Dear friends and family,
Thanks for writing me this week! My week was
average, which is to say, averagely awesome. It's never really boring here,
especially with learning a new language. It’s really fun to be able to talk to
people and learn new things. I'm doing better and better each week. I ran to the blowholes this morning, which
is right over by a little town called Houma. (home-muh) The blowholes are sweet
and the tide pools are wicked cool. We got totally soaked because I was
standing over one of the holes and the wave came up and it was way bigger than I
thought and pretty much engulfed me head to toe. I was like crap; it looks like
we went swimming! But we dried off and everything was good. I saw this sweet snake;
it's called a banded sea krait. It went and hid under a rock before I could get
a picture though and they’re really poisonous so I didn't want to grab it if
you know what I mean.
In the office life has been going good! Always
busy, I’m taking on more and more responsibilities. I'm even learning how to do
the financial stuff when I have extra time. This week I accidentally broke the
printer. Well I didn't do it, but it broke while I was operating it and we got
a new printer for a couple days until it's fixed. The new printer is huge!!!! Its
on wheels and it's the size of medium file cabinet. It can do so many cool
things! It’s weird to be excited about this, but now that I’m office staff
these things are a big deal to me. Without the printer I’m a dead fish in the
water. Ain’t nothing happening.
So I had a cool thing this week. I was
finally able to meet the prince of Tonga who just got baptized. There is a
family in my ward who live way in the back and they have a big farmyard and the
prince and his buddies are friends with them, so they come over to shoot guns.
We came over after one of these hangouts and kind of just talked. Our time was limited
but I got to shake his hand and talk to him about missionary work and stuff
like that. After meeting him, I
decided one important thing. I really like the Ford Raptor he drives and I want
one when I grown up. Man that thing is sweet! But nah, it was cool to meet him.
He was thinking about bringing his older brother the crown prince, and we were
really excited because we might be able to teach him, but he didn't come. Maybe
next time?
Lastly, lets go through
some Tongan culture. First off, tattoos are super cheap, lots of times
completely free; everyone had tattoos. So the word, yo, like YO what up bro? I
think it started here in Tonga. The word io, (ee-oh, ee like in key, oh like oh
no!) You say it together, eeoh, it means yes in Tonga. When you pass someone on
the street, you say it really fast and it turn into yo! And every time almost
always when you pass someone you say YO! It’s not a joke or anything but pure
culture. That's how Yo started I think. Tongans went to America and said yo to
everyone. The other thing is Tongan standard time. This means when someone says
they will be there at 6pm, you should expect them at 8 or so. There is no rush
in Tonga, you can be as late as you want and it's fine pretty much. If someone
say's "oh I’m already on my way" it means they haven't left yet and
won't for like half an hour. If they say "I’m fifteen minutes away"
usually they just left their house and it will be an hour. It was really
frustrating at first but I’ve learned to plan with it, and now I am able to
stay busy and it works out really well. That's all I got today, I’ll send a
picture of some scenic stuff.
Ofa atu
Elder Sitake
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