Cutting up some kava

9-30-18

malei toks

pday is switched to monday this week because of zone conference is tomorrow i think.

pdays are fun we mostly just get the stuff done we need, do some laundry, and then get a ride with the zones to pday and go play volleyball with the district. tongans love to spike and they are way good at it. also i recieved a tupeno from my boy elder kinikini. he ran track for hurricane so thats cool hes in my district.

we met a weslyian missionary his name is monti, and talked with him a little and then he invited us in for some food. we met his family and talked for a while. hes been a missionary for 15 years, grew up in vava'u, really nice guy. it was surprising he invited us in though that was pretty uncommon i dont think lds missionaries have ever been able to talk with them.

one of the nights hung out with some of the priesthood right down our street at taki's house and helped to prepare some kava. cutting up roots and piling them up under a flood light in his yard. hes got a way nice view of the ocean too im jealous. i learned those guys names, selu, tuimoana, christian, and etu and his dad paea. tuimoana is a beast hes planning on serving a mission,used to be the rugby at saineha, weve ate at his house a few times. christian is from hawaii so he knows pretty good english and helped me to practice alot. that was good to actually get to know some of the members and young men, ate some bananas, practiced tongan, helped out when they needed.

actually most of the kids here do pretty good english and some of the adults but not the old people. because alot of the schools here are english emersion schools. saineha high, lds church school is where most of the kids i know go to. its close to our chapel. some of the guys play touch rugby there every saturday morning, we went and i learned a little how to play, twas pretty fun.

we are teaching a quite a few people, it is hard to tell who is progressing and what people need especially because i dont understand most of the time. church is basically 5 hours of listening to people speak tongan. sometimes i try hard to listen and othertimes I space out hard. but it is good, i can see myself progressing and i know God will bless me in my efforts.

im pretty sure general conference is this week so i invite you all to watch and listen. i dont think i ever appreciated conference as much as i shouldve, but it is a great opportunity to hear the Apostles of Jesus speak. 

lifes good out here in the pacific. eating alot, meeting alot of new people, tons of studying, and preaching some Gospel of Christ. coming closer to Him. i like it. bouta drop some cash on a decent tauvala. aight peace, ofa lahi atu kimoutolu, bye.

uike uluaki i TONGA

9-25-18
yo whats up family!

wow this last week has been crazy so ill try to just hit the highlights. internet blows out here so i might not always be able to email.

first off shoutout to all my toks from the mtc. love you all. you are all my brothers for real. good luck to everyone whos out in the field rn. also love to hoku faiakos i he mtc, sister lotulelei, pinnock, and hoku toko schaap. best teachers there are. also shoutout to gladys from the cafeteria for always giving us full plates.

made it to tonga!! my area is in kameli, vava'u, about a 45 minute plane ride from the main island. it is wild being here i love it though. my area pretty much right outside of town close to the ocean. its dope. 

left on last tuesday from the mtc. the last few days were really chill. said goodbye to a few homies then to slc to san fran to new zealand to tonga. we all made it through the flights pretty much (lost sister lotulelei in salt lake but joined back in new zealand) but we all made it to Tonga so thats beast. the islands are beautiful.when we arrived the tuiones (mission president) and the aps were waiting at the airport and we all got in a bus and drove to the mission office. president tuione is great. so is pres makai hes cool.

tongatapu was pretty legit, most everybody say motu is better though, more chill on the other islands. we stayed by the mission office that night, right across from the temple and also liahona high, church school. went to the temple. after that went to a chapel and all the trainers read out their callings. me, fiso, hansen, van moose, ikafanga, and jacobson all got called to motu off of tongatapu so we flew out the next day (except for hansen took a boat to eua). got some ice cream that night with president tuione, how dope.

friday we flew out of tongatapu around 10 arrived at vava'u, the zls picked us up from the airport and took us to our areas. got to see a little of the islands, great views to be honest.as soon as i got settled in we went to work. my trainer is very diligent and obedient so im lucky to have him. we cover two wards, its a pretty big area i havent even been to all of it yet but we walk around a ton, pretty hot, a little sweaty. it rains alot and when its not im getting sunburned but its fine. our mq is in makave. the towns we go around to are kameli, masilamea, makave and faam.

 the food here is great the members feed us every night, they believe the more we eat the more they will be blessed so thats nice. they eat a ton of meat. chicken, pigs, cows, horse, dog. i had some luhoosi (horse) its pretty good. some houses are pretty nice and some others are very poor. there are animals all over the places, tons of dogs and pigs and chickens, our neighbors puppies are cute as im trying not to get attached though. i still havent got a tupeno yet ill probably get it soon.

 the members and people here are awesome. they love the missionaries and they love Christ and they believe that anything that they can do to help us God will bless them for it. and theyre not wrong. they are very easy going nice people i like it. the kids are wild and friendly and all over the place. i talk to the kids alot because my tongan is basically child level rn. they are way cute too, american kids are ugly. in my short time here so far  ive really been able to see how much God loves all His children. the Tongan people have great faith. His gospel truly does bless all people over the world.

its been a crazy week but good. its hard not being able speak the language and communicate but im sure everthing will be fine. press forward in faith and know that God will always be with you. oiaue i miss stg

ofa lahi atu! Elder Mo'unga

President and Sister Tuione and Elder Hill

Arrival at Vava'u (1st area)

Made it to Tonga!

9-18-18

fefe hake mama. i have made it to the island safely and feeling great.

love you it is great here the flights were great and the mission president is great and i will email more sometime. ofa atu. nofo a e

tell everybody else malei from Tonga

Last Week in the MTC

9-14-18

Malei fam,

this week has been just fine. super chill as always. im gonna miss all the people though. i wont be able to see them all the time anymore how sad. im very excited to get out of here and get to work in Tonga.

 had a great devotional on tuesday. forgot who spoke but before he went to the mike in front of a couple thousand people he ripped up his notes and gave a completely different talk. that takes faith honestly and if you do that you better be sure the Lord is bouta deliver you haha. He spoke what he felt, and what i got out of it most is to give up what you want, do what you know God wants and go hard. finish with no regrets. Shout out to my bro nicholas for being that example to me. 

saw a few guys i know arrive this week. nice to see them. we like to hang out on the grass by the stairs while the new missionaries arrive to check out the new crowd its fun. thursday did another skype trc to a family in tonga. the lady was so nice, at first she was just tryna talk to us in english because she didnt think we could speak tongan haha. bunch of little kids running around, i asked how big the family was she said there is 17 in the fam. what a fun household. we remembered to pray and i was able to testify with the spirit and listen and understand better. twas good. class after was fun. did grammer (my very favorite) talked with schaap about tonga. played fitu ki olunga.

  i love all my poly tokos. and my palangi boys. theyr so fun to be around. thursday night was the shiz. last pday eve in the mtc. talking, working out, messing around, eating out of the vending machines. our floor is the best.

 i have loved my experience at the MTC. I've progressed faster here than I ever did at home.NEXT WEEK ILL BE IN TONGA. cant wait. Tau alu tokos bout time to get to work. ima miss spiking hardcore on my toks and balling out everday at gym time. and cutting the cafeteria lines with the district. and just in general the massive parties we threw (jk scripture study sessions). The Tongan and Samoan districts have been the best I love these guys. we the big dogs around the mtc, i mean at least the polys are haha. 

sorry i havent been able to send pictures. i picked up a sd card reader but the computers here block the app so ill try to send some once i get out of here if I can. we check out monday at 12, fly out of salt lake at 5 to san fran, from there an 8 hour flight to new zealand, and from there to Tonga. hopefully all goes well and we dont miss our flights or anything. im excited though flying is so fun to me.

this is my last email from the mtc so i just want to share some words about my boy Jesus. I testify though email that Jesus is alive. The only way to salvation is though is Him and His atonement. He gave himself as a sacrifice to redeem mankind. The people could not kill him, He very literally gave his own life up for us. And he took it back because He is the Son of God in the flesh. He suffered more than we will ever know for the redemption of Gods children. He did this because he loves us. He loves us as God loves us. He is my friend. He is the chosen one, the savior of all worlds and people who have ever and will ever live. He is perfect and an example for everyone. He gives us hope. Dont ever forget Him because that isnt what He deserves. This is His church. This is His work. Thats why i'm out here. i say that i he huafa o Sisu Kalaisi, emeni.

elder leki mo'unga

sike got it, didnt pull up all my pics but here are a few

Week 5

9-7-18

malo e lelei famili!

what up tokos, started out the week with a couple great trc's. they actually had some members this time and we were able to teach and spit some tongan. ill tell you guys the same thing i told them, reading the Book of Mormon every day is key dont ever forget it.

lol funny story after teaching we were hanging out waiting for everyone to get done and elder tueller was talking to some teacher. the teacher never heard tongan so he asked him if he could bear his testimony in tongan. and so elder tueller starts saying his memorized prayer in tongan and hes saying it as fast as he can to show off you know because this guy cant tell the difference. anyways i walked up late to the conversation and just heard tueller praying at this guy in rapid fire tongan and i said "dude what are you praying to him for? lol he was so mad and it was totally an accident too but i embarrassed him hardcore. i had to tell the rest of the district  though because it was so funny. idk i guess its probably funnier if youve heard him pray before. we were all laughing so hard i shed some tears.

been making some serious progress on the language. i mean i still suck but me and elder anderson taught the entire first lesson in tongan to sister lotulelei so that was dope as.

cool experience with prayer. so elder hansen lost his wallet and hes been walking around with about 200$ in it along with id so he was hardcore stressing about it. we searched the whole room and he went to the gym, the front office, nothing. i told him not to worry. but next day every 2 hours he would ask if anybody had seen it. we all prayed for it to turn up and you already know hansen was praying for it. he would say to me " hey bro you think God will answer? and just kept saying of course man. i looked around the whole room again, under the beds, still nothing. later on all the sudden he runs out of the room yelling LETS GOOO and holding his wallet up, ive never seen so much joy. we were all celebrating and singing praises. i asked where he found it and he said under the bed. where we had checked multiple times. we dont know what happened. but he was the happiest guy alive that night. anyways prayer is real.

fast sunday was hardcore we had like 6 hours of meetings it was rough. but later we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration and gave me flashbacks to watching it in the visitor center back in the day with the fam. that is the best restoration movie i think.

caught up with Elder Miraglia sunday night and took a pic and said see you later and goodluck. he left monday to go to the phillipines mtc. said goodbye to the zls from when we arrived they were cool. good luck to those guys as they leave to the mission field.

the new elder we got, elder moleni, is way cool. he went to hillcrest, played football for them, played rugby for west valley. he knew a couple of the guys at Pine View from football, hes a g. we went on splits with me and anderson because we didnt want to sing in the choir. hes way funny and cool im glad hes in the district. 

with the language there are good days and there are bad days. we did another trc yesterday over skype with a member in Tonga named Ruita. it was so hard. we prepared well but it just was difficult and the internet was bad we disconnected 2 times.. we did the lesson but it was tough to feel the spirit because we were struggling so bad. afterwards i figured out what was wrong. we forgot to pray to begin the lesson. no freaking wonder the spirit wasnt felt. i was telling brother schaup and he was like awe dude come on, it wasnt the internet connection that was bad, you forgot to turn on the spiritual wifi! i knew it. so yeah dont forget to pray ever. prayer is key. still though it was a good experience. she knew english well and after the lesson we just talked to her about Tonga and stuff, im so excited to go over there. Schaup actually knew her and had had dinner at her house. she lives right across the street from the mission president. 

today on the way back from the temple we started walking across the street and we made a car stop for us. i told elder ikafaanga to look first before he walks out into the street but he said back to me, nah man thats faith, cross the crosswalk with your eyes closed. so true. we all need to be crossing the crosswalks with our eyes closed having faith.

I really like the MTC but i am so ready to get out of here. not neccesarily prepared to get out of here yet, but definitely ready to leave if you know what i mean. we get our travel plans today so thats exciting. I am going to miss being with all the other missionaries though.

it has been a good week. let me know if there is anything you want to hear about cuz i only have 1 more week and im outa here

peace, Elder Hill