Emily's Tales from Tonga: Week 4-Ngaahi Faingamalie (opportunities)

Malo e lelei!! I have been trying to come up with other ways to say hello in Tongan, but everyone that I've asked says they just use "Malo e lelei" or "hi." Ugh.

But for reals. I love the tongan language. Once you get past the fact that everything sounds like an awful swear word, it's really beautiful! :))

News for this week:

- One of our tongan elders left the MTC on Sunday to head out to the island. There is a picture of him attached. they cut his time in half because it turns out he was almost fluent already when he got here but he didn't tell anyone. Goodbye elder Nonu!!

- On Tuesday, there was a fantastic devotional and i sang in the choir again. The choir had over 1,000 missionaries. Rosemary Wixom, the general primary president spoke with her husband.

- After the Devo, the branch president met with my comp and I, and we are now the Sister Training Leaders for our zone! Whoa. I am very humbled about that because every sister in our zone has such strong faith and I am pretty sure I will always learn more from them than they will learn from me. I really love them all. They are AMAZING. There is one picture attached of a group of those girls, mostly the fijians who are leaving on monday :'( and there is another picture of me with the two adorable sisters who sis. Hosea and I took to the temple last week. Sis. Vuvute (from Fiji) and Sis. Wamura (from Papa New Guinea).

- The language is coming along, and my comp is very encouraging even though I still know she is can understand other people speaking more than I can, but that is super helpful when we teach lessons. I am SO grateful for her. I think the most helpful thing so far has been SYL (speak your language). We just try to use as many Tongan words as possible whereever we go. I can speak in full sentences now during lessons, but most of them are very broken. But I am juts happy i don't have to stare at notes the whole time anymore.

-Our district hosted the new incoming missionaries this last wednesday, and i got to see Kenzie Weir and Hannah Albrechtsen from my BYU team!! I also met a Sister Makasini who came in! She is from Cali going to Kentucky and she said Tevita and Losepei are her great aunt and uncle!

- Oh! I saw Zane yesterday! apparently he has some fancy job at the MTC that allows him to look up my profile and find out where I have class, etc. So he randomly popped in last night :).

That's pretty much all the news. Time is flying by. I can't believe I get my travel papers in 1 week!

Now for the spiritual thought of the week :)

So in the Book of Mormon, I have been reading about the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi and holy cow they were incredible. I kinda forgot about them before now. They not only turned their lives completely around to serve God whole heartedly, they vowed never to kill, fight in battles, or use their weapons ever again. Even when their enemies charge at them with a giant blood thirsty army, they remain true to their promise. They kneel down and praise God while the armies attack and kill them. Those people definitely earned their reward in the next life. Not only that, but their enemies were astonished by their faith in God and many of them were touched so deeply that they were converted unto Christ. I may not have to give up my life to help others come to Christ as those people did, but I know I will have to give up other things. That's okay with me. Sacrifices bring the blessings of heaven.

I also found a beautiful scripture that kinda describes how I feel as a missionary- Alma 29:1 " Oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart, that i might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance to every people."

The End.

Ofa Lahi Atu!!!! <3 <3 <3

Sister Emily Bever

Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission