Tonga--Count your Blessings!

It is a rainy day here in Tonga.  On Tongatapu, the main island, we have had rain and overcast skies almost every day.  It is even a little cool, especially coming back from warm Vava'u.  I am sitting outside right now in a sweatshirt, to keep warm.  It has been much more rainy and cool than the last two years I was in Tonga.

We were in Vava’u most of the week.  The Vava’u island group is to the north, making it much closer to the equator and much warmer.  It was pretty hot all week, and being hot and sweaty was the norm.  I love Vava’u—mostly because of the nurses and people there. I feel very close to Meliame, the Sister in charge of the entire island.  On Monday we got to help a little baby be born, which always makes me happy.  On Wednesday, we went out with the nurses on the boat to Hunga, the farthest island from the main island of Vava’u, and stopped at three other islands on the way back to see the people and take blood pressures and check blood sugar levels.  On the way “home” we stopped at a beach to swim, and also went to an ocean cave where we also swam.

Also during the week, as I came out of our hostel, a Tongan couple pulled up to the curb.  It was Toa BYU’s parents!!  Toa BYU turned one on Thursday, and they invited us to her birthday party.  That was really fun too—cake, Tongan food, and dancing.  Yes, her name is really Toakase BYU.  They named her after us—we helped with her delivery last year.  They even called the radio station and had “Happy Birthday Toakase BYU!!” announced for all the listeners to hear.

I also checked on baby Brigham, the little boy that I helped deliver the first year, whom we named.  He and his mom and dad had moved from Vava’u to Tongatapu.  We flew back to Tongatapu from Vava’u on Friday afternoon.  Saturday morning we did blood pressure and glucose checks in the market.  Somehow I knew I would see Brigham and his parents there.  I was not at the market for long, though.  First, I went with one of our students to the airport, where I sat with her until she got on the plane to head home.  Then, I headed to the market.  I was only at the market for a short time when I saw Angelia, baby Brigham’s mother! I ran over, and there was Brigham, now two years old, and very cuddly.  Brigham’s dad was working, but they all stopped by our house later, and we, plus this year’s BYU students, all got to meet Frances Drake Brigham Young Tuitakau.  He turns two May 20^th.

Today was church.  Oh—to back up.  The Saturday we were kayaking in Vava’u, there were three men, in white shirts and ties, sitting at a restaurant right by the area where we put the kayaks in the water.  As I was one of the last to leave, I started a conversation with them.  One was the Area Authority Seventy for Tonga, and another the bishop of the Liahona first ward.  He asked us to sing at church in his ward today, so we were prepared.  He also asked me to speak, once we got to church, so I got to do that too.  Then, after Sunday School he asked our group to do a fireside between 5 & 6pm for the 15-19 year olds, on the importance of education.  The students were the ones who did this, since the other instructor and I had already spoken in sacrament meeting.

Even right now I can hear the Tongans singing a hymn.  I love the Liahona campus—it feels safe, and often there is singing drifting across the campus, hymns usually.  Today in church the hymn was “Count your Blessings”.  I have never heard it sung like the Tongans do—with feeling—helping me to know I really am blessed, especially to come here, to get to know and love the Tongan people.

Women weaving at one of the outer Vava'u islands

With Emiline, the nurse practitioner at Vava'u

Mom and baby that we helped during labor and delivery (Vava'u)

Our group ant the kids we screened at a primary school in Vava'u