elder Moon's birthday party.  He just turned 70!  Boy he is over the hill! We all went to dinner at Chef Zero, it is a restaurant that if you didn't know better it would be just another house in the bush.  But the food is wonderful.  Excellent fish dishes and it is very clean and one of the nicest places we have eaten in here in Tongatapu.  Elder Berger says it is the best restaurant in Tongatapu.

This Elder Moon's birthday party.  He is at the head of the table and his wife is to the right.  Next to Sister Moon is Elder and Sister Wood. Next to me is Elder and Sister Van Den Akker.  Just before Elder and Sister Moon came on this mission, Elder Moon and one of his sons road bicycles from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

More of Elder Moon's Party.  At the end of the table is Elder and Sister Simmons who are here for a short time as their mission is in Vava'u and will be returning there in a few days.

The next picture we will be showing you is our Mission President and his family singing at our meeting with Elder Nielsen.  They sang a beautiful song and Elder and Sister Nielsen then spoke to us.  It was a very inspiring meeting.

President Tupou, his wife and two son.

Following this inspiring meeting we had to meet Ana to go and deliver two wheelchairs to some people in need.  Following are the pictures of these recipients.

This lady is from Vava'u.  She fell and broke her leg and broke the bones below the knee cap.  They have casted it and she will go on Monday to find out if they will have to do surgery.  As you can see from the picture where they have cut out part of the cast, it is very swollen.  We so hope that all will go well for her.

This young girl is 12 years old.  She is mentally handicapped and cannot walk well.  She does not speak and has a hard time controlling her movements.  They said that her mother was in a car accident when she was pregnant with her.  The young girl with her is her sister.  She was such a beautiful little thing with hair past her back side.  

More Operation Give for Ha'apai

These are the last three of the containers coming from the Tongan Stakes in Salt Lake City.  They were 20 feet long and packed full to the top of clothing, shoes, school supplies, toys, hygiene kits, fabric for quilts, quilt batting, quilting frames and walkers.  Some of the items were to go to the Red Cross here in Tongatapu.  So we had to over see the unloading and tell the dock workers whether the pallet was to be loaded on the ferry to go on to Ha'apai or to stay here for the Red Cross in Tongatapu.  It was a very hot day to stand there from 8:30 to about 12:30 watching over the unloading.

When we left it was still not done but Ana talked with one of the dock hands to see if he could over see the rest as she had to leave to the airport to catch a flight to Ha'apai to be there to meet the ferry. We had to leave as the Senior Choir was recording our Christmas songs at the Tonga Recording Studio. It is for the radio and television station here in Tongatapu.  They will be playing our music on the air. Yes we are famous here!  HA-HA

Two of the containers from the Salt Lake Tongan Stakes.  

There was a lot of lose boxes that had to be loaded into a smaller container to go on to the ferry.

Taking the container to the ferry after they had filled it with the lose boxes from the larger containers.

Elder Murdock overseeing the unloading of the containers.  This is how they moved the items that were on pallets.

Pallets ready to be sorted for Ha'apai and the Red Cross.

More pallets to be sorted.  In the back ground is the shipping agency office here at the pier.

Family Home Evenings

Following are a few pictures of a couple of Family Home Evenings that we had in December. It is always wonderful to hear the local talents of the people in Tonga, in dance and in song.

One of the dancers at our family home evening

Elder Vaenuku decided to join in the dancing. He was as entertaining  as she was.

More dancers from a family who came to entertain us at Family Home Evening.

Another girl dancer, she was very elegant in her movements.

More young girls dancing for us. They could really move their hips.

This is Elder and Sister Vaenuku who sang to us at another Family Home Evening.  They are from San Fransisco, California where he use to be a professional entertainer.  He talked about how he started to let it interfere with his family and the church.  One day he woke up and decided what was really important in his life.  Being an eternal family!

Sights Around Tongatapu

Following are a few pictures that we have taken of the island of Tongatapu.  We are wanting our grandchildren to be very appreciative of the homes they get to live.

This is a field of ufi and giant taro.  The root is kind of like a giant long, sometimes 2-3 feet long, potatoe.

These fellows roam everywhere on the island.  Even in and out of some of the houses!

This is a front yard of a couple of homes with our fine friends.  There are a few children sitting on a board under the tree.

Must be supper time.  Little ones getting their dinner!

These are some of the homes that are around this area.  We have went to deliver wheel chairs here before.

We hope our grandchildren will appreciate their beautiful homes they have to live in.

This is where Captain Cook landed and discovered the first of the Tongan Islands.

These are peanuts that they grow here.  Kent likes to eat them green like this.  

These are just a few of the shells that Charmain has picked up off the beaches and out of the pools when the tides are down.

Here is Kent and Charmain heading to our Christmas song recording at the recording studio in there official Tongan attire.

Some of the beautiful trees on Liahona Campus.  The camera do not do them justice.

More trees on Liahona.  These are right out our back door.