First Branch Meeting in Atata

We had the opportunity to attend the first branch meeting to be held in Atata, a small island off of Tongatapu.  It is about a 45 minute boat ride to there. This island has no power, no water and no roads, very poor people here.  The Stake that is over this little Branch took about 5 boat loads with 3 different boats.  One of them was the church boat named Moronai, an aluminium 25 ft with two 150 HP motors.  It could really move!  Following are pictures of the day, hope you enjoy them.

This is the Church Boat that was brought down from Ha'apai to use for travel to outer islands around Tongatapu.

Here we are at the Wharf starting to load the boats.  Thank goodness it is a beautiful day, but it is very, very hot!

More boat loading

Here Ana and Elder Murdock are waiting our turn to load.

Before the Branch meeting started they had two baptisms, the first for this new little branch and the first in a long time in Atata!  Here Elder and Sister Murdock are waiting to see the baptism.

Here is the group waiting to start the baptism.

The first was a little boy to be baptised.  Nice font!  It was hard to get deep enough without going way out.  It is very shallow around the island.

This is a young girl, probably about 12 years old to be baptised next.  We were worried they would not be able to get her all the way under, but he did it the first time!

This is the group at the baptism finishing up the services.

Then we walked about 300-400 yards to this front yard of a house here in Atata.  They had tents set up to try and give people some shade from the very hot sun.  They also had a special place set up for Prince Ata.  He is the only member of the church in his family.  He just took out his own endowments last week in the Tongan Temple.  He has a very strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Church.  Also at this first meeting besides the confirmation of the their first two baptisms, they had a new baby blessing as well.  Very nice meeting, but it was so very hot!

After the meeting we did a group picture with Prince Ata, the Stake members and the members of the little Branch.  We then were invited to go on the first boat to leave back to Tongatapu.  We had Prince Ata riding with us in the Church boat.  They had a problem with one of the motors so they only ran the one, so it took a long time to get back.  Elder Murdock tried to tell them there was nothing wrong with the other motor, that they were confused as to how they were running it, but they would not listen.  They did discover he was right after we were back to Tongatapu!

This is one of the houses on Atata, as we said they are very poor people!

"Our religion is nothing more nor less than the true order of heaven--the system of laws by which the gods and the angels are governed.  Are they governed by law?  Certainly.  There is no being in all the eternities but what is governed by law."   Brigham Young