Day 1 in Tonga - Building Testimonies

 We attended church services in the English speaking ward in Liahona stake.  We had contacted one of the other Senior Missionaries  ahead of time to let them know we were coming, so she had put some eggs, bread and milk in the house to give us something we could fix  for a meal afterward.

The Piataus came over about 2PM to greet us and discuss our schedule.  It was good to reconnect. There are A LOT of LDS churches in Tonga, so we were going to be dancing as fast as we could to get to as many of them as possible in the short time we had available.

 That evening we taught our first presentation at Nuku’alofa Harbour stake with all ward councils invited. We had a very large group of about 60 people.  (Not all stayed for the photo).
                                           

Silongo'atonga Samani

The training was well received.  We got many positive comments afterward.  We outlined the My Family 15 in 15 program, emphasizing the importance of completing the ordinance work in the temple.  We also talked about the value of adding photos and stories to FamilySearch.org.

 During the exercise of having members get into pairs to tell family stories, I partnered with the First Counselor in Stake Presidency to listened to his family story.  He spoke about his grandmother, telling how she had been a significant part of his growing up years.   He said later “I always have loved my grandmother, but when I was telling that story, I felt something different.  Somehow telling the story about her made me love her even more.  My heart opened to her in a new way.  I can tell that what you are teaching is right”.
                                                               
Later that evening one of the ICS services workers came to our house to bring a mobile wifi unit so we would have internet throughout our visit.  He said we could take it with us to the various trainings to be sure that we would have functioning wifi for helping members submit names.  This tool proved to be extremely valuable for the work.  We can directly link several of the name submissions that were able to assist with to our having had that device, enabling us to set up 3 extra lap tops in addition to the hard wired computers in the FHCs where ever we went on the main island.