I am Elder Jake Rose, and I am currently serving in the Tonga Nuka'alofa mission. I left to the MTC January 5, 2011 and will arrive back to my home in Utah in two quick years.
This is my story and the stories of the people of Tonga.





Elder Jacob Aaron Rose

Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission

P.O. Box 58

Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu, Tonga

South Pacific

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Time for another email from Tonga!

Heylo family and friends! I got a little more busy on thursday than i expected so didn't get a chance to write this email so that is what i'm doing now! Well it has been 5 complete months now and workin on 6. Crazy huh? I sure think so! Time is going quick! Man people here always ask me about what i think of everything that happens in america. Haha I don't know what's goin on in america. Like when osama died and i guess some tornados hit michigan? or massachussetts? i dunno. It's funny though cause they think i watch news and have a newspaper or something haha. Well i guess i'll get into the highlights of the week! Hope you enjoy and i don't bore you! Well 5/27, not too many highlights really. I actually bought some bread, jam, and peanut butter and had a pb&j. That was pretty much amazing! familiar tastes i don't get alot are always way nice! And we got a LAN line telephone installed in our unit! All the missionary houses are getting them! Finally, they help so much with appointments and if you need the zone leaders or anything it's just nice to know we can get ahold of them and not have to ask people for their phones and use their credit on their phone. So that was the highlights that day. 5/28 I read the book of mormon in tongan, instead of saying that i'll just abbreviate tohi a molomona which is TAM everything i say that. So read TAM alot and did some laundry. I actually saw Shumway, for those who don't know him he is a white guy that's like the best tongan speaker ever, better than tongans, he has been mission and temple prez here. Saw him in a baseball cap and church clothes haha. Funny get up but cool to see him. Didn't talk just saw him. So that was cool. We hadn't been able to go out and walk alot cause of Maka's ankle but did what we could. We got to eat a big pizza that night about from Little Italy, we ate with the family next door. 5/29 transfers were comin up. I told maka i think we'll both stay and he'll be district leader. He said no because he's never been in an area for 3 transfers and i said there is a first for everything. I really just wanted to stay with him cause we have fun, work hard, and i learn aton from him. I was praying what i said was true. Well we went to church and then had fafanga. Then we practiced taught a kid in english going to houston on his mission next month to kinda help him see how it was done. Then that night we were walking to Finau's house (less active) and on the way some people called out to us. We went and talked to them. It was 6 or 7 WHITE PEOPLE FROM BYU haha. They are here trying to help improve prostetics and stuff. Lot's of people are missing a limb from diabetes. But a few of them has been on missions already and it was really weird and cool to talk to RM's while on my mission, not to mention they were all jealous i was on my mission here haha. But it was cool talking to people in english that were white from my same area. They new some people i knew too! Then we went to Finau's house and shared a spiritual though with her and her kids and her nephew. Her nephew has a sad story, he was baptized when he was thirteen by his uncle but he didn't really understand anything and then his dad found out and told him he can't do the mormon thing and he liked being mormon but today he drinks kava and smokes but we think we are going to just kinda let him know what he did at baptism and the covenants he made with god so he kinda realizes what happens and he can live a better life. We'll see how that all goes! we were supposed to get a call that night from the ZL's to see if we were stayin or transfering. We were up til 1 waiting for that call that never came. 5/30 Transfer day! And we still had no idea what we were doin for transfers. We called the ZL's and they said they were headed to the office to figure out what transfers were to happen. We waited awhile for them to call back. They did and maka answered and when he hung up he said.. TOE NOFO!! meaning we are both staying again! I was way excited! and we got different zone leader who is way cool with the one cool one we already had so i was more excited! Then found out Elder Fale got transfered out of the zone. I was a little relieved to have a break from his negativity towards me. Well it was rainy that day and the new ZL came by with our old one. It's gonna be a good transfer! Haha maka is also district leader. Man i just called it! haha. We cleaned up the house that day and did some study. By the end of that day, i guess transfers still weren't done and people were runnin around doing stuff and moving missionaries all night. It was a mess. Hopefully our president realizes he needs to find a better way to do transfers. 5/31 Man it was a dog and bug day. Lots of dogs chasing us and bugs always surrounding us and eatin us up! Don't know what the deal was! I swear some dogs just came out of thin air to bark at us. We had District meeting. Oh man it was glorious. I understood basically everything that was said! It was so awesome! To feel involved and i was even able to put in my 2 sense in tongan and it was just very uplifting to know i'm progressing some! I felt really blessed! It was a good district meeting too. Then we went around visiting less actives! That's what most the work is in our area! It's really hard, you'd think it'd be easy cause mostly all of them are part member families, one problem, the member is always less active so we can't really work on the non member.. we visited about 6 less active houses and set up appointments and chatted with them all for awhile to get to know them. Some of them lie and say they are strong in church and go every sunday and we are like we don't see you, and it's hard not to see you if you did go because there are only like 40 members in the ward haha. So we set up some times to meet with people. These one people have an albino baby. She is 2. She is way funny. Just speaking tongan. Really clearly and good! But she's funny. We shared a spiritual thought with one of the people we met with who is a member but not active and the husband isn't a member. Just shared alma 37 37 with her. Then we were able to teach Dean that night. We taught him and it was a really intense one. We really were pushing him to make the choice to get baptized. The only things stoping him he said was his mom wouldn't let him unless he knew everything, his mom is a member and so is her boyfriend but they are both inactive and aren't living the best lives. It's sad. But it was really intense and we just bore testimony to him and told him importance and that we'd help anyway we could and we'll even talk to him mom with him and all. He comitted to baptism saturday if it was possible. We teach him in english, he is from austrailia, but been here the last like 3 years and going back soon. Well it was a really good lesson and we decided to fast for him and everything. Set up another appt to meet with him the next day and talk. ended the night with pizza with the ZL's and new office elders. I got a really nice complment from thompson who has been the zone leader the whole time i've been here. Just said my language is really good and i'm understanding alot and just doin good. Better than some people who have been here longer. It was nice to hear that. 6/1 did some service. raked up our neighbors yard of all the rotten breadfruit on their ground. Started our fast for Dean, his situation and some other things. We went to a less active house and they worked on maka's ankle to try to make it better. It's crazy what they do. Just rubbing it and moving it around being way rough with it. I woulda cried. He almost did but didn't! Then we prepared a thought to share with one of the less actives we had an appointment with about the wise man and the foolish man. haha i came up with sentences in tongan out of nowhere to share, maka was surprised! Well we go to meet with this guy but he wasn't home. So we went to his neighbor, another part member but less active family. we set an appointment with him to meet on sunday. Then went to visit 3 other houses but all the people were not able to meet with us. Then we waited that night to teach dean which we were fasting for but... he never showed up. It was really discouraging. 6/2 We got to go to the temple! It was really nice! Love the temple. Understood a little more than last time. and everything i said i had to in tongan, they didnt offer to let me do it in english this time haha it was hard, i just made sounds i thought i heard. The lord knows the intent though and it was true! But the whole time I just thought, how am i supposed to learn a language? and I just realized what an act of faith it is. I don't know how to study a language, i just do what i think might help and leave the rest to the lord to help me. So far it's worked. I just hope i can keep picking it up. I have felt really good about the language progress this past week. I'm just trying to speak more with maka in tongan and everything. It will eventually come! Well we had to go with the zl's to look for some elders who went into town, we aren't supposed to go into town, if they were caught then that's not a good thing. never found them. Then we had some way good pizza from a guy who moved here from italy. We destroyed 2 huge delicious pizzas, the 4 of us. Then that night most of our district went to this house that asked us to come for their sons birthday and do a spiritual thought. It was really fun actually ate alot and then just danced around and laughed with the family. I made a fool of myself dancing like i usually do haha. But it's fun to make them laugh. Tongans like when white people do stupid stuff like that. 6/3 Got to have freakin breakfast made for us! It was so good! The lady made us blueberry pancakes! It was heavenly! I loved it! Then we went to find dean cause we were going to talk to his mom! We found him, he said he talked to her and i think he was lying cause he was like no, well yeah actually she said she wants me baptized in austrailia. I dunno what to do with him. We'll keep just trying to teach him i guess! Then we were doin some wash but our bucket broke. Stunk cause i was washing all my church shirts and so i didn't have a dry one. I just rinsed one and put it by our fan to dry a little. Then we went to the bush and helped Peni get some oranges and stuff. The bush is like peoples farms. it was fun! If i get a flashdrive and memory card soon you'll be able to see some pics cause i can send my one home which is almost full which started off being able to hold like 2000 pics! haha. Well we finished wash that night. borrowed a bucket from Peni. And then we helped D with his phone and came home! and today the 4th we got breakfast again! Same lady! Pancakes with ham and eggs! Oh dang so good! Well that's all for the week! Hope you enjoyed! Love and miss you all!
Love,
Elder Rose

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