small miracles and leap week

February 29, 2016

Malo a lelei!

Things are great here in the Tongan ward! These past two weeks have
consisted of many small miracles. Since it's easier to write them in
list form, that's what I'll do.

1. On Tuesday we felt pretty inspired to drive to a little park on the
very edge of our area. It was so far on the edge that we had to check
twice just to make sure it was in bounds. We got here and there was
literally only one person in the whole park. So of course went over
and talk to him. It turns out that he had attended another ward for
many months like two years ago but couldn't get baptized because he
was on probation. Now he's off probation and he talked to us for about
an hour and a half telling us how much he loved being part of a ward
family. We gave him the number of his ward's missionaries.

2. We have gone a full week without eating at Mongolian Grill. It's a
joke among the Tongan missionaries that you'll gain half your weight
in Mongolian food in this ward. So far in this ward I have eaten there 23
times ha. Why Do the Tongans love Mongolian Grill?  It’s all you can
eat!!!

3. Last night we showed up to our dinner appointment and our dinner host
had brought an investigator. They made some dang good bbq and we were
able to teach the first lesson afterwards.

4. After we left that dinner we noticed we had a missed call from our
bishop. We called him back and he said hat he had a friend for us to
teach in his house the following night (which is tonight).

5. President Taylor has returned as our full time mission president
much sooner than anticipated. It is great to have him back, and it was
also great to have President Ferrin for a little bit. He was Mission
President over the top baptizing mission in the world for a while. One
year, his mission baptized over 400 people in December. So you can
imagine he had a bunch of handy tips for us.

6. I guess I can't really count church as a miracle, except that it's
pretty remarkable that, considering Mormon standard time, 70% of the
congregation was seated in the chapel and listening to Tongan hymns 15
minutes before the meeting started this week.

Overall, these last two weeks have been killer. Really hard in some
ways, but killer great in others. I really want to stay in this ward. We will be
getting transfer calls later today, so I'll include my location at the
bottom.

This just in: I’m staying right where I am with Elder B. for the next 7 weeks.  Yes, we get an extra leap week this transfer. 

Love you all,

~Elder Paul Thomas